Documentary on autism

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Daniel Wee

Active member
I just finished shooting a 15-minute documentary on autism. This was shot and edited in about 3-days or so, and so there is definitely much more that can be improved. It is also the first documentary I've shot using a 35mm adapter. Do let me know what you think and what ideas or suggestions you might have to improve it.

http://blog.tsebi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=9

The video may take a while to start. It is set not to auto-play so you need to click on the "play" button to get it going once you see enough lead data downloaded.

Daniel Wee
 
......Wow....umm..... First off, I love the look of your footage. I'm partial to that warm goldenish stuff and the adaptor gave it a nice soft feel.

You've got some nice stuff there.....BUT.... the very first thing I noticed was the opening piece of music. It seemed a bit to maudlin and, I thought, a bit heavy handed. For this type of piece you want empathy...not sympathy.

You've got a couple of jump cuts (2:33 and 3:11) that you might want to cover up as well. While that kind of cutting works for some pieces, your use of disolves up to those points set a tone and the cuts are jarring. They might be mistakes? There's also a really weird moment where you've got up tempo music all of a sudden....and then, just as quickly, it's gone... around the 5:19 mark. I like the idea...it just seems awkward there.

I REALLY like the single note chimey music at the5:35 mark, but the watch ticking and clock clicking distract from that. Maybe drop the levels a bit.

Your VO is a tad muffled and you're getting too many pops on the plosives.

The dips to black are a nice touch. Don't over use them.

I think I'm pretty good with accents, but I gotta admit, I had a hard time following your main guy. Clearly subtitles are out of the question, so I don't know what the answer is there. Plus sometimes the music is up too loud. Kinda gets in the way of following him.

Mr Ang is on camera too long. You've set up your video with some nice visuals to this point...and then you hang on him far too long. I like the part where he's talking about the car and it's wheels, I think because he's demonstrating the action. So I'd say, introduce him...cover him up with some b-roll....maybe re-establish him briefly...cover...and then come back for that little wheel demo and then out as you have it now.

I think you've got a nice piece here. Just tighten it up a bit and ya got a winner.

Good luck man!
 
Thanks for the suggestions Barth. I know what you mean about the jarring cuts, I noticed that too. I also realized the CEO interview was a bit too long. To be honest, I ran out of time and footage. For the CEO interview, it would have been great to have cut-aways to examples of what he was talking about, but I just ran out of time completely. Now that I've got the rough cut out, I have a bit more time to refine this a bit and your suggestions are welcome, and pretty spot on.

As for the accent, that really can't be helped since that was how he talked. There were some mistakes in his choices of words (eg. "proprietary" should have been "periphery"). The VO sounded okay but it may be due to having different sound systems. I'll go check it out on a different system and see what it's sounding like but yes, I'll lower it a bit more. I actually kicked it up for the render.

Regards,
Daniel Wee
 
Nice work. I agree with much of what Barth said, and I think you have a strong piece to build on, so I think you'll be in good shape with some additional work.

Here's my two cents - I agree that the lonely violin at the beginning is a bit much, I would come up with something else for your music. The guitar over your end credits might be a better type of choice. This is a story about a man who has come out of autism, and his story is optimistic even from the beginning because we know already where he is. There isn't too much revelation when we're told that he came out of it, and that's okay.

Some of your cover footage is very nice, and nicely shot. I liked the shot of the ice and the music that accompanied it, but I was really bugged by the direct reference of seeing the ice as your narrator explained that it was like the ice surrounding his heart had melted (or whatever it is that he said). I like the abstract quality of the image of the ice, so maybe your narration can change there and not be so specific; let us make our own connection. It's a pretty heavy handed metaphor either way, so it only needs to be stated once.

Same thing for the "coming into the light" moment. I like the visual - you have a nice way of taking what would normally be considered a hit-you-over-the-head visual metaphor and making it texturally lovely in the way that you shoot it and, perhaps, manipulate it in post. But having the narrator explain the metaphor ruins the neat trick you've gotten away with.

You might even consider cutting some of your narration altogether and just let us sit a moment with the visual. I think we'll get it.

I agree that Mr. Ang goes on way too long. But he has some interesting exposition to convey so, like Barth suggested, I would look at breaking his interview up so we don't get it all in one lump. You use abstract cover throughout the piece, so you may still be able to come up with cover footage that illustrates what Mr. Ang is saying. That will definitely take the burden of keeping our interest off of him to a degree.

Again, nice work. Be sure to post the video again after you've had time to work on it some more.
 
Okay, thanks for the suggestions guys. I've made some of the suggested changes to the video. Perhaps you can take a look at it to see if that's any better. Basically I changed some of the music, took out the explict reference to the thawing ice (but that part seems to need some filler now), added more footage to break up the interview wth the CEO, covered up some of the sharper transitions.

It's on the same link location as the above.

Daniel Wee
 
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