The Poet's Darling
Out of some of the documentaries we watched, the one the inspired the most for this particular piece was actually not a film about health issues. Since we already had the story, there really was no point to looking at other films that shared the topic, if anything they would have affected our fresh perspective to it. Instead, the film we sought inspiration from was the short documentary, “Photograph of Jesus.” Even though this documentaries stories has nothing to do with our topic, the way it was made resonated the most with what we wanted to do. This film simply told a story with a voice-over and images on screen. Since the beginning we wanted to tell a story so this film really influenced us in the way to present the film. One of the differences is the use of music in this film, as we instead chose to not use any music for we felt that our topic was more delicate.
For the actual production of the film we had at our disposal the facilities and equipment that Sheffield Hallam University offered. They were able to lent us a studio where we set up a table with two lights. (Image 1) Furthermore, we chose to use the Zoom H4N and Canon 7D DSLR as it was the equipment for which we had the most mastery of. For the most part we had learned the proper use of this equipment in our classes. We used Adobe’s Premiere Pro for the editing (Image 4), Apple’s Motion for the poem, and Adobe Photoshop for the main animation.
A big part of our documentary are the animations. For this strive for them to have “handmade” aspect, almost as if Juliet, or anyone, could have drawn them on the notebook. (Image 2) Which was also the reasoning behind the two transitions, and respective shots, where we go “in and out” of the notebook. Although both animations have taken different approaches to how they were developed we believe each style successfully represents their media and their corresponding moods. Furthermore for the actual shooting we asked Juliet to genuinely write something on the notebook while we got the different shots. We were surprised to find out she was indeed writing another poem there on the spot. We used the several shots of her writing (Image 3) and the during the second and last part, these accompanied by Juliet’s perspective on how the arts, specifically writing, have been helpful not only to her, but others at Sheffield Flourish.
Self Evaluation for 'A Poet's Darling'
Pros
- The first thing that I believe worked well was the animation that I created using the story that Juliet wrote a voiced over for us. I think the way that I have used the timing of her speech as well as the words spoken to my advantage has made it very aesthetically pleasing as being visually stimulating and entertaining.
- The poem at the start of the documentary I think really helps to grab the attention of the audience with its hand drawn appearance and bring colours. The smooth writing and movements used in this make it very easy to watch and creates a very peaceful atmosphere when watching which helps to set the mood for the documentary.
- Finally, I think the interview process of our documentary has worked to our advantage as it shows how passionate Juliet feels towards the idea of writing and how proud it makes her feel to see how her work has been noticed and well as possibly helping others which is exactly what we set up to show in our short piece.
Cons
- I didn’t realize until after I had finished the animation that Juliet stated that one of her brothers was older and I had a piece which showed her mother pregnant and then she has another child in a cot which would appear like her brother was younger as I didn’t hear her say that the brother was 11 months older as I heard the first time just 11 months so I thought that was the age of the baby.
- Sometimes the animation and the poem seems a little bit jumpy, this was created the give the documentary a homemade feel and I am not sure as to if this works well with the overall feel of the documentary or if it seems a bit too messy.
- In some sections of the animation it does seem a little bit slow but the voice over the top takes this away from making it boring but I feel that within the animation I could have added more to the visual sides of things which could help to push it further towards the overall appeal of the documentary itself.