Creative Preproduction | Jwhiteual132024

Creative Pre-production

Welcome to the creative preproduction page. Here you will find all of the creative considerations/documents that I have taken/completed in order to be fully prepared and aware of what is going to happen with the documentary.

As my documentary is split into two different mediums, film and documentary I will be splitting the preproduction up into these two categories. Though I understand that I am producing a documentary as a whole, the first scene is going to be a sort of recreation film that follows a young boy with misophonia, experiencing triggers at the dinner table. It would make sense to create film creative preproduction for this scene as the documentary preproduction would not suffice the need.

Film (Scene 1)

Here you will find all relevant creative preproduction for Scene 1. I will be beginning with the script (to inform the dialogue in the scene), move onto the shooting script (to inform the visuals and sound effects in the scene), and then end on the storyboards (to expand upon the visuals and combine it with all audio elements).

Hollywood Style Script

Though only very short, this script is a vital piece of evidence that both shows my ability to produce a correctly formatted Hollywood script and allows my actors to understand what needs to be said. It’s clear, concise and effectively indicates the words being said within the scene.

To add to this, I have used descriptive parentheticals that will help the actors understand how they are supposed to be saying the lines.

Shooting Script

Having produced a Hollywood style script that focuses on the dialogue within the scene, I produced a shooting script that helps me to understand the visuals I want a part of the scene too. This is particularly important for my production as there is very little dialogue and is heavily informed by the dialogue and sound effects. This shooting script fills the description in the middle of the Hollywood style script.

I took this opportunity to confirm the different triggers that I wanted to include within the scene. It was vital that I thought about this thoroughly as it would need to appropriately represent those with misophonia, particularly as this is the first thing that the audience sees. To ensure that I was representing people with misophonia appropriately, I reflected back on my primary/secondary research, looking at the common triggers those with misophonia has.

What I found really important in this shooting script was the ‘audio’ column. This is because the scene is very much driven through sound (considering this is what misophonia is about). The sounds within the scene layer on top of one another; producing this has been really beneficial to me because I now have something that allows me to look at what the audience are going to be hearing when they see a particular shot.

Storyboards

I have produced these storyboards to help visualise the descriptions I have listed in the shooting script. This will help to inform the shots I produce in the production stage, meaning I can better start to understand how it’s going to look as a sequence.

I used two different techniques within the drawings of my storyboards to help conjure up and image that resembles the description and image I can see in my head…

The first technique is the use of shading, allowing me to understand depth within the shot. Depth is important as the more detail the storyboard shot has, the more I can understand and visualise the shot as a real life element. I find it hard to see a drawing as a real life recorded element, so adding as much depth into the image is important.

The second technique was the use of red arrows to show direction and movement. As the shot is a still frame, I have included small red arrows that help showcase the direction of the subject within the shot. This is particularly true for the close up shot of the eye, as it changes direction every time we cut back to it within the scene.

Returning back to the idea of visualising the scene as a sequence, and not just a list of shots, I have also produced an animatic that links the shots together with music and timings. This storyboard animatic can be seen below….

Documentary (After Scene 1)

Here you will find all of the relevant creative preproduction for the documentary section (after scene 1). I will be looking into the structure of it, a rough guide for myself for how it might look in the edit and some storyboard drawings to help with the envisionment of my interviews.

The first step for me to take and overcome within this stage is understanding the structure and ‘narrative’ of my documentary. I have been able to learn and understand what the audience want to see, and what those who are affected by misophonia want to see, so I can use this to structure and start to think about the sort of topics I should be discussing with my interviewees.

Please click here to refer to my journals where I break down the structure of my documentary to meet the suitability and requirements of my target audience.

Documentary Style Script

The documentary style script is a vital piece of creative preproduction as it allows me to understand and start to piece together all of the elements I have. The script is designed in such a way that I can understand the visuals, script and audio elements that should be going together within the edit. An example of how this script also correlates to the edit is how I have included ‘black screen’ segments in between each different section of the interview. I am not going to be having questions that pop up, and there is no one literally asking the question within the interview, so the interviewees will be answering the questions, starting with the question in their response. This way the audience can understand what the interviewees are responding to/talking about.

An example of this technique would be, the interviewer asks, ‘How old are you?’ and instead of the interviewee just saying ‘18’, they instead say, ‘I am 18 years old’. This way the audience are able to understand the context of the number 18 without having to hear or see the question before hand.

Returning back to why I used the ‘black screens’ is that this will help split up the documentary and help with the overall viewer experience. If the documentary did not have these black screens, the audience would be met with different categories constantly, making it harder to understand – the flow would not be as effective.

The script answers are obviously not going to be exactly what they say. Unlike a film, I cannot tell the interviewees exactly what to say, word-for-word, as this is not what a documentary is all about; its important that I get their honest answers on the day as this adds to the authenticity of the page. For the purpose of the script, I have inserted the responses that I got back from my interviewees when I sent them the questions they are going to be asked. This way – if they forget anything that they previously said they were going to mention, I can help guide their response. I understand that this may happen as it’s possible and common that they will be nervous in front of the lights and cameras.

I also took this opportunity as a way to think about the sorts of b-roll that I want to include for each section. B-roll is going to help to add visual interest and keep audience attention high. Despite this, I do not want too much to the point where there is more b-roll than interview as I think the faces of the interviewees are going to be the most effective way to gain a personal connection and emotion towards the stories being said within the documentary.

Storyboards

Intro section

Tom

Erin

Jolene

Judith

Eddie

Storyboards allow me to draw the visualisation descriptions I have given in the script. I have focused my attention, within these drawings, on the intervier shots and how they are going to look once set up. As you can see, this not only includes the literal composition of the subject/object in frame, but also the three-point lighting too. The green dashes symbolise the key light, the blue symbolises the fill light, and the purple symbolises the back light. This will help prepare me for my interviws as I will be able to better understand where I’m positioning the lights within the scene, and what role they play too. The key concept and theory that I have followed in order to understand why I’m positioning the lights in such way, is that the subject should always be furthest from, yet looking towards, the key light (green). When I say furthest from I am referring to the spacing within the frame. For those interviews that are in person, Ihave drawn what each camera is going to look like.