Tuesday, 26 April 2016
To help me with finding a style of how i would like my portrait documentary to look like, i took to vimeo to look at a load of examples of portrait documentaries, looking at how they’re shot, the questions asked, and how they’re structured.
A main thing that i noticed with most portraits, is that they were between 3 - 8 minutes long, which may pose a problem as my final major needs to be 10minutes minimum, however, theres still things that i could learn from watching them.
Whilst watching these portraits, i screen capturing the particular scenes that the cinematography and directing caught my attention, and would potentially like to incorporate within my portrait documentary.
Philip Bloom
Portrait of a boxer
Before i fully knew the story of Oli, when i was looking at portrait documentaries, this is what i had in mind, as i liked the way how this was produced. What i like about this portrait is that it does not have a linear structure to how the shots are provided. The editing technique is very fast at times, and the framing of the character, showing ECU’s of the hand wraps and the characters face, plus the snorricam . The sound design is particularly strong throughout this portrait as it helps to take you more into the story of the character and the action that is taking place inside of the gym.
Heather Hardy - Portrait of a professional boxer Heather “The Heat” Hardy
Directed by/ Anh Vu & Laurent Barthelemy
DP/ Ed David
This documentary out of all of the boxing portraits that i watched i particularly like, because the framing of the close up shots was really intimate, up close and personal, and even though Heather Hardy is a boxer, the way how this portrait portrays her is as a caring, un-intimidating, friendly lady, a complete polar opposite of the hard-man narrative shown in the Phillip Bloom example. The shots of Heather sparring inside of the boxing ring and also doing pad work i particularly like as well, as the DP actually moves around with Heather as she is doing her training. The overall narrative is fairly straight forward, in that the hook tells you about the character, the conflict and climax explains how heather was struggling for money etc.. before she found boxing, and the resolution tells you about how she took the leap of faith and went on her journey as a pro boxer, being taking into a good gym and new family and how she wants to try and have a successful career as a profighter.
Dusty + Buddy
Produced by/ Run Riot and Joshua Cogan
This portrait doc is about Dusty Harrison and his Farther, telling the story of their bond together and how his farther kept him away from trouble, bringing him up as a boxer. Before the portrait fully starts, it teases the story with a 45 second tracking shot introduction of Dusty Harrison walking to the ring walk entrance before it cuts to black, although, after teasing this shot, the portrait does not cut do fight again throughout the film.
This was beautifully shot, being that it was shot on a Red camera, but the framing was also very good, as the close up shots were sharp and crisp with a nice depth of field. The way how the documentary incorporated the use of slow motion also added more focus and emotion to those particular shots, such as Dusty and his Farther staring at the camera as they’re jogging / riding up the road, plus the slow motion shots of Dusty training, with the camera slowly circling around him. The use of the Ken burns effect was good as well, as the pictures took up the whole of the frame, and were not too sharp on screen, blending in with the grading of the portrait. One of the main things that i liked about this portrait is that, although we see Dusty and his Farther constantly throughout the portrait, not once do we see them doing a sit-down interview, we are just guided by action shots, pictures, and archive footage. Plus, how the archive footage is shown is very creative, as they have it shown on a tv in black and white. The titles towards the end was very creative as well, making use of the ken burns effect showing pictures, with a thin font in the lower middle region of the frame showing the credits.
Having looked through these examples, plus more examples that i've not shown, i aim to use some of the shot types and filmic techniques in my portrait documentary when filming Oli.
