TUE: Documentary Festival & Featurette Planning Week

No Computers

Warm-up: Featurette Exemplars

Learning Target(s)

• I can independently produce an 'engaging' short film

Announcements 

• Featurettes are DUE June 6th
• Click here for Deadlines & Guiding Principals
• Featurette Storyboards are DUE FRIDAY, May 18th, for credit! 
• [click here to print your own]
• Bring headphones EVERY DAY

Agenda [60]

• Featurette Exemplars [10]
• Watching the Documentaries [50]
• Partial rubric for watching
• Story & other positives ( ➕➕➕ )
• The "Research Grade"
• Topic research is plainly evident in the film
• Interviews/Opinions are used to illustrate research & serve to deepen understanding
• Viewer learns something new about the topic, person, or place that is the subject 
• The "Technical Grade"
• Editing pays attention to rules and serves to move the story along, provide interest
• Voiceover is clear
• Voiceover delivery is fluid
• Where possible, footage is framed, steadied, and lit appropriately for the setting and purpose
• B-roll effectively used to move narrative along
• Keynote is appropriately utilized to further understanding of the documentary topic
• The "Artistic Grade"
• Has beginning, middle, end
• Writing is fluid and appropriate for the medium of film
• does not sound like you are reading a school paper
• Interviews, if any, are integrated into the flow of the story/argument instead of being segregated together (unless masterfully done on purpose to artistically further the narrative)
• Music, if any, furthered the narrative
• Balanced
• Interviews v. Voiceover v. silence/music
• Spoken v. Visual information
• Documentary was Entertaining / Moving / Inspiring
• Areas for improvement (⚠️⚠️⚠️ )
• Lighting Problems
• backlit
• too dark (grainy?)
• too light (blown out)
• Sound problems
• cutting off words
• music over words
• unintelligible words
• wide swings in volume
• too much background noise
• Filming/Framing problems
• no "rule of 3" (unless clearly intended)
• distracting background
• Jittery camerawork
• repetitive angles for b-roll (or any footage)
• Inappropriate B-Roll
• Doesn't match subject or soundtrack
• clearly added to "pad" the time
• ridiculous, offensive, or careless 
• Script problems
• No script evident - voiceover was freestyled
• Interviews inappropriate, repetitive, 
• Editing problems
• clips too long - not enough b-roll
• too much 'borrowed' footage
• Footage out of order (confuses "point")
• poor choice of titles 
• distracting 
• 'wrong' for the information conveyed 
• poor choice of adjustments:
• filters & effects
• speeds
• Careless Problems
• spelling errors
• thumbs not cropped out
• "title text here"