Film File Sizes

The original file size of my film was over 700mb, which was too big to be burnt onto a disc. Therefore, the size of the film on the disc submitted for marking is 100mb, but the version I put on Youtube is over 700mb. I thought I'd mention this in case the file size affects quality when marking.

Final Film

My final film can be found here.

I am quite happy with how my film came out, and think that sometime's its worth taking risks to produce work. I do not intend for this work to be a portfolio filler, but believe it is quite powerful.

Ben Quinton - An English Romance

An English Romance by Ben Quinton follows the activity of a shoot and captures the regular occurrences at these events. The images cover a range of activities and sights, including the dead pheasants, the men at work, and transportation.

Some images have the composition and content of argricultural paintings, and depict the variety in pheasant shooting. Whether it's clothing, location, or dogs, diversity is included. What lacks diversity are the people participating in the sport shown in these photographs: they are all white men. 

Ben Quinton has an education in commercial photography and has been published in the Saturday Telegraph Magazine, the Guardian Weekend Magazine, Sleek Magazine, Foto8, and GQ Online. His personal work is mostly documentary and he is interested in different cultures.

The project is still in progress.

Making My Film

All of the skills I learnt from undertaking the Intro to Premiere Pro workshop came into play when editing this film.

I gathered my visuals and audio, and placed them in bins in the project window according to content ("visuals", "narrative", "atmos", etc). Then to cut the media before placing it on the timeline, I opened it in the source window. After watching through the video, I use the "mark in" button to determine where I want my visuals to start...

... and then the "mark out" button to finish.

The media can then be added to the timeline by using the insert button.

Audio can be edited in the source window the same way as moving image is.

After inserting audio to the timeline, it always appears in the "audio 1" row.

I kept "audio 1" for atmos tracks, and moved my narrative audio segments into the "audio 2" row, as linked video and audio automatically goes to audio 1. To move them, simply drag and drop into audio 2.

Once visuals are in the timeline, the accompanying audio to the clips are in the "audio 1" row and are blue. 

To remove them from the visuals you right click, and select "unlink" on the dropdown menu.

Which separates the audio from the visuals, leaving you free to delete the original audio.

When a clip on the timeline doesn't match the sequence settings, it shows up small in the frame in the program window.

To change this, you right click on the clip...

... click on "scale to frame size"...

And it fills the screen. 

When the film was finished, I rendered the work space, and then went to "export - media", adjusted the output settings I wanted, double-checked they were correct, and clicked "export".

Storyboard

My storyboard can be found here.

I paired my audio with imagery that alluded to or directly confronted the subject matter of the audio clip.

I opened with a shot of trees reaching towards the sky as I felt it was a good establishing shot, especially as it included nature. The atmos audio was recorded for a previous project, but I placed it with this as it is a natural occurrence - birds do sing in the woods.

The shots of the cookbook and vegetarian food with the audio about making a change to your life represents the changes I made to my life by going vegetarian.

The following images of animals in slaughterhouses directly relates to the audio. I chose no atmos for this, as I felt the power of the imagery needed to speak for themselves. Also, the accompanying audio from the video clips were not acceptable to me: there was either talking, or the atmos wasn't very good quality.

The next part of my narrative features a black screen and no atmos, as it signifies the other changes I went through to make my life more cruelty-free.

I started the next load of clips with a shot of cows running into a field, as I felt there had already been a lot of cruelty so far, and wanted to show the animals affected by leather to be happy (even though the cows featured are British dairy cows, where leather does not come from - the signifier is cows and the signified is leather). I paired this with audio of cows from a royalty free website. The following images of fur and exotic skin production does not have any atmos, as again, I wanted the graphic nature of these clips to speak for themselves.

The imagery accompanying the audio about zoos also does not have any atmos for this reason, and the visuals relate directly to the narrative audio.

Again, no atmos was used in the clips of animals being tested upon, to let the imagery speak. I included a situation shot of my Lush products, as Lush is a cruelty-free company, and royalty-free atmos of a shower accompanies this.

To preface the section about my dad shooting, there is a clip from a pheasant shoot where he successfully shot a pheasant. The audio that accompanies this is the Tascam recording from that moment. A series of location shots from the shoot, shooting paraphernalia from around my house, and footage of dad shooting accompanies my narrative audio, as it is all part of the shooting lifestyle. The atmos in these clips are a mix of birds chirping and the audio that matches the clip where dad shoots, in order to get the sound of the gunshots. I didn't use the atmos from that scene for the whole segment, as it featured dad talking to me, which I thought would not be appropriate.

The last segment does not contain atmos, as I didn't know what would be best to accompany a woodland scene, my bedroom wall, and myself playing with a puppy. I also think it is best to not have atmos, as my narrative audio is concluding the film, and I don't want anything to be a distraction to it. It might be annoying to see me speaking in the imagery and not being able to hear what I'm saying, but the in-camera microphone picked up people talking near me (and I was probably baby-talking to the puppy) which is not appropriate. I felt that the last shot should be of me, as it is a film about my choices to be kinder to animals through my lifestyle choices. That particular clip was filmed over a year ago, which is why I look differently than I do now.

Jo-Anne McArthur - We Animals

We Animals is a longitudinal project by award-winning photographer Jo-Anne McArthur that focuses on animals in the human environment. Shot in 40 countries and used in 100 worldwide campaigns, this project aims to show that "Humans are as much animal as the sentient beings we use for food, clothing, research, experimentation, work, entertainment, slavery and companionship." 

It challenges the barriers that humans have put in place to treat non-human animals as objects and not as "beings with moral significance". "The objective is to photograph our interactions with animals in such a way that the viewer finds new significance in these ordinary, often unnoticed situations of use, abuse and sharing of spaces." 

Aquariums deepen our belief that animals are objects for our use and our entertainment. Aquarium visitors spend a few moments looking at each animal. The animals spend a lifetime looking out at visitors but can never leave.

They say that dolphins are always smiling. This one looks extremely saddened. 

 An estimated ten billion food animals such as cows, goats, chickens and pigs are killed every year in North America alone. This number doesn't even include fish and other marine life.

The last dog available for sale at a meat market in Vietnam.

Every time someone pays a zoo entrance fee, they are perpetuating the myth that animals are on this earth for our pleasure and our use. 

Every human act in support of animal slavery and confinement perpetuates the belief that they exist for our amusement.

What separates a sanctuary from a zoo or any other institution that keeps animals in its care is that it places the best interests of its residents above all else.

Though humans use most animals for food, clothing, work and entertainment, there are a select few, the chosen ones, enlisted and bred to be our companions.

Turkeys on Thanksgiving at a sanctuary

There are many categories of images from this project on the website weanimals.org, so I chose the categories that interested me the most and the images that I found particularly moving. 

Jo-Anne has covered a variety of different aspects of how humans and animals intersect, and there are a range of happy subjects mingled throughout the more upsetting ones. The project has illustrated the many ways in which human interaction affects animals, in both positive and the more common negative ways, and is well suited to a longitudinal study, as there are so many ways in which we interact.   

Archive Footage

"Incorporating archival footage into your documentary film can bring a level of authenticity unmatched by other means, furthering the film's impact and reach."

This is definitely true when speaking about this project. In fact, I would not be able to make this project if it were not for moving image websites like Youtube, and a few websites that allow you to download a Youtube video. 

Most of the footage I have used is archival, and comes from sources like propaganda films by charities such as PeTA and the BUAV. Some of these clips I have seen in other propaganda made by other companies (some clips were included in the vegan documentary Earthlings), so I know that this is definitely archive footage. Some footage has come from trailers or commercials, and some has come from regular Youtube uploads. 

I know I am treading a line with using people's content, but a lot of documentaries use found footage and archive footage to create their films, as illustrated above. The documentary Blackfish uses archive and never-before-seen footage, apart from footage that features interviews undertaken for the film (e.g., with ex-trainers, divers, witnesses). I would not be able to illustrate the points that I am making in my video if it were not for using Youtube footage. Royalty-free footage is expensive (one website I went on wanted $71 for less than one minute of footage of a dog with his head out a car window), and a lot of the footage I have included I would not be able to film myself, mostly due to access issues (the inside of a slaughterhouse, for example). I also think that using archive footage gives it a certain aesthetic look that cries back to propaganda and guerrilla videos.

The way in which I use the footage also adheres to Youtube's fair use guidelines. 

• The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

The clips of footage I am using are being used for nonprofit educational purposes - they are being used in my film to illustrate a personal point of view, and are not being used in a documentary context

• The nature of the copyrighted work: Using material from primarily factual works is more likely to be fair than using purely fictional works. 

All of the footage that I have used have been factual, there is no fictional work included in my final film

• The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: Borrowing small bits of material from an original work is more likely to be considered fair use than borrowing large portions.

In comparison to the overall length of the pieces that I am borrowing from, the length of clips that I use are never more than half as long as the original source. Also, I have used some videos that are over 5 minutes long, just for less than ten seconds of footage.

• The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work: Uses that harm the copyright owner’s ability to profit from his or her original work are less likely to be fair uses

I will not allow my film to be monitised in any way, as I see it to be morally wrong to profit by using aspects of other people's work without their knowledge. I will also not put it on my professional website because of this.

I will be uploading my finished video to Youtube so that I can link it to this blog page for viewing and marking, however I will make it so that it cannot be viewed without the source link, and I will not accept any monitisation offer.