— Documentary Introduction

< Squatparty >

Female punks have fun boozing, smoking and talking in this fascinating film by London lifestyle chronicler Captain Zip.

Female punks have a good time talking, smoking and getting drunk with their friends in this sparky, spontaneous short film. Revealing their everyday lives, it also features fascinating footage of punks hanging out on the London streets. Elvis Costello and The Clash provide evocative audio for this splendid slice of no-frills documentary, with sequences shot at London punk epicentres Portobello Road and King’s Road.

< Tokyo Techno Tribes >

The report is a candid interview with Japan’s new wave of reactionary “personalised” factions.

These first-person narratives cut through the mask of unity.It tells the story of the lives of a group of Japanese people who are trying to find a new identity, not just the salaries of the “Company.” In their quest to redefine identity, some speak of a “New Age Romanticism” that stems from a reconnection with Buddhist teachings and Early Japanese shamanism. Others show how they reshaped Asian traditions from the full influence of postwar American culture.

< Screenager >

The story revolves around Delaney Ruston and her children, who became interested in how much screen time there was when her child began to crave a smart phone. She delves into the science behind screen time to figure out how it affects the minds and development of young people.

Through personal stories and the input of leading researchers, Screen Teens reveal the impact of screen time on children. Explore how online learning, gaming, and socializing affect adolescents’ developing attention spans, fragile self-esteem, and moral instincts.

For these three films, I will summarize the similarities between them from the four aspects of Scene Capture type, shooting techniques, the role of sound and the reality and fiction of film and television creation, and then analogy their differences.

— Shooting Style
These three documentaries are all very typical street movies, and they all adopt the classic film making styles: naturalism and realism.

· Street movie
Street films are some German films on the street as the main action background under the influence of chamber drama films. Siegfried Krakauer coined the term in his book From Regary to Hitler.

· Naturalistic style
It can also be called documentary style. The most distinctive feature of the naturalistic style is the lack of light. Naturalist photography looks like it was shot with cheap cameras, CCTV cameras or other equipment, in order to make the subject look more realistic.
A good example is the remaster-style horror film. In the non-horror genre, The Office is a good example of a naturalistic style that takes advantage of the audience’s internal beliefs and makes it look like it was shot with a camera, which makes it more realistic.
· Realistic style
Realism is to try to restore the original appearance of the work, but it is expressed in the way of film making. 99% of movies belong to this style of film making, in order to reduce the audience’s attention to cinematography or cinematography techniques.
Photographers just have to use natural light, but the point of the film itself is to make every shot have a meaning. Along with the realistic style, the director will focus on using composition and lighting in the traditional cinematic sense.
However, the crux of the matter is that the importance of lighting is obviously magnified, which makes it difficult to define this style of realism.

— Production Skill

• How to use scenery

·Vision
This is usually employed to set the mood.
It occupies a small proportion of the picture when shooting the characters. At this time, our picture mainly explains the environment and movement track of the characters. You usually need to go to a small aperture when you’re shooting a picture like this.
· A panoramic view.
The panoramic view helps to show the movement of the character.
When shooting such pictures, the characters in the picture must be permitted to oppose the sky, but to leave a certain space. The light on the personality should strive for accuracy, reality and unity. Do not allow others to see the light that is obviously contrary to the light source on site.
· Close shot.
In order to get a good expression of the individuality, you can use close shots.
Close-shot in a movie refers to the scene where the character occupies more than 1/2 of the height of the picture. At this time, the expression of the individuality, the head, especially the eyes, becomes the focus of expression. When photographing, pay attention to the composition to leave the appropriate space for the range of gestures.
· Close-up.
Close-ups allow you to pay complete attention to the details of the character and are the best way to show details.
Close-up usually shows the person’s head entirely. In photography, we should pay attention to the eyes of the characters. The direction of the eyes will guide others to feel the psychological state and personality of the characters. It doesn’t have to be horizontal when composing a picture. It can be tilted to make the picture more lively.

• Learn to use depth of field

Depth of field The distance at which the nearest point of a subject to be photographed can produce a sharper image. When the lens is concentrated on a certain point in the subject, the image is clear.

Depth of field gives a clear distinction between the subject and the environment. Shallow depth of field highlights the subject and enables you to focus your attention on the person. 
The large depth-of-field of the larger scene plays the role of metasomatism environment.
So we have to pay attention to composition, color, and lighting under the huge depth-of-field.
The light and color of the environment should be consistent with the characters, and the composition should not be random to let the characters appear in the picture.
Even with a considerable depth-of-field, the composition of the picture should be paid attention to. The diagonal line and golden section composition show the movement direction of the figure. Even if you are shooting a shallow depth-of-field, don’t blindly open the aperture at full width.

• Color, Composition, Light

Color in film art is subjective application on the basis of objectivity, reproducing objectivity and applying subjectivity. Reproduction is realistic. Use is freehand.

The composition of a film picture will arrange and combine the dynamic and static subjects in the scene space in a focused and orderly manner depending on the time and space positions.

Light is the soul of photographic picture creation. In the film, the so-called real “natural light effect” is not available.

— Sound In the Cinema

Many people would argue that what really constitutes a film is the change of the image, and the sound is only a supplementary role. They believe that the sounds they hear in movies are made by people or things shown on the screen. But we know that in the process of film production, the recording of sound and video can not just take separated, but also processed separately. In fact, sound is as flexible and varied as any other cinematic technique.

• Items or skills need to be mastered in sound production

Sync Sound/ Non-Sync Sound, Sound Mixing, Dubbing/ Synchronous mouth recording ADR, Sound Effect, Synchronous Sound, Voice-over, ATMOS, DOLBY, Stereo, Foley, Diegetic Sound / Non-diegetic Sound, Score, Theme Song

• The power of sound

First, it involves a sensory category: in addition to visual perception, there are auditory sensations. 
Even before recording technology was adopted in 1926, the virtues of sound were demonstrated in the “silent” films of the time, accompanied by bands, organs or pianos. At least the music fills the silent space and increases the overall experience of the audience. More significantly, the addition of hearing opened up the possibility of what the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein called “synchronization of the senses” — the creation of mono rhythms or expressive features that integrate hearing and sight.

Second, sound can positively influence our interpretation of images.
In “Letter from Siberia,” Chris Marker uses the power of sound to change our perception of images. Audiences will interpret the same image differently being dependent on the content of the sound.

A third advantage is the case that the sound of a film can direct our attention to a particular image. 
For example, when the narrator describes a “blood-red bus,” We’re looking at the bus, not the car. These are very examples of using sound to direct our attention to certain things.

Fourth advantage, build expectations.
If you get a door open, you guess someone has entered the house, and in the next shot, that person will appear. Horror and suspense movies often use an invisible voice-over source to pique the audience’s interest, but films of all genres can take benefit of this sound.

In addition, sound gives silence a new value. Silent passages in a film can create an almost intolerable tension that forces the viewer to concentrate on the screen and anticipate any sounds that might appear. Just as color films present black and white scales, the use of sound in films will incorporate all mute possibilities.

Another advantage of sound says there are so many possibilities for editing creativity. Through editing, the shots in the two spaces can be connected, forming a very meaningful relationship. In the same way, filmmakers can mix any sound phenomenon into one. With the advent of sound films, the infinite possibilities of auditory situations expanded the limitless possibilities of visual images.

— Fusion of Truth and Fiction in Film and Television Creation

In recent years, combining the “real” and “fiction” technique has become the world trend of film and television creation, some experts described: in the 20th century, most of the time, documentary and fictional narrative movie keeps clear boundaries of traditional documentary and commercially successful feature to develop side by side, only the former to the latter often aura.However, in the later part of this century, the two forms have often become blurred, and Docudrama (fiction in the form of fiction) and monuments (fiction in the form of documentary) have become a phenomenon in the field of film and television.

• Docudrama, a fact-based work presented as fiction

Documentary fiction is also commonly referred to as dramatic doc or fact-fiction. With Docudrama being the most popular expression.In the words of Janet Stetson, “Documentary, as his name suggests, is a resentment that mixes documentary” with melodrama.

Janet Steig, an American film scholar, believes that “most feature films use the standard dramatic model of mainstream film and television to fully reconstruct history. These techniques include: one who has a purpose orientation of the role of motivation in, several (2-3) the prominent character in the character of three-dimensional, some by individuals rather than the system (usually a system of psychological trauma rather than harm) caused by the reason, a programme throughout the entire length of the drama structure, and a very touching.”

Of course, in reality, not all “documentary film” must have the above factors completely, and it is impossible to fully conform to the above models. All individual artistic creations will pursue individuality and avoid the mire of stereotype. Therefore, I think the understanding of the characteristics of “documentary film” should be inclined to focus on its innovation in “concept”, that is, its breakthrough on traditional documentary film.