Log line- A brief look into the culture that makes up the city of Barcelona, Spain.
Synopsis- A short city symphony documentary filmed over the period of 5 days in Barcelona, Spain. In an attempt to show the audience a side of Barcelona that a viewer might not get to see from other travel documentaries. Planning- As this was a fly on the wall style documentary where I travelled around the city waiting/ searching for things to film, instead of being the catalyst that makes something happen and filming that, I didn't have a conventional script for reasons previously mentioned but I did research into areas of interest around Barcelona but more specifically in the Sant Pau/ Dos De Maig (as that was the area that I was staying in and therefore would be easier to access via walking).
So the actual plan went as following:
Sunday 28th October- Arrive in Barcelona and walk 10/15 minutes to La Sagrada Familia and look for any potential things to be filmed on the way there (a recce). At late evening watch the el Clasico (Barcelona playing Real Madrid) at any local bar we could find. Here I would record the audio of any reaction I could find. This was to be used an opening sound for my documentary to transition from the title into the footage I will have recorded
Monday 29th October- Travel south into the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarters of Barcelona) to visit the La Rambla (a big market area) . La Rambla would give me an opportunity for close up shots of what vendors were selling which could be a nice contrast to the wider shots that I had recorded the day prior of the exterior of la Sagrada Familia and the streets in the surrounding area of where I was staying. The Gothic Quarters would give me an opportunity to get wider shots than the vendor ones but not as wide as the ones recorded previously due to the higher density of the streets in this province of Barcelona compared to others.
Tuesday 30th October- In the morning go to the Sant Pau hospital to record the intricate architect they had on display there. In the afternoon travel to Park Guell. As this is vertically high up in the north west of Barcelona, this will allow me to take long/extreme long shots of the whole city. But as the garden was curated by Antoni Gaudi, the architecture of the gardens where also of interest as almost everything there had some intricate detail to them which could look good in the documentary. In the night time get some night shots of the trams/trains, the Torre Agbar (as it lights up at night) and anything that I see on the journey there and back.
Wednesday 31st October- Travel to the Gaudi's Casa Bastillo for the same reason as Park Guell. Gaudi was heavily influenced by nature, this shows in his work and therefore would aesthetically look pleasing on film which I am attempting to for in my documentary as it won't feature and narrator (or anything similar) so the audience will be focusing more on what they see and trying to understand it rather than someone directly telling them what they are watching. In the afternoon, visit the interior of la Sagrada Familia and try to film something with a more religious theme as the documentary is trying to about the culture of Barcelona (and a bit of Catalonia, so I'll try and get some Catalonia flags as they were hanging from most peoples apartments). In the afternoon go to Barcelona's Museum of Contemporary Art. The way the people of a city express themselves is important in a cities culture and therefore would be suitable for my documentary.
Thursday 1st November- Get any last minute filming done.
Presentation/Pitch- Once we had formed our ideas for what we were basing our documentary's on we had to make a presentation to then pitch the idea to then garner some early feedback.
After my pitch I received the feedback that I really needed to nail down the audio that I would be recording. Of course I knew that audio is always a big factor but after the feedback I learnt to maybe not just record general ambient sound but to find specific sounds to record and maybe mix them up with the general ambient sounds to give more layers to the audio. Below is the presentation I did for my documentary.
.Equipment-
Canon EOS 1300D
Canon EF 20mm lens
Research- For the research (Primary and Secondary) I did for this project look under the tab 'Documentary Brief' then go to 'Documentary Research'. There is also some research in my presentation at the end (under 'Inspiration').
Evaluation-
General Feedback- After watching my documentary I got some of the following responses;
People liked how it was shot and felt that you got the feeling of looking into the city of Barcelona
I could of let some of the shots linger for a bit longer so you get really explore the shots you were watching
The sound flows really nice throughout the film with no janky cuts
Someone didn't like the final shot of 'It's even worse in Europe' as it was out of focus
You could also notice in some of the shots would have benefited from using a tripod to stabilize the image as the it was shaky
I could make the same film but with the subtitles in English to be an optional watch to find out what the words mean that are overlayed on the footage occasionally
An evaluative breakdown of the documentary-
00:00->00:17- I had thought this was a good way to introduce the film as the audio works well being place at this section of the film. The audio was recorded in a local bar where they were showing the el Clasico match. (one of the biggest matches in the world of football featuring Barcelona playing Real Madrid). I felt that it was very important to get some aspect of this match in my film as football culture plays a big part in the cities culture (this also applies to almost all places). The audio was recorded when Barcelona was awarded a penalty during the match, so the sound of the fans waiting in anticipation for the penalty to be scored, and then subsequently their reaction to the goal worked well as an introduction as it goes from quite mumbles to celebration makes the audience feel like they are getting straight into the action. A comparison to this would be if I had chosen some slow ambient recordings instead playing at the beginning, this would give a completely different emotion. A slower recording would not work well as the majority of the rest of the film plays out at a fairly high pace (a lot of this comes down to the quick cuts I used).
I used a medium shot of a Catalan flag (The Senyera) blowing in the wind. This was chosen as I thought it was a good visual metaphor for freedom. This is an ongoing issue with the region of Catalonia trying to achieve independence from Spain. If somethings blowing in the wind it isn't being confined by anything and therefore is free to move. A medium shot was chosen for a reason as it allowed for the whole flag, that could be seen, to be shown to the audience so they can recognise what flag it is. This gives off a subtle hint to what the film is about without directly telling the audience.
The title of the film is 'Man with a Movie Camera' but in Catalan. This is a homage to the film with the same name by Dziga Vertov. Which this film was inspired by. The title that is played over the flag waving translates to 'Where is the democracy in violence', Violence towards the people protesting/voting for independence that was carried out by the police made international news on several different media platforms. This title is there to question if Spain was a democracy then why was violence carried out against people who wanted change.
00:18->00:40- These shots were all pretty much shot early in the morning, This is due to when I came back from Barcelona I had lots of clips but no clear narrative on how to display the footage. So a good place to start was organising the shots to make it look like they take place chronologically (almost like 'a day in Barcelona'). I had chosen a long shot of people walking towards the camera as the most important thing about a city and it's culture is it's people. This then paired up nicely with the diegetic audio of city ambience (quite talking and cars going past) to create a better picture of what it's like being in the city and, while watching, puts the audience into the city.
I chose to have close up of the pigeon here as the sound of the mumbling in the recording kind of sound likes the sound that a pigeon makes. This could represent the closeness that the population of a city lives their lives with the creatures/animals that also occupy the same city. The close up of the Gaudi waterfall contrasts the background audio. This shot can work in two ways. The first, is that the architect, Antoni Gaudi, plays a big part in the identity. His works are prominent destinations around the city for locals and tourists alike with places such as la Sagarda Familia, Park Guell and other places. The second way this shot works is, like previously mentioned, the contrast shows that even though the busy is constantly moving, you can still find calmness within the city.
The shot of the trees have the contrast of the busyness of the city with the serenity of nature within the same frame. I had chosen to lower the volume just for this segment as I want the feeling of, just for the few seconds that this frame is on, you can also join in on the calmness (almost like having a 'breather') before going back to the quick transitions of this film.
The next four shots are all connected in the fact the have somebody or something moving from the left of the shot to off screen right. This was in hope to give a rather seamless transition to the footage that I had recorded of the market off Las Ramblas. The quick cuts was done to make it feel like your were quickly travelling around the city. This is why in the first three shots the movement is from left to right and then in the final shot the movement is from the left to the middle and then away from the camera. This is done to make the audience feel that they have arrived in the marketplace and physically into the market.
00:41->00:48- Once the audience arrive at the marketplace, I wanted to keep the tempo up of the film, hence why there are multiple shots of different items that vendors are selling but the frame never lingers on anything. I wanted to keep the pace as the one thing I thought wasn't very good with 'Man with a Movie Camera' by Dziga Vertov was that sometimes the shots lasted a bit too long and it can make the audience lose interest in the shot, in the context of a city symphony-type documentary, so I didn't want my film to feel like it was dragging in areas.
00:49->01:08- Another big thing for Barcelona's culture is it's religious belief (around half of the population identifies as Catholic). This is why I started this section of the film with the camera tilted up towards the cross. As if the people are looking up to the cross as it has power and influence over their lives. The title that I put over the image translates to 'What's a King to God'. This is in reference to Franco's role as dictator (where he had similar privileges to a King) over Spain during 1938-1973. In this time Catalan separatists were suppressed by his rule, and other similar independence groups.
From the 50 second mark up to the 1 minute, I decided to show many long/ extreme long shots, I had this idea as the audio I had recorded in this part gave the feeling that all the shots felt void of other people. Giving the vibe that the audience is alone in these shots. This works well with the long shots, it gives the audience an opportunity to soak in the environment instead of being distracted by other people. The audience gets this from the music as it was recorded in Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarters), in this area the streets are quite narrow and therefore the singing reverberates off the surrounding walls.
The shot straight after the first shot of the cross links. Both of the shots feature crosses, (the first being by itself, the second, surrounded by people) this gives a nice transition as it stays on the topic of religion but in a different context. The framing makes it looks like the people are attracted to the cross. It also shows the cross looking over the city, perhaps a symbolism for the importance of religion to the city.
Apart from the shot of the road, there is very little movement in the frame of the three consecutive shots. Leaves rustling, a bird flying from one side of the frame to the other and the shadow of a tree moving in the wind. All the long shots with minimal movement makes the audience feel that Barcelona is a picturesque destination (no movement would make it seem as if they were actual pictures I had put into the film. The close up of the insect was chosen as a contrast from the previous long shots. This brings the audience literally back down to earth. This shot was also specifically placed at this point as the movement of the insects head upwards makes it look like its singing along with song that's playing as well. This kind of gives a bit of extra meaning to this bit.
The last shot of this segment brings the film back to the beginning with the Senyera blowing in the wind. The person singing the song reached peaked in intensity at this part and therefore I thought it would be fitting to have the flag here. Indicating the most important part of Barcelona's culture, a fight for independence/identity.
01:09->01:27- I had titled this segment 'The details we do not see'. I did this to set up the next few shots and the one that the title was being played over. These shots are where I chose a different approach to filming famous locations. The shot with the title over it is of Park Guell but filmed at ground level. The next is of a restaurant just off Las Ramblas on a borderline empty street. The shot of the word 'QUEER' was taken at Sagrada Familia. All these things that you might miss in Barcelona and that's why I chose to have these places in my documentary. Because these small details probably won't feature in a normal documentary about the city of Barcelona.
This part is the clearest part in the documentary that I was editing the clips together in time with the beat in the background. This keeps a certain tempo through this section for the reason previously mentioned (about keeping interest with what the audience are watching). This also creates expectations with the audience, they can predict when the next shot will appear and how long it will appear on screen. Once you create these expectations for the audience, you are then in control of if you want to either keep up with expectations of the audience or if you want to switch it up the editing style (by, for example, start editing off beat) to then create certain emotions/reactions from the audience.
01:28->01:46- To go back to the point I made earlier about trying to find some sort of narrative with the footage I had recorded and settling on editing the footage together to make the film takes place in chronological order as a good starting point. The weather on that day (rain) makes all the shots look like they took place late afternoon. Therefore it would be suitable to situate the following clips just after the mid way point of the film (not including the run time of the credits). This feels like a natural progression of the film and would make the most sense.to the audience. The editing to the beat is a continuation from the previous segment, continuing on from the previous explanation about why I did this. Dziga Vertov's film was very consistent with the cuts throughout it's run time, I wanted to recreate this certain discipline of editing in my film and therefore kept certain consistencies with my editing. These certain consistencies are not just limited to the editing style. Some of the shot types are very similar to ones the audience have seen earlier in the film. The tilted upwards shot of what looks like the spires atop of the house is almost an exact recreation of the shot of the cross at 00:49. These similarities could be a representation of the influence that Gaudi has over the city has over the city in a similar way that religion has (hence the similarities in the shot type).
A problem with this segment is that the shakiness of the camera is particularly evident here. Like previously mentioned, a tripod/monopod. This would of stabilised the shot giving a cleaner final image. To counter this however, I was travelling around the city and therefore wanted to keep the stuff I was carrying to a minimum.
The cut from the title to the shot of the water was done as the underlying theme of the previous segment was water/rain and therefore I used the theme to make the most sense for the audience. This also allowed the film to move from late afternoon to night (the time is clear to the viewer due to the darker areas around the water to the left of the screen).
01:47->2:14- I colour-graded the footage of television with a greyscale effect to make the passage from the quick shot of night into the footage that I filmed in the Museum of Contemporary Art. This film within a film pairs nicely with the audio, the sudden beat change in the guitar subverts expectations (like I talked about in the '01:09->01:27' paragraphs). The abstractness of the film I recorded changes the general feeling compared to what the viewer has previously watched. Hence why there is footage of such objects such as toy soldiers, a sphere, a bench and other similar stuff.
I had chosen to film at this location with the variety of close up, long and extreme close ups to try to encapsulate the variety of ways a person can express themselves through all the different mediums. The long shot at the beginning of this section is reminiscent of the very early shots of this film with the shot of the people walking towards the camera. This is to keep certain consistencies within the story of the documentary.
02:15->02:44- This segment I titled 'The monotony of a 9 to 5'. This was to show the heartbeat of the city, it's people, and the travelling they do everyday, the veins. Hence why I edited the train to reverse and go again, this is to represent how this cycle (of the 9 to 5) never ends. The people are the reason why the city is able to keep running. The people contribute to the cities culture and are affected/influenced by it. This is why I thought it was important to feature this aspect in my documentary, the working side of a persons life.
The reason behind the time lapse of a plaza was inspired by the same reason that you are able to see the camera, and Dziga himself, in the 'Man with a Movie Camera'. This was to reaffirm that, at the end of the day, the audience is watching a film. It could be argued that this might take out them out of the viewing experience, however I wanted to try some simple editing techniques like Dziga did in his film.