We chose the name 140 lives as that’s the number of students that were killed during the attack and we wanted to pay a tribute to them.
Our documentary tells the story of our Director, Mahin Feroz as he meets Ahmad Nawaz, a 17-year-old boy who was injured in the 2014 Army Public School attack by the Taliban. As Mahin attended the same school, this is a very personal story to him so we thought it would benefit the documentary to add his voiceover in. Ahmad now lives in Birmingham to study and spread awareness about the struggle for education in other countries.
A lot of things about our original idea had changed in the final cut such as location, we originally planned to film in our subjects house but that location became unavailable in the time frame we wanted to film and because of this the original b-roll we planned to film of his house, family and personal belongings was no longer available. Another thing that changed was the inclusion of our director. We first discussed the structure of the documentary we planned to include Mahin in the documentary a lot more and add his perspective in so it was more like a conversation between the two. We did have a camera of Mahin throughout the entire shoot but unfortunately, the camera operator had moved the camera resulting in an unflattering shot that we didn’t want to use and so we just used the shots and audio of Ahmad.
Despite these changes, there are a lot of things I like about the documentary such as the editing style. I like the typewriter effect as it has connotations of school and education followed by the mobile footage of the attack in the school which is very hard-hitting as it’s the first piece of footage people see.
From this experience, I have learnt a lot such as to be prepared for the unexpected during a shoot. I have also learnt more about the impact of sound, even though I wasn’t the sound operator, I worked closely with them when we had issues on set and also in post production when we came to the agreement that no soundtrack would be best. As always communications skills were vital and at times failed us when organising dates and equipment but overall I think we worked well as a team and produced a hard-hitting powerful documentary.
After a lot of deliberation and switching, we finally decided on our roles for this production, me being the producer. I had never produced a film before so this was a big learning process for me.
Ethics are vital to consider when producing a documentary especially one as sensitive as ours. Our subject who is under 18 shared painful traumatic stories of this past so we had to make sure he was completely comfortable and our work.
As the producer I was also responsible for paperwork and organisation. The most important documents I had to organise were the participant release forms, location agreement and participant information leaflet. This was to make sure the participant knew exactly what they were getting involved with and were happy to continue and also to diffuse any future conflicts that could have come from our film.
The questions:
Can you describe you day before the attack happened?
How did you feel when you first heard the gunshots?
What is your education like now?
What are you doing here today? (Walsall College, see production day blog)
What would you say to people who have been radicalised going to join terrorist groups?
What are your views on education globally?
We only prepared 6 questions because we knew Ahmad was very well spoken and would take time to elaborate on each question. However after our first attempt of filming we noticed that his response lacked emotion and very very repetitive and so we came up with a few more on the day and Mahin added some extra ones in whilst filming.
How has your life changed since the attack?
What do you think can be done here in the UK about radicalisation?
What would you say to the extremists that attacked your school?
We believe that from these questions we got very informative and engaging responses which give an insight into the life of a victim which created the powerful impact we wanted for this documentary.
The word chaotic was an understatement. The date for production wasn’t confirmed until the day before. This was because our subject is extremely busy and promised to fit us in at least two weeks before our deadline. Another last minute unexpected change was also the location. We originally planned to film at our subjects house allowing us to get a lot of appropriate b-roll footage as we already had some of him doing his job at an earlier date. But instead, on March 9th, we found ourselves in Walsall College still without a location and guaranteed time for the interview.
As mentioned before, Ahmad Newaz is now a youth education activist and so his schedule is very busy. That day he was doing a 2-part speech at the college before having to rush home to meet a visitor from the UN. The chances of us getting time to make a student documentary were looking very slim.
Location was a big issue. When Ahmad had a break, we first tried to film the interview in the canteen but it was too loud a there was a loud irritating buzzing noise coming from the kitchens. Whilst he was busy delivering another speech we found ourselves scouring the college as politely as we could for a suitable place. We manage to find a nice table area upstairs next a window looking out over the sports hall which, granted, isn’t very relevant to the topic but with the clock ticking we didn’t have much choice. As our director, Mahin, is good friends with Ahmad’s father, he promised time after the speech to film and so we set up and waited.
rule of thirds
3 point lighting with 2 lights
yang the model
During the first attempt of filming we noticed that Ahmad seemed to be repeating the things he said in his speech, in his interview, that his responses were less emotional and more automatic. He wasn’t doing this intentionally but because he is used to talking in public and giving so many speeches at such a young age, the specific words were engraved in his mind. To try and avoid this problem, we came up with a few extra questions to try and evoke a more passionate response from him such as “if you could speak to any one of the terrorists, what would you say?”
As a result, we got 10 minutes worth of interview footage which was good because it gave us plenty to choose from in the editing process. We only had a limited amount of time with the subject and he had to leave immediately after shooting and also two members of our crew, the camera operator and gaffer were unable to attend because it was such late notice and so I had to help take over those roles as well, which was quite stressful.
Upon returning from Walsall college we discover that one of the three cameras we had set up had unintentionally been moved and ruined the shot we planned to take. Luckily it was the camera focused on our interviewer which wasn’t essential to the documentary but it had taken away from our original plan of creating a emotional connection between the interviewer and interviewee as they had both attended the school that was attacked. But we still believe we had enough footage to make a good documentary and we planned to build an emotional connection between the interviewer and audience by including his voiceover at the beginning.
If we’re going to make a documentary, we should first know exactly what it is. Although I have watched quite a few documentaries, I still struggled to define the term, but here’s what google says:
documentary
dɒkjʊˈmɛnt(ə)ri/
noun
a film or television or radio program that provides a factualreport on a particular subject.
The bold words are what I think are key in the definition of documentary, however over time I have noticed that this has changed a lot. Media institutions and political bias are just a few factors which have changed what the modern-day documentary is. Now rarely any documentaries can be considered 100% factual because of the bias and perspective of the creator. Almost all documentaries are made with a specific message or agenda in mind to sell to the audience about the subject, usually decided by the media institution behind the production.
One of the earliest documentary films is thought to be is the Lumiere brothers – Exiting the Factory (1895)
This film merely shows factory workers leaving the factory and is thought to have no bias whatsoever. It supposedly shows a factual representation of what factory workers leaving the factory looks like. Analysing it from a modern-day perspective we can say that this still may be biased because of how the camera was set up, the costume, the characters, and their actions e.t.c However as the camera is stationary for the entire documentary, it’s bias, technology and message does not compare to the documentaries we have today.
Now, this documentary couldn’t be more different from ‘Exiting the Factory’.
‘Your Average Muslim’ is a 2017 online documentary made by Youtube as part of Youtube Spotlight. This documentary was made with popular Youtube blogger Dina Tokio, who often shares her thoughts on Islam and modesty and feminism on her beauty/lifestyle youtube channel. She made this 30 minute documentary on Muslim women ‘breaking the stereotype’. She shows throughout the documentary that there shouldn’t be any stereotype because Muslim women are so diverse and capable of so many more things than their communities expected from them.
Obviously, this documentary really resonated with me as a young Muslim woman myself, but it wasn’t the message alone that was engaging. Everything about this documentary conveyed a very genuine feel.
The subject Dina Tokio, as a Youtuber, is already very comfortable talking and being on camera and so the crew on this project used that to their advantage by giving her a presenter type of role as she traveled and interviewed other Muslim women with inspiring stories. Dina’s personality is also very playful which shows as she broke the fourth wall by talking to the crew and making jokes with them, showing them on camera whilst filming. This makes the audience feel like she’s truly in control and therefore that the message she’s conveying is genuine.
The camera work also played a large part in this as the different styles were very mixed. They used conventional documentary style shots such as the typical medium and close up for interviews and wide angle for the b-roll but they also mixed in more modern ‘vlog’ style shots such as extreme close ups and tracking walking shots which makes the viewer feel comfortable as they feel as if they just watching another one of Dina’s vlogs.
With each assignment, I am noticing more and more the importance of sound which was something I picked up in this documentary. All sound was used appropriately to each scene, complementing the narrative well in emotional and sometime comedic ways, for example at 5:20 when Dina’s family starting arguing they put loud dramatic rock music to emphasise the argument they were having before contrasting it by cutting to silence and with all people sitting silent at the table which had a comedic effect, before they starting a calm and civilised conservation in which they reintroduced the same soundtrack from when the discussion started.
I feel like this documentary is relevant in a few ways to the one which we are making as it relates to the representation of Muslims in the media which is a topic we dealt with in our documentary as we discuss the effects of terrorism on children in a Muslim country.
From this documentary, I like how the interviewer integrated and was engaged with the interviewee and for this reason, I want to include the interviewer in the documentary to create a bond on camera as they have something in common, just like in this documentary. I also really appreciate the editing style it was very fluid and I plan to do a similar style in our Documentary if we get enough footage. One thing I may not take away from this documentary would be the sound design. Although it was very fitting and appropriate for this documentary the narrative of our documentary is a lot more tragic and impactful so I feel that silence of as little music as possible which help tell the narrative of our documentary as it’s such as sad story I don’t want to make it feel artificial.
‘Muslims Like Us’ is a BBC documentary which aired in late 2016 and gained a lot of attention for its controversy. The concept of this documentary was to put ten different Muslims from around the UK into one house for ten days to see what would happen. Inevitably there were arguments as all these Muslims were from different background and cultures, believe in different branches of Islam and generally just had different interpretations of the religion. As a Muslim I knew that this would be the case, I personally think you could put a hundred different Muslims in a house a make a documentary equally featuring all of them and you still would not get an accurate representation of the religion. That’s because there isn’t a definition of Islam, Islam is what it means to its believer.
So although again this documentary has relevant themes and topics to my documentary, I feel like this time there wasn’t anything I could take away from this narrative-wise as it was constructed almost like a reality tv show.
But again I like the sound design, the used silence to emphasize specific point such as at 41:21 when one of the participants revealed an off-record positive conversation she had with another participant after they had a painful disagreement.
Documentary is such a broad genre now with so many different types and ways of creating them. Using this research I plan to create an engaging documentary by both using typical conventions and breaking them.
Our documentary is on 17-year-old Ahmad Newaz. What makes him a good character is what he is doing now because of his past experiences. He now lives in Birmingham and is a youth education activist, he travels to schools, colleges, and universities to talk to students about the importance of education and their role as students in society.
In 2014 he was injured in his school in Pakistan in a Taliban attack which is why he had to move to the UK for surgery. Over 140 students were killed during the attack and 500 injured. Ahmad lost his little brother in the attack and also had to watch his teacher being burnt and his friend being shot in the head in front of him. In fact, the only reason why Ahmad is alive today is that he played dead in order to survive.
Ahmad overcame such a tragedy and used his experience to promote good and so the message we want to convey to our audience is that they should be appreciative of the education they receive and they should use their position to promote good and make a change in the world.
Obviously, before the interview we had to do some thorough research into the incident that shaped Ahmad story so we could be as well informed and confident in what we were trying to make.
In order to create a powerful message and tell Ahmad’s story, we have to research more into the different topics of war and education and also look into documentaries cover similar topics to make an informed decision on the style the film will be made.
This is live mobile footage of the attack in 2014. Instantly upon this clip, I knew we were going to open our documentary on this as it is extremely powerful. This is part of a youtube playlist I made of videos I thought we could use in the documentary which would inform the audience on just how barbaric the incident was. We really wanted to show how dangerous and difficult it is in war-stricken countries for children to get an education and link that to what Ahmad is doing now, talking to students about their roles as students in society.
Unfortunately, the original subject for the documentary no longer wants to participate. Our new subject, however, he does have an equally if not more interesting story. Mahin, the director of our group has contact with Ahmad Nawaz who has agreed to let us make a documentary about him.
Ahmad Nawaz is a 17-year-old, education and peace activist. Ahmad now lives in Birmingham and works on spreading awareness for equal education for and empowering youth. Ahmad came to England after his school in Peshawar, Pakistan was massacred by the Taliban in late 2014. Ahmad was in the school during the massacre and was shot in the arm. He also played dead in order to survive.
As a group, we have discussed the message of this film to what its purpose is. We want to inform and educate a target audience of 15-20 years old who may not know about the struggles people their age go through to get an education in different parts of the world. We also want for Ahmad to spread his message about the importance of education and his thoughts on radicalisation as it’s still a very relevant topic that we want the audience to think about and be active on.
Mahin himself attended the same school as Ahmad so we have decided to include him in the documentary, having a conversational-type interview as this will make the documentary far more personal and also more unique to the many speeches and interviews that Ahmad has done in the last few years. The documentary will focus on three main topics: an account of the attack, Ahmad’s current life and work as an activist and finally, a discussion covering radicalisation and the importance of education.
My manifesto : https://vimeo.com/groups/517626/videos/255793374
For my manifesto I wanted to discuss the topic of stan culture and what it’s like to be a dedicated stan. Being a stan takes up a significant part of one’s life and is often very intense. Stan’s fully support their idols in whatever they do and will often promote their work to others. Nowadays, with the rise of social media, stans form communities online particularly on the likes of Twitter in which they follow their idols and discuss related topics with fellow stans as well as producing their own stan content such as fanfiction and fanart.
This is a topic which is very personal to me as I, myself am I stan for a few particular musicians and TV shows. I wanted to focus on the stan’s perspective and why they are so dedicated to their idols. I think it makes an interesting topic as many people often categorize stans are crazy obsessed fangirls blinding following their idols without considering the reasoning behind it.
Stans are often stereotyped as young, stupid, teenage girls and I think no matter what the age or gender, they should not be underestimated as the success of their idols have proven them to be very powerful. The purpose of my manifesto was to give people an insight into the mind of a stan, how this lifestyle has affected their everyday life, how it’s benefitted them and how it’s disadvantaged them. I wanted to justify this new way of consuming art and supporting artists to people who may have negative thoughts about it.
I have my own personal thoughts on the topic but I decided to use the thoughts of another stan in my manifesto to give a more unbiased view and outlook on the topic. I conducted a short informal interview with my friend Lucy, also a proud stan asking the following questions; what does it mean to be a stan? why are stans so dedicated? are you obsessed? why/why not? how does it impact your life? and do you think you’re being manipulated? Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fit all her answers in because of the time limit but I think she created an accurate representation of an average stan.
For the location, I decided to film the interview in her bedroom as it’s a very personal setting which fits the stan identity well as she had pictures and posters of her idols on the wall in the background.
The lighting set up was very basic, I used only one LED light but looking back I wish I would have arranged the composition of the shot so I could have used at least one more light to give more of an interview look to the video.
One of the mishaps I had whilst filming was with the audio. I had put the microphone on a higher setting than necessary resulting in the audio sounding too loud so I had to re-record the audio with Lucy but other than that I think the production of the manifesto went smoothly and the main message of what stans are like and why was delivered.
If I could go back and remake this manifesto I would fix the technical errors, the lighting, audio recording and focus on some of the cutaways but then also try and add more depth to the message of the video. Initially, as I previously mentioned I wanted to create a more positive and accurate representation of stans and give insight into what it’s like to be a stan and I think I have achieved that however, I am now noticing there was the opportunity to add more depth to the film by making the audience think. I could’ve done this by applying stan culture to their own lives because, to put it simply, stan culture originates from being passionate about someone and feeling a strong sense of love towards them which I think is a feeling we can mostly all relate to and would help create a more positive representation of stans as well as justifying their choices and lifestyle.
Len Cattell is British-born aboriginal artist who has lived in Australia where he voluntarily fought bushfires and also worked with aboriginals to learn their art and culture. He creates amazing artwork and now runs Coventry music museum.
Cattell was the subject of my documentary idea that I have pitched earlier today. I believe that he would make an interesting documentary subject as he has experienced and learnt about a completely different culture and now uses that influence in his own art here in Coventry.
My pitch was given the green light but in the end didn’t get chosen for production. I think this was mainly because there was a lack of emotional connection. Although I think I could’ve produced a very filmic, cultured and artist documentary, I don’t know my subject personally therefore it wasn’t as emotionally powerfully as the other documentary pitches for example the one that I am working on now.
The documentary that I’m now working on focuses on a man and his personal journey with religion. He has suffered many unfortunate things in his life and has turned to different religions for guidance before becoming atheist. I believe this has potential to be a very powerful documentary and that’s why I want to work on it.
“You will produce a one-minute issue-based video which has significance and meaning. It must address an issue you care about personally…”
Racism
cultural appropriation
beauty standards
‘stan’ culture
These are all issues in our society that I feel strongly about and want to speak on. Granted, some are heavier than others however they all have and some still do affect me personally and therefore mean a lot to me. Here are my thoughts on each topic:
‘Stan’ Culture
To be a ‘stan’ doesn’t just mean to be a fan of something but means specifically to be an obsessive fan of a celebrity. Stan culture has probably been around for a long time taking into account the hysteria for artists like The Beatles and probably musicians even older, however, this movement has truly thrived on social media and become far more intense. I want to look into the fans of boy bands, specifically, the likes of One Direction and BTS as their primary audience of teenage girls have been known to be some of the most powerful and devoted fans in the world. I want to investigate their fans motivations and dedication, to see if it affects their personal life and find out if the artists play a part in ‘stan’ culture by manipulating their fans.
After reading this I realised that this might be a bit too much information to fit into a 1-minute video. So I think if I were to do this topic I might just focus on the audience’s perspective and why they are so dedicated to their idols.
Cultural appropriation is a very controversial topic and is still an large issue today. I think the main reason why this is still an issue because there is confusion about the line between appropriation and appreciation. Many celebrities have found themselves facing backlash after wearing clothing or a hairstyle from a different culture. However, some have reacted saying for example that “culture can’t own a hairstyle”. I want to explore both sides of the argument and perhaps use that to incorporate the split-screen element of the brief.
Racism
Racism is such a broad topic that has so much history and is still extremely relevant today. I feel like perhaps this topic is too broad to fit into a one minute video and should perhaps focus on something within the topic such as institutionalised racism, representation in the media, colorism, police brutality or white supremacy.
Beauty Standards
Beauty standards is a large issue that affects almost everyone and have become increasingly more dominant with the rise of social media. I think if I was to cover this topic I would focus on the part social media has played in creating beauty standards as it’s so easy for our generation to be influenced by what they see online and in turn, this has had a large effect on us.
Grizzly Man (2005) is a documentary by German director Werner Herzog telling the life and death of American environmentalist, documentary filmmaker and bear enthusiast, Timothy Treadwell. My first impressions of the film was that it was a mockumentary. I was so taken back by Treadwell and his personality that I couldn’t take him seriously. The beginning of the documentary didn’t fit the conventions of a regular biography documentary as it began with Treadwells’ own footage, before we were introduced to the narrator and the purpose of the film. I think Herzog did this purposely to allow the audience to have their own perceptions of Treadwell before we learnt more about him. In fact the way in which Treadwells’ original footage was used throughout the entire film doesn’t fit how archive footage is conventionally used in documentaries which I think is what makes it all the more powerful.
Looking at Treadwells’ footage, it looks as though he intended to make a documentary film himself, based around the life of bear’s and other animals in order to try and change people’s negative perception of them. Treadwell obviously intended to create something with this footage he filmed during his summers in Alaska and distribute it himself but he never got the chance before his tragic death. As Herzog presents the footage throughout the documentary he leaves in all the outtakes and bloopers that would have usually been cut out therefore showing Timothy’s true self. The more we saw of his interaction with the animals we more we learnt about Treadwell himself. I don’t doubt his love for the animals however as the film went on, we see a more of a pessimistic angry side to his character. Living alone among animals in Alaska for several months at a time every year sounds like quite a challenging task and as the film went on we saw exactly how frustrating it became for Treadwell. The archive footage began with some of his most positive moments out in Katmai National Park such as him capturing very intimate rare footage of the animals, approaching them himself in very dangerous situations and almost communicating with them and creating a bond. Towards the end the focus of the footage shifts towards Treadwell himself, featuring his own logs about his personal life, the way he approaches other people who come to the park and even opening up about his previous life to the animals. One key scene that shows this is his government rant:
Herzog says “…the actor in his film has taken over the filmmaker.” I think that describes perfectly the effect of isolating himself in the park has had on Timothy. He original wanted to create a message to share amongst people, to educate them and encourage them to feel sympathy for these animals but as time went on that message became a character for him to play. The purpose of the film was no longer to educate people on the animals but to criticise the people instead.
Aisha Houmadi 