majoraimeeherd-blog

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Conclusion

Before beginning this project, I had not realised what a massive topic autism is. After doing research and interviewing my subjects I had an overwhelming amount of information on autism and the hardest part of this whole process has been narrowing down to one aspect of the autism spectrum.

Combining my interest in autism with my interest in women’s issues and feminism, I made the decision to focus on women with autism. This is a field that has not been explored much, even in the medical field.

I have learned so much from this module. I am now comfortable using and filming on the Sony NX30 as well as recording sound. I have also been able to work on my editing skills in Adobe Premiere Pro with both audio clips and visual clips.

My research into autism has expanded my knowledge of the disability and my research into other documentary films has expanded my knowledge of what makes a great film.

I am very happy with how my film has turned out. If I had to change anything I would have tried to film more diverse b-roll with Selena and Jan. More b-roll would have made my film more visually interesting and would have given me more options during editing. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

My Autism and Me

https://vimeo.com/217137659

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Typeface for my Title

Now that I have decided on a title and created my video it is time to look into the small details like typeface. 

Media Storm is a company that produces films and online news videos. On their website mediastorm.com, they have a lot of different documentaries and this site was recommend to me by my lecturer Andy, as he said it was a good site to look at the typefaces or fonts, that these professional documentaries use so that I could get a better idea of what font would work for the title of my film. 

Below are examples of the typefaces that I looked at on Media Storm.

The first few titles above are very detailed and connect directly to the film that they about but I liked the look of the more simple titles more. The four above are easy to read, simple, but they also look nice and seem to match the subject matter aesthetically. This is something that I will try to do with the typeface for my title, I am looking for a simple, easy to read font that matches the tone of my film. 

I also looked on wordmark.it to see what the title of my film would look like in all of the different typefaces. 

After looking through a lot of typefaces I decided that Gill Sans Light looked the best for my title, below is the title on my video. This typeface is easy to read and I think that it looks aesthetically nice with my title as well. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Editing- 2

I am only including screenshots of editing in this post and throughout as exporting clips and uploading them to Youtube takes too much time. For the 10 minute clip of Selena, it took  2 hours to export from Premiere and then over 3 hours to upload to Youtube.

After putting together the interviews, all I had to do was put b-roll over the top. This seemed like a simple task but was actually the most difficult part of this whole process. I also had to edit sound, fix lighting, colour correct some b-roll, and create the credits.

I found that the easiest way to do b-roll was to watch the video and then when I felt like there should be b-roll I looked at what I had and what would work well with what was being said in the interview and then would put together a small compilation of b-roll that I could then edit down to fit perfectly in the spot I wanted it in. 

All together the b-roll that I had for using in this film of Selena, Jan, the newspapers, city centre, and Selena in the coffee shop was 50 minutes long.

Here you can see how I put together little bits of b-roll, covering the cuts in the interview.

Another part of editing was making sure that the audio was good and sounded sooth and cohesive. I did this by raising and lowering audio levels where necessary, like in between cuts or at transitions. Below you can see a part where I have changed the audio levels to make the cut smoother.

Another part of the audio that had to be changed was the music being brought up for the title and down for the rest of the film and then up again for the credits. 

Some of the audio in my film had some issues, like during Jan’s interview you can hear her neighbours washing machine. To fix this I put the audio in Adobe Audition and used the noise reduction process to edit the washing machine sound out. Below is the screenshot of the audio in Adobe Audition.

The hardest part of editing has been cutting together b-roll that works well together, with the interview audio, and isn’t too boring or long or short. Below is a screenshot of my film edited together, you can see all the cuts and little bits of b-roll throughout.

Creating the credits was another job that I had to do. After watching a lot of documentaries and seeing how they did their credits, I decided that a cut to black and rolling credits would work the best for my film. The ending of my film is quite impactful and it ends with Selena saying, ‘it’s just okay for us to be who we are’. A cut to black works after this because it solidifies Selena’s statement. The rolling credits instead of still I think also work with the music and tempo of the film in general as it is stationary and very slow, but isn’t super upbeat and fast paced, so a steady rolling credits works with the tone of the end of my film. 

After the credits I considered including a website where viewers could go to learn more information about autism. I struggled with the decision of whether to include this or not because I did not want to appear bias towards any organisation or charity. In the end I decided that if people wanted to educate themselves on autism, they could just google it or a read a book with out me referencing them to any particular source. 

Although I was confident with my editing skills before this module, creating and editing this film has made me even more confident in my skills with Adobe Premiere Pro. I learned about timing, how important music is, audio volume, cuts, and how important it is that b-roll flows smoothly and fits well with the film.

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Selena: B-roll 2

After editing most of my video together I realised that the b-roll that I had for Selena didn’t match the tone of the film at the end when she talks really positively about her autism. I contacted Selena and arranged for her and her friend to meet me in a coffee shop so that I could film some shots her of interacting with her friend. Here are some screenshots of what the shots from the coffee shop look like.

I think that these b-roll shots work really well because she is happy and interacting, despite her disability, which is what she talks about in her interview.

This taught me that you can never have enough b-roll and that it is always worth shooting a little extra just incase. This b-roll works really well with the film and I think that the film wouldn’t have the same impactful ending without this b-roll of Selena looking happy and talking with a friend. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Netflix B-roll

Because I do not have a lot of variety in the b-roll that I shot of Jan I decided that I would also get some shots of Netflix and tv shows that she watches. To do this I logged into my own Netflix account and filmed the screen of my laptop.

Here are screenshots of what these shots look like. 

I am very happy with these shots. I think that they really add to the film and make the b-roll a lot more interesting than just Jan sat watching telly. I learned from these shots that filming a laptop screen is not as easy as I’d thought. If the screen was too dark, you could see the reflection of me and the camera in the laptop screen which was very distracting so it took a little but of playing around and moving closer to get shots where the camera was not reflected in the screen.

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Jan: B-roll

Since Jan’s flat is extremely cramped and she is bed-bound some days due to illness and struggles to leave her flat, I knew that I would only be able to get shots of her doing a couple of different things. In her interview she talks about reading The Sun and The Mirror when she worked to find out what happened on soap operas so I bought a copy of each so that I could get some shots of them on their own before I went to see Jan and then some shots of Jan with the newspapers.

Jan also talked in her interview about watching tv to learn about group interaction so when I went to see Jan I got shots of her watching tv and using the remote. Below are some screenshots of the types of shots I got from shooting b-roll with Jan.

I didn’t have to many options for moving Jan around or taking her to a location so I’m happy with the b-roll that I have. I am going to supplement this b-roll with what I have in the city centre and shots of the newspapers. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Sarah Hendrickx

Hendrickx, S. and Gould, J. (2015). Women and girls with autism spectrum disorder. 1st ed. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

I have looked at another source to back up the research that I found on the National Autistic Society’s website about autism and gender. Sarah Hendrickx is an expert in autism as well as being on the autism spectrum herself. Below are the notes I took about the most important things she talked about in her book ‘Woman and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder’.

Even the medical field is still behind on providing specific diagnosis criteria for women and girls. I think that this research just shows how important it is for documentary to address what women have to go through when they aren’t diagnosed. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Sweet Sixteen: A Transgender Story

This BBC documentary about the year in the life of a young person in Aberystwyth who is transitioning from male to female. Similarly to how my documentary is going to be laid out, the documentary is a series of interviews cut together with b-roll and music. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08qh5v7/sweet-sixteen-a-transgender-story

One thing that I noticed about this documentary was that before transitions they would have establishing shots. This worked because the documentary followed the Llyr for a year, so she was in a lot of different places. I think that for my film I don’t need establishing shots of iconic images of the place like in this film, but in mine I do need to have some sort of b-roll that shows I have moved on to the next subject or topic. I can do this by using my b-roll shot in Cardiff city centre.

I was also looking out for how they introduced subjects, especially how their names appeared on screen. In this film the name faded in and then faded out again. I think that the fading in and out works really well because it’s subtle enough not to be overly distracting from the interview, but appears fast enough to make the viewer look and read it. This is a technique that I am going to utilise in my film.

Some of the transition shots in this film were also slowed down or put into slow motion. I think that in this film this affect worked really well because they implemented this technique during sad or sombre parts along with sad music. I think that I could take this technique and flip it for my own use and speed up a transition during a happier part of my film. I think that it would go really well with the music that I have chosen. 

The last thing that I picked up on while watching this film was that none of the subjects look directly into the camera during interviews, they’re always looking slightly off to the side. I used this technique in my interviews and I am glad to see that professional documentary also film interviews this way. 

Watching this documentary has made me think a lot about b-roll and transitions. There was something excellent b-roll in this film and the b-roll was inserted smoothly with the interviews. I am going to take what I have seen of the b-roll cuts in this film and apply it to the cuts in my film, to try and smooth it out. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Premiere Editing Issue

During the editing process I wanted to put a warp stabiliser and a reverse speed filter on a clip. Premiere does not let you do these two filters on one clip, so I had to put a warp stabiliser on the clip then export it and then put a reverse speed filter on it. I have done this a few times before and never had any issues.

This time when I went to export the clip I was getting messages across the screen about ‘nesting’. I have no idea what this was and when I looked it up online everyone was just saying that it was an error that happens after Adobe Premiere Pro has been recently updated; obviously this was not helpful advice.

This is what the video looked like when I tried to export it. 

I played around with the clip for a little bit to see if I could figure out why it was coming up with an error message but nothing was working. In the end I used the reverse speed filter, exported the clip, and then imported and put the warp stabiliser on it. I do not know why it would only let me do it this way and not the other way around but it was very frustrating. This taught me about patience and determination as I came very close to giving up on the clip when I tried to export it for the third time and there was still an error.

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Editing- 1

I used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit my documentary film together but before I began editing I created a small script with the layout of the film to make editing easier. I wrote 5 scripts before deciding on the layout of the film. Below is my final script.

I have decided to only include Selena and Jan in my film because autism in women and girls is not talked about very often and both Selena and Jan were very eloquent in their description of what autism is to them and how it affects them. I also want my audience to see the effort that these two women put into ‘acting normal’ and by including only these two women it will allow the audience to have more of a connection to them than if there were a lot of people involved in the film. 

I have decided to put a graphic at the beginning of my film over the clip of Selena describing autism because I think that she describes it so well and I want the audience to be able to visualise the graphic equaliser graph that she talks about. I also think that it will work well to grab the audiences attention at the beginning of the film. Below is the 30 clip of Selena describing autism that the graphic will go over. 

My lecturer Andy has volunteered to create a graphic for me for the intro to my film. We sat down and I talked about what I wanted the graphic to look like and how long it should be. Below is a screenshot of the finished graphic by Andy. 

After editing together the interviews, the bare bones of my film, I decided to look for music that would work well with my film so that I could begin to edit in b-roll afterwards and see how the edits worked with the music. 

I wanted to find music long enough that I would not have to do a lot of editing to repeat it but I also needed music that would match the tone of my film. 

I found a website of a composer who creates background music that is free to download and use on videos as long as he is created, longzijun.wordpress.com/music. There was a lot of good music on his site and it took me quite a while to go through it. 

Below is the music that I picked initially but after putting it on my video and watching it, I realised that the music is too sad sounding and didn’t give my film the tone that I wanted.

After searching through more upbeat music I found the music in the video below. This music is more upbeat and has a quicker tempo which works well with the video. Even though the music is more upbeat than the previous one, it is still quite neutral and not overly happy or peppy.  

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Autism: Misconceptions and the Workplace

The National Autistic Society’s campaign to raise awareness and understanding of autism, Think Differently- Act Positively, commissioned a survey to find out about public perception of autism. 

Below are my notes on the most important and relevant facts and statistics about the general public’s perception of autism and how that lack of understanding presents itself in the workplace. 

Previous campaigns to raise awareness have obviously been successful, with 92% of respondents to the National Autistic Society’s survey saying that they have heard of autism; but there is still a lack of understanding of what autism actually is and how it affects people. 

39% of people still believe the ‘Rainman myth’, thinking that most people with autism have special abilities and only 48% of people have even heard of Asperger’s syndrome. 

This lack of understanding is a major part of why only 15% of adults with autism are in full-time employment. Another aspect of this is that most adults with autism who have been in employment say that there is a huge lack of support in the workplace. 

And while  67% of respondents say that they would feel comfortable working with someone with autism, there is an obvious gap between what people say and what is actually happening in work places with 83% of people with Asperger’s saying that they have faced problems as a direct result of others not understanding them. 

I am hoping that my film can contribute to helping more people actually understand autism and what people with autism have to deal with on a day to day basis. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Queer Britain: Does God Hate Queers?

For research I have looked at another documentary series that talks to subjects about issues that they face. In this episode the narrator and openly gay, Riyadh, meets other gay people to discuss religion and how it affects them as a gay person.

The episode begins with Riyadh addressing the issues that religion has with same sex relationships and he presents some facts to back it up, such as the fact that in ‘72 countries, same sex relationships are still illegal’. By beginning the episode with what the issue is and backing it up with facts, Riyadh is presenting the importance of why he has created the episode. This would be a good way to begin my documentary, by explaining what autism is and maybe giving some facts as to why there are still issues surrounding autism, especially women with autism. 

In this documentary series they put b-roll of the location of the next subject before introducing them and then their name fades onto the screen. I think that this fading of the names looks really good and works better than having it just pop up or fly in from the side. This is a technique I am going to try with the names in my video and see if it works as aesthetically well in my documentary as it does in this one. Although in my documentary I will not be having the name across the whole screen as they do in this documentary and as you can see below.

When one of the subjects Josh, is talking about he was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, there is a pan over a Jehovah’s Witness leaflet. I think that using something like this could work really well in my documentary for parts when one of my subjects is talking about something specific. So maybe when Selena talks about music that helps her, or Josh talks about books that show autistic children, there could be a pan over the book cover or something similar. 

Although there are a lot of issues discussed through out this episode, the documentary ends by addressing the issues but ending on a positive note about how the subjects are getting on with their lives. I think this is a great way to end a documentary because by readdressing the issues you remind the audience of the reality of the situation but then empower the person who is dealing with this situation in their lives. I think ending this way would work well in my film because although autism can be difficult and bring lots of struggles, some people like Selena also see the positives that it brings. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

B-roll in Cardiff City Centre

Because for Jan I have a limited amount of b-roll, as she is essentially bed-bound, I am going to shoot around Cardiff city centre so that I have other b-roll that I can use along with what I have shot with Jan in her room and also use these city shots for transitions in my film.

When I went out to shoot it was a Friday afternoon but it was surprisingly quiet. I set up the camera in a bunch of different places at different heights to catch shots of people walking by and cars driving past. Below are screen shots of the b-roll I took in Cardiff’s city centre. The footage that I shot in the city centre is about 10 minutes long.

Whilst I was filming in the city centre I also took some footage that was out of focus. I did this because there is a part in Jan’s interview when she talks about feeling like she’s living behind a pane of glass and can’t quite grasp how to behave ‘normally’ and I thought that having out of focus shots of people just doing normal things like walking around would work really well to symbolise the feeling that Jan describes in her interview.

I am happy with the footage that I have from the city centre and even though it wasn’t very busy I have done the best I could to make it look populated. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Sex, Drugs & Murder: Life in the Red Light Zone

All of the documentaries that have looked at for research so for have had a narrator who is a part of the film and speaks with subjects on camera. As this is not how my documentary is going to be filmed, I have found a documentary on BBC that takes a similar approach to how I intend to edit together my film. Sex, Drugs & Murder is a documentary series that follows the lives of four female sex workers in Leeds’ red light district. There is not a narrator who is on camera speaking with the girls, the documentary uses text on the screen to tell the audience what is happening and then sometimes the person behind the camera asks a question but I think that they leave that in just so the audience has some context for the answer the subject is giving.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p050qfl8/sex-drugs-murder-life-in-the-red-light-zone-8-under-pressure

The way that this documentary is edited together is with the women talking to camera and b-roll is edited over some of this. The edit makes it so that the audience knows what the women are talking about without having a narrator or voice over having to tell them what is happening. There is also a break where neutral or transitional b-roll is shown between the different women so that the audience knows that the episode is moving onto seeing the next woman. I think that this works well and I intend to use this style of editing within my own film. Having a short break between subjects works well to let the audience know that the film is moving on. 

This documentary uses shallow depth of field a lot to make their b-roll more interesting as well as including some out of focus shots when a subject is talking about something that cannot be shown on camera, such as their sex work. This is a technique that I intend to use in my film as I think it allows the audience to visualise in their heads what the subject is talking about without having distracting b-roll on the screen. 

The b-roll throughout the episode was sometimes shots of the women doing things, different shots of inside their houses, and was sometimes of random things like washing hanging out, a cat on the street, trees swaying in the wind, cars driving down a road. It was helpful to see this as I was planning on shooting b-roll of things around Cardiff but was unsure of how well it would fit into my film. Seeing on this BBC documentary that b-roll of seemingly random things works well in this type of documentary has proven to me that my idea will work.

Another thing that I noticed was that when a new subject was introduced, her name was shown on the screen. I think that this works really well and I will be doing something similar to introduce the subjects in my short film. 

This documentary has still credits but does it in a way that I have not seen very often. The credits are shown at the bottom as b-roll footage is still on the screen.

I think that this is an interesting way to show credits but I don’t think it would work well in my film. I feel that the last footage shown before the credits in my film is really strong and powerful, as it is Selena saying that it should be okay for her to be who she is. I think that if I cut to other b-roll footage instead of just a black screen with credits, it might take away from that powerful ending.

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Gender and Autism

After Jan’s interview it got me thinking more about what her and Selena had talked about in regards to women and girls with autism. I decided to do some more research into this area.

The first research I did was to look at the ‘Gender and Autism’ page on the National Autistic Society’s website. Below are screenshots of the information on the website where I have highlighted important information. 

http://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/gender.aspx

Diagnosis processes have come a long way from 1944 when Hans Asperger concluded that women and girls are not affected by autism but it seems that there is still a high percentage of women and girls who are going undiagnosed. 

It is interesting that the research here suggests that women and girls are better at hiding their difficulties than boys or men because this is exactly what Selena and Jan told they felt. Since women and girls usually do not present stereotypical symptoms it seems that they are often overlooked. This research states that there is a ‘historic bias towards men and boys in the diagnostic criteria for autism’ and this really stands out to me. I have an interest in women’s issues and feminism and this ‘historic bias’ is not something that I have ever encountered with autism. I want to explore this in my documentary film and look at how women so often are undiagnosed. 

Here the research indicates that it is partly the way society expects girls and women to behave in their communication that creates a need for these girls and women to mask or mimic ‘normal’ behaviour. Although girls and women can share some stereotypical autistic traits, they do not always. So they might not always be easily diagnosed using those stereotypical characteristics.  

It shocks me that in this day and age ‘the current international diagnostic criteria for autism (in IDC-10) do not give examples of the types of difficulties experienced by women and girls.’ Under diagnosing women and girls leads to huge issues and is likely why a lot of women with autism experience mental health problems. 

As this is such a big issue that I have not seen addressed in other documentaries it is something that I would like to focus my film on, to try and bring attention to this side of autism not usually seen by the general public. 

[majoraimeeherd-blog]

Jan: Interview

I met Jan when I was shooting b-roll with Peter. They are friends and Peter introduced me to Jan who told me that she wanted to be a part of my project. It was quite late into my project but I was happy to at least interview Jan as she could provide important information or a different opinion than my other subjects already had. 

When I went to Jan’s flat to film, it was not the best set up. The only way I could describe her flat is that it looks like she was a hoarder. The only place to sit was her bed so that is where I had to interview. I also could not get to any of the windows to open the blinds so I had to make the most out of the led light that I had brought with me. Below is a screen shot of Jan’s interview which was about 50 minutes long.

Here are my notes from recording the interview afterwards.

A little bit of the way into the video, Jan’s neighbour turned on their washing machine. This machine must have been pressed up against the wall by Jan’s bed because there are some instances throughout the interview where you can hear the ‘whir’ of the machine. I am going to do some research and see what I can do to eliminate this sound.

The video also looks darker on my laptop than it did on the back of the camera so when it goes into Premiere I will lighten it up. 

This interview was very interesting because although Jan holds very negative views of her autism, a lot of what she said lined up with what Selena talked about in her interview. It seems that there is a very unique side to being a woman with autism that is not as stereotypical as most boys or men who are diagnosed. I think that this is a very important aspect to address in my film. 

This interview taught me about making the most out of a situation. Even though Jan’s interview was a little bit last minute and the setting was not ideal, Jan gave a really great interview that will help my documentary a lot. It also taught me that being prepared pays off, when I showed up to a dark room I was able to light Jan using the led that I had brought with me. 

Now that all of my interviews are done I can start putting together the script and layout for my documentary.