Segment 3: Public Opinion

Our survey video for the research on palmistry gave an interesting variety of responses. Therefore, we decided to use it for the public response in our documentary. However, the video and sound quality is poor and there is a lot of background noise.
We have used only the relative part of this video in our documentary.

Segment 2: The Street Palmist

Before we begin with our discussion on the topic; Palmistry, we thought it would be better to introduce it to the audience first. We wanted to show a stereotypical perspective that majority of us have about Palmistry in this country. So we went to the place where all these "fake" fortune tellers or charlatan are found. We were surprised to see so many of them sitting on the footpath with their boards and stuff. 

 THE CLIENT: Hamza Khan

        As we had to shoot the scene, we took a friend of ours, Hamza Khan, with us to be the client. Hamza could also be seen in another part of our documentary where we took the public opinion. Hamza was dressed in shalwar kameez to represent the local majority which avails such services. 

THE MAKING

This was a test shot. We were checking the zoom of the handy cam. The zoom button when pushed, zoomed in or out very quickly. So in order to zoom out slowly, it had to be controlled carefully to keep the zoom smooth and steady. The surface was uneven, so we had to adjust the tripod properly to avoid any jerky movement or a canted shot. 

This shot is similar to the first test shot. We recorded it again to ensure we were doing it right. However, we used this shot in our video because the hand gestures of the palmist give a more realistic impression to the viewer. 

This is an over the shoulder shot of the palmist just as we have drawn on our storyboard. It was a fairly easy shot. We managed to zoom out properly in our first attempt. 

The knob of the tripod was too tight, which caused friction and irregularity in the pan movement. Also, Hamza Khan, the palmist's client, turned his head around which caused the entire shot to be certainly unnatural. 

The second attempt at this shot was not as much a fail. The pan movement was smooth and steady. So it was an acceptable shot. 

We wanted to take a shot of the client's hands so that his lines could be shown clearly. In this particular shot, Hamza's hand was half covered by the palmist's hand and so the lines were not prominent.

This is a pan movement to show the client's face, but Hamza smiled by mistake

and the camera didn't pan smoothly so we couldn't use this shot.

We zoomed out from Hamza's close up to mid shot. The way he nods while listening to the palmist seems very natural so we decided to use this shot.

We took this shot to introduce the palmist by showing his board. However, we used only first 2 seconds in slow motion.

This shot was unnecessary. The angle was not correct as Hamza's hand could not be seen clearly.

We tracked the camera from top to bottom but it didn't seem to work because it took quite a few seconds to cover the subject (Hamza's head to hand). We couldn't use such a long shot because of out time limit.

This shot was not very hard to capture and we nailed it at out first try.

This is the ending shot of the first scene. Hamza was not in the middle of the frame plus the camera did not zoom out at the right time.

Posted by Shahbano and Ifrah

Segment 1: Location

Now that the story board is ready, we have to film our shots. We our beginning the documentary with introducing the primary location i.e. the city of Lahore. Thus, we decided to film the main historic monuments of Lahore i.e. the citadel of Lahore, the Shahi Qilla (aka Lahore Fort) and the Badshahi Masjid.

So we took the storyboard and the handy cam and went to the Walled City Lahore, where these great monuments are located. Ifrah didnt want to do the camera work so I filmed the shots while Ifrah explained them to me as they were written in the storyboard.
The structure of the Lahore Fort is so huge that i couldnt fit the whole of it in the frame. However, I crossed the barbed wire, securing the Hazuri Bagh and somehow managed to capture most of it.

It wasnt easy to shoot how we had planned. We shot each shot 4 to 5 times until we got it perfectly.

This was my first try to take this shot. I was trying to pan it slowly to give it some time to show properly in the video, but the pan wasn't smooth at all which looked inappropriate. Also, as i was filming, the pedestrians showing in the frame interrupted the shot. Thus, the first try was clearly a fail.

This was my second try at this shot. This time there were no pedestrians in the shot and it was relatively better than the previous one. However, the pan movement was still jerky. So we decided to try again until we could get it right.

This time I panned it quickly to keep the movement steady with minimum jerks possible. Fortunately, i achieved a smooth pan, however, it was a bit fast. But we thought it was good enough for it had to appear only for a few seconds at the most.

Next, we moved on to film the other great monument, the Badshahi Masjid, which is situated opposite the Fort.

We wanted to film the Masjid, but the security guards didnt let us take the handy cam and the tripod inside. So we shot the entrance of the Masjid instead. There wasnt much space in front of the structure so I took the shot from the side. Coincidentally, it was exactly how we had drawn it on the storyboard. 

This was the first attempt. The shot was fine except for the electricity pole that messed it up at end.

This was the second attempt. The shot was interrupted by the pedestrian's head walking by, so we had to take it again.

This was the third and successful attempt. The pan movement wasnt too jerky so it was a pretty much acceptable shot.

Posted by Shahbano Tariq

Story board!

Never drawn a story board before. But, Yayy! we have Google! our first "fail" attempt at the story board looked more like a 'bored-during-a-lecture-doodling'. Nevertheless, we searched Google for a few samples of story boards, and realised what we were actually suppose to do i.e we have to draw every single shot exactly how we want to shoot it, along with explaining its camera angle, camera movement, lighting, sound and the transition effect. We drew a rough draft of our shots and at last began to properly sketch our new and much better story board.

        

Fortunately, Ifrah and I, we both are good at art so drawing our scenes wasn't really an issue for us. In fact we enjoyed drawing. Our storyboard turned out to be pretty interesting, as per the feedback we got after a small presentation on our storyboard explaining to the rest of the class how we wish to begin and proceed with our documentary.  

Once the drawings were complete, the hard part began. We weren't so sure of the shots and angles and transitions that we could use. So we watched some documentaries on YouTube and learnt how they had used camerawork and mise-en-scene and the transitions between shots. We were inspired by some of the videos and tried to use some similar shots and angles. I quickly studied mise-en-scene and camera work from my A1 notes and decided what we would use for our video. The lighting would be natural as we are showing a stereotype of reality. However, we will add a background music; something local, to give a feel of mystery to the viewer in the beginning of the documentary. I have explained the storyboard shot by shot below:

Shot no. 01

DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Low angle shot

Camera Movement: Pan from left to right.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
No digetic sound.

Transition: Dissolve


Shot no. 02

 DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Low angle shot

Camera Movement: Pan from left to right.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
No digetic sound.

Transition: Dissolve



Shot no. 03

 DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Wide-long shot

Camera Movement: Pan from left to right.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street.

Transition: Dissolve


Shot no. 04

DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Wide-long shot

Camera Movement: Slowly zoom out.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street. Slightly audible conversation in Punjabi b/w 2 men.

Transition: Dissolve

Shot no. 05

DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Close-up

Camera Movement: Slowly zoom out.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street. Slightly audible conversation in Punjabi b/w 2 men.

Transition: Dissolve

Shot no. 06
 DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Close-up

Camera Movement: Pan from left to right.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street. Slightly audible conversation in Punjabi b/w 2 men.

Transition: Dissolve

Shot no. 7 is a repetition of shot no. 4.

Shot no. 8 is a repetition of shot no. 6.

Shot no. 09

DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: High angle shot

Camera Movement: Slowly zoom in.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street. Slightly audible conversation b/w 2 men.

Transition: Dissolve


Shot no. 10

DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Close-up

Camera Movement: Slowly zoom in.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street. Slightly audible conversation in Punjabi b/w 2 men.

Transition: Dissolve

Shot no. 11

DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Wide shot

Camera Movement: Slowly zoom out.

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street. Slightly audible conversation in Punjabi b/w 2 men.

Transition: Dissolve


Shot no. 12

DESCRIPTION
Type of shot: Long shot

Camera Movement: Pan

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street. Slightly audible conversation in Punjabi b/w 2 men.

Transition: Dissolve

 

Shot no. 13  

DESCRIPTIONType of shot: Low angle extreme long shot

Camera Movement: Tilt upwards

Lighting: Day light.

Sound: Non-digetic background music
http://snd.sc/yKQcbe
Slight digetic sound from the street.

Transition: Dissolve

Posted by Shahbano.