Demons and Thieves Analysis

What is it about, and who did you interview?

• For our practice documentary we got the chance to interview the author of the book, “Demons and Thieves”, Lynda Berger. We also interviewed 3 students that had read the book in school, we got their views and opinions and whether they enjoyed the book. Also, we interviewed a teacher, Mrs Cooper, she had taught the book to students and we find out why she enjoyed teaching the book in particular. We explore the characters and the different worlds that are created by the author and what inspired to create such an imaginative world.

Front cover of the book.

What did you learn?• From doing this documentary, I have learnt many things for the

future and the main documentary. It is very important to speak clearly when interviewing someone so they can understand what is being said. Try not to stutter when asking questions is also important. To prevent these factors from occurring, try to learn the questions or have them in front of yourself. As a group we learnt the importance of using more than one camera, using two or three cameras in different position will allow the audience to see what is going on from different view points. It also means that it makes the documentary is moving at a quicker pace. This will also allow us to use cutaways, for example, when Lynda is talking about the characters we can cut to the characters photos that are on the board behind her so the audience know who she is talking about. Using many different cameras and camera angles may make it a bit more complicated to edit but it will make the quality of the documentary itself much higher.

How are you going to edit it?

• We will edit it as a group so we can learn new techniques ready for our main documentary and also it will get the job done quicker. We will edit on an Apple Mac using the iMovie software that is already installed on to the laptop. We will need to edit some of the clips to be shorter as there is a lot of footage that may not be needed. We will use a range of editing to tools to ensure the documentary is of a very good quality.

What could you use from this experience to improve your final

documentary?• There are many different factors I can take away from

this and therefore use to improve the quality of my final documentary. Firstly I can improve the way that I interview, if I were to interview again I would speak much clearer so I can be understood better. Also speak louder to compensate for the cameras as the sound can’t be picked up too well on the cameras. Also the use of multiple cameras would be very useful, it will allow to get a more dynamic conception of what is going on during the documentary. When it comes down to editing it means we will have a range of camera angles to use. This practice documentary has improved my general understanding of how to create a good standard documentary, with good camera angles, interviews styles and editing to a good standard.

What could you use from this experience to improve your final

documentary?• There are many different factors I can take away from

this and therefore use to improve the quality of my final documentary. Firstly I can improve the way that I interview, if I were to interview again I would speak much clearer so I can be understood better. Also speak louder to compensate for the cameras as the sound can’t be picked up too well on the cameras. Also the use of multiple cameras would be very useful, it will allow to get a more dynamic conception of what is going on during the documentary. When it comes down to editing it means we will have a range of camera angles to use. This practice documentary has improved my general understanding of how to create a good standard documentary, with good camera angles, interviews styles and editing to a good standard.