Vivek Pun- Practical Production Evaluation

For my Practical production I worked in a group of four to produce a documentary entitled “ The House Of Bhangra”. The metaphor “House of Bhangra” was put into effect as it instantly connotes to the Target audience, that the Documentary is solely going to be based on Bhangra as a genre, hence instantly conveying to the audience the documentaries narrative. The documentaries aim is to show how Bhangra has developed in the U.K over the years and how it has both changed and maintained its traditional values over the years, rooting back to Punjab, India.

Prior to making the documentary, we had all decided that every aspect of producing it would be equally shared amongst all the members. However we found whilst working on the production this was not always possible, as some people were unable to join other members of the group whilst filming our footage or editing it. I had felt that the group found filming the footage for the documentary just as hard as it was to edit the production. The reason for this is because we often found it hard to capture footage, as the majority of the time we had to work around people as oppose to work when it was convenient for us. For example whilst conducting interviews certain interviews had to be cancelled due to the fact that certain Bhangra Artists were unreliable, hence making it very difficult for us to gain the desired amount of footage. We also struggled to get footage of Bhangra gigs as we had to film in a somewhat lively environment, in order to make Bhangra appear in the popular manner we desired it to. We had however managed to get hold of enough footage, but it did take a lot longer then the group members had expected and this made us realise, the topic we had chosen was not going to be as easy to work on as we initially thought. We also managed to make use of archive footage that we had managed to research, hence conforming to another documentary convention.

From our studies in Module 2 the group took a great deal of influence and Inspiration from Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and our brief outlook on Dziga Vertov’s Documentary “ The man with a movie camera”. In particular we had taken a great look on both Documentaries use of Montage sequences, and we had chosen to add Montage sequences in particular to the opening of the documentary. We chose to do so as we could convey a narrative by adding a various amount of shots quickly placed one after the other at a quick pace without the need to go into detail or explain them. This hence makes it easy for the audience to identify that through the montages used in the opening the audience is enjoying Bhangra’s lively vibrations hence furthermore commending Bhangra as genre. This also enabled us to “cut a long story short”, as through the montage sequences in the opening we were able to convey what we had wished to but still keep the documentary within the desired time limit. We also took great influence from a Gurinder Chadha Documentary, entitled “ I am British But”. The 1989 Documentary was her first piece of work and as we aimed to do the Documentary was both “short and sweet”. The documentary was about Bhangra, and how it has developed in the U.K. The documentary was also of even higher relevance as it aimed to attract the same Target Audience as us (Young Indians). This Documentary was also very effective in providing us ideas as it included many key conventions that we attempted to apply such as Montage sequences and Vox pops. We also made use of a Linear narrative following all events in a chronological order and in a sequence as did “Im British But”.The documentary also provided us with an idea of where to film and we did initially begin filming at one of the places where she filmed for her documentary (Southall Broadway).

The group also decided to make use of on screen subtitles whilst conducting the primary interview with Channi from Alaap as oppose to using the interviewee’s voice. Despite this not being something that is commonly used in documentaries we felt this was very effective as we felt that the key attention was not to be focused on us, but what the primary audience is required to be shown on screen. Hence it could be said we were merely background characters in the documentary, and though we were involved in the production off it we were not shown on screen, hence conforming to the Documentary Mode “Fly on the wall”.

The group decided to choose Channel 4 as the institution for our Documentary as it is a commercial broadcaster and hence focuses more on the entertaining aspect of what it airs. Though we also aim to educate and inform our audience through the documentary, it was clear that due to the fact the documentary was regarding music, the documentary was bound to contain a more entertaining essence to it as oppose to Educating and informing. We also felt by choosing Channel 4 we were able to target a specific audience as Channel 4 shows usually do. Though we know that the Target audience (young Indians) were already highly likely to know about the genre, we were highly aware that they are highly more likely to view the show, as oppose to our secondary Audience (White and other ethnicities), as they were more likely to be attracted to it and pay greater interest. The group however did think about choosing the BBC as the institution for our documentary, however we did realise that the Documentary isn’t the type to be aired on a Public Service Broadcaster as it doesn’t intend to cater to all types of Audiences needs.
Therefore we felt our documentary was successful in entertaining, educating and informing our audience as we conformed to a range of documentary conventions and applied the use of key concepts into our production. The Documentary aimed to break certain stereotypes about Bhangra and reinforce others, and the group did feel we had done so. We also felt our documentary included authenticity aswell as originality and we didn’t attempt to imitate any other films hence conforming to Michael Rabiger’s thoughts that “Films that succeed—fiction and documentary—do not imitate other films.”