House Of Bhangra
Satti, Daljit, Karandeep, Vivek
House Of Bhangra is a documentary which teaches the audience about how Bhangra has expanded in the past few years. It proves to be enteraing, educational and imforative.
In this documentary, we show how popular Bhangra has become. We start all the way back in the 1960's and show how it has become popular and expanded since then. We interview Channi Alaap, who was an Artist in the 1960's and 70's. He talks about when he first came to the U.K, how there was no-one listing to Bhangra music and he talks about how it has expanded in 40 years, from the past to present. He also talks about how it is going to increase in populairty in the future.
The documentary is authentic compared to other Bhangra documentaries. We stuck common documentary convetions in the film.
Overall, I enjoyed working in this Production, it was fun and educational at the same time.
Monday 25 June 2007
Tuesday 19 June 2007
Vivek Pun-House of Bhangra Film review
House Of Bhangra
Directors: Vivek Pun, Karandeep Dhunna, Daljit Dogra, Satvinder Garewal- 2007
House of Bhangra is a documentary which overall proves to be all entertaining, educating and informative for audiences who may view it. Combining a range of documentary techniques and methods of footage we were able to produce a unique and authentic documentary.
The short documentary follows in a chronological order , dating back to the 60’s and 70’s to today. This clearly hence exemplifies Bhangra’s development within the U.K. The documentary starts off with archive footage of Bhangra in the past and key factors that make up the genre even today, the documentary then follows onto a interview with highly successful and influential Bhangra artist Channi from Alaap and then leads to the finale which shows how exactly Bhangra did develop in the UK into the increasingly westernised popular genre it has now become. The interview in particular plays key significance and Channi, is a Bhangra artist that came from the past and still is highly effective in working with Bhangra even today. This enables him to view Bhangra from the past and view it today, enabling him to analyse it effectively and both praise and criticise it with great hindsight.
The documentary is highly authentic and unique in the fact that there are hardly any documentaries concerning the topic of Bhangra. This enabled us to be able to stick to ordinary and common documentary conventions and not have to worry about being unoriginal as the topic that was chosen itself is all original, unique and authentic. Hence we were able to effectively compile a range of archive and self-filmed footage to produce a hard-hitting, entertaining and well educating documentary about the Bhangra genre.
Interesting facts
. Satti pranked juggy D off his phone when we were planning to use him for an interview and juggy D phoned back and arranged for a place to beef him.
. A professional artist especially produced the beat in the introduction for the production.
Directors: Vivek Pun, Karandeep Dhunna, Daljit Dogra, Satvinder Garewal- 2007
House of Bhangra is a documentary which overall proves to be all entertaining, educating and informative for audiences who may view it. Combining a range of documentary techniques and methods of footage we were able to produce a unique and authentic documentary.
The short documentary follows in a chronological order , dating back to the 60’s and 70’s to today. This clearly hence exemplifies Bhangra’s development within the U.K. The documentary starts off with archive footage of Bhangra in the past and key factors that make up the genre even today, the documentary then follows onto a interview with highly successful and influential Bhangra artist Channi from Alaap and then leads to the finale which shows how exactly Bhangra did develop in the UK into the increasingly westernised popular genre it has now become. The interview in particular plays key significance and Channi, is a Bhangra artist that came from the past and still is highly effective in working with Bhangra even today. This enables him to view Bhangra from the past and view it today, enabling him to analyse it effectively and both praise and criticise it with great hindsight.
The documentary is highly authentic and unique in the fact that there are hardly any documentaries concerning the topic of Bhangra. This enabled us to be able to stick to ordinary and common documentary conventions and not have to worry about being unoriginal as the topic that was chosen itself is all original, unique and authentic. Hence we were able to effectively compile a range of archive and self-filmed footage to produce a hard-hitting, entertaining and well educating documentary about the Bhangra genre.
Interesting facts
. Satti pranked juggy D off his phone when we were planning to use him for an interview and juggy D phoned back and arranged for a place to beef him.
. A professional artist especially produced the beat in the introduction for the production.
review
House Of Bhangra
DALJIT // KARANDEEP // VIVEK // SATTI
DALJIT // KARANDEEP // VIVEK // SATTI
Interesting Facts:
The instrumental we had used for the introduction was made specially for the work by a producer.
The instrumental we had used for the introduction was made specially for the work by a producer.
Satti got drunk at my house when we was trying to edit.
Review:
House Of Bhangra is a documentry which shows how Bhangra has become extremely popular in the last couples of years,we show how Bhangra came into the Uk and the developed onto the mainstream couple of years ago and then we show how Bhangra is now in 2008.
We interviewed Channi Alaap who is been named the God Father of Bhangra, as he was the first person to bring it into the UK, he talked about how Bhangra has changed since back in the day and also what theres too look forward to in the future.
Our aim was too give it a quick fast effect, so we used fast cuts, and alot of montages, also we used beats that were lively with catchey rythms.
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Monday 7 May 2007
Vivek Pun- Final Progress Report
Well we've finally completed the production and we felt we worked well as a team and hopefully this will be reflected on our grades. The production was a lot harder to make then we initially thought it would be, but we're all glad its finally done, because it was both something interesting and very educating for all of us. We finished it off a few days later then most off the other groups due to not finding the right voiceover, but we managed to get someone and we felt their voice fitted well with what was being shown on screen. I think everyone in the group would agree that we would do quite a few things differently to improve the production if we could do it again, but i still think the production is of a high standard and worthy of a good grade.
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.”
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.”
Sunday 6 May 2007
FINAL progress report
Wellllllllll, we have completed our production.....it has beeen a very long process but i am glad to say it was a very interesting one as well we all there where many ups and downs to our production but it seems to have worked well. Alot of time and effort went into my pratical production and it has seemed to have payed of as i now belivive the effort will be accounted for by the result of my grade which i am hopeing will be somewaht a good standard. we struggled with the voiceover not realy gettiing the rite person for the job but we still believe that we have done well as we had found an indiividual and hope that he has made a diffrence.
Alll in alll i believe that we have done a good job of the production and are expectations of a good grade should be met by our actual grades. Karandeep
Alll in alll i believe that we have done a good job of the production and are expectations of a good grade should be met by our actual grades. Karandeep
Evaluation-karandeep
Practical Production Evaluation- House of Bhangra
For my practical production, I worked in a group of four and aimed to produce a cultural documentary called ‘House of Bhangra’. House of Bhangra is a cultural documentary that aims to inform its audience about the Indian music genre ‘Bhangra’. The documentary captures Bhangra from when it was first encountered in the U.K and how it has developed through the years showing the changes the music genre has gone through and how it is progressing now. There is a sense of comparison between the authentic parts of the genre progressing to the present path taken by the music genre. To make the documentary a success we identified that the title had to hold a vital relationship with the documentary if we where to get our target audience to watch this documentary. The chosen title as you are aware was ‘House of Bhangra’ the word House gave the title a more welcoming feel to the documentary as well as giving conations to a documentary based on Bhangra, the word Bhangra was chosen to give the audience a identification of what the documentary will b be based on.
In the planning stages of our practical production, we decided no to assign individual roles and responsibilities as we could share more wider input to the maximum as well as do each task with the input from four people rather that one or two, we where also all very egger to take part in all processing that was to be carried out. We all put in a vast amount of time in our production but it became obvious that our strengths where only used in some occasions as we where not all free to record/edit at the same time. Our strength in producing our documentary was clearly editing since our enthusiasm lied most with this aspect, as we edited our production at home making it easier to gather all group members to edit together more frequently. We where strong as we had covered all necessary documentaries related to ours to bring up a suitable narrative structure to our documentary.
After studying Bowling for columbine in module 2, we gained many profound impacts which where ideal to our documentary. The use of fly on the wall was very helpful as it gave an overall insight to our gigs included in our footage. Similarly using contrapuntal non-diegetic sound in our interviews was very successful because as the dialogue is progressing images of what is being said by the interviewee are shown through cut shots this gave the audience a clearer view of what was being said by the individual as some parts of the documentary may not be understandable by our secondary target audience. We used an original music track made by one of our group members as an intro to the documentary as it created a fast paste feeling to the documentary and the music genre. The use of mise en scene is significant in this montage where parties are shown in various clubs, to show the popularity of the music genre and build a comparison for when you start watching the documentary from the earl ages.
The opening of our documentary is a montage glamorising the idealistic view of the music genre as present today. We anchored all our images with the use of a typical Bhangra paste music beat in the background as we play our opening scene the effect of this is that it would give our secondary audience an idea of what the genre sounds like. Furthermore, we used continuous dissolves during the montage to construct a smooth effect, which in reality was used to enhance the superficial of what was being shown. To contrast the montage effectively the scene slow dissolve from the opening to the old fashioned theme of Bhangra, which begins in Punjab. Here it is obvious that the montage is shown as a comparison between the two different scenes. We thought it would be a smart idea if our documentary followed a chronological order, as it would help the viewers understand our documentary better and help build comparison between the both later in the documentary.
The documentary then goes on to use a range of shots throughout the documentary to convey our intentions and the type of values we are trying to promote. For, example the disequilibrium in our linear narrative is emphasised by cinema verte style footage, which means real footage as we mediated our documentary to show authentic scenes to give the documentary a realistic approach to its audience.
We then chose to use todrovs narrative structure and Rabigar as the two sides of new and old Bhangra is compared in the documentary to show two oppositions throughout the documentary. We also chose to use an interview in our documentary of a familiar face to the Bhangra audience as the interviewee was the part of the first ever Bhangra to ever sing in England. The use of this interview gives the opinion of his views on the new faze of Bhangra and shows a more authentic view of the genre which was used to build comparison between the old and new fazes of Bhangra. The use of the famous artist gave the documentary a more professional affect as well as giving our first target audience the option to familiarising with the singer.
After showing the authentic side of the documentary we then go on to show the more modern and present side of Bhangra to build a comparison to our audience. This part of the documentary begins with a montage of the present Bhangra to show how the genre has progressed and to build friction between both sides of the genre. We also included vox pops as it was necessary for us to show views of the music genre present through the views of someone in that faze this gave the audience an opinion through the eyes of someone else into the music genre.
House of Bhangra will be shown on a typical commercial channel, which can relate to show such documtaries such as Channel 4 as they take interest in such documtaries, which means they may contain our target audience as viewers of such channels.
In conclusion, House of Bhangra shows its purpose of educating and informing its target audience as well as entertaining them through the vast amounts of footage and comparison. The documentary explores the music genre in many ways showing all sides of the argument as well as implementing one by the use of mediation.
For my practical production, I worked in a group of four and aimed to produce a cultural documentary called ‘House of Bhangra’. House of Bhangra is a cultural documentary that aims to inform its audience about the Indian music genre ‘Bhangra’. The documentary captures Bhangra from when it was first encountered in the U.K and how it has developed through the years showing the changes the music genre has gone through and how it is progressing now. There is a sense of comparison between the authentic parts of the genre progressing to the present path taken by the music genre. To make the documentary a success we identified that the title had to hold a vital relationship with the documentary if we where to get our target audience to watch this documentary. The chosen title as you are aware was ‘House of Bhangra’ the word House gave the title a more welcoming feel to the documentary as well as giving conations to a documentary based on Bhangra, the word Bhangra was chosen to give the audience a identification of what the documentary will b be based on.
In the planning stages of our practical production, we decided no to assign individual roles and responsibilities as we could share more wider input to the maximum as well as do each task with the input from four people rather that one or two, we where also all very egger to take part in all processing that was to be carried out. We all put in a vast amount of time in our production but it became obvious that our strengths where only used in some occasions as we where not all free to record/edit at the same time. Our strength in producing our documentary was clearly editing since our enthusiasm lied most with this aspect, as we edited our production at home making it easier to gather all group members to edit together more frequently. We where strong as we had covered all necessary documentaries related to ours to bring up a suitable narrative structure to our documentary.
After studying Bowling for columbine in module 2, we gained many profound impacts which where ideal to our documentary. The use of fly on the wall was very helpful as it gave an overall insight to our gigs included in our footage. Similarly using contrapuntal non-diegetic sound in our interviews was very successful because as the dialogue is progressing images of what is being said by the interviewee are shown through cut shots this gave the audience a clearer view of what was being said by the individual as some parts of the documentary may not be understandable by our secondary target audience. We used an original music track made by one of our group members as an intro to the documentary as it created a fast paste feeling to the documentary and the music genre. The use of mise en scene is significant in this montage where parties are shown in various clubs, to show the popularity of the music genre and build a comparison for when you start watching the documentary from the earl ages.
The opening of our documentary is a montage glamorising the idealistic view of the music genre as present today. We anchored all our images with the use of a typical Bhangra paste music beat in the background as we play our opening scene the effect of this is that it would give our secondary audience an idea of what the genre sounds like. Furthermore, we used continuous dissolves during the montage to construct a smooth effect, which in reality was used to enhance the superficial of what was being shown. To contrast the montage effectively the scene slow dissolve from the opening to the old fashioned theme of Bhangra, which begins in Punjab. Here it is obvious that the montage is shown as a comparison between the two different scenes. We thought it would be a smart idea if our documentary followed a chronological order, as it would help the viewers understand our documentary better and help build comparison between the both later in the documentary.
The documentary then goes on to use a range of shots throughout the documentary to convey our intentions and the type of values we are trying to promote. For, example the disequilibrium in our linear narrative is emphasised by cinema verte style footage, which means real footage as we mediated our documentary to show authentic scenes to give the documentary a realistic approach to its audience.
We then chose to use todrovs narrative structure and Rabigar as the two sides of new and old Bhangra is compared in the documentary to show two oppositions throughout the documentary. We also chose to use an interview in our documentary of a familiar face to the Bhangra audience as the interviewee was the part of the first ever Bhangra to ever sing in England. The use of this interview gives the opinion of his views on the new faze of Bhangra and shows a more authentic view of the genre which was used to build comparison between the old and new fazes of Bhangra. The use of the famous artist gave the documentary a more professional affect as well as giving our first target audience the option to familiarising with the singer.
After showing the authentic side of the documentary we then go on to show the more modern and present side of Bhangra to build a comparison to our audience. This part of the documentary begins with a montage of the present Bhangra to show how the genre has progressed and to build friction between both sides of the genre. We also included vox pops as it was necessary for us to show views of the music genre present through the views of someone in that faze this gave the audience an opinion through the eyes of someone else into the music genre.
House of Bhangra will be shown on a typical commercial channel, which can relate to show such documtaries such as Channel 4 as they take interest in such documtaries, which means they may contain our target audience as viewers of such channels.
In conclusion, House of Bhangra shows its purpose of educating and informing its target audience as well as entertaining them through the vast amounts of footage and comparison. The documentary explores the music genre in many ways showing all sides of the argument as well as implementing one by the use of mediation.
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