My group of four, including myself, created this documentary to illustrate a research project at the Simon Fraser University SIAT iSpace labs. The project explores how architectural design processes can be enhanced by virtual reality. My group members were Linda Nguyen, Jason Chen, and Justin Poon.

After the pre-production process of storyboarding, meeting with our interviewees, finding locations, and preparing to shoot, we started by filming the interviews. I ran at least one of the cameras for both interviews, while Linda did the sound, Justin managed another camera, and Jason monitored the sound. I also set up the lavalier microphones for each shoot.

When we interviewed Jacob Freiberg, we had to switch between three different cameras, which unfortunately resulted in different looking footage from each. I colour corrected to the more bluish-green footage for the final submission in this course, which I will fix for the next iterations of the video.

We used natural lighting for both interviews, to show our subjects in the context of a building with modern architecture. I also had to colour correct the footage from two cameras for the interview with Dr. Riecke a little.

After we shot the interviews, we shot the footage of Dr. Riecke and Jacob demonstrating the virtual reality equipment in their iSpace lab, using the storyboards I drew. I directed and operated one of the cameras most of the time.

It was challenging to shoot in such low lighting conditions, but we made do, since we wanted to show both the users of the system and the display simultaneously.

After the interviews and lab footage were done, I helped shoot more b-roll of different modern buildings, an architectural model, people moving through various spaces, and context shots.

I edited a rough cut of the film to show to Dr. Riecke and Jacob about a week before the final presentation in class. I found that editing a documentary was much more work than narrative films I had done before. Going through multiple hours of interviews to try to construct an interesting story in five minutes was very challenging.

After Linda edited the film according to the feedback we received from Dr. Riecke and Jacob, I helped put finishing touches on the final presentation version of the film. I did some colour correction, helped with the dynamic typography, and made some other minor adjustments. We were working right up to the last minute!

I think our presentation went well and I am fairly happy with the film. I definitely learned a lot about working with a client, and trying something I’ve never done before like making a documentary.