Documentary Making Assignment

Tuesday April 26th:

Today has been the start to a new unit, in fact, two units. One is the documentary assignment we will mainly be doing in class and the other is mainly a homework assignment that we do in our own time (self-directed study). However, we got a head start on the homework unit by starting it in class. This unit is full of task sheets & work sheets that will need to be submitted 2 months from now, Friday June 24th. The first task is to do two presentations about either N&S, BBC, The Walt Disney Company, News Corporation, ITV or Vivendi Universal. I'm doing The Walt Disney Company and BBC as I know the most about them and I did do some research on BBC on First Diploma in Media last year and I already know a bit of research on Disney. For the other unit, we were just given the introduction and the brief to the start of the assignment.

Wednesday April 27th

Like the beginning to every Wednesday, we continued on what we were doing yesterday evening. We got given another 2 hours to do the homework assignment in class. And in Harry's lesson we learned about some conventions in documentaries.

Tuesday May 3rd

Today in Andy's lesson, we were learning more about codes and conventions and elements in documentaries like vox pops interviews, experts etc.
Wednesday May 18th

Today we all got put into groups. And I started to do the "Social & Community Action Worksheet".

Tuesday 24th May

Today I have had my first group meeting with George and Holly. We have all discussed with each other our ideas for our factual documentary and social documentary. We discussed about our opinions on each ones and also discussed if we were capable of doing them and what research/information we could use and people who we could interview. We ended up going with Holly's idea for teenagers eating healthily and George's idea on young independent film makers around the local area as George has a lot of connections.

Wednesday 25th May

Today, I have started to write the treatment.

Tuesday 7th June

Today I have returned from half term and the first thing we had was a minutes meeting so that me, George and Holly can all discuss what we are going to do and what we need to do. I need to finish off the treatment as the last thing I did was a draft for it. I'm going to do that now and we also asked Andy whether we are allowed to use our own cameras instead of the college cameras. Andy has said yes because in our previous assignment making the TV advert we booked college cameras and used them then so we have proved then that we can book college cameras. This is very convenient for us because George has a camera that is better than the college ones and a tripod so we can film whenever we like instead of book it and wait. Especially when all the cameras could be booked up like last time in my TV advert we planned to film on a Monday but got pushed to a Tuesday because all the cameras were booked up for Monday. But this way we can use the cameras whenever we like.

Wednesday June 8th

Today, I have officially finished the treatment so I am now moving on to do the shooting script. I also printed out a copy of the treatment to give to Holly to help her with the storyboard.

Friday June 10th:

Today I have had a minutes meeting with george and Holly, we have discussed any issues and the biggest issue we are now having is the fact that George will be absent all week next week as he has to go away and do a training course for where he works, which is PC World. There is no way George cannot cancel this as he has been cancelling it for 3 months now and either has to do it or he will lose his job. As a group, we have been discussing all the solutions for this and have found ways to work around our problems.

Additionally, we were planning to use George's video camera to film our documentaries so we do not have to go through the hassle of booking a certain time to rent out a camera from Phil. In my last video production assignment, we were planning to film a Kit Kat advert on a Monday, we went to Phil but all the cameras were booked up for all day that day so we had to do it Tuesday despite the fact that the actor who was going to play as one of the characters in the advert (this wasn't someone on our course or in our group) could not make it that day as it clashes with his course, he does a public services course and cannot leave class to film. We ended up filming with another person who could make it for that time. So the original plan was to use George's camera so we could film anytime that we like but now we'll have to book it from Phil for a certain time.

We have now agreed that Me and Holly will take most of the responsibility for the filming for the healthy eating documentary. Me and Holly will film next week for the healthy eating documentary while George will be absent and when George comes back, he will do the voice overs for the healthy eating documentary, this is the best we can do because the deadline is two weeks today. And George will film most of the footage for the filmmaking documentary. One third of the documentary for local filmmakers will be archive footage anyway and George is going to send us this archive footage to us by email or memory stick. All the young local filmmakers we're planning to interview are people George knows very well. Holly has also done some research and annotated it all, I did a little bit of research for this and I'm going to highlight and annotate it over the weekend.

Tuesday June 14th:

Today is the day we are filming. We did all the homework over the weekend and yesterday, I came into college to check if the camera and tripod was definately booked for today, how long and the other reason I was in yesterday was to do some of the homework assignment. We originally planned to start filming at 9.15am this morning but some incidents happened that meant Holly couldn't make it by 9.15 and I had to wait until 11.15 for her to turn up so that we could film together. We eventually started filming at 11.15 outside E block at the fountain. As we were doing this, we were showing each other the storyboards, shooting script and the shooting schedule.

We managed to get me to stay in the continuity of each shot. For example, in my previous video production assignment, we made a few mistakes, I would call it a "movie mistake" but this wasn't a movie. There were continuity errors like me in the advert 1 second standing in front of a vending machine, then in the next shot, I've jumped (in less than a second) to another vending machine a few feet away. And another continuity error where when the bullies in the advert walk inside, they switch sides in each shot, with Max on the left and Jonathon on the right, then the next shot, they've switched sides. So I feel that I have improved on filming and staying in continuity of the shots because I noted this to Holly and we kept track of what positions I was in & where I was standing/sitting in the last shots. I will need to note in my evaluation on how I feel that I have improved on video production assignments by doing this.

We have now filmed most of the footage for our documentary, the only footage we filmed was me as the presenter and as we were filming, a few of my friends went by so I asked them if they wanted to be in the documentary being interviewed and asked questions for the vox pops. They happily did it which was convenient for us now we've already started the interviews a little.

After our lunch break, we came back to class but had to charge up the battery for the camera. So we've plugged it into the wall and as we wait for it to charge, we've been passing the time by updating our blogs and we also had a minutes meeting. When the camera battery is fully charged, we will go out to film some people and ask them questions. We also discussed in our minutes meeting that we get the camera until 4.30pm tomorrow so we have until then to film our footage, upload and convert it onto the computer. As we still have it until tomorrow, one of us will need to take the equipment home. Although, we don't need the tripod anymore so I've handed that back in to Phil and I'm taking responsibility for the camera, I am going to take it home and hope to interview some people around Emsworth.

We have now grabbed some people and asked if they want to be interviewed, we have now got some footage to use for the Vox Pops and we're gonna get some more, I'm gonna film some people in Emsworth tonight and we will film some more people tomorrow.

Wednesday June 15th:

Today I came to college with a bit of new footage from yesterday. Me & Holly have realised the 3rd member of our team who is absent this week is not going to do any of the work and is not replying to any of our messages when we have contacted him. We have contacted him via. text, phoning and Facebook but he won't reply despite still being online on Facebook after we've tried to contact him. Me & Holly talked about making a new documentary for the factual idea because we realised he was meant to be doing most of it, as we discussed last week. So me & Holly did the right thing and went to Andy to say about our problem and what we thought we should do and what he thinks we should do. He says we should now make our own and not involve George, believing it was a good idea. So for the next 15 minutes, me and Holly talked about what idea we should do instead. We decided to do our new factual documentary about internet addiction.

After deciding what to do for that, we continued with filming for the social documentary - healthy eating. We interviewed a few more people for some vox pops footage and half of them were people we don't know. After doing that, we converted all of our footage and put it onto my hard drive.

Friday June 17th:

Today me and Holly talked about what we are going to do for the factual documentary. Yesterday on my day off, I got started on the post-production - the editing. I spent an hour editing my footage and I am one third finished with that now and I continued to edit in class today. We had a minutes meeting at the end of the lesson to discuss what we are doing now and when to film. We cannot book the camera and tripod until we have finished the pre-production paperwork. Holly is going to do the justidication, treatment, risk assessment sheet, shooting script and the call sheet. I am going to do the proposal, contingency plan, shooting schedule and the storyboard. As soon as we get it done, I will ask Phil if I can book the camera.

Tuesday June 21st:

Today the member of our team returned to college and now seems to care about doing the work despite not doing anything and not being able to prove he has done any work. Andy decided that he will do the work for his own factual program (the young film makers documentary) and me and Holly will do our own factual documentary (the social network addiction documentary). Today we started to film the first shot of me as the presenter of the documentary but it started to rain a little, at first we were filming under a tree so it was actually ok but it started to rain more heavier so we quickly took the camera off the tripod and put it away. We went back to E Block & decided to film for other bits of the documentary like the vox pops.

We asked a few people during that time but then we stopped at about 1pm to have a break. We then came back at 2pm and decided that seeing as the weather was still bad, we decided to interview James about students who use Facebook in class, although, he was busy so we kept filming a few more vox pops to pass the time, then once James was free, we interviewed him, which went very well. We asked James on Friday if he could be in it and he claimed that he was more than happy to say what he wants to say in it because we told him it is about Social Networking Addiction.

After filming James' interview, I went outside and realised not only that it has not rained for a while but that it was also sunny - perfect weather to film outside. We returned to the location between D Block and the college car park to film and our aim was to finish by 5pm so we could return the tripod to Phil before he goes home so we didn't have to take the tripod home ourselves. We also refilmed the first shot because it was brighter at that time and my hair probably looked a little different so we thought we should refilm the first part again to stay in the continuity of the documentary when we edit it.

Wednesday June 22nd:

Today I converted all the footage for the factual documentary into AVI's and continued to edit my social documentary. Then I did some of the homework assignment that is also due in this Friday.

Friday June 24th:

Today is deadline day, although as my group ended up very behind because one of our team members didn't do any work and left us to do it, we have been given an extension. Today I spent the first half of the day focusing on getting my other assignment done, the homework assignment then I continued to edit. I have now almost finished my social documentary. I will need to ask for an extension to get this all done in time.

Wednesday June 29th:

Today I have finished editing both of my factual and social documentaries and I brought in my laptop to college because I have a programme on my laptop called "Windows DVD Maker" that has loads of templates for DVD menu's. I've now burned them and checking through my work and I am now submitting it.