Izzy 

Section 1: Rational

Since starting this course, I have learnt many new skills and have done projects which I had never done before. The projects I completed on this course are:

• Short film

• Title sequence

• Music video

• Animation

• Film poster

• Podcast

I enjoyed doing all these projects because it allowed me to learn something new with each one and made me become more creative. However, my favourite concept of media is the film industry, so my favourite projects were the short film and music video. I love being in control with the camera when it comes to filming because I enjoy finding all the good camera angles as I feel that I do a good job with it. The main three skills I have learned from these projects are how to operate a camera, edit footage and organisation. With these skills, I have used them in nearly all the projects I have done so, I have become way more confident and advanced with them. From gaining these new skills, they influenced me to create a documentary for my FMP because I can use them to produce a great product that I am proud of. I would use my camera skills to my full advantage by being the cinematographer so all the camera angles and lighting etc. will be in my control. I will also use my editing skills to edit the footage so that it all flows well together so the audience find it visually interesting to watch. With the organisation skills, I will plan what I am going to be doing by creating a schedule, so I do not get behind. This will make me feel relaxed with doing the project which is the mindset I want.

 

I immediately knew I wanted to do something to do with film for my FMP because I love operating a camera and using the software Adobe Premier for editing. I narrowed it down to either doing a short film or a documentary. With everything going on in the world at this current time (the pandemic of Corona Virus and the Lockdowns) I wanted to include it in my project because it is affecting everyone in the world and has changed everyone’s lives so I think it will be something important and interesting to use as a theme. If I were to make a short film, I would create it by the camera following an individual’s day too show the audience what a typical day in life in Lockdown consists off. However, with creating a documentary I thought I could interview about three young adults and ask them about life in Lockdown. The reason why I decided to go with the documentary idea is because I have never made a documentary before whereas I have made two short films on this course. I think it will be more fun to do something different and will show that I am up for trying new things on this course. I have started research on documentaries and will be doing much more so I am learning a lot from this project as it is a side of media I have not explored before.

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Section 2: Project Concept

As I have discussed before, I am creating a documentary for my FMP. The concept of my documentary is to reach out to people as the theme is Lockdown and it will be about how young adults are coping during the Lockdown. Mental health is an important factor to my documentary because the interviewees will be discussing how they feel which could be emotional for the audience to listen to. My aim is to make the audience feel connected to my documentary as they might feel the same way as the interviewees, or they just might find it interesting that people have dealt with the Lockdown differently to them.

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I love to watch documentaries in my spare time and my favourite journalist is Stacey Dooley. She inspired me to make a documentary because she interviews people to see how they live their life’s or to discuss events they have or are going through. As said in an article by ‘Penguin’, Dooley states ‘I want to do my bit’. Her saying this shows that she wants to help people so by making documentaries, it allows the audience to know what is happening in the world and so more people are educated on whatever topic it is. This inspired me to make a documentary about mental health because everyone in the world that is in a Lockdown (particularly the UK) will watch this and realise the impact it has had on people. It might inspire them to check up on people more or donate money to mental health charities etc. which would make me even more proud of my documentary.

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I have already done research on Stacey Dooley which I discovered all the work she has done and how she has become so successful. By researching this it made me feel more motivated to create my documentary because Dooley has worked so hard to be where she is now. In an interview on YouTube by UKTV, Dooley talks about how to become a good journalist and so she says, ‘how you can still make really innovative docs.’ This made me realise that to make a good documentary, it must be original so I will stamp my name on it as the audience will know I made it by how unique it is.

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I also researched ‘Documentaries About People’. This opened my eyes to the world of documentaries because I learnt how documentaries have evolved since 1895 and why people make them. I found a producer called Grierson who made documentaries and from slideshow on slideshare, he once stated ‘documentaries should be to educate, as well as entertain’. Grierson saying this made me realise that I need to make my documentary visually interesting if I want my audience to keep watching it. Because my documentary is a deep subject about mental health, I t would be hard to make it fun however, I came up with the idea to insert videos and images that the interviewees have of themselves before Lockdown happened and during it. This will make it more uplifting to watch as there will be fun and happy videos/images, but I will still have the education element in with the dialogue.

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Even though I have done research already, I still need to do more to gain as much knowledge I can in making documentaries. Up until I start making my documentary, I will research how the credits and titles should be presented on it. I want my documentary to be as professional as possible so if the titles and credits are shown different to a film or TV show, then I want to know how it is done. Having a professional looking documentary is important to me because it will show that I have taken care with creating the documentary.  I will do research on more documentaries by watching them and/or reading articles on how they filmed them, just to see the different ways people film them with the camera angles, locations, lighting etc. This will open my mind up to more ideas of how I should film mine.

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From researching the theoretical context of documentaries, I found out that there are ‘5 central elements to documentaries’ according to John Corner who is a Professor at University of Liverpool and a documentary maker. The ‘5 central elements’ are:

• Observation

• Interview

• Dramatisation

• Mise en Scene

• Exposition

After looking into all these elements, I decided that I want to use the ‘Interview’ element in my documentary. This is because I want to ask questions to three young adults in the form of an interview so that I get the best possible answers from them for my audience to understand. However, I will put my own style on it by editing it so that the audience cannot hear or see me (the interviewer). I think this will make my documentary unique which is what I want to achieve as I previously said before, I want my audience to know I created that documentary.

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Talking about audience, my target audience are teenagers and young adults. I wanted a fairly young target audience as I am a young adult myself, so I know what sort of elements in documentaries attract this age group. One of these elements are the font/style of the title. I order to catch the audience’s eye; I will make the title of the documentary bold and colourful in a stylish font. This will stand out a lot on the screen and by having bold and colourful it gives the audience the impression that it is youthful. Teenagers and young adults are into following trends with things like fashion, food/drink recipes, decorations in their homes/bedrooms etc. With this in mind, I thought I would make the title to be in a stylish font as I know they will find it interesting to see. The interviewees in my documentary will be the ages of 18-19. I think that the audience that are close to this age will feel more relatable to the interviewees because they go though the same sort of things at that sort of age such as school/college, driving, relationships, clubbing etc. There is no particular gender that my target audience are as I want my documentary to reach out to as many people as possible because I think it will help most people out a lot. The theme of my documentary is Lockdown and mental health plays part in it as well so with the interviewees talking about their state of mind it will be relatable to anyone regardless of their genre. My target audience are people that have not dealt with the Lockdown well. They might find ease in hearing other people’s stories with how they have coped with Lockdown as they will know that they are not alone in it. However, they could also be coping well with Lockdown but not realise the impact it has had on people so they might want to watch my documentary to hear people’s stories and so they will want to make a difference by helping people. I will make sure that the target audience gets detailed answers from my interviewees by making the documentary seven minutes long so there is enough time for them to answer. I do not want my documentary to be too long because my target audience are young so they can get bored easily if it drags out. I am making this documentary on a low budget so this may reflect on the target audience as they do not have a high spending power as they are young and would not cost them to watch it unlike a film in the cinema.

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To produce this documentary, I will need many resources. These being:

• Camera

• Tripod

• Shoulder Mount

• Sound equipment

• Laptop with editing software

• Interviewees

• Locations

Fortunately, I have access to cameras, tripods, shoulder mounts and sound equipment at my college so I can get my hands on them any time I wish too. I have my own laptop at home with the software for editing on so I can edit my documentary at home and at college as there are computers there. This means I have a lot of time to edit it as I can do it out of college time. When it comes to filming, I will need at least three locations to film in because I want it to be somewhere different fir each of the interviewee’s interviews. The reason why I want to do this is because I want to film in places where the interviewees have a memory at or they are attached to, this may be for example where they hang out with their friends a lot or somewhere where they go on a daily walk on during the Lockdown. I think this will make the interviewees feel more relaxed whilst being filmed and answering the questions as they will be in a place, they feel safe in. This will come across too the audience as people can tell when people feel nervous or relaxed. Its also something they could talk about in the interview. I have found three potential people to interview as they are my closest friends and are 18-19 years old which is what I was looking for. I know what some of them have already gone through in Lockdown, like not being able to pursue their career and not seeing family for months. These three interviewees have all been through different stuff in Lockdown which I am happy with because then there is a lot of different subjects/topics being talked about in my documentary rather than them all talking about roughly the same things. This will keep my target audience interested in watching it as it will not all be the same for the whole seven minutes.

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Section 3: Evaluation

In order to get the best quality of work done, I will reflect on the work I have done that day and write down what went well, what I need to fix and what I will do next time. I have done this strategy when I did my animation project and I found it very useful as I could keep on top with it easily. So that it is tidy and easy to read, I will write the date as a subheading so I can show when I did the work. I will then go on to write what went well, what I need to fix and how and what I will do next time. By evaluating my work with these three questions’ it will show how much work I have done and will help me know what I must do when working on it next.

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 My organisation skills are used for this aspect of my project as to evaluate I need to allow time to do so at the end of each day I work on my project. Even by doing this evaluation will show I am well organised because by saying what I will do next time when working on my project, it shows that I know what I am doing before starting it. I want my supervisors too see I am well organised by me evaluating my work as I go on because it is an important skill to have when it comes to media as a lot of planning has to be done before creating the final product. It will show that I have taken my knowledge that I have learnt from previous projects on this course because I am doing the same evaluation method. As I have done it before, I know that it works well with me and I find it helpful to do.

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Section 4: Strategies

For my documentary to be successful, I will need to develop strategies when it comes to research, pre-production and production. First of all, I will need to be on it when it comes to problem solving as I do have deadlines. Problems can occur at any point especially during production so having the ability to think initiatively is essential as I would not want to waste any time. I am creating a documentary so I will be needing camera equipment, interviewees, and a location to film in. For example, from past projects I have learnt that the weather can have a huge impact whilst filming because it could rain, snow, or have high wind speeds. I learnt to adapt to the weather as I can not change it so to think initiatively, I would change locations to indoors or somewhere else outside where it might be better or reschedule the filming. With this experience I will be able to think quickly on my feet to solve the problems.

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Being confident is key when presenting my ideas and showing my final product. Showing that your confident tells people that you are proud of your ideas and product which makes them think that it will be good, which is why I want to show confidence in my work. I become most confident when I know what I am doing so as said before, being well organised is essential as I will have planned out when I am doing each element to this project.

I want my documentary to be as unique as possible so that it stands out of the crowd. This being said, having the ability to use my imagination to the full extent helps to achieve this because it will allow me to think of creative ideas whether that’s with the editing or filming. Creativity occurs mainly in the practical side to a project, so while filming I might suddenly come up with a new idea of how I want to film a certain scene or changing the camera angles for it. This is why I love the practical side to projects because even though I will have a plan on how and where I want to film it all, I can still change or tweak certain elements of it.

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At this current time England is in Lockdown so I have been doing all my work from home. I found this a lot harder to do than when I was going to college because my house is not a working environment unlike Long Road Sixth Form. Being at college allows me to see my teachers and ask for help or advice there and then but having online lessons can be more difficult to get the same amount of help. I have my own laptop so doing research and planning is very easy to do from home and, I have Adobe on it so when it comes to editing, I can do it on that even though it is slower than the computers at college.

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On the other hand, new Lockdown rules were announced that schools/colleges are going back on the 8th of March. This means that every other week I will be at college which will make me work more efficiently as I will be in a working environment. I will then be able to have access to camera and mic equipment which I in fact do not have at home, but they are an important factor to create my documentary in production.

However, Lockdown rules can change whenever without knowing so working from home might be how I have to complete this FMP. As I said before I already have my own laptop with the software on it, but I do not have camera or mic equipment. I would have to adapt to this by using my phone or borrowing a camera from a friend or family if they have one and is safe to do so. My FMP is too create a documentary with me interviewing people so if it’s not possible to meet up with the interviewees I will have to come up with new ideas on how to ask the questions whilst filming. I thought that I could send them the questions then they film themselves whilst answering them then send the footage over to me. Or I could do a video call like on Zoom for example and screen record it. This wouldn’t be ideal if this was too happen but having ideas in case it does is the best thing for me to do.

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Section 5: Action plan and timetable

01/03/21 - 05/03/21:  I will be doing the research and development element to my FMP. This means I will be finding resources like articles and videos for example to help me have a successful FMP. I will then present my ideas to my supervisor and get feedback on it.

08/03/21 – 21/03/21:  I will make changes or add to my research I had done from the tips my supervisor had given me then submit it.

22/03/21 – 09/04/21: In this week I will do pre-production which includes making recce sheets, risk assessment and a script. However, as it’s an interview style documentary, the script will be of the questions nothing else.

12/04/21 – 19/04/21: I will start on production by filming some content too see how I like the interviewee’s to be in shot e.g. standing, sitting etc. and too see what camera angle’s work best.

22/04/21 – 26/04/21: I will start post-production meaning I will go on Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to create the title of the documentary and possible some cartoon style images.

24/04/21 – 30/04/21: I will create a rough cut of my documentary which my supervisor will then give me feedback on. I will evaluate it myself as well and see what I want to change/amend for when I film the actual thing.

03/04/21 – 10/04/21: In this week I will film the whole documentary and after that I will edit it. I will take time in my spare time to do this because I want it to be high quality.

11/05/21 – 14/05/21: I will evaluate my work thoroughly and at the end hand in everything I’ve done for my FMP.