Presentation/Pitch

On Monday, we pitched our idea to Helen and Simon. We composed a powerpoint which included a lot of information about the project. We have researched the topic in good detail to find out about the species itself and why they are endangered. We also have been in contact with Jo and Leigh who run the Hawking Centre who have given us plenty of details about their backgrounds as falconers and the scheme they are running called 'Vulpro'. A member of the scheme, Julie, has carried out some conservation work in Africa and has planned a trip which will be underway next month. After pitching the idea, Helen and Simon had some good feedback and thought that it was a good idea but felt that we hadn't pin pointed the idea down to a certain purpose. We wanted to include several angles for the documentary showing the gardens and the centre but were made aware that this wouldn't be to the point and would make the documentary quite confusing and all over the place. In terms of the presentation itself, we spent plenty of time in the studios working on it as a team, including everything that we had researched. We also thought about the 'who, what where, how and why' to guide us when putting it together to make sure we had covered everything that Helen and Simon would need to know. However, when it came down to the presentation itself we decided to go for a casual approach with any of us talking to make it conversational but I think we should have allocated sections to make the presentation a bit more structured.

Chosen Idea

After discussing our ideas as a team and with Helen during a couple of meetings, we have decided to choose Laura's original idea which involves looking at endangered vultures. Laura already knew the owners of the Hawking Centre at Doddington Place Gardens in Sittingbourne and so was able to make contact with them easily. She told them about the documentary and they were keen to be involved. They have previously been filmed as part of the CBBC television programme titled 'Wild World' and so were keen to be involved in another filming project. The contacts were a huge aspect when choosing our idea as it was great for us that they were so interested in the project. We have decided to focus on the vultures living at the Hawking Centre. After speaking to Jo Holmes, the owner, she told us that the vultures are endangered in the wild and that they had set up a charity titled 'Vulpro' which aims to protect vultures and promote awareness of their vulnerability. As vultures are not the most attractive birds of prey, they are often overlooked which means that people are less inclined to show interest in them. This was a big factor for us when choosing our storyline as we felt this would be a good challenge for us to try and convince people otherwise. In terms of narrowing our storyline, we decided to focus on the conservation work that Jo and other members are carrying out. In January, a member of the team - Julie will be going out to Africa to do some conservation which we thought was specific enough to focus on seeing as the documentary is only 10 minutes.

Documentary - Ideas

After our introduction to the project, Helen asked us to each come up with an idea to pitch to her and the group. During lectures, she showed us different ways to find stories that could be interesting including looking at the news sections which have articles documenting recent issues. I looked on a few websites to get some ideas. Amongst those I looked at the WWF website because they focus largely on animals which is something that came to mind when we were given the brief. After looking at several articles, I found that I was most interested in an article titled 'Changing the way we live'. Globally, people are using 25% more natural resources than the planet can replace. In the UK, we're consuming three times our fair share of the planets natural resources. I was particularly drawn to this article because it suggested many ways in which we are already helping to reduce levels of waste as well as suggesting new methods. The categories included food which suggests that we should reconsider what foods we are eating. Other suggestions included zero carbon housing, more sustainable transport and striking a balance between necessary global development needs and vital conservation of species, habitats and natural resources. I thought that this would be something interesting to look into as there are lots of approaches and angles to look at. However, as it is a broad topic, it means that it wouldn't be easy to target to a specific location for this idea and would require extra research to find people in the area to talk to who are undergoing this scheme.

When we had a group discussion with Helen, we talked about our ideas. Laura's idea involved endangered vultures which are housed at Doddington Place Gardens in Sittingbourne and Ellen had looked into the care and welfare of the deer at Knole Park in Sevenoaks. We talked about the practicality of each idea and decided that Laura's idea would be easily accessible as Laura already knew who ran the Hawking Centre who were keen to be involved in the project. She had also found out that the location had already been featured in a children's TV show 'Wild World' where the birds had been featured.

Commission Documentary

For the final project of the year, we have been asked to work in groups of 3 or 4 to create a 10 minute Documentary piece. I am in a group with Ellen and Laura which I think will make a good team as we are good friends on the course and should be able to communicate ideas effectively and share creative ideas to make good decisions. The brief we have been given for the unit is 'Doorstep Wilderness'. We must make it appropriate for the target audience so that it could be broadcast on the wildlife channel called 'Eden' at 8pm so before the watershed. This is a very broad topic which covers a wide variety of aspects including animals and the environment which leaves plenty of opportunities for creative ideas. In our groups we must individually come up with an idea and pitch it to Helen. Once we have decided on a final idea, we will be pitching these to Helen, Simon and Laura so they can assess whether the idea is suitable for the project.
There are several different types of documentary including observational which includes very minimal human intervention, participatory which includes some intervention and educational where every aspect will be set up to inform and instruct the audience. As well as capturing action, we are expected to interview someone who is an expert in the field. However, after watching some previous students work, we were told that interviews should only be a small proportion of the documentary otherwise it becomes very difficult and taxing to watch. We were also told to set up what the documentary will be about within the first minute of the video so the audience knows what to expect and will feel engaged in the subject matter straight away.

Project Evaluation

For the directions unit, we were asked to compose two videos - the first being a 2 minute film taking the form of a self portrait. We were encouraged to be as creative as possible, exploring new techniques and coming up with an original idea that would demonstrate who we are and what we like. During prep, I came up with many ideas and decided rather than choosing a certain concept I would do a compilation of things, all relating to things I like or people that are important to me. I wanted it to seem like a montage of unrelated aspects all merging to create one video, almost a summary. I looked at including locations such as the beach and London. I also thought of ways I could include friends and family, maybe giving the camera to them and allowing them to choose something to film. As we were not allowed to include music or dialogue, I thought about including natural sounds from nature or a busy city atmosphere to make the film more dynamic and not just something visual. I filmed several aspects including a segment of my eye where I started with a natural eye and filmed me putting my makeup on. I wanted to include this element as we had to be in our video in one way or another. I also filmed myself doing a quick sketch of a natural landscape from a woodland walk I regularly take. After filming, I started to edit my footage on Adobe Premiere. However, I soon realised that the idea of not having a certain theme didn't work very well when edited together. New locations like the beach seemed like a huge jump and it felt too random. In order to greatly simplify this, I decided to take the element of me walking through the woods and observing the natural environment. Pairing this with my speed drawing, I decided to come up with a new concept called 'Natural Observation'. The theme is what I do to relax. When I want to get some space and clear my head, I will go on a certain walking route across some fields where I live and into a woodland area. It is a very scenic route and helps me to feel calm and peaceful. A hobby of mine is to sketch, particularly locations that I like visiting or new locations. Therefore to tie in this element, I decided to choose a frame from my filming that I particularly liked and film myself sketching this quickly to get an idea of the environment and space. In terms of sound design, I decided to use natural sounds - birds singing, crunching of leaves under my feet and the sound of the wind. These are all quite calming sounds which go with the stunning natural imagery. In terms of the edit, it was relatively successful. I began editing this after the drama so had already got back into the habit of using Adobe Premiere and felt confident that I knew what I was doing. I am pleased with the final video and think it is a good reflection of what I enjoy as it makes me feel quite relaxed and peaceful when I watch it.

For the drama scene, I chose to look at the series Broadchurch. Broadchurch is a British drama starring David Tennant and Olivia Colman. It has been very popular with audiences and has had two successful and well received series. The scene I decided to choose was an interrogation which takes place between four different characters so two interrogations overall. I really liked the way it was filmed in the original series. It was split up so that the camera crosses between the two interviews therefore linking them together. To put my own spin on the scene, I decided to add a split screen element towards the second half. I thought this would be interesting because in the original drama the camera flicks between both conversations as the characters say their lines one after the other. Having them both on screen at the same time, I thought would link them together more and make what they are saying more powerful and prominent. In terms of the the filming itself, I was going to film over two days but was limited to one due to actors not being available on the second day. However, this was plenty of time to complete the entire scene. My crew entailed Imogen as my camera operator and Laura as my sound operator. I chose them because I get on with them well and felt like we would make a good team which was a good decision as we worked very well together. The day was very successful and I managed to cover all of the shots I had planned. The only shot I seemed to miss out was a medium shot of Nigel to match the medium I had of Alec. To tackle this in the edit, I cropped the frame slightly so that Nigel was more in view. In terms of the edit, I found the drama much more complicated than the self portrait. This is because I had a lot more elements to put in place and had to think carefully about where to have my cuts. The split screen was also a huge challenge for me but I felt very pleased when I knew how to do it. The final film works quite successfully and fulfils what I imagined. I really enjoyed this project as I felt like it really pushed me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to think creatively as a director. Although, I found some aspects very stressful, I feel like I have taken a lot from the experience.

Editing - Self Portrait

In terms of the editing for my self portrait film, I found it much more straight forward than the editing for my drama piece. This is because the concept was a lot simpler and I had a lot more freedom about how to put the clips together as the piece was rather experimental. For the imagery, I wanted there to be a balance between natural imagery and footage of the drawing to create lots of cutaways to keep the film interesting. I think that there was a nice balance of footage with a variety of locations for the natural imagery. I really enjoyed experimenting with speed/duration for this piece as I sped up the drawing footage. As the video is only short, there wouldn't have been enough time to include all of it so I decided to speed it up so that the audience could see the drawing unfold. The last clip shows the final frame which is what I decided to draw. I thought this would be a good place to end the video so that there was some comparison between the drawn element and the natural element. In terms of sound design which was a huge requirement for this brief, I changed it quite a lot. After a viewing with Simon he told me that using a piano in the background was not as well thought through for the piece and didn't challenge the imagery in any way. Therefore I took out the piano and emphasised the natural sounds. These included birds tweeting and leaves crunching on the floor which I think gave the whole piece a much more natural, raw feel which is what I wanted to achieve. I also layered the sounds over each other, particularly towards the second half to bring the film to almost a more dramatic finish that made it seem slightly more intense. Overall I was pleased with the final film and think that the change in concept was definitely necessary to give it a bit more meaning rather than being so busy.

Editing - Drama

In terms of my post production for the drama, I found the edit very challenging. Editing is something I would like to improve on in general as I find Adobe Premiere quite difficult to use, having not used it before being at UCA. The biggest challenge with the edit was the element of a split screen which is where my personal directorial style is most prominent in the scene.   The way I have shot the interviews is quite

standard with lots of over the shoulder shots to create a sense of depth and intimacy for the scene, however, by adding the aspect of a split screen this allowed me to have both interviews on screen at the same time to create a new dimension. The actual set up of this is impossible as there is no way we can watch two people in two different rooms at the same time in real life. Even so, I thought this would tie the interviews

together and emphasise the relationship between Nigel and Susan as we begin to find out more about their past and how they are related to each other. When I had my rough cut viewing with Simon he said to keep the shots between the interviewer and interviewee consist so if I had just used an over the shoulder showing Ellie Miller, I would then reverse this to show Susan Wright. This helps to create a more even balance of shots which is pleasing for the eye and makes the edit seem more seamless. As the scene intensified, I included some closer shots which emphasise the characters' facial expressions and emotions. I felt this was important to give drama to the scene as there is not much else going on in terms of action. Another element that I found particularly difficult to tackle during the edit was the lighting. I used a lighting kit which meant that the lighting was very hard. This was ideal as I wanted to the space to seem very clinical and uninviting. However, getting every shot to match up as we moved the camera was very challenging. When looking at my clips, I noticed that the lighting on Nigel Carter was a lot darker than on Alec Hardy. The lighting on Hardy was also more yellow. Therefore I used the colouring tools on Adobe Premiere, changing the exposure and tinting to give the overall look a more balanced appearance. I decided to take out any yellow tones at all as this was giving the clips a warm appearance and reflected a slightly warmer atmosphere which is something I wanted to remove from the scene completely. Overall, I am pleased with the edit and feel like I have learnt more about some of the tools, including some new ones that I hadn't used before whilst I was editing the split screen.