Unit 10 : Documentary / Factual Filmmaking

Pre - Production

Lesson Work

Any work completed in lesson that isn't categorised is linked below.

Lesson Notes - Google Doc

Research

The initial research that was completed was a look into the potential ideas of 

Research File - Google Doc

Pitch Presentation

Presentation:

We have multiple documents in the google drive folder showing all the different documents we made and these are what we used to show Kane our ideas and progress on anything we were developing.

Our ideas started off strong however we had many obstacles ahead of us, the initial idea was to create a documentary about Go-Karting and how it can help people physically, mentally & socially. We also looked into what people can achieve from it (Moving into car racing, F1 etc). This unfortunately came to a close after having a discussion with the general manager, we found out that the price would outweigh the reasoning to do the idea as it would roughly cost £960 for only 3 hours filming on 1 day, this was not ideal so it was back to the drawing board. 

A few days later we decided to collectively generate some new ideas, this is when the boxing idea was born. We had a plan where Harry & Alfie (Film crew) would train with a professional coach to become really good at boxing over the course of a set timeframe (1 month), at the end of the 1 month they would both step in the ring and go head to head to see who has made the most progress. This idea was great, we had unlimited access to the gym thanks to the owner, however this idea had to come to a close because Harry was due to have his braces removed from his teeth and could not sustain any form of head impacts or injury's, this was too much of a risk to have, so we decided to call it off, soon before this decision was made however, Alfie also decided he didn't want to do it. So it was once again back to the drawing board.

Third and final time lucky, we re-generated some ideas and looked over our previous ideas from the times before and landed on a Historical documentary that branches under the Participatory / Educational category. So our final idea was a Historical Documentary about Captain James Cook. This would take place in multiple locations and have a diverse set of shots within the documentary. We decide to take a look into Captain Cook's life at greater detail, going to his place of upbringing, education and legacy / memorial. We start on the peak of Roseberry topping and move down to Great Ayton where we unfold the book of Captain Cook, after we move back up to the peak of Captain Cook's monument where we close out the documentary talking about his life. We then go back to Great Ayton to talk about his death & to close out the documentary.

Critical analysis of two documentaries (styles)

Tom Scott's YouTube Videos : Storyline / Grand Designs Tv Show : B-roll visuals

The two documentaries i have picked aren't truly documentaries but they were my inspiration for doing things in my documentary.

Tom Scott : 

Grand Designs : 

The two documentaries I have picked aren't truly documentaries but they were my inspiration for doing the things I did in my documentary. Tom Scott’s informative yet interesting YouTube videos have always interested me, because he uses really good camera work and great storyline narrative that flows throughout the video. However Grand Designs has always been my favorite Tv Programme, Show & Piece of Inspiration for many of the things i have made previously. Why?, well it's simple, the way the shots are composed look really aesthetically pleasing, the music they use is always really fitting and they do a really good job of transitioning between place to place, this was something i really wanted to take inspiration from as i knew we would be moving around a lot so as the director i decided to i wanted to have nice establishing shots and good transitioning shots between everything we had filmed because that was one of my favorite things done by Grand Designs. Tom Scott has done this in his own videos however I always knew about Grand Designs before Tom Scott so in this scenario Tom Scott is for the storyline and Grand Designs is for the Shots, Music & Grading. The main idea when making all the pre-production for the documentary about Captain Cook, I wanted it to follow a clear storyline and ensure that it came together synergistically in the final edit of the documentary. Taking a closer look into the visuals, Grand Designs was a huge factor, i wanted to incorporate a similar shot i had seen previously where the presenter is walking with the camera moving on a gimbal while talking and informing the viewer on a particular subject or matter and then once they have finished what they are talking about they walk out of frame while the camera pans in the direction they move while it slowly fades out and introduces us into the next shot or location with a cut that just puts us straight into it. Grand Designs do this often in their shows, because the presenter will be talking about a house he has seen and then he walks out of frame and then it cuts to him with the owners of the house. Here is an example of that shot in action : Grand Designs - YouTube. As you can see from that video example I took clear inspiration from the particular shot created by the production team on the Grand Designs, here is our version example of the shot : Captain Cook Documentary - YouTube. The shot’s look very similar and follow the same idea that I had. Tom Scott's videos provided us with much knowledge on how to set out the storyline just simply by watching any of his videos you can understand and feel how and why he does things, but the videos are edited in such a way where you can really feel what's happening, and they are really engaging too, this is what we wanted to keep common in our documentary. We kept viewers hooked by having changing locations regularly while being informative in a given time with the use of graphics, music & sound effects we were able to subtly keep viewers hooked with things they wouldn't have noticed but because it was there it allowed us to keep them engaged, Tom Scott helped us identify what we needed and we utilized a checklist - graphics, music & sound effects. This was our main list of things to include by preference, and we included all of them and they can be watched in our final edit of the Documentary which is linked in the Production section of my blog.         

Storyboards & Shotlist documents - Questioning for expert

Storyboard - Google Doc 

Shotlist - Google Doc 

Questions for expert - Google Doc

Timescale & Production breakdown

Below is the spreadsheet to our schedule for Week 1 & 2 of production, this includes Production & Post - Production (Editing).

Week 1 Schedule - Google Sheet

Week 2 Schedule - Google Sheet

Group Pre-Production Folder

Group Folder - Google Drive

Above is the link to all the files we made throughout the pre-production phase.

Production

Final Video Edit

Captain Cook Documentary - YouTube

Photo of editing timeline

Production Diary

The Production Diary will be listed below, this includes all filming days and editing days, showing exactly what happened and why we made certain decisions. It was really fun to make the documentary but also lots of hard work from everyone, but it was extremely worth it.

Production Diary - Google Doc

Photos During Production

Harry reviewing footage from Day 2 opening shot

Harry reviewing footage from Day 2 opening shot

Camera setup for voiceovers

Harry doing Voiceovers

Post - Production

Evaluation

From start to finish this project has been really fun to work on, the people involved also made this a blast too, Harry & Alfie put in the hours, work & dedication to ensure everything was done to as high of a standard as possible. We collectively made effective decisions and worked coherently on all Pre-Production on google drive. We had regular meetings and calls to make sure everything was on track.

In the beginning we had loads of ideas and went from idea to idea. It started with the Go-Karting idea then it went to the Professional Boxing Training to then the final idea of A Documentary on Captain James Cook. After having daily meetings in college lessons for a good few weeks we landed on the Historical Documentary that would be Educational but also Informative and Fun. We wanted to maintain this level of expectation throughout the video, keeping the funny takes and shots in to add the funny element’s, while having serious commentary and real high quality answers from professionals in the space around Captain Cook's Historical Past. These elements combined mixed well for a good Documentary that could be displayed to a wide range of people. We went with the intention of what if this was played to classes in Primary Schools or Secondary School history lessons, we wanted the really good and informative elements but the fun was still there so it wasn't ‘’boring’’ to watch if you were having to watch it in a lesson for a subject. By doing this I think the end result was highly rated and good to watch.

The Design was really well thought out, my inspiration from Grand Designs & Tom  Scott’s videos allowed me to think of the Visuals, Music & Shot styles i would like to be included. I showed the rest of the team and they agreed that if the end result included everything I was talking about it would look great. So with the design sorted and all bits of inspiration on a mood board it was go time for the research & development. Our research methods were really effective, we had Alfie on the Photos and making mood boards while Harry did the core fundamental research for the script as he would be using it to present the documentary, while they did those tasks I did the research on the visuals, music & the general idea and how it needed to flow in the edit to keep the momentum going.

Our skills ranged from different areas, myself have had a lot of experience in the “documentary” style video creations through YouTube so i was prepared to make some core decisions that would decide the trajectory of the Documentary, by doing this i lead the way for the rest of the team and guided them while doing their documentation. When it came to Production I was on point with visuals and in general with the directing too. Harry was great at presenting the documentary considering he has never been in front of the camera speaking to an audience, he has had previous interactions ‘’acting’’ for red herring a 1st year film back in early 2023, but there was no dialogue so this would have been the first time he had a mic and presenting something, but he did a great job and it looks great too. Alfie did an amazing job of assisting us all in the process working hard to get any documents we needed while on set or assisting with composition and directing. He really made the production flow fast and efficiently by helping us with everything and being there to assist was really helpful.

As a team we all had important roles and they were significant to each other, it was a real team effort to pull the weight of this project and everyone truly made this a blast to work on. For myself I think I did a great job and really pushed myself in editing to use a higher degree of quality too, this was to ensure the viewer would stay hooked on the documentary.

Maybe one thing to improve on as I always look for that to ensure my work progressively gets better is that I would rig the camera differently and have it more run and gun style ready to capture anything that might happen, this is just to ensure we have things that we may have potentially missed when filming.

But overall i am really happy with the end result and it looks fantastic too, my team like it as well so that’s made me really happy too.