documentary - morning lecture

3 lessons you have learnt so far about setting up your film in terms of:

• Casting - ask long time before the shoot, meeting face to face before shoot, get a contract
• Locations - make this one of your first factors, be clear about what your filming, phone call
• Scheduling - establish clear shot list, establish secured dates for filming, establish shoot times
• Organisation - make sure all actors know where and when, make sure travel is covered, 
• Paperwork - child actor permissions, public insurance

Research

• Begin researching online and relevant journals, publications and newspapers.
• Acquaint yourself with the broader picture and background to your story 
• Establish key contacts
• Never make a call to any of these contacts until you understand the basis of the story you wish to tell and have an appreciation of the remit 

Relevant background info

• Legislation/ regulations
• Organisations and experts
• Existing research - up to date as possible, if unpublished, better - exclusive
• Case studies
• Previous coverage on TV/ archive as appropriate 

Factual Films require a "journalists nose"

• What makes your story interesting
• What is your angle

Research prior to pitching

• Enough to answer the basic questions about the story and to form your proposal
• Who/what/where/when/how
• Find your USP (Unique serving point)

Pitch

• Email Helen with summery of my pitch idea (working title, topline, and one paragraph synopsis) by 3 pm 21st of march

Ethics and representation

It is not just a topic for a project, consider how it will affect people with disabilities etc.

Disability

Income/ class

Values/ culture

Ethnicity 

Race

Sexuality

Issues e.g. crime

Tokenism

Youth, middle aged, old aged

Representation

• A fair representation of the wider context
• Fairly treated and represented honestly
• Avoid stereotypes and reinforcing prejudice
• Avoid lazy journalism
• Treat people with respect

Finding characters/ case studies

• people who best illustrate your story and who are the best talkers/ characters
• Via relevant organisations - usually the press office
• Via experts - e.g doctors, police etc

Directions - afternoon lecture

Key Elements of a Story 

A strong central character - Eye witnesses or personal testimony. Whose story is it? Who is the character or characters, that will lead and guide your story? What's driving them emotionally?

Universal themes/ relatable - every great story has to either your mind, heart or wallet. Does your story make the audience happy or angry or play on our fears.

A strong narrative and structure - a beginning middle and end and sustain the duration - normally you need some conflict, a decision to be made, a turning point.

Finally the best stories are simply told with a great characters, human emotion and beautiful pictures. 

Documentary - Dreams of a Life

Purpose of factual programmes:

• Revelation - revealing to us something new
• Entertainment - Whether they make us laugh, cry or shout, still need to entertain us
• Storytelling - portrayal of "real" life as accurately as possible
• Style and Content - varied styles used, but style should never be relied on over content

Narrative Structure:

• Interview testimony
• Timeline structure 
• gives sense of investigation style from film maker- post it notes, forensic boi-suit actors in flat
• Dramatised tastefully, especially death at end

Challenges:

• Has to investigate into it
• Permission from family etc
• Sub Judice - public domain
• Access

Documentary Ideas - "Teen Spirit"

My idea for the topic of our 10 minute Documentary is finding out what life would be like as a teenager working at the Chatham Dockyard in the 1800's. However, especially surrounding child labour, if another time period would be more interesting to research about and present then i may change it from 1800's.

The Chatham Dockyard is a very accessible location both in the literal sense and in the sense of filming. There will be some areas that you can not film for example I would imagine the Commissioners House would be out of bounds to camera crew due to the valuable items inside and strict privacy rules.

Furthermore I know a Film Liaison who works at the Dockyard whom i also shadowed during the filming of Call The Midwife. The point of this documentary would be to compare teenage working conditions nowadays to the historic records of youths at work.

08/03/2017 - After This mornings lecture with Helen, i have decided that my topic about work for teens in the historic dockyard would not be quite as interesting as it needs to be to keep the audience engaged. I think that i will contact the dockyard and explain my plans for a documentary and ask them if their are any really outstanding stories about young men at the dockyard for example paranormal activity etc.