Documentary Unit - structure

The documentary structure will follow the journey of a gay teenager who currently plays football. It will start with an introduction of him, with cut aways of him playing football etc. Once he's been introduced we will follow him like a presenter on the train and his travels with the camera hand held and he will interview our people that are being interviewed e.g campaigners etc. Once the interviews are over we will have our teenager pose a question to the audience after having spoken to the London team East End Phoenix and got their view on why there are no openly gay premiere league players.

The gay teen will have a mic or clip mic and will be presenting locations like a news reporter.

East End Phoenix is the name of the team Callum's Partner plays for and have already agreed to let us film them

Documentary Unit- update

After pooling ideas for the documentary's story/ structure we have decided to use a gay teenager as our main focus of the documentary and follow his journey trying to discover the answer as to why there are no openly gay premiere league football players. We will use him/ her as the presenter for the documentary being the face of young gay footballers venturing into the ugly side of football.

Mood board:

Documentary unit - pre- production prep

We have now decided on roles and will be filming about tackling homophobia in football focusing on why there are no premiership players that are openly gay.

Roles:

Jack

Camera Op, Co- editor, Narrator




Melisa

Editor, transcripter, script writer




Callum 

Director, Camera Op

Documentary research

I will look at 3 different BBC 3 documentaries and be discussing things they have in common, different styles they use and some of the advantages/ disadvantages of using them.

Weight Cut - Can i lose 10% of my body weight overnight?

In the opening couple of minutes after explaining what the documentary is about, there is an establishing shot as shown below. When i first saw this it reminded me of the title sequence at the start of the 2002 film Panic Room. 

As you can see there is a resemblance between the two shots however the documentary uses this "graphics hidden in the shot" style of throughout the entire piece whereas in Panic Room it is only used for the introduction of the lead actors and the title of the film.

The use of graphics throughout the documentary is an interesting approach to giving narrative and extra information that the audience are not being shown/ told, however there is a risk that the person watching will be distracted by reading the graphic they they do not pay attention the the interview/ GV etc. which may be more important than the graphic.

Young and Sterile: My Choice

This documentary focuses on young men and women who are permanently sterilising themselves due to them not wanting to have any children, however the question being posed is should they be aloud to do this so early on in their lives and should the NHS be supporting it? This is very much like our documentary in the sense that it touches sensitive subjects and is trying to find the answer to a "why question"  e.g. why are these people doing this to their body. Compared to our documentary which is posing the questio "why are thier no openly gay premiere league football players". They also make use of a presenter for the documentary, which seems quite a BB3 trait. This is a good approach if your documentary is very interview heavy, however if it is more of an observatory camera style e.g. fly on the wall a voice of god approach is more appropriate. 

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

Contextual Studies - sex and sexuality

Sexuality - The expression of sexual identity through internal feelings and external behaviour. Can
also refer to sexual activity (in particular visual representation)

Sexuality in the media - visual presentations of sexual expression (eroticism, pornography). Identity representations of sexual expression (LGBT, asexualisation, pansexualisation)

Eroticism - aesthetic depiction of sexuality; may not involve nudity

Pornography - explicit depiction of sexuality; usually via nudity and  graphic sexual activity

Media Censorship

• Depictions of sex and sexuality in media traditionally mediated by external censors
• UK - broadcasting legislation, watchdogs (Ofcom)
• US - FCC (Federal Communications Commission)

Sexual representation in TV and Film historically tightly controlled until the 70's liberalisation, when we saw the first portrayals of nudity and gay characters.

4 typical sexual stereotypes:

• Libertine
  
• Camp/ gay
  
• "Butch"
  
• Asexual
  

Queer Theory - Queer Theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and women's studies. Queer theoryincludes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself. ...Queer theory "focuses on mismatches between sex, gender and desire."

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.