Production Journal - Factual Programming

Before Easter...

     One of my first ideas to make a documentary about was the College's Mock Election, which I had heard about through my Politics classes and various daily bulletin emails. My existing interest in politics, I hoped, would allow me to make a documentary which interested others too. I started making this Prezi as a way of compiling my thoughts about how I would go about making the documentary, but quickly realised I would need help to film effectively and make sure I was asking the right questions to the interviewees. Reuben Convery, another student in my media class, was willing to help so we chose to work on the project together.

     Most of the Pre-Production paperwork was completed in the week before the Easter Holidays. This included a visit to the Library, where the main event to feature in the film would take place, to get consent to film in there on a Location Release; I produced forms for this as well as a Risk Assessment document and Talent Release forms with specific detail about the project, ready for signing. Reuben produced a Production Schedule and a Shot List whilst I drew the storyboard. On the last day of term, we managed to track down a few of the candidates of the Mock Election to get their consent to film.

Monday, April 13th 2015 - Pre-Production & Briefing Meeting

     Having completed the majority of our Pre-Production paperwork in class before the Easter Holiday, this morning we had the simple task of photographing it all and uploading it to this blog. Reuben also took some pictures of the Library, to go with our Recce.

     Over lunch, we attended a short meeting with most of the Mock Election candidates, where we informed them of our intentions with the project in the hope we could convince them to take part. Two more signed on straight away, but we're still waiting for the others to return their release forms. The meeting was also an opportunity to learn about a revised plan for proceedings before the polling day. We learnt that the voting itself will be carried out online rather than with a ballot box, meaning parts of our planned storyboard and shot list would be inadequate and we will have to think of another way to show people casting their votes.

Friday, April 17th 2015 - Further Preparation & Filming Parties

     Throughout the week, we have been focusing on other coursework, making adjustments to, and adding to, previously written work. This has meant we have done very little all week to make progress with the documentary. However, we have had a couple of discussions with candidates about the project and subsequently received more release forms too.

     

     Today, however, the College's Student Association had organised an event where actual  representatives and members of the main political parties in England came into college to meet students. Although filming was not due to start until Monday, we took the opportunity to film people attending the event and hopefully get interviews with the members and candidates. Most parties were keen to be involved, and we got interviews with a member of Labour, and the candidates for Green and Liberal Democrats. The turnout to the event was surprisingly large, and it gave us a good opportunity to get shots of a crowd of young people actively involved in politics, which should provide a good argument for this in our documentary.

Monday, April 20th 2015 - Filming the Debate & Organising Interviews

     On the morning before the debate, we made a basic diagram of how we would setup our equipment in the library, and made sure we had our filming location permission slips. I also sent out the following email, to alert the college candidates of when and where we hoped to hold the interviews.

     Over lunch, the debate took place. Prior to it, we setup in the library as per our plan, with three cameras placed around the room, and two microphones placed on the table to record what the candidates were saying. We had a couple of hitches throughout the event, mainly due to SD Cards filling up much faster than we had expected. and ended up having to quickly loan more from AV. For future filming, we will be taking an additional SD card for each camera that we take to make sure we don't run out of space. Looking back at the footage we are impressed with how good the majority of the footage looks, and also how good the audio recordings from our Zoom portable mics were.

Tuesday, April 21st 2015 - Following Campaigns

     Today was supposed to be filming a 'meet the parties' event, in a presentation format for the candidates to convince people to vote for them. However, there was a lack of an audience in attendance so, under guidance of Alex (the event organiser), the candidates could move around college campaigning for votes. We caught up with the Labour Party candidates and followed them for roughly 45 minutes around the college. We plan to use segements of these shots as cutaways from the interviews. At one point, the Green Party campaigner interrupted the Labour candidates rather humorously which could work as a good link between footage of each party in the finished documentary.

Wednesday, April 22nd 2015 - Following Campaigns

     Another 'meet the parties' event was planned for today, but once again poor attendance made the event irrelevant. We instead followed the candidates, and members of the Student Association, whilst they encouraged people to vote for them with the use of a megaphone. Again these shots will be used as cutaways as there is very little continuous usable footage.

Thursday, April 23rd 2015 - Polling Day

     Today was finally the polling day, whereby students throughout the college could cast a vote online for one of the campaigning parties. We started the day by filming Stuart, another member of our media class, pretending to cast his vote on a computer. We aim to use this footage over a voice-over explanation (ironically probably performed by Stuart!) of the college's voting system.

     Over lunch break, I individually conducted the candidate interviews as planned previously via emails. I was able to speak with a Labour, Lib Dem, and Green Party candidate, and later event organiser Alex too, although neither of the Conservative candidates showed up sadly. Whilst writing this just now, I received an email from a Conservative candidate apologising and we have subsequently arranged to conduct the interview tomorrow instead.

Friday, April 24th 2015 - The Results

     The result of the election was announced earlier today in the college canteen by Alex. We went and filmed the result, as well as an interview with the winner. The results were as follows:

     Also today, we conducted the interview as re-arranged with one of the Conservative Party candidates. In the lessons of media today we loaded the first timeline for editing on. Our first job was to cut down the interview with Alex, which would form most of the first minute of the documentary.

Tuesday, April 28th 2015 - Sorting Footage

     I got back today and spent most of the time in lessons sorting through footage and placing relevant usable shots into various 'bins' within Premiere Pro. This took far longer than we were expecting, and therefore very little actual editing was achieved. Frustrating as this was, hopefully it will make editing for the rest of the week a bit easier!

Wednesday, 29th April 2015 - Editing & Voice-Over

     Today whilst Reuben was editing I wrote and then went and recorded the voice-over with Stuart in Ellie's office. This also took longer than I would have liked, mainly because we timed it badly with dance rehearsals taking place next door, and thus takes had to be done quickly in the breaks between the songs they were playing rather loudly. Reuben edited for the duration of the lesson, whilst I taught myself how to use Adobe Audition to edit Stuart's audio.

Monday, 4th May 2015 - Editing & Voice-Over

     Today we were actually able to put together some of the footage on a timeline, whereas before all our work has been in small 30 second chunks. Over the last three college days, myself and Reuben have been alternating on the editing of the project. It has been much slower than we thought it would be, and slightly frustrating at times. Between editing sessions we have been trying to locate some music to play in the background, with no success yet. 

Tuesday 5th to Thursday 7th 2015 - More Editing

     The documentary has - over the past few days - slowly come together. It has become apparent now that we will not be able to complete everything we aimed to complete as it has simply taken too long. Particularly yesterday, we spent far too long editing a title sequence of Stuart walking through some graphics saying 'Mock Election'. In the end we concluded the final result was not of high enough quality and so ditched it. We also decided to change the introduction to a montage, which meant re-recording some of the voice-over. These factors have contributed majorly to a loss of time for editing the project and subsequently we have a lot of work to do tomorrow for the deadline.

Friday, 8th May 2015 - A Short Conclusion

     In order to present a completed project of three minutes in length, we cut out some of the ending footage and replaced it with some more voice-over, this time discussing what will be happening in 'Part 2'. This brought the whole video to a bit of a short conclusion, which I am not entirely happy with. The aim is to spend some time over the rest of the month completing the project, although probably just as one long video, and using the shortened complete film as our submission to be assessed.