Documentary Production
(CDM 301)
Previously
Moving forward, I stuck with my documentary idea of Matthew Wing the Luthier; Which i had pitched within the elevator pitch in unit CDM 304, beside my second idea of my father Mark Whatley who survived a rare blood disease. These are my previous elevator pitches:
My first idea within my audio-recorded elevator pitch was of Matthew Wing, a Luthier. Matthew Wing is a close family friend, which makes him rather accessible and reliable as an option for my documentary. As a Luthier, Matthew restores old and often famous violins and is considered 2nd best in the world. I would be able to tell his story of following passions into a full time career, and let the audience explore his wooden workspace.
My second idea was Mark Whatley, my father, who suffered from an extremely rare blood disease, called TTP (Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia Purpura) which he found out he had due to randomly appearing bruises. This option is to spread awareness of how amazing the NHS, who my father now works for, was with not only Mark, but also patients in general. As well as filming
Marks experience with the disease, I would also include how it played out at affecting my mother during the scary times.
From this I was suggested going forward with my portrait documentary on Matthew Wing, which I did decide to choose, and therefore made my formal pitching slides ready for everything to be filmed.
Moving forward
After moving on from the pitching side of our documentaries, I started gathering more ideas and planning for my two scheduled filming days. The first thing I did was make a slide show of some shot, lighting, and interview ideas I had in mind; and emailed it to my interviewee, Matthew Wing. This was given to Matthew to review, so he had an idea of how I wanted this documentary to go- And also mean I could find out whether he wanted to add or remove anything for his comfortability, before the shoot took place.
I also then made a kit list, involving the equipment needed, as well as the capacity of it and the days it will be used by me.
Once everything was sorted with Matthew and accepted with college (Filming dates, Kit and so on), I then went on to make the other important docs needed- Production schedule, Recce doc and Risk assessment.
With all of these needed documents filled out and finished, I had some time to
try out some test shots which I knew I wanted to include in my documentary (the B-roll and the interview). I used the camera and also some of the lighting equipment which I wanted to include, and just took some quick images of the things which I liked and turned out well- Then composed a small google slides full of them compared to the original which had given me the shot inspiration.
Interview Questions
I then proceeded to make my list of questions which I wanted to include within the interview, making sure some included follow up questions. I also left some room for me to write extra questions throughout my shooting days if anything extra was to come up.
Notes I kept
With all of these extra documents filled out and finished, and also all my extras in place in case anything went wrong. I was then able to go and film in London for the few nights I had. Although stressful, due to knowing once I was back from London I couldn't exactly go back up there easily if I forgot any footage, I knew that my best option was to get just as much B-roll and interview footage as possible, so I had freedom in what I included within my edit. Thankfully everything went better than expected; And as soon as I came back I was able to start all of my pre-production stuff which I enjoy doing the most.