Evaluation

Our initial idea for this project was to create three different documentaries, all one in a different style, which would be segments of a bigger documentary, looking at the people of Plymouth.

We’d wanted to make one of these documentaries about a residential home in Plymouth which would look at people’s past stories of Plymouth, from a personal point of view. We also thought it’d be interesting to look at how Plymouth has changed as a city through their eyes. The second was going to be following the story of a rock band that my friend was part of, which was based in Plymouth, getting a view of Plymouth through its youth’s eyes, from those who are going to be part of Plymouth’s future. The third was going to be about the Navy, as it’s a big part of the city, its past and its future.

We decided the Navy one was too ambitious and would be too hard to achieve. We still liked the idea of the other two, but the residential homes we had contacted hadn’t replied and the band we were supposed to be documenting were going through a dry spell.

Our project seemed to be falling apart, so we decided to focus our documentaries on some of the historical places and buildings around Plymouth. We decided on St. Andrew’s church and Royal William Yard. We had thought about doing the other about Smeaton’s tower, though we decided against it.

We knew that pre-production was going to have to be the part of production we needed to dedicate most of our time to. We used email as the main method of communication, mostly based on the fact that we’d all have access to the same email address, so we’d all be able to view them and stay in the loop with that was going on. Gathering emails for the people at Royal William Yard was a lot easier than collecting them for those at the church. As the people we were speaking with from church were of an older generation, many of them didn’t have emails or mobile numbers which meant that we had to contact them via their home phone, or going to the church and speaking to them in person. We decided to speak to them in person for the most part, as we thought that it would be better that they met us first, before we started requesting interviews, and that by doing so they’d be more willing to participate

The pre-production stages were proving slow for the church, as we were talking to different people, but they didn’t seem to be communicating with each other. We spoke to the office and got given the go ahead to film, but when it came to interviewees it was hard to finalise any subjects for sure, let alone dates for the interviews.

However, Royal William Yard started off much more successfully. On our first visit there, we came back with four contact emails, one confirmed interviewee and 3 other potentials. We’d also spoken to a man who agreed to send us some past photos of the yard, which we thought would be very useful.

The church film continued to progress slowly. We spoke to a steward named John Stevenson who agreed to give us an interview on camera. We arrange a day to shoot it, and showed up with two 7Ds and tripods. Whilst preparing for John’s interview, he suggested that we ask a man named David who used to be a caretaker at the church. He’d taken an interest in what we were doing and came over to ask us about the technology we were using. We used this as an opening to ask if he’d like to be interviewed, also. It took some persuading, but he finally agreed. We proceeded to shoot John’s interview and then set up, ready to shoot David’s interview straight after. John also suggested we pop along to the choir practice that happens on Friday evenings, as we had mentioned we’d wanted to get some shots and audio of the choir singing.

When speaking to the office staff, they suggested we speak to a man named John Dobell. We arranged and shot an interview with him, though, unfortunately, the audio from the shoot was so bad we decided not to include it in the film.

We continued to go back, arranging an interview with Jack Spence - the historian of the church.

We were really pleased that Jack had agreed to go on camera for us, as we knew it would be what he had to say that would be the spine of the film, knowing as much as he did. We went along to one of Jack’s weekly history talks about the church, prior to his interview. This helped give us more of an understanding of what happened and allowed us to add any more questions to our list for him.  After his interview, he suggested we get an interview with Ann, a long term member of the congregation and a past volunteer at the church. She agreed, so we shot her interview there and then.
Whilst the St. Andrew’s film was coming along quite nicely, the progress of the film on Royal William Yard had started to slow down. We’d successfully planned and filmed an interview with James, the security guard and Martin, the artist that owned the gallery space there.  We’d had confirmation that Uncle Bill was willing to be interviewed, but beyond that we didn’t have any other potential interview subjects. People seemed to be avoiding our attempts at contacting and visiting them. We went on to film Uncle Bill’s interview, which was very interesting. But looking over the footage we had, we didn’t feel that we had enough to create a structure for the film.

We continued with the St. Andrew’s shoots, attending the Lord Mayor’s service to collect some audio and shots of the choir and congregation singing.

Although it was a slow start, the shooting for the documentary had really picked up in pace and they seemed to be more comfortable with our being there. So much so, they allowed us to set up the dolly and track, right in the middle of the church.  We got several more cutaways over the rest of the week until we felt we had enough to work with.

The Royal William Yard, by this point, had come to a standstill. We hadn’t been able to arrange any more interviews, which is what we’d needed to continue with the film.

We decided to focus on the St. Andrew’s film, making sure it was done to a good degree of quality, ready for the deadline. The edit was fairly straight forward. We had enough cutaways, and once it was suggested we include archive footage, it was just a case of fitting to all together. The only really issue we had with the post production stages was with the audio from the radio mics. The sound levels were really low and extremely noisy and we didn’t have much time to play around with them. We adjusted them in Adobe Audition and got them to a reasonable quality, ready to be part of the edit.

Overall, I am very proud of the piece we have produced. Not only is it a film I’d be happy to put on my showreel, but I feel I have learned a great deal from it. I’ve definitely become more confident, both as a film maker and as a person, as a result of this project. When we first started, we were all very anxious when it came to speaking to people we didn’t know, let alone asking something of them. By the end we were asking people and even pushing and negotiating with them to be interviewed. It is a shame we didn’t get the Royal William Yard film finished in time for the deadline, but it definitely has been a useful experience in terms of learning how to go about interviewing subjects and arranging shots. Although our initial objective was to explore different styles in which we could produce a documentary, we have learnt the necessary fundamental skills needed to put a documentary together and even developed a style of documentary making we’re comfortable and happy with making which we can apply to any future projects. This module has helped us develop and explore elements that have actually helped us in other projects we’ve been involved with, such as the ‘Free School’ project we have been involved with. We used the skills we learned from arranging interviews for the church and the yard to help arrange and execute when filming the interviews for ‘Free School’, so this project has already started to benefit us in other projects as film makers.

We plan to continue making the Royal William Yard film to expand our skills further. We also would like to add to the ‘Resurgam’ film, as there were more interview we wanted to get, but couldn’t include them due to time issues. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction and has been a valuable learning curve for me.  

Presentation Links

Initial Ideas

Originally we had wanted to make three different documentaries, all tied together somehow.
These were going to be based on:
A residential home
A rock band
The naval base
Smeaton's tower

Set Backs

Equipment
As always, this project didn't go off without a hitch. One main problem we had was with the radio mics, which weren't working all that well. We took out two sets, just in case we encountered a problem, so we'd have another set to fall back on. Unfortunately, both sets were in one way damaged or another. We found that you had to keep them held dead still, otherwise you'd get interruption as they had dodgy XLR connections. The other problem was that the sound they were recording were being captured at a very low level, despite having turned the recording volume up. When we listened to the tracks back, they were all extremely quiet and very noisy. This meant spending time, which we didn't really have, editing them in Adobe Audition, boosting the levels and removing the vast amounts of noise.

Weather
For the most part, we were luck with the weather. We did have a few days of filming where it drizzled very lightly, but we were able to work around it. However, Lucy and I had planned to go to RWY on a Monday to collect some more cutaways (we were also thinking about interviewing members of the public, to find out how much they knew about the yard). Lucy walked to my house, and we were then going to catch a bus to the yard from Royal Parade. By the time Lucy got to my house, she was drenched from head to toe. it had been relentlessly raining all morning, so we concluded that filming just wasn't going to happen.

Jemma's Car
We had rescheduled the shoot we were planning to do on Monday when Jemma got back. She's just bought a new car, which we were going to travel in to RWY. On the way to picking up Lucy in the morning, Jemma's car broke down on the hill. The AA weren't going to be able to come out and fix it for several hours, so we accepted that filming wasn't going to happen that day either, as we had too much equipment to take on the bus and Jemma had to stay and arrange the tow and repair.

People Going Away
A problem we kept encountering for both films, was people going away during the time we were planning on filming. James Carr went on annual leave, which meant pushing back his interview by a week. Paul, who had finally agreed to give us an interview, was about to start his leave when we asked him. He said we could film him in the later weeks, but it would have been too late for us to do so.
For the church documentary we had hoped to interview 'the captain of the tower', Fergus, and get some shots of him ringing the bells. we rang him, but he was on holiday up-country, and wasn't going to be back until the following week, which wasn't very ideal for us, so the interview never happened.

Royal William Yard

We began pre production for Royal William yard first, as it was the place we knew least about. We decided to visit the yard as I had never been and Lucy and Jemma had only been once or twice. We walked around the site, making note of some places that would make good cut-aways. We decided to ask someone on how to go about filming there, but there didn't seem to be a reception as such. We noticed a gallery and decided to see if there was anyone inside, willing to help us. We met a woman, Morag, who was covering for the artist, Martin, whilst he was away. She told us a little about the yard and gave us some suggestions regarding to people we could talk to and potentially interview. We exchanged emails and she gave us Martin’s email also. She then mentioned she knew someone she referred to as “Uncle Bill”, who had live in Stonehouse as a young boy, and that it may be worth interviewing him to get a more personal view on the Yard. She also suggested we ask the bakery owner Clive if he’d like to be part of the documentary.

One person Morag suggested we pay a visit to was James Carr, the head of security. We Headed to the security office and told James about our plans to make a short documentary. He said he’d be more than happy to be interviewed and suggested that we speak to Paul, the man across the hall, as he knew more about the history. We popped in to ask him the same we asked of James. Paul wasn't quite as willing to be on camera as James, but offered to send us photos and literature of the yard.

After exchanging emails with both James and Paul, we headed over to the bakery to see if Clive was in, which he wasn't. We asked the woman working when he’d next be in and got his email address from her.

We came away feeling relieved that it had gone so well in terms of collecting some contacts for potential interviewees. 

We then proceeded to email all of those we had got contact details from, and arranged days to interview James and Martin. Morag had also got in contact with Uncle Bill, who had agreed to give us a quick interview also.

We were glad that our project was finally coming together. We managed to get in and film all the interviews rather successfully and even some cutaways, too.

After having filmed the first three interviews, things really seemed to slow down. We were proving unsuccessful when it came to arranging other interviews, and our attempts to get back tot he yard seemed to be prevented by unfortunate occurrences.
We edited together the interview we did with the artist Martin Bush, but ceased any further production activities to focus our time on the 'Resurgam' film.

St Andrew's Church

Pre production

I emailed the church asking them if it would be okay to do some filming in the church.

In the meantime, we went to the library to read up on the church to get an idea of it's history and what elements to explore and what questions to ask.

We received a reply stating that it was okay for us to go ahead and film in the church.

From then, we decided to visit the church and speak to some people and see if there was anyone willing to speak about the church on camera. We spoke to a steward named John, who agreed to be interviewed and so we arranged to interview him the following week. He also told us that he was part of the choir and that they practice on Friday evenings. This interested us, as we wanted to set some shots and record the audio of the choir singing as a soundtrack for the film. Whilst we were preparing for John's interview, a man called David was hovering around, taking an interest. John suggested that we speak to him about being on camera, as he had been a caretaker there for around 12 years in the past. David approached us to talk about the technology we were using, which we used as an opportunity to ask if he wanted to be interviewed, too. At first he declined, but after some persuading he agreed and we shot his interview after John's.

We had already popped into the church once before we had started filming, as we wanted to double check with the office that it was okay and to ask if they knew of anyone who would be willing to be on camera. We first encountered another steward who suggested we speak to Jack Spence, the historian, as he knew a great deal about the church. She gave us a list of times and dates of his talks that he does at the church. We spoke to the people in the office who suggested we speak to a man called John Dobell. We actually went on to film John's interview, but due to the extremely poor quality of sound, we decided not to include it in the final edit.

We went back to the church on a day we knew Jack would be in so we could talk to him. We sat down a had a chat with him and told him about the project and that we wanted to interview him. He said he'd be happy to be interviewed, but had a busy week ahead of him, and that he couldn't do it until the following week. This wasn't an idea time for us because we wanted to start the edit by then, so we persuaded him to agree to being filmed after one of his talks on Friday. Whilst setting up for his interview, a lad who had attended his talk was still in the church, enjoying a cup of tea. Jack suggested we speak to her, as she'd been attending the church for many years and had done some volunteering work there. She agreed without hesitation, and filmed her interview straight after Jack's.

By now, we had enough interviews to start putting together the edit. We'd also got our main cutaways, which were the tracking shots of the interior of the church and some external shots in the evening. We were worried we'd have a problem setting up the track and dolly in the church, as the people who worked there seemed a little uneasy about us being there at first. As we had gone back so many times, they became more comfortable with us being there. We'd stand and have a chat with anyone who had questions about the film and even showed them some of the shots we were getting. By the end, they allowed us to set up the track without hesitation and any queries about what we were doing stemmed from curiosity about how it all worked.

Once we'd got enough cutaways, returning a couple more times to get what we felt we needed to aid the edit, we started to piece it all together. It had been suggested that we drop the RWY film for the moment, and focus all our time on 'Resurgam', as well as adding some archive to the edit.
We did so, which took a lot of stress off of us, and we were able to get the edit to place we were satisfied with it.

Important Developments

Since our original idea, our film plans have developed quite significantly.
We decided to drop the military based documentary, based on the fact that it would be extremely difficult to organise. We also dropped the Rockumentary idea, as the band we were planning to follow are going through "a dry spell"
We've now decided, following the lack of responses from the residential hometo s, focus our documentaries on historic buildings and locations around Plymouth.
We decided to focus on Royal William Yard and St. Andrew's church. We were also going to look at Smeaton's tower, but decided against it, as it didn't particularly tie in to well with the other two locations.
Despite the drastic shift in subject matter, I think the project has grown for the better. It's not at all much like out original idea, but still remains an interesting project to work on.
The idea is still the same in terms of exploring the different approaches to making documentaries, though three documentaries have now become two. We initially wanted all the documentaries to link in some way, so they'd all be different parts of a bigger documentary, but I don't think that's going to happen at the moment. I think for that to work, we'd need to have made at least three documentaries all tying together by sharing some common ground.
Although the changes have been quite substantial, I don't think it's affected our primary aim of this project; to explore the approaches to making a documentary and gaining us experience in doing so.

The RWY documentary was the one I personally had the least "vision" for when trying to picture it in my head. I didn't really know how it was going to come together, or the specifics of how we were going to present it to an audience. It kind of became a case of getting the footage we knew we'd need and letting it develop organically as the pieces started to come together.
With the St. Andrew's one, I had much more luck envisaging it. I knew I wanted the shots to show off the beauty of the building itself, and for the plot to surround the rise of the church, despite the extensive devastation it had suffered.
Ideally, I want it to convey the belief and perseverance of the community in restoring and continuing use of the church, after its destruction during the blitz.
During the first stages of production, RWY took off a lot quicker than the St. Andrew's film. The St. Andrew's film was barely progressing, whilst we had already begun filming for RWY. It got to a point where Lucy and Jemma didn't think it was going to even happen, but I felt differently. I could picture the 'Resurgam' film a lot better in my head. With the RWY one, I still didn't quite know what it was going to turn out like.

The one sentence.

A documentary that explores the history and social significance of Plymouth's most treasured and iconic buildings through the means of personal stories and memories which will resonate with those who watch it.

Equipment and Software used

Equipment

Canon 7D

Canon 5D

16-35mm lens

24-70mm lens

50mm Prime

35mm Prime

80mm Prime

0.6 Grad ND filter

Dolly and Track

Fig Rig

Zacuto Rig

Merlin Steadicam

Libec Tripods

Zoom recorder
Radio Mics
ME67
Boompole

 Software
Adobe Audtion CS6
Final cut Pro X

1000 words

The aim of this project is to create three mini documentaries based around three
different subjects, each shot in a different style. The reason I wanted to look into making
documentaries was because it’s not really a type of film making I have ever really
explored, but I've wanted to for a long time. The reason behind deciding to make three
mini documentaries is because there’s so many different ways and styles of shooting a
documentary and I really wanted to explore more than one approach to doing so. As I
am working with two other classmates, we are planning to each adopt and rotate the
different roles on each of the films. By doing this, it will help develop our knowledge and
understanding in each of these areas, such as producing, directing, editing, etc.
The first of the three films we plan to make will be looking into the music scene in Plymouth,
and following a band through their trials and tribulations as they attempt to walk the road
leading to success. The second will be covering the exploration of Plymouth’s militant
history surrounding its Navy port. The third will be a documentation of a few individuals that
are now residing in a care home. We thought it would be interesting to continue the history
theme, but at a much more personal level, such as several elderly citizens life experiences,
thoughts and their histories. For this, we’d like to find some individuals who have lived in
Plymouth for an extensive amount of time.
Overall, this project will be combining different subject areas that cover several different
areas of Plymouth; Plymouth’s youth, with dreams and aspirations and they’re future ahead
of them; The elderly residents of Plymouth, with a mass of experience and stories about
how Plymouth and how it has developed and changed over the years gone by; A look at the
history of Plymouth itself and the history surrounding the famous Naval base.

I have been looking at several documentaries, making note of what I like and don’t like
about how it’s constructed and, from this, developing and planning my own ideas. I have
contacted a friend of mine who asked if I could film a documentary about his band last
summer. Unfortunately they’re not available to film before the deadline date, so we’re
looking into talking to some other local bands that may be interested, as it’s still a route
we’d like to take. We have made a list of different care homes within an appropriate and
practical radius that we could potentially film and are planning to get in touch with them,
once we've fully figured out a schedule for filming. The Naval one will be the hardest to
organize, but we have a couple of contacts, so hopefully we can make some arrangements.

Our main priorities at this stage are to make some official dates and arrangements with
some of the potential subjects. We also need to make a solid structure for what we need to
film. We know roughly what it is we want to do with each film, it’s just a matter of getting
it down on paper and making sure we’re all agreed. We’re still in the early stages of pre-
production as it took us a while to conceive an idea and overall objective for this project. We
didn't want to waste the opportunity with something we didn't feel would benefit us later
on. We wanted to explore something significant, which we knew we’d learn from and add
to our show reel, for a bit of diversity. We've discussed technologies, such as cameras, and
we've agreed that DSLRs may be the way to go with this project. The reasons being mainly

because of their size; they’re easy to carry around to different locations, and they don’t
seem so intrusive and intimidating as the bigger cameras, which, hopefully, will put our
subjects a little more at ease when they’re in front of it, allowing us to get footage where
they’re behaving in a more natural and truthful manner.

As far as strengths go, I think that the biggest strength of this project is that not only will it
allow us to explore a type of film making we've never had experience with, but it will let us
explore it in more than one way. We’re covering a lot more bases this way, than we would
if we made a 2 hour long documentary. We can explore and play with different elements
that you typically see on documentaries and experiment with what it is we feel comfortable
with doing, what works well, what doesn't work so well and the different outcomes those
elements can produce. I think the fact that this is quite an ambitious project is, in a way, a
strength, as it’s really pushing us outside our comfort and safe zones and will give us an idea
of what a typical work load could be like in the working world. We’re very conscious of the
fact that achieving 3 documentaries on such varying subjects in such a short period of time
will be difficult and that we could only come out the other side with only two, or maybe
even only one, but we feel it’s worth giving it a try. We want to push the boundaries with
this project and get out of it as much as possible.

Our main weakness here is having to arrange so much in just a short period of time. We
don’t only have to find one, but three different willing groups of participants and arrange
meetings and schedules so none of them clash, and so it’s at times so that we all can make
it. It also means three times more sets of locations, interviews, editing etc. Triple the work
load we’re used to. I think once the majority of the pre-production is out of the way, a
significant amount of weight will be lifted, but during these pre-production stages, it’s going
to be very hectic.

I've always been a fan of watching documentaries about all sorts of things. Mostly about
people around the world and the interesting stories they have to tell.
But I think the screening of Baraka happened at the perfect time for us because it showed
me a type of documentary that I hadn't really experienced before. The fact that it had no
dialogue or narration seemed odd at first, but it really opened my eyes to how you don’t
NEED someone telling you what’s happening or who and what the subjects on screen are.
You can just experience something, in this case ‘the world’, for what it is. It doesn't have to
be explained away by a narrator or an expert giving an opinion.
I’m going to start looking into more historical based documentaries, as most of the
documentaries I have watched have been about people, rather than places.

For this project I’m going to be working with Lucy and Jemma. We feel like we work well as
a group and we all have wanted to look at filming documentaries for a while, so this seemed
like the perfect opportunity. We’re not going to have set roles for this entire project; we’re
going to rotate roles between the shooting of the different films, so we all gain some
valuable experience in each of the different fields.

Schedule:
8th April – Deadline for pre production. We will aim to have the necessary arrangements and
paper work sorted, ready for filming.

9th April – 7th May – The shoots. This will be the space in which the shoots for all three
documentaries will take place.
A more specific schedule for production will be constructed once we can finalise dates with
participants.

8th May – 27th – Post production. This is the time frame we will have to edit and create a
soundtrack for each of the different projects. It is likely that each of us will edit one of the
films each, to help save time.