My role within Silver Line Productions is ‘Director of Photography’, this role means that I am in charge of the camera and most of the equipment. By using my past experiences I hope to create a Documentary that will draw the audience in and make them feel involved. At the start of the semester I was originally given the role of ‘Producer’, However I felt that being a producer for two modules was too much work and that I wanted one practical and one theory based role to gain more knowledge.

Our task was to create a documentary to the length of our choice, ideally being a minimum of 20 minutes which will be shown next year at the U-Doc festival. Our main task before making this Documentary was to create an online workbook which would need to include both individual and group sections clearly showing outlining our research and ideas for the Documentary. This meant that each member had to be reliable and work together to ensure the workbook was at a high standard.

After the first group meeting, we all decided to go off and research ‘three’ possible Documentary ideas and at the next meeting, which was a few days later to present to the group with our ideas. My main ‘initial’ idea was to focus on a community in Rowner which is located in Gosport. Rowner was once named the ‘worst estate in the country due to the lack of jobs, drug problems and state of repair buildings’. (See appendix one)
I wanted to produce a ‘day in the life’ type of Documentary to show life in Rowner and looking into the current project to make the place a better place to live. Another reason I wanted to create a Documentary here was because my uncle lives there, so I figured that he could be our primary who we could interview and follow. I was also going to follow Ellen, an elderly resident, documenting her life and how she manages with her daily chores including climbing stairs to her flat on the 9th floor, because the lift has been out of action for years because of constant vandalism, the mode of this Documentary would have been ‘reflexive to show poverty here in the UK. However, after presenting my idea with the group they felt that there were documentaries already similar to this and that this would be used as our ‘third’ back up choice.

Once we were given roles, I created a Facebook group which meant we could message each at any time; this made it easy to communicate and helped us with group decisions when someone posted an idea which was time saving. Our next idea was to look into the plans of the NHS deciding whether the money being spend on cancer treatment for terminally ill cancer patients was well spend or whether it should be cut, because there was no real ‘evidence’ if the treatment actually worked. This Documentary would have focused on cancer patients, following their journey and interviewing the family members, friends, the public and staff at the hospital on how they felt about the plans. Unfortunately, this idea had to be dropped because we were refused filming permission from the NHS.

Greyhound racing was a topic that we all agreed on and felt the most passionate about and thought it had the most potential. Greyhound racing is considered a sport and is often overlooked by people they don’t know what really happens backstage so they can take part in such a ‘sport’. We want to focus on both sides looking at the positive side of owner who actually look after their greyhounds and the negative by interviewing volunteers at local rescue centres who care for abandoned greyhounds once they are too old to race. This would generate the themes of ‘greed’, ‘obsession’ and ‘gambling’, I would hope to shot this using the observational and expository mode, considering the use of a ‘voice of god’ to make the audience ‘shocked’ over what we are showing them and to make them more aware on this so called ‘sport’. 

We assigned each other to different jobs to do; For example phoning and writing covering letters in order to gain permission for filming. I was given the role of creating a Facebook fan page, Twitter and a YouTube channel. These services are free to use and would enable us to promote ourselves by posting regular posts and posting pictures and videos which helped us gain more attention from the public, this also makes us look more of a professional ‘production company’ when we contact our primaries and stadiums we want to film at.
Creating the Wix website was another job I volunteered to do, I created 3 main pages and added a simple black background, the intention of this website is for our primaries, so they can look at this instead of our research site.

Being appointed as the ‘Director of Photography’, it is my job to ensure we create what we all have in mind and that the audience feel engaged and drawn into the Documentary through the use of creative visuals by using different camera techniques. We want our Documentary to poetically or evocatively show both sides by capturing mainly the negative side but also the positive side by using different camera angles, the use editing, and music.

I decided to research “Photojournalism” looking at the following books “Photo Journalism: the professionals' approach” by Kenneth Kobre and “Photojournalism: the world's top photographers” by Andy Steel. I loved the photography work captured by Dorothea Lange, the way she captures and presents ‘social issues’.
Most of her work has a huge influence on the audience, it generates sympathy from the audience (see appendix two) it shows how a single mother is struggling with life, with the lack of male presence. The use of black and white shows the theme of ‘isolation’ which captures the ‘depression era’ intended. Jeff Wall was another photojournalist I researched, it was him who influenced my photo essay, the way his work is different and experimental. I watched a few Documentaries to look at the work of ‘practitioners’ looking in particular at Nick Broomfield, making note of his style and intentions.

I have gained more knowledge technically through the training sessions provided; we were taught how to operate a Canon 550d and the Sony HD camera, this was important for me to attend and take notes, seeing as I am the DoP. After the training sessions, I hired the equipment again and operated the camera to ensure I was comfortable with all the settings and how to use it. I have decided that I want to film our documentary using the Sony HD camera and the Canon 550d to take stills which we will place at the beginning of the documentary with the ‘voice of god’ telling some facts to the audience. Photoshop has never been my strong point so I decided to create a poster to promote the documentary and a personal business card. I think technically I have gained a better understanding of using this and will benefit when I am required to use Photoshop again in the future. 

Once we had completed our individual sections, we were given a page to work on from the ‘group workbook’; I was given the ‘Database Documentary’ page. This was beneficial to the group because it meant that everyone had an equal part and that Alyssa for example, our producer, the Greyhound was her idea so it made sense that she should talk about it and show the letters she had written via her given page.

Prior to the presentation, it was my job to create a slide on the ‘locations’ and ‘primaries’ to present during the presentation.  I also created a slide for the ‘filming equipment’ we would be using (see appendix three) as the DoP, this slide will allow me to mention the camera techniques I plan on using to ensure our piece will look as professional as it can be. Reflecting on the presentation I thought of possible ways in making the audience feel more engaged with our idea, so I decided to print 50 6x40 photos which would be handed around the room whilst we present the idea, so they can picture it visually.

We encountered a few problems, the main one being that three of us are combined honors students; this meant that we had to work around everyone’s schedules which resulted in us not having as much time as we would have liked during the meetings and working on the group sections on the workbook. The second problem, as mentioned earlier, was when we came up with the idea of documenting the 'NHS cuts’ we were all excited at the thought of this but were left disappointed when our filming permission got rejected.

To conclude, I feel that I have gained a lot more knowledge on the history, rules and regulations required in order to make a Documentary. I have researched and reviewed a number of documentaries taking note of the camera staging and angles, which I have taken on board when it comes to filming our documentary. For next semester I would like to make a few improvements such as ‘time management’ by not leaving some of the work too late and engaging and taking part more in group discussions. Overall, I think as a production company we have worked hard together and I hope the documentary will be a success.


Appendix

One:
• BBC Article: Run Down Rowner
Link: www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/extra/series-1/poshboy2.shtml

Two:
• Dorothea Lange photo: Mother with two children
Link: i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01663/lange-migrant_1663732i.jpg

Three:
Equipment being used
• HD Sony HVR-V1E shooting kit x2 – we will take two cameras for different angles.
• Tripod
• Clip on Mic x2 – better for 'set up' interviews
• SLR Canon 550d - for stills which will be used during the documentary
• Sachtler 3x Reporter Light Kit – small and easy to carry, when lighting is required indoors.