Video of Initial Filming

Above is an example of the type of filming we have been experimenting with, with the use of different camera angles and positions. From this, we were able to identify what types of shots worked and what areas need to be improved, for example, we liked the way in which the camera was standstill as the car drove past, however, we established that we needed to position the camera in a different way in order to enhance the quality of the filming.

Further In-Depth Research

Untill we have decided as a group how to start putting our documentary together, I have made sure I have researched as much as possible different websites and links, providing all sorts of information and statistics which could be potentially incorporated into our documentary. Such websites as: http://www.iam-bristol.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=291&Itemid=90 have been usesful in researching different opinions and views of how teenage drivers are viewed and therefore has provided a helpful insight into the diverse comments of different institutions also.

From conducting so much in-depth research, I have been able to further my understanding of the severity of teenage car accidents and ultimately have found that the more intense research I do, the more I understood about the dangers of driving, something that I feel we need to try and portray throughout our documentary in a unique and interesting way. It has been interesting to see that infact most research found from websites appears to state US statistics, revealing the further research I had to do in order to find relevant information in terms of the UK. Comparing the two however, shows that in fact there isn't that much difference in terms of the dangers, for instance, this website, showing the fatalities of incidents in the US http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html. This just reflects that infact teenage incidents are worldwide and therefore car accidents are quite a significant factor within societies.


Ex. of a fatal incident.

Developing Lighting Techniques

We have continued to experiment with different types of camera angles and shots, however, feel as though we need to begin to progress further with our documentary making. We have now begun to experiment with different lightings and camera positions, for example, one the main feature we have started to use is facilities within the drama studio at school, enabling us to create an almost spot-like effect for our interviews. We were able to lighten and darken different areas, creating a silhouette outline of the interviewee, resulting in a dramtic and tense effect, something that we can incorporate into our documentary. We have continued to take into account the conventions of documentary making by ensuring the interviewee is placed to the right-hand side of the camera, allowing us to conform to the expectations of documentary making. During our experimentation stages, we have based a lot of our interviews on unstructured interviews, something that clearly works well with our chosen topic. We will begin to now experiment with other types of interviews, for instance structured interviews, as well as develop lighting techniques further to result in a realistic and interesting effect.

In order to show this, I have printscreened shots from the video shown above this post, copied and pasted this into paint and then cut the shot to create a still image. Although from these images, the lighting appears too dark and the silhouette cannot be easily identified, by looking at this on camera we were able to establish different contrasts of light and were able to find a suitbale contrast that we would potentially use within the documentary.

Developing Camera Techniques

Now that we have established the basics of what our documentary requires, we have continued to experiment with shots, focusing on different angles and ways of shooting a speeding car. We have experienced shots from outside the car as well as in, in order to create an idea of what works best, as well as discussing areas that need to be improved, for example, we realised that the archive footage we will incorporate into our documentary needs to be current and relative to our chosen topic. The next stage of completing our documentary will to be research further and continue to look for more developed archive footage. As a group, we have found it difficult find archive footage, however, have agreed that it is a necessary component and will be an essential feature of conforming to the expectations of documentary making.

The Early Stages of Filming

Once we had completed our storyboard and began researching archive footage, after half term we began the filming process, experimenting with shots and contrasting angles. We used one of the group members cars to be able to capture the essence of speeding, of which we then focused on close-ups and mid-shots of the car, trying to establish the best possible angle in order to conform to the coventions of a documentary. We then discussed as a group that it would be more appropriate to use and experiment with more sophisticated shots, for instance, staying away from the typical shaky camera shots and allow other more interesting shots to be used.

Contacting Relevant Sources

Now that we have completed our virtual storyboard, we have begun looking into recieving useful leaflets and information from the 'Drive Alive' organisation, of which we will be able to include within or documentary. We have attempted to call the organisation to ask for these useful resources of which we found the number through the website: http://www.safedrive.org.uk/news.html
We are also considering going to where the company is based with the Year 12s, so we can attempt to interview students as they come out of the production, so we can capture reactions and opinions of what people thought about it and also see if it had a lasting impact on them when they are able to drive. From going to 'Safe Drive Stay Alive' last year, it was clear that the event had a shocking impact on students and made them consider their approach to driving, therefore we feel that it would be a useful and relevant source to use within our documentary of teenage driving incidents.

Virtual Storyboard

Once we planned our storyboards in draft, we then uploaded the still shots we took previously and imported them onto the Apple Mac's iMovie so that we were able to edit and add titles to the shots, showing the different camera angles and explaining the narrative of the documentary. This will then enable us to picture how our documentary is going to be formed, as well allowing us to make relevant changes to the contrasting shots. We then changed the colours, brightness, the exposure and contrast of the still shots in order to show and portray strong, realistic images of which will also be featured within the documentary. We have also started to look for suitable archive, of which we will be able to include at a later date within our documentary.

Practising Still Shots

After further planning and discussing the way in which our documentary will come together, we have now begun to take still shots of images we want to include when creating the documentary. We have done this by using a portable camera, of which we have taken pictures of cars and the type of interviews that we will use, in order to display the types of shots we will include and also so we can then add the shots to our storyboard, in order to show progression of the development of our documentary. This will then allow us as a group to identify whether changes are needed to be made and also what works well within the construction of our documentary.

Beginning of September- In Depth Research

Now that we have a basic understanding of the topic we want to produce a documentary on, we will need to, as a group, begin to develop our ideas by producing evidence of research that we can relate to the progression stages of our final product and also portray evidence of the experimental stages of the practise interviews we completed before the end of term. In order to sustain the knowledge we need, we will need to again contact organisations who promote safe driving, in order to gain offical stats which will allow us to begin to decide the relevant pieces of information that we will in include within our documentary, ultimately producing information that is going to appeal to diverse audiences. This is something we began before the end of term, however, we need to further this by becoming more dedicated to finding out about out chosen topic in significant detail. This is something we will aim to complete within the next few weeks.

Such images as this shown on the left have become apart of our research, identifying terrifying and real-life shots that potentially have a significant impact on audiences, in order to sustain audience interest and ultimately allow our documentary to become more personal. Images like this have allowed us to be able to understand the detail and importance of finding relevant information to result in a powerful yet professional documentary.

As a result of this research, we found various stats and information, as shown below:

Towards the End of Term- Powerpoint Planning

During our final lessons before breaking up for the summer holidays, myself and Josh Hammond produced a powerpoint presentation, explaining our progression stages towards our own documentary, reflecting what we had done and how we came about our topic, as well as converting our practise film to QuickTime, in order to upload this onto our blogs at a later stage, showing the development and experimentation stages towards creating our final documentary. Over the summer holidays, we will individually continue to research into our chosen topic, in order to understand our chosen area in more detail, as well as looking for inspiration, for instance on websites or potentially interviewing friends for their opinions, which could possibly be used within our documentary, as well as thinking and brainstorming new ideas that we will share as a group when we commence in September.

Above shows the PowerPoint presentation that was completed, providing useful information as to the stages needed to be completed in order to produce a successful documentary, conforming to typical conventions and replicate the mode of documentary film-making.

Storyboarding

Now that we have established our chosen theme for our documentary, as a group, we have begun planning and storyboarding our ideas onto paper, making note of topics we want to include within our documentary, as well as coforming to the typical elements of a documentary, e.g. interviews and archives. We have started to visualise the way in which we want our documentary to be presented and have also made note of relevant statistics and research which will ultimately be included within our final product.

Continuation of Planning

As a group, we decided to base our documentary on teenage driving resulting in accidents, something of which we all discussed and agreed on. We decided as a group to email 'Drive Alive', an organisation who portray the dangerous consequences that can happen as a result of driving, as well as providing information, leaflets and talks on real life cases, in order to teach youngsters to be safe when driving. One of the group members, Hester, with our co-operation, emailed the organisation asking for information of which we can potentially use within our final documentary. As well as this, we have begun experimenting with different interview techniques, for instance, the interviewer being in the shot as well a contrasting interview when the interviewer is not present. This has enabled us to see which is most effective and ultimately which would be most appropriate to be used in order to make the documentary sustain realism throughout. We have also began to experiment with shots, such as hand held shots and steady shots, in order to begin to understand the importance of the technical process when starting to produce our own documentary.

The 'Drive Alive' website allowed us to explore and develop an understanding of what the organisaton is all about. We were able to create an impression of what the site tried to offer, for example, it clearly promotes safety on the roads which is something we want to portray withinn our documentary, therefore established the organisations importance and relevance. We were then intrigued to find out more information which we would be able to use within our documentary.

Planning Process and The Introduction to Documentary Makers

We began the planning stages towards our documentary by researching in depth 3 different documentmary makers, including Michael Moore, Louis Theroux and Nick Broomfield. From this we were able to begin to understand different techniques of making a documentary, for example, linking voice overs over the top of images and also narrating interviews by using music and images instead of conforming to the conventions of documentary making by including structured, basic interviews. We have also watched examples of their work, as well as looking briefly at other documentaries and begun to brainstorm ideas of our own, discussing the different camera angles that we could possibly use as well as beginning to think of topics when creating our own documentary. We have all set up our own blogs in order to record the progession stages towards our end product. We will now begin to research different documentaries in further detail and start to come to a decision as to which topic we want to ultimately base our documentary on, in order to progress to the production stage of this task.
Below, is the research I found out about the 3 documentary makers:

Michael Moore-
- He directed 'Bowling for Columbine,' 'Fahrenheit 9/11' and 'Sicko'.
- He created 3 of the top 5 highest-grossing documentaries of all time.
- He critised globalisation, large corporations, gun ownership and George Bush within his written and cinematic works.
- He was named one of the world's 100 most influential people.
- He was critisised by John McCain as being a "disingeniuous film maker".
- 'Fahrenheit 9/11' represented the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 attacks, was the first film to win the prize at the Cannes Film Festival since 1956- however, recieved no Oscar nomination.
- 'Sicko'- made evident the American Health Care System, which came under critisisim when Moore filmed in Cuba. They believed he violated the trade embargo.

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOZmvaFfjtk - This link to Michael Moore's 'Sicko' is a typical example of documentaries we have begun to look at. Within this link, we were able to see such conventions as an interview taking place on the move, reflecting steady camera work but also including audiences within the interview by making them feel apart of the conversation. This is something we will consider as a group to include within our documentary.

Louis Theroux-
- He was best known for 'Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends' and 'When Louise Met...'.
- He was born in Singapore but raised in England.
- He got his break in TV working as a correspondent on 'Michael Moore's TV Nation', when this ended, he signed a deal with the BBC.
- 'Weird Weekends' followed American subcultures such as Black Nationalists, White Supremacists and Porn Stars, by living close to the people who were involoved. This was a contradiction of seriously-held beliefs.
- 'When Louis Met' featured a different celebrity in each programme as they went about their day to day business, interviewing them about their lives and experiences etc.
- 'When Louis Met Jimmy' was voted one of the top 50 documentaries of all time in a survey by Channel 4.
- Max Clifford, controversially, tried to set Theroux up but was caught out. Neil Hamilton was arrested following false alligations of indecent assult during the course of filming.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZFR4DbC5o - Another example is Louise Theroux's 'Most Hated Family in America'. Here, Theroux explores the peron being interviewed's life, allowing audiences to create a better understanding of the family's life and therefore intrigues audiences to the documentary, again, something of which we may consider to portray within our documentary.

Nick Broomfield-
- He was an english documentary film maker who studied at 'The National Film School'.
- He filmed with just himself, as well as 1 or 2 camera crew, which was considered to be a distinctive style.
- He often shot holding 'The Sound Boom'.
- He didn't provide much explanation during filming, instead letting the film talk for itself.
- He liked to experiment the process of film makingg.
- Films he made included: Lily Tomlin, Driving Me Crazy and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.
- His reflexive film making style is why Broomfield is best known.
- His influences on documentary were Michael Moore, Louis Theroux and Morgan Spurlock, who produced similar styles of box office hits.
- He also co-wrote the documentary 'Kurt and Courtney' in 1998.
- Nick started off as the producer of the film in the story 'Driving Me Crazy', which lead to the sense of greater freedom.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ugWA6EAYSU - Finally, this particular part of the documentary of 'Kurt and Courtney' sees the interviewer interviewing outsiders of the story, showing a different perspective of events than to what the interviewer suggests. This adds dimension to the documentary and allows the documentary to seem unbias, something of which potentially we aim to achieve within our documentary.

* From researching these documentary makers in detail, I was able to create an understanding of different types of film makers and different kinds of films that were produced in the past, providing inspiration and extended knowledge for when coming to create our own documentary.