Evaluation

My group: Rosie Penn, Ida Frank, Imogen Polycarpou

My roles: Writer, Producer and Sound Woman

At the beginning of the unit I was extremely stressed out. I was worried about what it will be about and if we will find anything interesting.

Development of idea: 
Originally we were thinking of doing it on bears or barn owls but Helen suggested to do it on the cliffs.

The next day after our meeting we went straight to the white cliffs of Dover to have a look and speak to the management at the cliffs. Since they were unavailable that day we followed up withe mails and contacting them. Soon we arranged a day where we could meet the operations manager, Gareth Wiltshire.

During that meeting we signed the contracts to be allowed to film on the cliffs. We also asked Gareth specific questions to help us with our research on the cliffs for our script.

Writing the script:
Since it was my job to write the script I did a lot of research into the cliffs itself, the nature living their, the wildlife and erosion.

I also decided to watch a few extra documentaries and see how they all started their documentary off. I realised that at the beginning of each one, the narrator/presenter gave a small introduction to the documentary so I decided to do the same (I wrote an overall intro as to what the documentary will be about)

Vision/Shot List: 
Although Rosie was director, we did all pitch our ideas as to what it should look like and what we should do but still followed the directors vision.

During shoot days:
Both shoot days went great even though it was cold and windy.

I was slightly disappointed in our presenter as he did not learn the script, so before each shot we wasted time by having him read over them. Moreover, I was pleased with the results of the production and the way he presented it, especially as behind the scenes he was keen to learn even more about the cliffs.

People we interviewed: 
Our initial idea was to interview Gareth, Robbert and the volunteers but ended up only interviewing Gareth and Robbert.

Interviewing Gareth was easy as he has done it many times, but when it came to interviewing Robbert it was slightly difficult as he does not like being on camera and was not giving us full sentences even though we kept asking him.

Interview workshop: 
The interview workshop helped a great deal when it came to our production. I didn't realise how difficult it is to try and make sure that a complete sentence is made with less 'umms' possible. It helped in the sense that we made our interviewer and presenter comfortable and understand how it should be done (as many takes were needed)

Overall: 
In the end, I enjoyed doing this unit as we had the opportunity to focus on the parts we wanted in the group.  As one day I would like to be producer it was nice to get a taste of what it will be like, even if it was on a small production. I also enjoy script writing so it was nice to also explore how to write a documentary.

Since the beginning of the year I believe I have come a long way. I am now extremely confident in taking the camera setting it up (with the sound equipment) and filming.

Furthermore, I feel that this unit has helped prepare us for next years live production as we worked in groups. Therefore we learnt how to compromise our ideas and it helped me figure out which position I would like to have in the industry.