My Individual Assessment: |
For this module I am working within a group of 6 people (Mark Pickering, Juliet Dowrick, Nicholas Burns, Blane Da’Sliva Stewart and Jessica Woodgate and myself), and we named our production, Red Bus Productions. Within this module we have to create a documentary, which will be filmed after the Christmas period. We decided to film our documentary about how the world will end in the year 2012 and whether it will actually happen. We will be filming our documentary using an expository mode, which is where we will be using a ‘voice of God’ narrative and where we will be focusing on social issues.
Although, we have initial ideas which most of the crew members contributed too, such as OCD, Phobias, Cross-dressers, euthanasia and life after prison. These initial ideas are our back-up ideas just in case our 2012 idea cannot be fulfilled.
I think filming a documentary about the speculations about the year of 2012 is a good idea as the rumours surrounding the idea of the world ending are increasing as people are getting more nervous about might happen. Also, when we release our documentary to the public next year, 2011; it is perfect timing as if we left the creating the documentary to a later day, it will old news within the medium. Our target audience for our documentary is both males and females over the age of 18, we choose a wide target audience because the subject of 2012 is widespread as everyone has different views about what might or might not happen. Furthermore, if we had a choice of which broadcast channel we would to broadcast our documentary on, it would be Channel 4 as they show more documentaries based on the Earth and natural causes compare to the documentaries that the BBC show (see bibliography).
My role within our documentary is to be the director when we go to film our documentary. Plus, I had many different roles within the pre-production process such as conducting my own section of research, which included 2012 research and research about life after prison. Furthermore, I have created a poster for our 2012 documentary, which is at the moment the first draft. I will be making a final draft of the poster when we have started filming as then I can use photographs from the actual documentary. Also, my first draft of the poster I think definitely needs improving as it does not look very professional. In addition to this, I helped create our Wix site (www.wix.com/redbusproductions/2012-documentary). This site will mainly be used to gain contacts throughout the Christmas break, so they can see what we are planning on doing. Also, on the Wix site there is a link which will take people to our yola website so those who would like to take part in our documentary can see that we know what we are talking about when it comes to interviewing our contacts.
For the research side of the project, the majority of my research about the speculations of the year 2012 was mainly conducted over the Internet. This was due to most of the rumours started and has rapidly increased over the past couple of years on the Internet. In addition to this, while I was researching I came across an Australian blog site creator and the author of Survive 2012, Robert Bast. He is writing a book about the different possibilities that could happen in the year of 2012 as well as this; he has created a website (see bibliography) for people to find out more information about the different speculations. In addition to this, we have managed to contact Robert Bast, asking him if he would like to give us an interview over the phone or through Skype. As he lives in Australia, it would be impossible to get an interview with Robert Bast in person.
Furthermore, there are loads of blog sites about the different speculations about what could happen in the year of 2012. However, most of these are not creditable sites as they are mostly about people’s opinions about what they think might happen. On the other hand, within our documentary we need to listen to people’s different opinions as it is these people’s opinions that have spread the theories of 2012 across the world. In addition to this, people who use these blog sites could help us gain contacts for our documentary as these people strongly believe that destruction will occur in 2012. Although, there are always two sides to an argument; so to make our documentary fair and less biased I researched the other side of the agreement where people believe nothing will actually happen in the year of 2012. Within this research I found an article from the telegraph where they have interviewed a Mayan elderly about the end of the world. As well as a statement from the NASA website (see bibliography) stating that the world is not going to end in 2012.
To go alongside our documentary, we have created a Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts so that people can follow us on the Internet. Also, we have created these accounts so that we can ask people about their views of our documentary. In addition to this, Nicholas Burns created a Flash animation which can be seen on our yola and Wix websites. We choose to include a Flash animation to make our sites more interesting and visually exciting for the audience. Furthermore, so our audience can expect what our documentary will be like; Mark Pickering has created a first draft of our documentary trailer. We will create a final draft of the trailer when we have started filming so we can have shots from the filming included in the trailer.
Within our lectures we have been trained on the cannon 45Ds as well as the cannon 550Ds where we can take photos in RAW setting as well as film in High Definition (HD). In addition to this, we have been trained to use Final Cut Pro professionally, which we will most likely use to edit our documentary. However, we have also been trained on Adobe Preminier Pro editing software, which gives us a choice of software’s we can edit on.
As a group, I think we work really well as we are the same production group for this project (Multi-Media Project) and our Drama Production module. Therefore, when we are making decisions we all try to blend our ideas together. For example, we used a globe as a prop for our documentary pitch but some members in our group wanted to show the different speculations that could happen in 2012 which resulted in Juliet Dowrick making fortune cookies for our lecture class; within these fortune cookie were the different theories surrounding the year of 2012. On the other hand, we have had some problems concerning Jessica Woodgate as we felt she has not worked her hardest ability within this project so far. We have minimized this problem by talking to Jessica and saying that she needs to do more work within her section of the Yola site. This has slightly worked as she has done a fair bit of work before our pre-production deadline.
Furthermore, we all contributed to our pitch in front of our lecture class and lecturer. My role within the pitch was to talk about the poster which I created as well as what advertising we will be using to reach our target audience and to get people wanting to see our documentary. So far, we have manage to contact our student radio station which will hopefully reach the younger generation, as well as a local radio station where it will hopefully reach an older audience. From the feedback we received from our pitch presentation, we did not include our themes for the documentary. Therefore, to make our theme more clearly, we need to find just one person or a family who are properly preparing themselves for a natural disaster to happen in 2012. For this will hopefully make our documentary one of the best out of our year. Also, if we followed a person or family this would turn our documentary into a journey for the person or family and for the audience who will be watching our documentary, as they will be following how our subject will be preparing themselves. This will also make our documentary different from all the other documentaries within our lecture as well as what has been shown on television.
In conclusion, for the production process we will hopefully be filming a family or one person who is preparing for a natural disaster in 2012. As I am the director I would like to include captions as well as breathing as we will be giving out a fair amount of information about the different speculations of 2012. In addition to this, I am going to try to contact and interview an MP or scientists who believe nothing will happen in 2012 so that we can show both sides of the argument. When it comes to the production process, I will be mainly working alongside Mark Pickering, who is the director of photography, and Nicholas Burns who is the sound design. Within the post-production, I will be mainly working alongside Blane Da’Sliva Stewart who is our editor; we will choose the best shots as well as make our documentary film sequence run smoothly.
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Bibliography:
BBC television schedule page- http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/guide
Channel 4 television schedule page- http://www.channel4.com/tv-listings
Robert Bast ‘Surviving 2012’ Website- http://survive2012.com
Telegraph’s elderly Mayan interview- http://telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6519923/ignore-the-movie-2012-will-not-be-the-end-of-the-world-say-Mayans.html
NASA’s Frequently Asked Questions page- http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html
