Red Bus Productions

My role within the group was sound designer. Within the production I will work on the sound levels to make sure that the levels are clear enough to catch what out participants are saying within the documentary. As well as this, I will also be working and creating non-diagetic background sounds that could be used which fit with the situation in the documentary. I want to use some soft acoustic music as I feel this would fit with the genre of the documentary. As well as sound designer I have also done pre-production research including looking at the theories around 2012, and information regarding OCD. 2012 is our main idea while I, individually researched OCD as a back-up idea in a contingency plan if the 2012 documentary falls apart. I, personally feel that this is a topic that perhaps needs to be talked about a bit more as we are nearing to the year. I also feel that this is the best time to do a 2012 documentary as it is the last chance to get one that is not going to stereotypical, it will be more original before society gets over-flowed with them in the next few years. As well as this I also looked at photojournalists, and other documentaries in which to be inspired from and to see what works and what doesn't.

For any research project a wide range of research is needed. I conducted primary and secondary research in order to get a more in depth selection thus making the understanding of the topics easier and these should make the overall documentary more interesting as I will now what to include and what to disregard.

The primary researched I did was a questionnaire about the 2012 conspiracies. This enable a more personal look into the thoughts and opinions of the general public. I gave this questionnaire out via internet as I did not want to do it individually as it may have given biased results if I personally selected the people I wanted the answers from. By using the internet to distribute this questionnaire a wider range of results were able to be received.

Secondary research is research that has already been conducted. I looked at news articles, reports, films and books and journals as my source of secondary research. This gave me a good starting point as I was able to find out what the UK public have been doing and what they think will happen. As well as this the books and journals helped as they provided 'facts' which are believed to be true and they include a backstory, for example they talk about where the 2012 conspiracies first started and why people get OCD.

I looked at different photojournalists and documentaries in order to get an understanding of how the industry works, what techniques tend to work well and what ones don't. At the end of the day, this research will help me extensively for the overall production of the documentary. In the documentaries I have watched,I have noticed that many have used still images and photographs which have often zoomed in on the photograph. This is an interesting effect and if we do use photographs I would like to adapt this to our documentary to give it a more creative and interesting look.

As well as doing all of this research for my Yola page I was also in charge of creating a promotional tool in the form of a flash animation. This was used for our production company, Red Bus Productions. I discussed with my group what I felt would make a great animation. The animation that I made was a simple one with our bus logo driving in from the right and the words, 'Red Bus Productions' flying in from the left. This will be used to start our documentary and it will tell the audience who is behind the making of it, which is typical of all films and documentaries. Like I have stated it is a key promotional tool that we find important to have.

On December the 8^th 2010, we had a group sales pitch in which we had to sell our documentary idea. We thought that we had to make this interesting to begin with to drag the audience in and after that go into more depth about what our documentary is about and what it requires. My part in the pitch was to talk about our intended audience which as a group we decided was 18 and plus. I then went further and found out that channel 4 would be more suitable for our market and documentary as it often has documentaries which have natural disaster's. For example, 'Survival Earth'. At the end of the pitch there was a Q and A section where the audience were able to ask us questions and the typical responses were, 'how is this documentary going to be different to others?' This helped as we understand that the audience want to see something new. If we are able to I would like to shock and surprise the audience which would make them more interested in our documentary.

In a group project it is important we work well together and as a group support each other's ideas. We had regular production meetings which we have included on our website. This was to talk about the documentary, the research and any ideas that anyone had that could help the project. As a sound designer I did mention ideas I had about the soundtrack and the genre of music I felt would make the greatest impact. Especially towards the end of the pre-production stage I made my voice heard and made sure I told the producer and the group my upcoming plans for creating background music within the next few months.

I feel, as a group we functioned well and made sure we had the support of each other before making a decision to do with research or the website. The regular production meetings helped as we were able to assess any problems and discussed how they can be resolved without affecting the group dynamic or personal relationships.

We have been trained on the canon 450D and 550D still camera's as well as photoshop raw editing and final cut pro. These have been the technical components of the project and will be key during the production and post-production stages. We are able to take photographs in a Raw and JPEG format which if needed we can edit using photoshop for Raw editing. This would be used for the production stage more than post-production as we would take photograph's during the filming of the documentary if needed. After being trained to use final cut pro we have had talks about whether or not to use it as we have also been trained on premiere pro which I feel we are more confident on as we have used it before a few times, unlike final cut pro which will still be new to us.

In this project I learnt how to work in a production group and how important it is to pull my weight and do work daily. Pre-production is a key element to any project and it can sometimes determine the success of the project itself. As a sound designer in the upcoming months I will be creating or finding copyright free music which we are able to use that will fit the style of this documentary. During the post-production stage I will work closely with the editor and the producer to edit the sounds in Premiere Pro in order to have the right tone and sound come in at the right time to achieve the perfect sound mixed with the right visuals.

I was able to assess my weaknesses and strength's within this project. My strength's were working well with the group and getting my work done on the deadlines which we had, like the photo essay which had a deadline of the 3^rd of November. Had I not been up to date with deadlines, it would have had a negative effect towards the group dynamic. My weaknesses however were taking photographs and using photoshop for raw editing. In the upcoming months I will develop these skills further in order to become a better practitioner thereby helping the group and the end result of the documentary. 

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