Man's Best Friend First Draft

- This is the first draft of our documentary, however, it is missing a final interview with a hearing dog trainer.
- As a group we discussed how the font used for the titles should be less 'cartoony' and so this will be fixed in the final version.
- We also need to trim down unnecessary clips in the guide dog interview to make it more engaging.
- Finally, we want to improve the introduction by adding better music and a short montage at the beginning to instantly grab the audience's attention.

Auxiliary Task Research

To prepare for our auxiliary tasks we looked at past work from previous classes as well as real magazine spreads. We annotated them (what was good/bad about them) and marked them against the mark scheme. This gave us a good idea at how to make our task the best we can.

The Wonder of Dogs

Target Audience Interview

 

We decided to talk to our target audience to find out more about what they want to see in our documentary. We asked them three questions (seen on the right) that would give us a better idea on what we should aim to include in our documentary. From the answers we leared that a presenter on screen was preffered because they can interact with the subject but also voice overs should be included. It was also noted that an interview with a guide dog owner and the topic of 'Man's Best Friend' would appeal to a wide variety of people.

Shotlists

Above is the first attempt at a shot list for the opening monologue. It includes the basic details to guide us as to what to film on set. However, it did not include enough information to give us the best possible chance of perfecting the opening scene of the documentary.

Above is the improved version of the shot list. I added an 'Extra info' column to include more information such as the shot type and transitions from the previous clip. 'Points to consider' were also added to make sure we filmed plenty of footage on the day and reduce the risk of having to go back for re-shoots. This section also included vital information such as turning off phones to make sure we remembered.

Storyboards

First draft...

Second draft...

Below is a video that talks through the final version of the storyboard...

Staying Organised...

We created a whastapp and facebook group to help us stay organised, keep good time management and give/receive feedback quickly and easily at various stages of production.

Guide Dog Owner Interview Questions

 (Click images to enlarge)

Below is the first draft of the questions that are going to be asked to the guide dog owner. They were chosen because they aim to find out relevant information about Sarah's life (the owner) such as her condition and how Wheat (her dog) has changed her life.

This second draft includes reminders of what else we need to get footage of whilst we are with the interviewee. This will help the interview go smoothly and make sure that we film everything we need to to make the interview as engaging as possible.

Below is the sheet that we took to the interview. As you can see we ticked off the reminders as we completed them. We also made a tick list to guarantee we took the equipment we needed for the day. We made a clear point to turn all mobile phones off as the signals from them could interfere with the microphone used and render the footage useless.

Questionnaire Results

Target Audience (Demographic and Psychographic)

Contacting Interviewees

For our documentary we wanted to interview someone whose dog plays a large role in their life. Therefore, I recently got in touch with Sarah who is blind and the owner of a guide dog.

I then called Sarah to arrange when and where we can interview here.

Also, we've asked around friends and family and have arranged to use some of their dogs in the documentary.

Blog Feedback and Improvements

During a recent  lesson we were asked to write a good comment about someone's blog (yellow post-it) and about an area that needed improvement (pink post-it).

From the feedback I received it was clear that I needed to improve the general theme/layout of my blog. I took this into account and decided to change the background and colour scheme to a be much more engaging. The background went from plain black to a bright orange and I changed the fonts from simple to more creative.

Initial Ideas for Main Piece

Below is are sheets on which we noted our basic ideas for how we wanted to film the documentary and what it was going to be about.

STORY: Finding out why dogs are considered 'Man's Best Friend'. This is done through interviews with dog owners. E.g. Guide dog owner who would find life extremely difficult without their dog.

LOCATIONS: We will most likely film where the interviewees are located. For example. in the home of the guide dog owner/around their local area to get shots of the dog guiding them. For the shots of the presenter introducing/presenting the documentary anywhere with good lighting and aesthetics will be appropriate. Such as a garden or home with dogs in shot.

2nd Practice Documentary

We created this documentary to practice techniques such as filming, editing and sounds.

Documentarians Research

Documentary Survey

This is a survey that will be handed out to the target audience to fill out. This will help us make decisions to do with our documentary.

Documentary Survey by peterbamforthmedia

Stylistics

More PowerPoint presentations from Peter Bamforth

Also, I found the video below very useful and interesting. It gives an insight into the techniques used by an established documentarian.

Previous A2 Documentary Research

In class we looked at 4 documentaries made by the previous A2 Media Studies class. We marked each one according to the mark scheme and deducted who their target audience was meant to be. This helped us see what works well in a documentary extract and what does not. This will be helpful when we start to plan and produce our documentary as it will help us avoid making the same mistakes as the previous year as well as guiding us on the path to creating a great extract.

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

Poaching Wars with Tom Hardy - ITV Documentary

More PowerPoint presentations from Peter Bamforth

Basic Research and Planning

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We watched a variety of documentaries in class and made notes on how they were constructed. This will help us when it comes to creating our own documentary.

 We also looked at blogs from previous students that had undertaken the same task as us. We compared their blogs to the mark scheme and gave them a grade. Afterwards, we found out what their official grade was and this helped to clarify to us how the mark scheme works.

To the left is some very basic planning covering some subjects my documentary could be based on and how it will be made.

Crazy About One Direction - Channel 4 Documentary

More PowerPoint presentations from Peter Bamforth

Modes of Documentary

The following images are of notes I made in class that describe the different modes of documentary and give some examples.

Loving Liars - Practice Documentary

Loving Liars - Practice Documentary

More PowerPoint presentations from Peter Bamforth

Feedback

(Click images on the right to enlarge)

The feedback we received from the documentary was largely positive. This shows us what we're doing well and which techniques we should focus on using in our main extract.(E.g. being 'to the point' and 'appropriate interviews')

The criteria that we were told to improve are steadier camera and using the same documentarian throughout. This is because in some scenes (in the car) the camera was slightly shaky. We can fix this issue by working on our camera handling and possibly through the use of a Steadicam. Also, the interviewer changed from each interview which was noted. This is easily solved by just nominating someone to be the documentarian throughout.