Pre-Production: Documentary Format Research

The key to documentary making is to actually start with a subject that excites you. "If you’re lukewarm about the subject matter, chances are, the final movie will be too." (Desktop-Documentaries.com, 2018). I feel this is soemthing me and Jack struggled with massively in trying to find our idea. We had a lot of ideas and stories but nothing really excited us as much as what this current one does. I think with deadlines and everything, we rushed to find an idea rather than having the idea come to us and this si something that only happend through research which is what takes me onto my next point:

Researching not only your idea but also story is very crucial to documentary making. It is important ot learn everything you can about the documentary subject; especially with an idea as complex not omnly socially but legally as what our is. Something tha has helped me whih this is doing a lot of digging not just secodnary researhc online but alsdo speking to contributors to follow leads. We were lucky enough to have Liam on board who knows so many relvient people to this topic. Speakign to them on the phone and agt the Innovation of Justice comnference was an amzing opportunity for us to gain first hand access to stories and people who have been feeceted. I think somehting that has also helped is watching and learnign from the documentary format iitslef. Watching documentarues on our target broadcast Netflix helped us to not only structure our odcumentary but finding all the fundimental elements involved in order to make it as investigative and fcatually accurate as possible:

1. Someone or people affected by topic

2. Expert knowlege

3. Right of Reply  

Its good to create an outline. Think about HOW you’re going to tell your story. What’s the structure? The style? Is there existing footage or photos that help tell your story or will everything need to be shot brand new? Who is your primary character(s)? What are you core story points? What are the elements of your story that are compelling and/or make you “tingle” with intrigue? How can you create that intrigue for your audience? Is there some existing situation you can film or do you need to create the moment?

Something me and Jack are currently struggling wiht is cotributors. Since our angle has evolved we have found that evidence disclosure is such a huge problem but not talked about so much. When we had digital evidence as our angle we couldnt find much on it and that was because there wasnt much to talk about. It wasn't as big of a revolution as what we had intially thought and that digital evidence is treated the same as any other evidence really. Given we had a stronger angle and lead, me and Jakc found we had too many contributors and we really needed to draw up a short list of who we wanted. 

"You may be tempted to put a lot of people on your interview wish list. Again, there are no rules because each documentary has its own set of circumstances (maybe there’s a reason to interview 100 people), but in general, it’s hard for an audience to get to know more than 7-8 “characters” within one movie." ((Desktop-Documentaries.com, 2018)

Good practice when documentary making is to ensure you are safe from and royalty or copyright regulations. In educational circumstances like ours we are covered as we arent profiting form it and Simon said when taking to film festivals we are again usually okay as we aren't profiting from it. When making a documentary it is important to respect the copyright of other artists when you want to use include music, video, photographs, etc. "Some education institutions are savvy enough not to use commercial retail copies of your film for a classroom or campus exhibition, but some do, without realizing there is a potential legal issue. If your film could do especially well on the festival circuit and through educational distribution, then you might want to delay your regular home entertainment digital and television distribution. It is also true that many film festivals will not show your film if it’s commercially available via consumer-facing platforms such as iTunes and Netflix." (Ravid, 2018)

As our target market is Netflix, myself and Jack want to ensure we are well covered in including such footage. If we were to take this docuemtnary futher after uni it is soemthing we would definitely have to consider. 

Something else to consider is actually very important but often neglegted, especially with student projects. Never before have there been so many options for filmmakers to showcase their work. From theaters to television to DVD to the web, a new world of distribution is being invented right in front of our eyes. It is VITAL to getht he documentary out there and this is something achieved by speaking to relvient grouos or charities, social media and promotion. Budget can be a massive restriction, but the right to promote and advertise is key.

With our documentary something interesting to concider is a life rights agreement. This is something that obligates the subject selling his/her life rights to cooperate with the buyer. "The subject/seller is committing to helping the buyer obtain information about the subject’s life and releasing the buyer from any claims by the subject against the eventual filmmaker, and ideally also to promoting the project."(Ravid, 2018) However, this doesn't stop a third-party from taking an interest in the story facts and covering them. We need to consider this, especially with the people we are talking to who have the rights to their own stories.

Referneces:

Desktop-Documentaries.com. (2018). Making Documentaries: A Step By Step Guide. [online] Available at: https://www.desktop-documentaries.com/making-documentaries.html [Accessed 6 Dec. 2018].

Ravid, O. (2018). 8 Legal Tips for Documentary Filmmakers. [online] IndieWire. Available at: https://www.indiewire.com/2015/07/8-legal-tips-for-documentary-filmmakers-60449/ [Accessed 6 Dec. 2018].