Pre-Production: Idea Evolution: Choosing Our Final Idea
The last film I'll be making at UCA, and it's going to be a documentary. The decision behind this came at the end of second year after reflecting on how much I enjoyed previous units, and waht I have learned about my own style. I really enjoyed documentary making at the end of first year and is somehting that has stuck wiht me. I do however feel I have an unfinished business with it. Whilst I was pleased wiht the outcome, I feel as DoP I could really impriove the shoot style, and I would like to bring in elemts i have learned from other units like Transitions and external priejcts like the FIrm Awards in bringing back the cinematic look in my work. The documentayr I made in first year was enjoyable but I feel the formsatitng was a little off. I dint enjoy going from interview to interview, and I feel other than being a young person himself, the prese ter didnt really relate or engage veyr well wiht the documentary. I think from previous units I have really been able to showcases my camera skills, lighting, working in a studio, working with actors, and going through all the important stages of making great film. I now want to take these skills and apply them into my major project, shooting real people, real events, an origional story that needs to be tolf; in this I will encorporate with my shooting style. After university, myself and Jack are hoping to start up our own production company where we will be directing and shooting documentary-style pieces.
After working well together in previosu projects and having understood eachoters ways of working, Jack and I met over the summer to share ideas. We were struggling at first ot come up with ideas and weren't fully sure which grenre we would chose. I had ideas for a dynamo documentary and tried putting things in place but dint get very far. We toyed with other genres but found nothing reallly excited us as much as our origional documentary ambition.
We reached the idea of making a documentary and decided on the idea of 'the snowflake genertation' which is this lable put on young people today about them melting under the heat, and being so easily offended. THis is an idea we liked and Simon liked it too. It was what we pitched for our green light pitch and we got through. However, after having a meeting with Simon the following week we realsied that we were stuck on what we were visually seeing. Simon psoed the question 'who cares about the snowflake generation, we know it exists' implying that we needed a proper angle for this idea othrwise its just telling us what it is. With this I could see his point, and though it was disheartening to admit it, we didn't really know what our angle would be. So, it was back to the drawing board and we one again set out for research. A useful place for reearching current and topical ideas for me is news programmes or interview sit down shows like 'This Moring'. Itwas when scanning through clips on their YouTube page that I found Liam. Eeamon and Ruth interviewd him on his experience and I thought this was very interesting and would make a great, origional story. It was an issue within our judicial systmem that I wasn't even aware exsted in Britain. After watching documentaries like 'Making a Murderer' on Netflix, I thought this was an issue predominatly affecting America. Once I told Jack and showed him the interview, he was also hooked on the idea. We both set out for researhc to see if this was a wider spread issue and it was. We intantaly wanted to touch base with Liam, and so we messaged him on Twitter, andto our suprise he phoned us. We explained ot him our documentary idea to see if he was onboard to be involded or even present it and he agreed, provided he saw the treatment and everything. THis was a great step for us, Liam will bring an adience of his own to this documentary as he is such a prominant figure to the story. Whenever researching evidence failing or any key words on google, 80% of the articles that com up mention Liam. His trial was such a high profile trial, his and others meant their was a reviewof all rape cases. His story had created a media frenzy and that is what makes him so crucial to this documentary. From this we knew we had our idea and it was now a case of where are we going to take it? We had tested and researched different ideas startign with 'Britains Falsely Accused' which was somehting more controvercial. After speaking with Simon and a sessional lecturer Beth, we were told this story could be a worry and cause a lot of offence. I could definitely see the argument for this; Beth said "I can see the headlines now... two white boys from Kent make documentary on Rape". This did worry me and Jack a little as our intentions weren't to offend anyone, epseiclaly the many women who have been victims of rape, having their trials dismissed or even shamed. The last thing we wanted to to was make out that falsely accused was a bigger issue because statistically it isn't. "nearly half of women globally – including in the UK – have experienced sexual harassment, some 68% of those women did not report it to the police. Half said they believed it would be “pointless” to do so."(The Guardian, 2018). The conviction rate for rape and sexual harrassment cases is significantly lower than the amount that take place. "The CPS charged 849 fewer defendants in 2017-18 than the previous year – a 23.1% fall –according to the service’s annual Violence Against Womenand Girls (VAWG) report." (Topping and Barr, 2018). Our aim was primarily to just highlight the issue of people that are falselyaccused and maybe both sides of the argument could join forces. We did however understand how this could get misconstrude and we needed totread carefull when dealing with such a contrvercial subject. Knowing this could be an issue we were anxious to move forward. We wanted to still include Allan and a common trend we noticed in cases was digital evidence and how that was something that lead to many failings.We set forward with that after Simon said it was a topic he too would be interested in. The idea of the digital revolution could come into play and the first time digital evidence wa sused in court. After researching this idea and trying to write a script, the idea jsut kept on evolving into what we have now: 'Evidence Withheld'.
'Evidence Withheld is an investicative documentary focusing on why so many trials have collaped recently where last minute evidence has came out, turning cases on their head. A huge part of this is evidence disclosure and that is our angle. This will bea two part Netflix seires, and for our hand i we will be filming Part One, which focuses on two cases where evidence disclosure has been an issue. One is Eddie Gilfoyle, who was falsely imprisoned for sixteen yeas for the murder of his wife. We will interview him and DNA and legal experts to find out why this happened and what needs to change. We will also speak to Jan, whose son is currently in prison for the assult and eventual death of a man. Evidence disclosure meant her son is now in prison depspite crucial evidence like being blind being withheld from the trial. Her son was innocent and is currently in prison. To make this as balanced as possible given her son is still in prison we will also be speaking to Law experts and her sons doctor to see if this is a crime he could have even commited. Part Two, which we will not be filming for this project will be about what is being done to help prevent this form happening speaking to a charity organisation and a barrister who was falsely accused and left to defend himself, he was found not guilty and is now a training barrister. Liam wil be interivewed at the start and also narrating this documentary going on this journey. We are merging some very different documentayr styles into one documentary, in order to make it unique, creative and origional.
We accept that this is still a controvercial topi, but handled in the right way which we now have will enure no offence is taken. We will ffer the police a right of reply for the documentary in order t omake this fair d unbiased. Liam i very level headed and simply wants to find out what the issues are and what is beng done about it.
After working well together in previosu projects and having understood eachoters ways of working, Jack and I met over the summer to share ideas. We were struggling at first ot come up with ideas and weren't fully sure which grenre we would chose. I had ideas for a dynamo documentary and tried putting things in place but dint get very far. We toyed with other genres but found nothing reallly excited us as much as our origional documentary ambition.
We reached the idea of making a documentary and decided on the idea of 'the snowflake genertation' which is this lable put on young people today about them melting under the heat, and being so easily offended. THis is an idea we liked and Simon liked it too. It was what we pitched for our green light pitch and we got through. However, after having a meeting with Simon the following week we realsied that we were stuck on what we were visually seeing. Simon psoed the question 'who cares about the snowflake generation, we know it exists' implying that we needed a proper angle for this idea othrwise its just telling us what it is. With this I could see his point, and though it was disheartening to admit it, we didn't really know what our angle would be. So, it was back to the drawing board and we one again set out for research. A useful place for reearching current and topical ideas for me is news programmes or interview sit down shows like 'This Moring'. Itwas when scanning through clips on their YouTube page that I found Liam. Eeamon and Ruth interviewd him on his experience and I thought this was very interesting and would make a great, origional story. It was an issue within our judicial systmem that I wasn't even aware exsted in Britain. After watching documentaries like 'Making a Murderer' on Netflix, I thought this was an issue predominatly affecting America. Once I told Jack and showed him the interview, he was also hooked on the idea. We both set out for researhc to see if this was a wider spread issue and it was. We intantaly wanted to touch base with Liam, and so we messaged him on Twitter, andto our suprise he phoned us. We explained ot him our documentary idea to see if he was onboard to be involded or even present it and he agreed, provided he saw the treatment and everything. THis was a great step for us, Liam will bring an adience of his own to this documentary as he is such a prominant figure to the story. Whenever researching evidence failing or any key words on google, 80% of the articles that com up mention Liam. His trial was such a high profile trial, his and others meant their was a reviewof all rape cases. His story had created a media frenzy and that is what makes him so crucial to this documentary. From this we knew we had our idea and it was now a case of where are we going to take it? We had tested and researched different ideas startign with 'Britains Falsely Accused' which was somehting more controvercial. After speaking with Simon and a sessional lecturer Beth, we were told this story could be a worry and cause a lot of offence. I could definitely see the argument for this; Beth said "I can see the headlines now... two white boys from Kent make documentary on Rape". This did worry me and Jack a little as our intentions weren't to offend anyone, epseiclaly the many women who have been victims of rape, having their trials dismissed or even shamed. The last thing we wanted to to was make out that falsely accused was a bigger issue because statistically it isn't. "nearly half of women globally – including in the UK – have experienced sexual harassment, some 68% of those women did not report it to the police. Half said they believed it would be “pointless” to do so."(The Guardian, 2018). The conviction rate for rape and sexual harrassment cases is significantly lower than the amount that take place. "The CPS charged 849 fewer defendants in 2017-18 than the previous year – a 23.1% fall –according to the service’s annual Violence Against Womenand Girls (VAWG) report." (Topping and Barr, 2018). Our aim was primarily to just highlight the issue of people that are falselyaccused and maybe both sides of the argument could join forces. We did however understand how this could get misconstrude and we needed totread carefull when dealing with such a contrvercial subject. Knowing this could be an issue we were anxious to move forward. We wanted to still include Allan and a common trend we noticed in cases was digital evidence and how that was something that lead to many failings.We set forward with that after Simon said it was a topic he too would be interested in. The idea of the digital revolution could come into play and the first time digital evidence wa sused in court. After researching this idea and trying to write a script, the idea jsut kept on evolving into what we have now: 'Evidence Withheld'.
'Evidence Withheld is an investicative documentary focusing on why so many trials have collaped recently where last minute evidence has came out, turning cases on their head. A huge part of this is evidence disclosure and that is our angle. This will bea two part Netflix seires, and for our hand i we will be filming Part One, which focuses on two cases where evidence disclosure has been an issue. One is Eddie Gilfoyle, who was falsely imprisoned for sixteen yeas for the murder of his wife. We will interview him and DNA and legal experts to find out why this happened and what needs to change. We will also speak to Jan, whose son is currently in prison for the assult and eventual death of a man. Evidence disclosure meant her son is now in prison depspite crucial evidence like being blind being withheld from the trial. Her son was innocent and is currently in prison. To make this as balanced as possible given her son is still in prison we will also be speaking to Law experts and her sons doctor to see if this is a crime he could have even commited. Part Two, which we will not be filming for this project will be about what is being done to help prevent this form happening speaking to a charity organisation and a barrister who was falsely accused and left to defend himself, he was found not guilty and is now a training barrister. Liam wil be interivewed at the start and also narrating this documentary going on this journey. We are merging some very different documentayr styles into one documentary, in order to make it unique, creative and origional.
We accept that this is still a controvercial topi, but handled in the right way which we now have will enure no offence is taken. We will ffer the police a right of reply for the documentary in order t omake this fair d unbiased. Liam i very level headed and simply wants to find out what the issues are and what is beng done about it.
Our inspirations for this have helped us see the documentary format we can tak and after being inspired by different styles like BBC Threes presenter lead shorts like 'Professor Green: Suicide and Me' and also the investagive, interview lead documentaries on Netflix like 'The Kalief Browder Sotry' and 'Making a Murderer'. Merging these formats togehter will breakconventions and is something I can actually visually see working.
In terms of its narrative flow, we would control this by weaving between the stories of the individuals we have cast, and interivews with professionals/experts. We will have Liam, our presenter/voiceover to carry this through and bring it all togehter with his trial and what he wants to find out. It’s important to notewee aim to inform the audience through the real stories of people’s experiences so we get a much purer sense of how failings in the judicial system have affected people and also making this more factual with the inclusion of leading profesisonals.
References
The Guardian. (2018). Unpicking the latest low rape conviction rate statistics | Letters. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/26/unpicking-the-latest-low-conviction-rate-statistics [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018].
Topping, A. and Barr, C. (2018). Rape prosecutions plummet despite rise in police reports. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/sep/26/rape-prosecutions-plummet-crown-prosecution-service-police [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018].
In terms of its narrative flow, we would control this by weaving between the stories of the individuals we have cast, and interivews with professionals/experts. We will have Liam, our presenter/voiceover to carry this through and bring it all togehter with his trial and what he wants to find out. It’s important to notewee aim to inform the audience through the real stories of people’s experiences so we get a much purer sense of how failings in the judicial system have affected people and also making this more factual with the inclusion of leading profesisonals.
References
The Guardian. (2018). Unpicking the latest low rape conviction rate statistics | Letters. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/26/unpicking-the-latest-low-conviction-rate-statistics [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018].
Topping, A. and Barr, C. (2018). Rape prosecutions plummet despite rise in police reports. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/sep/26/rape-prosecutions-plummet-crown-prosecution-service-police [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018].
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