Major Project: Evaluation

From the brith of this project from the Pre-Production Unit, I felt both excited and confident for this documentary. Whilst it was ambitious from the start and if we didn't execute in the right way we could land ourselves into a few problems. The biggest concerns for both me and Jack were contributors dropping or constantly rescheduling. The nature of this documentary meant that two of our six contributors were both very busy and could have been called to court at any particular time at short notice. This was however, a risk we were both willing to take as these contributors were fundamental for our documentary. We perceived as a team and phoned up other potential contributors we could use as backup options. However, the ones we had were better suited as they had been fully briefed on the cases, had prior knowledge of some of them and were great speakers so would come across well on camera. With such a complex subject in terms of scientific evidence and the legalities behind crimes such as joint enterprise, it is easy to get lost with a lot of the legal jargon. However, these contributors were able to breakdown and simplify what they were saying for the average viewer.

From start to finish this project has been stressful, time consuming but also weirdly enjoyable. I have learnt a lot about working as a team, meeting target deadlines and communicating well with my peer. I have also learned a great deal about the production process and everything that goes into making a Netflix-style documentary where interviews carry the piece. It is an art in itself to keep a documentary interesting when it is people talking constantly; especially when there is a lot of information to take in. Inspirations such as Time: The Kalief Browder Story and The Disappearance of Madeleine MacCan and analysing them closely to learn how they do it. And the most key elements to this were archive and scene reconstructions.

It would be fair to say this project has developed and changed significantly form the beginning pre-production unit and the end result is evidence of this. The amount of work that has gone into this has been insane, but has also been a massive learning curve for me, and I am thankful the course has given me the opportunity to produce this.


What Went Well?

My favourite part of this project was putting what I had visualised in my head to practice, and watching those visualisations come to life. Working with contributors to put their stories across both factually and emotively was also something that went well, and the stories spoke for themselves and you can see genuine emotion in what they are staying. Working with Jack who has not only been my colleague but also friend has been enjoyable and made this documentary interesting to make, especially coming to each-other with different ideas and bringing both good and bad news.


Teamwork/communication

• When working as a pair, especially for such a big project we had a lot of work to do and think about. This meant communication was key to ensure we both assigned eachother jobs and responsibilities. This made it fair, which was important when there is just the two of us. 
• Teamwork was also essential to this project because we had to think out everything. Most jobs in the production process are skillsets/specialties within themselves. 
• We have been successful in working as a team and whilst we have worked individually at times, the communication has always been there and with any developments made or setbacks we have always informed each-other. 
• Teamwork was something that needed to persist throughout the entire project including the edit. As editor and Jack as Director it was important to include both of our visions and putting it to life and that only comes off through good communication. 
• Communicating the ideas you have in your head is difficult to put into words sometimes so we needed to ensure we were both on the same page. 
• Not only was the communication good throughout our good on most occasions, it was also good with our contributors/actors. When shooting our interviews we were clear and concise with the questions and were also sure to fully brief them prior to the interview being organised and immediately before filming as a refresher. It is difficult to keep such communication as they don't really know you until you are sat in their house or workplace talking to them. This level of communication was well maintained through emails and telephone calls to keep contributors on board and reassured. 

Shoot Days

• We came across various issues on shoot days and something I found difficult was reassuring the contributors that we knew what we were doing. For Jerry Hayes and Liam Allan it was easier as they had been frequently interviewed for television, especially Jerry who has been doing it for years. However, to anyone else who hasn’t because setup time can take aground 45minutes sorting camera settings (especially shooting in Apple Pro-Res), lighting, setting and sound. Because our interviewees were so far away we needed to location recce on the same day which was additional stress, but due to time and budget we couldn’t do this in advance. Because it takes time contributors can often get anxious. This taught me to always have someone else as a stand in because being under lights and in front of a camera can prolong the inevitable, especially when talking about something so close and personal to our interviewees. 
• Shooting the scene recreations was a success and is something we planned well in advance before shooting. Something that looked great on camera was the street lights which brought a lot of lighting to the shoot. Without this as we previously tested, it would be too dark and the black magic cameras aren’t amazing at shooting in low light. 
• We shot all of the footage that we had planned to shoot, and we finished every day on time according to the schedule I had drawn up. Being a two-man crew this wasn’t easy, but we anticipated for this which is why it was important to have a shot list and shoot schedule. 
• One thing we also worked well with was coming up with ideas on the spot too for shots that would look nice. Once we had all the essential shots I planned for, we were able to share ideas on what else could be done with Jacks direction. 
• We were successful on the shoot days in making the most of a setting and this was achieved with planning. For example, with the Peter Jones interview we researched the location and realised that it would be a very bland background with little to no depth of field. To achieve the look we wanted we planned and tested different ideas. The first was to dress the set and the second to green screen. In the end we decided to dress the set and brought along with us to the shoot as small bookshelf, books, plants etc in order to make it more interesting. This was effective and it didn’t in any way look out of place. 

Edit
The edit was a success overall and I feel the documentary flowed really well with the stories told and toinclude three stories with professional backing from experts in specific fields was a huge challenge and something very difficult to predict.


Creativeness

• Crew activity was key to this documentary and is something I wanted to include from the start to fit the target market of Netflix to give their aesthetic. Whilst a lot fo this comes from recreations etc, it is very much put together in the edit with graphics. I wanted to really try my best too edit this documentary in an interesting style to keep it fast paced. We green screened the gallery at the Maidstone Studios and in order to emphasise just how much media attention and government attention Liams case reached this montage sequence was an effective way of doing it. Likewise with the text messages, rather than just an image of the texts or as screen record, I wanted to make them as immersive and symbolic as possible by creating this digital-world on the police computer completely form scratch. To go further I created a pixel grid with the three colours RGB on separate lines. Though incredibly time consuming, I feel it really brings it to life and is visually interesting to watch. 
• Creativity was also shared with this documentary, with the recreations. We planned how we were going to shoot in order to make it as emotive as possible. We didn’t want to show anything too graphic as it wasn’t necessary and it would dramatise something very real and it wouldn’t be fair on our contributors., In order to recreate the night of Eddies wife’s suicide we placed shoes below the ladder, a ladder and a swinging rope. This is already disturbing but by being creative we didn’t actually have to show it. Simon made this point when we were discussing our recreations of Jordan Cunliffe. We were going to have 25 people, showing all this detail but as he pointed out, this wasn’t necessary we could trick it with the way it is shot. 

Access
Access was always going to be difficult for such a subject and is something that became the most time consuming thing. Between us, me and Jack spoke to contributors to get them on board but before that we often went through about 5 different people. Besides form this it was getting access to shoot in certain locations and we were ambitious. We were successful with our story contributors, our expert, who were all very busy people.


Developing the project through Constructive Criticism

• Throughout the process we have developed our idea and we have had weekly meetings to catch up on where we are at with our idea and what we are planning/intending to do. These meetings have been useful and constructive and has broadened our ideas and the direction the documentary went in. Whilst we didn't necessarily go through with all of the changes as we didn't feel as if they were the best thing for the project, but we took the feedback on board nevertheless. By doing this we have clearly demonstrated that we can take on feedback and work on changes that needed to be made and make evaluative decisions in order to better the project, whilst having the confidence to go forth with our own ideas. Balancing this ensures the best outcome. 
• As editor I had as lot of my own ideas with the edit but also was useful to have a separate director to sit with me at times to go through his ideas and what he does and doesn’t like. Thus demonstrating my ability to work well as a collaborative team effort. 

Organisation

• As with all elements of production, from our pre-production unit, organisation was key; we had agreed upon a set schedule and we did stick really well to that I believe. Although the rough cut was a quick turn around form filming, in terms of time management this couldn’t be helped. 
• I believe, my organisation in the days leading up to the shoot were well thought out with the preparation of a shot list, we had also calculated our estimated journey times via google maps and had also prepared our budget for train expenses which we had to reimburse to our drone pilot. luckily, we were meeting our contributors at their locations as we wanted to capture them in their homes/places of work. 
• I also designed a flaw plan I sketched up on the iPad so we would know roughly how each of the locations would work. Because locations were far away, we often had to plan on location or prior with photos of what the locations would look like. The floor plans allowed us to configure the best positioning for interviews. 
• Keeping contributors on board is always a difficult task and a skill I have learned from my time on Television Production. Since the directions unit when I directed the LadyKillers I had a large adult cast, and it was very challenging keeping them on board but it taught me to keep the contact. When leading up to the production it is fundimental to keep contributors up to date and reassured they are okay with everything and are fully informed. I knew from the beginning of this unit that we would have alot of people to keep on board and it didnt alwyas go to plan. We lost our original mental health psycologist Tasmin, but not due to lack of contact. We just lost contact through her PA and we had to find someone else to replace her. This is where Peter Jones came in, someone I found to replace Tasmin and he actually knows her personally. He is in charge of an institution she is a part of.
  
  In Total we had six contributors; but it wasnt just them who we needed to keep on board. It was all the locations for recreations and also our drone pilot. There were so many things to think about and it is very easy to lose track of everything with this sort of production.

What didn't work?

Even though I'm happy with the production and final outcome of our documentary, it wasn’t achieved without making and learning form a few mistakes along the way. We faced a lot of challenges as a pair, and the very fact that we were a two man band mean we had a lot of research, preparation, planning, and production making to consider. And this is something I feel we really did well. However the mistakes made along the way did at times cause delays and issues with production and how we overcame them.

Time management:

• Time management was a struggle as we had a lot to crack on with in a short period of time. Usually documentaries like this would be planned by a bigger team with more time but keeping to a time limit was an important skill not only from a deadline point of view but also in terms of the contributors who were busy people and had lives of their own. 
• Could have spent less time finding prisons/court rooms to film in. We started this in the pre-production unit when our project was born and this is something that has still carried on to this day. It is incredibly difficult to get access to HRMPS buildings. We tried and failed, mainly due to budget restrictions. We were able to overcome this by filming in a prison escape room. This was great access still and meant we had to fake it. Although it is a set in effect and therefore exaggerated, it still appeared prison-like as cutaway GV’s for our production. We also filmed barbed wires on the walls of the chatham dockyard. 

Communication

• Communication on thew whole was really good, especially given there were two of us so only had to discuss and organise by communicating to one-another. It could have improved in certain areas still however. At one point we forgot to give one of our contributors a talent release for as we both thought the other had brought it with them. This meant having to email around to get it signed and sent off. 
• Another time where communication let us both down was when one of us thought the other had an exact location in mind which we did. On the day of Eddies interview shoot we had in the sat-nav typed in the address. When we stopped at the service station this was stopped and so when we put the satnav on again it came up with a different location with the same name. This could have lead our contributor to think we didn’t know what we were doing and hadn’t planned it very well, thus looking unprofessional. 
• Our production schedules could have been better communicated also, with more specific shoot details for the interviews. Like when we would schedule in lunch etc. We just played this by ear which was effective still and meant we had more freedom to film. 
• For one of our interviews it was actually not too far from where I live in Worcester and was closer from there than what it was Yorkshire. This meant it would have been. Better to stay there as a halfway point but communication let us down here. This was also due to confidentiality and not finding the location out until a couple of days before. We were guessing the rest of the time. This resulted in more time travelling and costing more money in fuel so wasn’t very economical. 

Props

• Even though the majority of the props were prepped and worked really well for our reconstructions, I do regret spending more time and money on certain props as it was a lot of effort for jus tone part of recreation. For example the Gavel was used once in the end. And the tape recorder was also used once and here were still long shoot days in just getting these shots. They worked well as props but perhaps for the 20-25minute timeframe for the documentary it wasn’t worth the time, money and effort. 
• Props did play an important role and added to the realism of recreations. Things like the rope and ladder were just items in the garage anyway so that was easy to source. We did plan otherwise to purchase some rope and ladder from a nearby Wicks. 

Shoot Days

• The majority of our shoot days were a success and myself and Jack worked really well together. But there were a few errors that could've otherwise been avoided in order to make us seem more professional and also make shoot days easier. Travelling was an issue on the shoot days as it mean setting off very early days in a row and we would be away and in he car for long periods of time. This was testing. However, because me and Jack got on so well there was never a dull moment and we were able to keep moral up. Especially after a successful shoot and I think it’s that teamwork that really got us through. In order to avoid such long journeys in a row we would consider next time not having a central location but traveling to each of the locations and staying in a hotel or B&B the night before. Budget limitations prevented this but we found a way around it and in many ways thats the main thing and hopefully it didn’t reflect badly on the content and quality of the documentary. 
• A shoot day that could have gone better was Liams interview. Because ehe kept going out of focus I was forced to adjust constantly. The same with Jerry. However, because the ITN gallery was dark, we could have used more lighting. Whilst it looked atmospheric on the monitors of the cameras, it was a different story in the edit. I was especially disappointed with the wide shot as low lighting made it incredibly difficult to match up the cameras colour grade in post production. 
• In Jerry Hayes’ interview his clip mic kept on getting caught in his arm. Myself and Jack tried several times to adjust this and out it under his coat but because ehe moved a lot, it kept coming away To improve I would consider putting it under his shirt instead. Although the black clip mics on a white shirt are more obvious it wouldn’t have caused this issue. It was tricky to keep an eye on when watching through the small monitors with the cameras so would also consider picking up a monitor that is larger to see every last detail. 
• The wide of jan was useless as it was out of kilt with the rest of the documentary and the way those interviews were all shot. 
• Camera moving in the interviews- its was at times unnecessary and I think I could have more trust in the initial shots I drew up and actually make the best of them. 

The Edit

• I should have really researched the cameras more thoroughly for the edit. I knew they would slow down a lot because shooting in Pro-Res is a step away from RAW. With this in mind I thought that my laptop could handle such capabilities. It did up to a certain point. However, when it came to exporting the project it was going to take 25 hours and my laptop was seriously overheating. It was at this point I realised that my laptop wouldn’t handle it. This meant upgrading to edit on an iMac which was a desktop and could handle the edit. Something that I struggled the most with in regards to the edit was the putting together of the clips. There was so much footage so matching it all up to sequence a story together was a lot of transcribing.
• Colors could have been better to work with but I managed to overcome this task in most instances. Unfortunately when it came to the edit I felt the wide shot of Jan was unusable as it was an odd position and the camera was placed too low on the tripod. I managed to make it work having just the one shot so it didn’t have a detrimental impact on the rest of the documentary. 

What did I learn?
Within this unit I have learnt:

• Communication throughout the entire production process is fundamental. 
• Not just with each other but also with the contributors and with so many contributors it is easy to get lost. 
• Make sure to learn from mistakes; I should have analysed the camera setting closer for the production cinema to get the most out of it rather than focusing most of my attention to the URSA. 
• Planning is KEY. The most work is achieved with the planning and I think had in not been for the pre-production unit I would have struggled massively with this project. 
• Try, try and keep trying. Planning a documentary with strong contributors is vey difficult and keeping them is even harder. 
• The importance of feedback; whilst feedback wasn’t always pursued it was important to get another persons insight and a fresh pair of eyes. Sitting with the director when going over some parts of the edit I had worked on was always helpful. 
• Despite the issues we had, we didn’t give up and stayed persistent and took strong risks with a lot of the contributors as they were busy with court dates etc and some could have been called to court at any time. 
• It is important to always have a plan B just in case. This is something we prepared for and phoned multiple backups for Barristers and DNA experts just in case they got called to court. 
• Have more confidence in my ability. We were originally going to hire someone to do sound without exploring the option I could do it myself. 

In conclusion, I am very happy with the final result of our documentary. The pre-production unit has transferred into this final unit and really put the ideas I had in my head to vision. It has been a stressful but rewarding journey and I am glad I have had the opportunity to flourish from this. I am pleased with the contributors, the story, the way its shot and edited and I believe the sound came out really well to. Considering this was produced on little to no budget and in a short period of time compared to other documentaries, and besides from that with only the two of us to produce it I couldn’t have wished for a better result. I would like to resume this documentary further after uni and hope it has the potential to take to film festivals and eventually commissioners. The hard work can be seen in the result and I look forward to watching again for our final screening on the 23rd May.