Overall, I feel that this project could have been made better if we were able to have the roles we were strongest in. This would have in turn created a stronger production process and finished piece. However, there are some aspects that I have liked, which is learning new techniques in being a producer, as well as being part of a production team for a documentary.
This is the first documentary that I have been a part of and although I know it could have been better, I am quite happy with the overall film.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Post Production
Due to being the Producer of this project, I chose not to be present for the majority of the editing of the piece. I did not want to get in the way or distract them from the work. Instead, I ensured that they all met as agreed to edit to make sure it was getting done. I also went to view the film various times to give my opinion on the piece and provide them with a fresh pair of eyes.
Emma set about creating a transcript for the piece to assist the editor after our final tutorial with Dom. Here is a copy:
If I was honest, the film's rough cut was awful. There was overlaying that did not fit with the tone of the piece and it felt like a group of footage had been put together. However, once me and Emma had viewed this, she set about making it better, and once viewing the almost finished product today, I am very happy with how it has evolved. I think that by having Emma present throughout the editing, stating exactly what she wants has helped dramatically.
I have still left them with some comments on the film on what I feel could be improved, including the incorporation of a possible montage at the end of the piece and removing some of the photos that I feel are irrelevant.
Emma set about creating a transcript for the piece to assist the editor after our final tutorial with Dom. Here is a copy:
I have still left them with some comments on the film on what I feel could be improved, including the incorporation of a possible montage at the end of the piece and removing some of the photos that I feel are irrelevant.
I noticed that Emma and Joe decided to include some archive footage of The Beatles original performances. I think that this was a good decision. I feel that to do a Documentary on The Beatles and their impact on Liverpool, it is vital to have them within it as it has great relevance. We have checked to see if this is alright due to copyright issues, and found that we are able to use less than 10% of the original film as long as it is for educational purposes.
Whilst the film was being edited, I have been putting together the production folder, by filing stills from the shoot, incorporating emails sent along with other documents.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Production: 05/03 - 06/03
5th March
On the first day of production, my written schedule went out the window. This was firstly because we weren't able to film until much later than what we anticipated, leaving little light left of the day for shooting. Another reason being because we had planned to film public interviews on Mathew Street on the 5th, however there were few people around on the street at this time, none of which willing to perform an interview with us. Joe joined out group at the beginning of the day as he had not yet joined one. He assisted us with the camera and gave his opinions throughout the day.
I think that it would have been a wonderful idea for us to film part of the documentary during the Mathew Street Festival, as I think this would have provided us with many willing members of the Liverpudlian public, especially those with views on The Beatles. However, due to dates of the brief this was out of our hands.
On the first day of production, my written schedule went out the window. This was firstly because we weren't able to film until much later than what we anticipated, leaving little light left of the day for shooting. Another reason being because we had planned to film public interviews on Mathew Street on the 5th, however there were few people around on the street at this time, none of which willing to perform an interview with us. Joe joined out group at the beginning of the day as he had not yet joined one. He assisted us with the camera and gave his opinions throughout the day.
First Interview
Whilst passing through Mathew Street, I noticed a gift shop on the corner named 'The Hard Days Night Shop'. This was full with Beatles merchandise and the perfect place to film in order to portray to our audience the impact in which The Beatle's had.
Myself and Olivia approached the shop and asked the owners permission to film there, and they accepted. Along with this, Paddy Bourke also agreed to take part in an interview for us. This provided us with some essential footage that got us properly into the project.
Paddy also kindly phoned the owner of 'The Cavern Pub' to request an interview with the owner in which he knew well. We scheduled a meeting with Jamie Ferguson at 12:30pm the following day.
We also gained some establishing shots of the street and elements within it, such as the John Lennon statue.
Overall, I feel that out first day of filming could have been a lot more productive had we arrived sooner. The day was also made harder by people finding it hard to stick within their roles. Because we had all performed our strongest roles in the previous project, we had to settle with something that was mutually agreed within the group. Everyone had their input throughout the day, including myself, and I feel that this created more complication than needed. We should have instead let Emma purely decide upon the shots she wanted because she was the director. I understand that it is important for others to have opinions on the piece and to put them forward, but at the end of the day it was not Emma's final decision and I think that this created quite a 'messy' day of filming.
6th March
We began this day by walking to the docks to film some extra footage that could be overlaid on top of the interviews. We were also hoping to film within 'The Beatles Story' museum. However, after asking for permission to do this was denied, we planned to film people as they came out of the gift shop. As part of the tutorial on the Monday night, Dom said that we needed more of a personal stamp on our piece to make it more unique. We wanted to therefore ask people the simple question "what have you bought from the gift shop today?". This would have provided us with a range of different people with their personal views on The Beatles and their favourite things about them. However, we found it to be very slow and take a lot of time waiting in hope that someone may leave the shop. I think that this could have been avoided by going later within the day, although this was not possible due to our scheduled meeting with the tour guide. A weekend would have been a great day to visit the site for interviews as this would have given us footage of families and a variety of people, however a tuesday morning seemed quite empty despite the beautiful weather.
We then made our way to The Cavern Pub where we interviewed Neil Brannan and his colleague Jamie Ferguson - a tour guide for the Magical Mystery Tours. We found these interviews incredibly useful as they had great experience working on one of the streets most famous for The Beatle's. Not only this but they work with the public and therefore gather information and opinions from them along the way.
We also went into The Cavern Club itself to film within the location of where The Beatles performed as well as other aspects. We asked if we would be able to speak to any of them about it as part of an interview but they declined, as did the performer at the time. The man behind the bar did however provide us with a number to phone to possible gain an interview with the owner. I called the number and the woman unfortunately stated that this would not be possible due to the late notice, despite me explaining to her about my previously sent email.
Because of Copyright issues, we knew that it would be difficult to attain the rights to original tracks by The Beatles, and so asked a couple of buskers on the streets of Liverpool city centre to play some songs by the bands to accompany us throughout the edit. We plan to use these as both soundtracks for the documentary and as extra footage.
Once we had shot all of these elements we were left little time to interview members of the public and found it quite demoralising when very few agreed to. We managed a couple of these however it would probably be wise to only use footage from the 'professional' interviews to keep it all of a similar style throughout the documentary.
We began this day by walking to the docks to film some extra footage that could be overlaid on top of the interviews. We were also hoping to film within 'The Beatles Story' museum. However, after asking for permission to do this was denied, we planned to film people as they came out of the gift shop. As part of the tutorial on the Monday night, Dom said that we needed more of a personal stamp on our piece to make it more unique. We wanted to therefore ask people the simple question "what have you bought from the gift shop today?". This would have provided us with a range of different people with their personal views on The Beatles and their favourite things about them. However, we found it to be very slow and take a lot of time waiting in hope that someone may leave the shop. I think that this could have been avoided by going later within the day, although this was not possible due to our scheduled meeting with the tour guide. A weekend would have been a great day to visit the site for interviews as this would have given us footage of families and a variety of people, however a tuesday morning seemed quite empty despite the beautiful weather.
We then made our way to The Cavern Pub where we interviewed Neil Brannan and his colleague Jamie Ferguson - a tour guide for the Magical Mystery Tours. We found these interviews incredibly useful as they had great experience working on one of the streets most famous for The Beatle's. Not only this but they work with the public and therefore gather information and opinions from them along the way.
We also went into The Cavern Club itself to film within the location of where The Beatles performed as well as other aspects. We asked if we would be able to speak to any of them about it as part of an interview but they declined, as did the performer at the time. The man behind the bar did however provide us with a number to phone to possible gain an interview with the owner. I called the number and the woman unfortunately stated that this would not be possible due to the late notice, despite me explaining to her about my previously sent email.
Because of Copyright issues, we knew that it would be difficult to attain the rights to original tracks by The Beatles, and so asked a couple of buskers on the streets of Liverpool city centre to play some songs by the bands to accompany us throughout the edit. We plan to use these as both soundtracks for the documentary and as extra footage.
Once we had shot all of these elements we were left little time to interview members of the public and found it quite demoralising when very few agreed to. We managed a couple of these however it would probably be wise to only use footage from the 'professional' interviews to keep it all of a similar style throughout the documentary.
Saturday, 3 March 2012
Interview Planning
In order to plan some interviews for the days of filming, Myself and Emma emailed some places regarding possible filming in these locations. Emma managed to contact The Merseyside Beatles - one of the Cavern Clubs most prominent tribute bands. I emailed the Cavern Club itself and still awaiting a reply:
Here is a list of the questions that we have come up with as a group to ask our hopeful contributors:
Here are the questions that we planned to ask the contributors:
- Who is your favourite Beatle and why?
- What is you favourite Beatle song and why?
- Are you proud to be from Liverpool because of the musical heritage here?
- As a Liverpudlian, has the Success of the Beatles inspired you in anyway?
- Do you think there are other things in Liverpool as successful as the Beatles?
- Do you think the Beatles made Rock and Roll or killed it?
- Why do you think the Beatles left Liverpool?
- Do you think the music industry would be different if John Lennon didn't have an early death?
- Would you have taken the gamble on signing the Beatles had you seen them playing in the Cavern Club in their early years?
- Do you think the Beatles would have continued to be as successful had they not broken up or do you think they had their time?
Scheduling the Production
As the Producer, it has been my job to schedule the project. This includes the creations of documents such as the Schedule itself, Para Shoot forms, Equipment Lists and so on.
Schedule:
Para Shoot Form:
Crew and Contributor List:
I intend to fill out the names of the contributors on the days of production
Contributor Letter of Agreement:
(Taken from Blackboard)
Equipment List:
Weather Forecast:
Maps and Walking Directions:
All of these documents will hopefully make the days of production run smoothly. I intend to carry them all with me throughout both days and keep them as a reference, especially the Schedule.
Friday, 2 March 2012
Pre-Production
Here is a copy of the Shot List that Emma formed in order for Me to complete the schedule:
Emma would like some establishing shots of Liverpool to open the film. Because of this, it is essential that we gain a sequence of shot's of the place and it's most dominant 'landmarks'. For example, we would need panning shots throughout Mathew Street, Strawberry Fields if possible, the docks and so on. The use of a time lapse is an interesting idea, however it would be impractical as it would take a large 'chunk' of time as well as using a lot of memory on the camera's card. Emma wants mid close-ups of the interview subjects and within either the right or left central third of the shot. This is to ensure that the viewer's focus is purely upon them without having busy surroundings.
The Storyboard Emma created:
Presentation (Pitch)
Today was the day of presenting our idea to the group. Prior to the pitch, we met as a group to discuss the new and more evolved ideas that Me and Emma had come up with. We tried to convey the new concept as well as we could. I found it difficult because some members said 'I don't get it', yet did not explain what it was they didn't understand. I feel that this lead to our downfall.
The pitch went shockingly bad. I feel that the issue was that we had not communicated well enough with each other what the concept was. As well as this, I do not think that our idea was succinct enough or even have a clear enough plan for the day. Each of us spoke at different times leading to a confusing and unclear pitch.
We all realised that the presentation did not go as well as hoped and set to work on a new idea straight after the seminar.
The new notion is now based upon purely The Beatles and their success' influence upon the Liverpudlian modern day community.
Since this meeting, I have researched a number of news articles that relate to this subject and that can create a starting point for the questions we ask:
The pitch went shockingly bad. I feel that the issue was that we had not communicated well enough with each other what the concept was. As well as this, I do not think that our idea was succinct enough or even have a clear enough plan for the day. Each of us spoke at different times leading to a confusing and unclear pitch.
We all realised that the presentation did not go as well as hoped and set to work on a new idea straight after the seminar.
The new notion is now based upon purely The Beatles and their success' influence upon the Liverpudlian modern day community.
Since this meeting, I have researched a number of news articles that relate to this subject and that can create a starting point for the questions we ask:
"Beatles hit to be played in space"
"The man who rejected the Beatles"
"Did the Beatles Destroy Rock 'n' Roll?"
"Liverpool named top musical city"
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