Plan for Group Presentation

Motivation for initial ideas and research

• Started by thinking about everything that would have an interesting outlook on community such as sports teams, clubs, memberships to things
• Development to think about the university as a community, then progressed into thinking about student village and the individual communities that are forced within the student houses
• Thought a lot about the idea of international students being thrown into a community of completely different people but also a completely different country, the struggles they might face to feel like they fit in and belong within this community
• Further development just to think about students living on campus in general, all the difficulties they face fitting in, how well they get on with their housemates, if they feel they fit in here and belong in this community

Synopsis of project

• Main focus on one student house in the student village, interviews with each of the housemates regarding how comfortable they feel at university, do they feel they fit in, what they think of their other housemates and the friendships they’ve made with each, or not at all
• Taking a look at how they interact as a house, things they do together, environments they share

Treatment of project - how you have approached subject matter in terms of camera, sound…

• Thinking about shots for the interviews, keeping them all very professional with a tripod set up
• Capturing all sound with a boom microphone
• Hand held shots when following housemates around the house, capturing interactions in the kitchen and hallways

Group meetings - how the concept developed as a result

• Meetings at least once a week to discuss the development of ideas, letting everyone have an input on the idea
• Use of social media such as a group chat on facebook and skype to keep in touch and provide regular updates to each other on work we were doing or new ideas we might have
• This made it easier for us all to share ideas as soon as we had them, allowing our concept to develop quicker and not solely by one person’s work, we all had regular inputs on everything and were in constant knowledge of what each other were doing

Storyboards

• Instead of storyboards we created a shot list of everything we wanted to capture and in what part of the house, at what time
  
  

Roles of individuals in the group

• Nobody really had a set role, we all tried out working with the boom and the camera, giving everyone an equal opportunity to try everything out and get a feel for what they liked best
• We all planned the shots we wanted and the questions we were going to ask together also, so everyone had an input on all elements of the documentary

Other artists and filmmakers you looked at for inspiration

• The work of Louis Theroux, the documentaries he makes, thinking about the way he asks questions and puts himself into their environment comfortably so they are more likely to open up to him
• Lift documentary

Thoughts and research into techniques used

• We structured our questions to be more conversation leading so it wasn’t as serious and demanding as some interviews can come across, this was something we thought about after looking at the ways in which Louis Theroux asks his questions and how he gets such a comfortable interview with someone, with them opening up to him and talking about more than he’s asked
  
  

Production diary

• Photos of some of the interviews we did, showing the setup of the shots and how we worked in such a small space, being the bedrooms of the housemates
• Timetable of what we shot on each day

The shoot

• All the positives and negatives we faced throughout the shoot
• Gaining of so much footage we can’t include it all
• How well we worked together as a team

Use of post production techniques

Building of the soundtrack and all sound elements

Individual assessment based on own opinions

Final product - strengths

Final product - challenges/shortcomings/areas for development

Summary - what have you learnt from this

Planning for the areas I'm chosen to cover:

LO4 / LO5

LO4 - Evidence of effective communications with the production team and the community during the film-making process

• screenshots from group chat on Facebook, keeping in contact daily to develop new ideas and inform each other of what we were working on
• Skype calls to share work and brainstorm ideas together
• photos of the team working together during the filmmaking process
• timetable of shots we wanted and days we filmed, put together by the group as a whole

LO5 - Effective time management through teamwork, punctuality, planning and submission of well-executed work

• time management developed by constant discussion of what worked best for everyone in the group, days and times everyone was/wasn’t available
• keeping in constant contact with one another made us work more effectively
• punctuality was essential, everyone had good respect for each other so we were always on time and ready, keeping in contact to let the team know if something came up that we couldn’t control/manage
• plans were made together, making sure everyone was aware of what was going on and everyone had input on the work
• everyone was organised, each helping each other out to stay on top of things and meet required deadlines