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Week 1: Thinking of initial ideas, making contact with potential characters, discussing access/ story/ ethics.

Initial Ideas:

1. Documentary on my brother Jed Golding, as he prepares for his first ever white collar boxing match in November (perfect time for filming). Documentary based on his journey training for the fight and the build-up itself, more importantly though the reason he is doing it. Jed has ADHD and has suffered from mental health issues including suicidal thoughts as recently as this spring. He has always wanted to do a fight as a way to channel his energy. The story will look at battle with mental health from young age, moving out, suicidal thoughts, training for fight, build-up and then the fight itself. (1/10/21)

UPDATE: He has decided not to do the boxing fight, therefore documentary can’t take place in this event.
Possible Alternative: same story surrounding mental health but on how football clears the mind. (3/10/21)

Week 3: story idea taking shape, meeting with subject outlined for the coming week to discuss what the documentary will entail and what is needed from them. Access will also be discussed as hopefully I will be able to film the club my subject plays for, to be used simply as b-roll. The match won’t be a story itself. Possibly interview subjects parents. Thinking the first shot will be similar to hoop dreams, subject playing sport over voiceover, with an intro to films story.

Week 4-
Meeting with client moved due to subjects work schedule. Will be the final meeting before filming can begin to take place. Informed consent will be a prime topic discussed. Feeling very confident about the doc and am hopeful that the discussions with the subject will be largely positive and allow me plenty of access. Through messaging the subject has already told me they wish to see the film when the final edit is complete, not to necessarily say what is wrong but as a way of seeing how their story has been told. Interviews with the subjects parents have also been lined up to support the story, Access to childhood photos/videos has been granted so when it comes to editing the footage these can be clipped in.

Week 5- Meeting with main subject had, we discussed the expectations of the doc and the themes/message it will be trying to get across. Master interview pencilled in for the 5th/6th November. Now I need to think about interview questions and where to actually film the master interviews, whilst considering factors such as light etc. Production plan checklist also pieced together, giving a rough guideline of when deadlines will need to be met. On the whole I am looking forward to beginning the process now of filming the documentary.

Week 6- Master interviews to take place 5/6th of November. Interview questions below:
Questions for Jed:
1. What was the pandemic like for you.
2. What were your thoughts as the announcement of lockdown were made.
3. How was your life affected.
4. How was it living with sport
5. What was it like having these dark thoughts building up.
6. Where did you go for help.
7. What was the worst part of the last 18 months and what was it that made you turn a corner.
8. Just how certain were you that you wanted to end your life.
9. What was it like having a job taken away from you.
10. What’s your past with mental health, where did it all begin.
11. How was it going back to work
12. What do you want to achieve from your life
13. What’s the next step
14. How important is sport for you.
15. What would you say to other people your age who suffered or are suffering from mental health.

Questions for parents
1. Where did Jed’s story with mental health begin.
2. What was it like knowing something was happening but being unable to do anything.
3. How did it make you feel knowing what he was going through.
4. What were your worries during the lockdown regarding Jed
5. How did it affect you
6. Is enough done for people with mental health
7. What advice would you give to other parents in a similar situation.
8. What was it like for Jed losing sport
9. How do you think he’s doing now
10. Where do you see Jeds future. Fire

Week 6/7- Master Interviews done and Informing Consents signed prior to filming. Next step is b-roll then editing. I felt like the interviews went really well and that I captured a good range of shots including close-ups when the subjects demonstrated emotion. Now in discussion with the main subject as to when the b-roll can be filmed. Aiming for all filing to be done by end of week 8. Allowing me 4 weeks for editing.

Week 8- final filming to be done Sunday afternoon. Allowing plenty of time for the edit.
Decided that I will feature in the documentary purely in photos, I feel that if I was to have a verbal role in the documentary then it may lose its core value, it may feel tempered with. If whilst editing I find gaps then I will use the main subject to do VO to link it all together. I’ve also planned out how each act will flow into each other through using b-roll.

Week 9/10- final filming went well and editing had been going incredibly. Rough cut is now complete and ready to be viewed. Music and stills will be added in preparation for the fine cut on week 11. Making great progress on the production checklist and am even a few days ahead of schedule. Very happy. Rough cut looks and sounds brilliant so hoping for strong feedback.

Week 11- Rough cut viewing has taken place and I received a good range of feedback ahead of the fine cut deadline. All necessary changes have been made and the documentary is now in fine cut condition. Plenty of archive and b-roll has been added as well as a plethora of music which will hopefully bring more emotion to the film. I remain very happy with how it’s going and the fact I’ve kept to a tight schedule well. Hopefully the film will be well received during fine cut viewing.

Week 11- Fine cut sent and feedback received, changes have already been made ahead of final cut and submission on Friday.

Week 12- 500 Word Reflection

Now that I have come to the end of FB666 and with my documentary ready for submission, it is time for me to reflect on the entire process of making the film. To do this I will use Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988), as I feel this reflective model best supports my journey over the past ten weeks or so. I am incredibly proud of my documentary; it is possibly the greatest work I have ever produced and is something I am always going to be able to look back on. It makes me happy that I’ve produced a film that not only myself but also my brother can look back on. Doing a documentary on my family had its advantages and disadvantages. Finding time to film and having access to archive footage was easy to come by as obviously all I have to do is ask them, which saved a lot of time. The negative though is that actually it was extremely emotional for me to film this, I found out so much about my brother and my mum that I never knew before, some of it was actually very difficult for me to comprehend. I feel that overall my film has come together smoothly and that I haven’t really experienced any difficulties along the way. I do think there is room for me to improve my editing, however I appreciate that this is really the most difficult edit I will have done so far at university. Some of my filming also wasn’t great, it was shaky at places and also in some shots, especially those filmed when Jed was playing football/basketball were too bright, so clearly, I didn’t set the camera up right. I feel that despite the problems I’ve faced, the documentary has a nice storyline to it and uses a good variety of shots and sounds. I managed to stick to my production plan timeline, meaning that everything was done on time and to a standard I was happy about. Based on feedback from both the rough cut and fine cut viewing, I need to work on the pace of a film, this was the main topic in both pieces of feedback, this is something I need to consider and work on as I now build up to my dissertation. When evaluating my documentary, I feel like I have a good film with a nice amount of emotion to show the rawness of the topic. However, this could’ve been portrayed even better if I’d incorporated more music. In analysis, I’ve learnt that importance music plays in Television and Film, and that pace is essential to telling the story, once the pace is set it makes the story more believable and engaging, I found. So in conclusion, I am extremely proud of my film, I think it’s something I can be proud of, especially as it was my first time using a camera and really the first difficult edit I’ve ever had, I also think I was clever in the way I haven’t used any voice-over, keeping the focus purely on the subjects. In the future I will be more careful with setting up the camera, I will also remember the importance of pace when telling a story and not to make it feel rushed. All the things I’ve learnt will be incorporated into my dissertation.