-Being an intern at Boreham Wood, I have easy access to the club and players. Therefore I have chosen for my main subject to be goalkeeper Nathan Ashmore. 

-Once Nathan has agreed that he would be happy to participate I will meet with him in person to discuss further and in more detail. 

-I need to decide on my narrative arc. Will it follow the The Three Act Structure or follow Ashmore as a character. 

-Begin filming, by starting off with a master interview with Nathan. 

I originally planned to do my documentary on women’s football with Portsmouth Ladies player Evie Gane. Showing how discrimination and other challenges women in football face drives them to their success. However, when I started planning with Evie I soon come to realise that she couldn’t relate to this story. As a result of this I had to change my idea. My next documentary was going to be with Boreham Wood’s goalkeeper, Nathan Ashmore. It was going to be about racism in football, speaking from his personal experiences as a victim of it. Unfortunately, after this was agreed Nathan got injured and was out for the rest of the season, needing an operation. This is how I come to doing my documentary on Scott Davies. An ex professional footballer whose career got cut short due to a gambling addiction.  

When my first 2 documentary ideas fell through I was really stressed and panicking because I didn’t know what to do and time was ticking. However, through connections at my internship I managed to find Scott who had a great and inspiring story to tell. This made me feel motivated and ready to get going with my documentary. 

 
Evaluation 

The things that went well were the interviews. I felt that I asked good questions and followed up on everything to get detailed responses from Scott. Moreover, because I do a lot of editing at my internship when it came to editing the documentary I was familiar and confident with using premiere pro. The things that didn’t work so well was my confidence with using the camera. This affected me capturing some b-roll footage and the quality of the interviews. 

I think the reason the interviews went well was because I took everything I had learned on my broadcasting degree on board. I had one question and the rest came off of the back of Scott’s answers. I also think that the overall interview and documentary went well because Scott and I established a great level of trust. He was able to open up to me and best tell his story. I didn’t feel confident using the camera because I hadn’t used one for over 2 years having to study online due to covid, so to then go straight back out there and film for a documentary was challenging. 

I learned that it is always a good idea to have a plan A, B and C for if things fall through. I also learned that it is essential to build a relationship with your subject from the start so that they can trust you. Otherwise, you won’t get the best out of them or your documentary. 

This documentary has highlighted to me my strengths and weaknesses which I can take on board for my dissertation documentary. I know for next time that I need to overshoot on b-roll, you can never have enough. I need to also practice my camera skills, shooting different angles and know when each angle is appropriate.