I started off this process by having a call with my supervisor who helped me find a good topic for this documentary. I had the idea to try and speak with those playing in non-league and ask whether they have had to move onto focussing on their main jobs. However, this wasn’t particularly topical, until I discussed the idea of linking it to the current cost of living crisis. I emailed different National League clubs to ask whether players and club officials would agree to be interviewed, whilst also film B-roll to accompany the interviews. I received replies from those clubs, but only Boreham Wood and Wealdstone agreed for filming.

In order to make this an immersive and emotional documentary, I wanted to make Wealdstone player Max Kretzschmar the subject of my documentary by having an extended interview and follow him around his work and football life. I was able to gain contact with him through a commercial contact, Max Fleet, that I knew at his former club Woking. However, the main problem I encountered was that Kretzschmar was very slow to reply to messages. This meant that weeks were going by with no progress on a timescale to film. Wealdstone had also backed down on an agreement to film at their training session, so I was at risk of not having enough B-roll to work with. This was extremely frustrating for me as I had gone through the process of trying to arrange suitable schedules, just to be let down.

With just a couple of weeks before the deadline, I made the decision to drop Kretzschmar and Wealdstone from my documentary. I only had Boreham Wood’s secretary interview and some B-roll to work with at the time, meaning I couldn’t compare clubs’ approach to the crisis. Using my contacts at my university placement at Weymouth FC, I secured an interview with CEO Paul Maitland and filmed B-roll around their stadium. As for finding my main subject, Weymouth goalkeeper Harrison Bruton agreed to feature and I was able to film him at his work as a youth coach for B-roll and conduct a master interview. The filming went well and I was happy with the quality of the shots and interviews that were produced.

Overall, I felt that this process was tough, since communication was a big problem throughout. By having to switch subjects and clubs, I had to put together this documentary with less time than I would have liked. For future projects, I need to be more decisive with my actions to ensure that I don’t put too much pressure on myself. Whilst the final product was of a high quality, a lot of time was wasted with my former subject and I could have explored other areas sooner had I had more time. Therefore, my action plan going forward for the future would be to use my time more wisely by making those certain inclusion/exclusion judgements quicker, in order to increase the time I had to produce the final cut.

 

The University of Edinburgh (11 November 2020) Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle. Available at: https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/gibbs-reflective-cycle  (Accessed: 13 December 2022)