Pre Production - Project Evolution OCTOBER

October was an important month for my project as many things started to change. It was really starting to move forward and I was evolving the project into something special. These monthly blogs are to show what I did overall in each month, further detail can be seen in my other individual blogs.

Changing the story - documentary about chasing dreams

After a lot of consideration and feedback, I decided to change the theme of the project from one about motorsport to one about chasing your dreams. My subject matter would still be motorsport but changing the overall theme would allow me to have a deeper narrative. By stripping back the "mechanical" features of motorsport, it would enable me to focus on the reason as to why I want to achieve this goal. The most interesting part is me as a contributor so I need to capitalise on that an take the viewer deeper into my emotions and history with the sport.

So through changing the angle and story we have stripped back the mechanical sequences and replaced them with more meaningful sequences. I have included more sequences in the diary room and taken the viewer back to multiple meaningful moments in my past to prove why motorsport is so important to me. These sequences will allow the viewer to get to know me better and will also heighten the drama when obstacles such as the racing license need to be completed. These sequences then have more meaning as there is more backstory. Finally, the last race will still be the epic finale that we had always planned, but it will mean a lot more and we will understand all of the emotions because of the backstory that will now be provided with the changes I have made.

Feedback from the group about my reference material

I got some great feedback from the group about my project and I was happy that my initial idea was received well. I changed soon after the presentation to the idea of chasing dreams, but the feedback was still helpful. For example, I had focussed on a couple of roles that were not what a director should be doing. I should not have been speaking so much about the budget as much and things like locations should be George's job as well. I did need to do some research into these areas because they are important for me to develop the script, but maybe I was putting too much time into them which is the time I could have been spending on my roles as director, scriptwriter and presenter.

Overall I had some nice comments about the project from the group and everyone seemed to see it as a plausible project and one that could go forward, and it did get the green light from Simon. I liked the fact that everyone saw my passion for the project as I know that is important when pitching an idea to anyone. I also got given a few things to follow up on regarding the story which was changed when I switched my idea from a motorsport documentary to one about chasing dreams.

Camera tests

I did multiple camera tests and location scouts in October, all of which proved very useful to my understanding of what camera we should use. I scouted and filmed on these locations.

• Filching Manor Kart Track
• Bayford Meadows Kart Track
• Brands Hatch Motorsport Track
• Donnington Park Motorsport Track

We still have yet to finalise the details of where the final race will be held but we assume it will be at Donnington as that is where all of the past years have held a race in March. I went there on a very wet and cloudy day so it was not the greatest for a scout and test, but I managed to get some understanding of where we could film.

After attending all the other camera tests I got a good idea about what camera would be needed for each location. We would use the Sony handheld in the pitlane due to its superior image stabilisation. Cailan's Panasonic would be best utilised on the corner that is furthest from the track due to its long zoom. My Panasonic and the Uni's Panasonic were comparable in terms of image quality and zoom but would not be well utilised unless they were pretty close to the track as their zoom length is not great. We will gather more information and feedback once we get to January and scout all locations again and do more camera tests. 

Understanding the costs

I knew after my meetings with Simon and feedback from the group that I should not be focusing on the budget but I will highlight the progress here as it is work not to be done solely by the director/writer. I worked with George a lot over this budget and we finally got all the numbers together so we can fully understand the costs. My original budget of £1200 did not include a few things so I made sure everyone was aware of that in the presentation. After that, I sat down with George and helped him with the budget. He did not know the costs of the majority of items as he was not focusing on this in pre-production. His help was appreciated though and we got to a number of just under £1700 which still fits within out individual budget of £600 each. You can see the full details below, this budget does include emergency money in case we had forgotten something or something increases in price.



Feedback from Simon through meetings

Through October Simon really helped me with the evolution of the project which enabled me to slightly change the idea into one that would be better received by a wider audience. The idea of chasing dreams. Once I had wrapped my head around what needed to change I got to work and I am now happy with the story that the documentary will tell. As with all the items mentioned here, further detail can be seen in my individual blogs.

Simon also helped me decided what I needed to do for Pre Production as originally I had included things like locations and budget as well as storyboards. All of those would not need to be included as they are jobs for the producer and DOP.

At this moment in time, it looks like these will be the areas I will focus on. Subject to change with meetings with Simon.

1. The tagline, Title and 25-word pitch
2. The overall idea
3. Timeline of events
4. Properly formatted documentary script 
5. Information on the broadcast, its platform and it's audience
6. My inspiration
7. A directors statement

Understanding my directorial approach

As can be seen in my other blog posts, I have worked hard on deciding my approach as a director. You can see I have spent a lot of time doing work on analysing directors decisions and why those made an effect on the viewer. My other blogs will show in much better detail what I am going for, but I am looking for "raw" scenes where I will explain to the viewer, through the producer asking questions, what is going on and how I am feeling. At the same time, I want a mix of highly stylistic shots and ones that has an impact on the viewer. The type of shots I am after can be seen in my visual style blog post.

Overall a lot of progress has been made and I am really happy that the project has changed into one that can be recieved by a wider audience, that was my main worry when first pitching my idea. A lot of work is still to be done and the scripting will start in November, along with the Website creation, but I am proud of the progress I have made so far and am looking forward to seeing what happens next!