Production - Creating A Powerful Doc & Adapting To The Unknown [RESEARCH]

Adapting to the unknown seems to be a vital part of creating a powerful documentary. I wanted to conduct some research into how I can become a better team member by knowing how to react in situations that do not go to plan. I want to learn if these situations are actually beneficial to the project as well as how to adapt to scenarios that could change the story of our documentary if that were the case. This will also help me ensure we are creating a powerful documentary with a very personal story.

I started my research by looking into an interview with Michael Moore, an esteemed documentary filmmaker who has continually created powerful and successful documentaries. In an article written by Moore in 2014, he states: "Don’t tell me that nuclear power is bad. I know it’s bad. I’m not going to give up two hours of my life to have you tell me it’s bad. All right? Seriously, I don’t want to hear anything I already know". (Indiewire, 2014) This thought made me question some decisions that I have made for our documentary. I thought that I had possibly made some areas of my documentary too much like a "How to do motorsport" style which could both bore the viewer and give them the information they already knew. An example of this being, "Motorsport is hard". Most people may think or know this already, so telling them it is hard would be boring. We can make this point interesting by showing the challenges someone would face as well as the personal toll it takes. However, our documentary is focused on what it takes to achieve your dreams and from that aspect, we are not telling people something they already know as it is a personal journey. That being said, we need to touch on some of the basics to ensure our documentary has a solid base and this means we need to highlight some of the challenges. The way we best engage our viewer is showing the hard truths about motorsport along my journey and together they make the documentary a special event. We gauge the interest of motorsport through reflective sequences with myself, but then understand the challenge through external collaborators. We will then have further reflective pieces to see how I deal with the challenges. Overall, we need to touch on a few basic areas but they will not be the centre of this documentary as that would probably lessen the impact.

An interview with Brian Cox shows the importance of powerful documentary film making. It helps me realise why I should be spending so much time getting together the right contributors as it will allow for this documentary to have more meaning for the viewer: "In an age when television drama is predictable, docs offer us real, often alien voices. They also fill some of the void left by the emptiness of much television reporting ...  somewhere between journalism, film narrative and television entertainment. They appear to thrive on contradictions, between the stubborn reality they purport to capture and their necessarily limited means, between the impositions of storytelling and the desire to interpret or analyse." (The Observer, 2011) This allows me to understand how powerful our documentary can be. It can give a viewer an honest reflection on chasing their dreams, this is something that is often not talked about. This could be due to a lack of motivation for people to follow passions or because they cannot dedicate the time to it. A prime area which we are going to hopefully show in "Dream Chaser" is that you can do something if you dedicate your time to it. We achieve a powerful outlook within our documentary by allowing the viewer into who I am as a person and showing the hard decisions that I will have to make on this journey to make it a reality. I believe our documentary can be incredibly powerful and it is our job to film it in such a way that ensures the viewer can connect to me on such a deep level. Without this connection, it means a lot of the trust needed from the viewer will not be present, meaning our documentary would be lacking a powerful tool.

The problem with some of the documentaries that I have analysed in pre-production was a lack of a vision to tell a story, rather telling us something for the sake of it. Col Spector wrote: "At the end of a day, a great documentary has to have a strong vision, and that vision informs every creative and editorial step along the way... Your music guy has to share your vision; so does everyone else in the process. Only when everyone is on the same page can the documentary achieve its intended goals." (raindance, 2011) This allowed me to consider how Cailan and George would be working within "Dream Chaser". They do not have a distinct passion for motorsport which could easily lead our documentary to not have the grounding it would if made by a crew of motorsport fans. As I want this documentary to be a powerful one which allows the viewer into my life, I thought it would be very important to get the crew up to speed with the basics with motorsport, otherwise, it would be easy to miss a lot of key areas within this journey. Over the past week, I have been speaking to the team about motorsport and the key areas we should be focusing on in the plans as well as future shoot dates. This started by looking at some of the footage from the Race License and examining what we could have done better in that sequence. My thoughts from that can be seen in that blog post, but I was determined to ensure my crew knew as many motorsport related facts as possible. I have gone through these with particular reference to Brands Hatch, the track it looks like I will be racing at. This information should allow Cailan and George to be in a better place going forward and I trust them to capture ever better sequences, even though the License Day was a good start. I am excited to help them along this journey. I hope they dedicate time to learning the sport somewhat, as it will allow the documentary to go deeper, which will ensure its success.

I now wanted to think about what I should be doing as a crew member if things were to change along this journey and, for whatever reason, something significantly affected the storyline. I want to know what I can do to adapt to these changes and this research will allow me to take a methodical approach with any issues that may present themselves.

The first part of useful advice that I came across was by PremiumBeat which suggested "Take real inventory of your surroundings and your resources. Still try to creatively adapt, but make sure your documentary film is practical.... Documentaries are much more than just interviews. The real meat of many documentary films is found in the coverage and B-roll which merely uses the interviews as narration. Your subject will dictate what types of coverage are most important" (PremiumBeat, 2016) Our documentary is going to include a number of scenes where the camera operators won't know exactly what is going to happen. We've already had a case in which the camera team did not acquire exactly what they should have due to an issue like this. The race license sequence did not work as planned as the camera crew had not thought about all the possibilities. This led to us getting a number of rushed shots when in reality the camera crew ought to have been ready. We have learned from this issue as a team and realise the importance of time management now. This means that going forward the call sheet provided by George should not be seen as gospel, the crew need to arrive earlier than expected and must all expect there to be changes with the call times. Thankfully the sequence recorded is only going to be a 2-3 minute section in our documentary and we should have that covered with what we have filmed. However, the choices we have available to us in the edit will be fewer because of management on the day. The crew still managed to get b-roll which will enable us to make something of this sequence, even though I realise it is not as good as it could have been. For myself, going forward I need to continue to relax into my role as a contributor as it will allow my on-screen presence to be much more natural. I was worried about the creation of the film too much on this shoot date and that is partly down to not yet building up enough trust to let go as a director. I am certainly improving but I realise it is going to be hard to hand over all of this control, especially when I know exactly how I want these sequences to be filmed. Thanks to this advice, I have improved my plans for the upcoming shoots, ensuring inclusion of finer details with mentions of the important key shots which will be needed. I hope this addition will allow the crew to work at their best and allow me to relax into my role.

Some of the natural panic I felt within the license day may have actually led to the sequence being more true to life than if we had filmed exactly as planned. As we were all rushed as a team there was little time to make perfect shots, we filmed the actuality at the moment. While I am visibly a little stressed in this sequence, I believe we did capture a natural events cycle from the day. "Preparing for how to make a documentary is about laying out what you need, and being open to the natural changes that emerge." (studiobinder, 2018). While we all admit to not performing at our best on this first shoot date, I think it is fair to say that, thanks to the quick decision making by all, we managed to obtain enough footage for a sequence. I was still being asked questions as if I were the director on the day which meant that I had to forget about being a contributor when off-camera. I made the decision on the location of the camera crew on the spur of the moment before we had to go and do the license which was much earlier than expected. I feel that this decision was done with good intentions to ensure we still had enough footage to create a sequence, even though we were caught off-guard. Even though the crew and I admit we could have done better, we all adapted at the moment and pulled off the sequence. The crew got enough shots and I passed my license test. Really, those were the two main outcomes we wanted from the day and we achieved those. Saying this, going forward I would like the crew to be making more decisions without me, as it would allow me to settle into my role as contributor and I feel being a natural contributor is very important for this documentary to be a success. As mentioned above, we have all decided that we need to go into further detail with our plans before shoot dates as this means that issues like this will be less likely to happen. And, even if they do, we will be in a much better place to understand how to deal with them as all of the possible information needed will be in front of us.

My final piece of research material led me to think that a lot of what is great with a documentary is the fact that things may happen which are out of your control. However, instead of taking these as negatives, evolving your story around them actually makes it a more compelling watch. "You see, as your documentary process evolves over time, you might just find that the film you set out to make has grown into something more. Go back to the story points you identified in your original outline and try and identify the footage and interviews that you have that will fit those points. Don’t be afraid to play around with the outline at this point. If a certain scene or interview that you shot was originally supposed to be at the start of the film, but now you believe it will be more compelling at the end: do so." (filmlifestyle.com, 2018). This somewhat changed my outlook of the events on the license day. I know it did not go how I wanted it too but that is now part of the appeal of that sequence. Even though areas are rushed, we captured some great actuality and it was possibly more authentic than planned because we were so rushed. It is clear that adapting to the unknown is part of what makes a documentary powerful. Ensuring moments of actuality are not staged in any way allows the viewer to connect to me as a contributor. This does not mean I will say to the crew "just film whatever I do". I will be making sure that I address more outcomes in my plans to ensure that if something unpredictable does happen, the crew know how to react to it. If they have a reference for how these moments will be filmed, it will allow our documentary to look visually fantastic while not disrupting the actuality and journey that I go on. It is very important that the crew film substantial footage on days like the license day, upcoming test days and the race, as without these shots, we don't get the full picture. I have full trust in my crew to learn from the issues we have had and move on to create a very powerful documentary.

I conclude this blog by realising that adapting to the unknown in a short space of time is what makes a documentary special. If everything goes as planned then we could have a pretty boring documentary. I can plan possible outcomes and shot styles but in reality, it is down to the camera operators on the day to take my work and adapt it to the situation. This way we get a cinematic style without losing the integrity of the story. I know I can create better reference work and I have already started planning for our upcoming shoots. I have spoken to the crew about what they would want from me on these days to ensure they know what they are doing. These plans will allow each shoot day to be a success, one which progresses the story. I am excited to see where this journey takes us, we do not know what hurdles we may find along the way but the way we plan before each shoot date will enable the crew to adapt to the unknown. Essentially, the plans made beforehand ensure that the shoot day ends with all of the required material. I am happy to know what I can be doing going forward and I have complete trust in my crew to film it the correct way. This will also allow me to relax into my role as a contributor which can only be of benefit to the documentary. Exciting times are ahead and I'm looking forward to seeing how this journey plays out.


References:
Indiewire, 2014: https://www.indiewire.com/2014/09/michael-moores-13-rules-for-making-documentary-films-22384/
The Observer, 2011 https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/20/documentaries-brian-cox-nick-fraser
raindance, 2011: https://www.raindance.org/5-simple-mistakes-documentary-filmmakers-make/
PremiumBeat, 2016: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-documentary-filmmaking/
studiobinder, 2018 https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/how-to-make-a-documentary/
filmlifestyle.com, 2018 https://filmlifestyle.com/how-to-make-a-documentary/