Alex Baldwin TV Production Blog: Production - First Group Meeting [8th January 2019]

After the unit briefing, the three of us, George, Cailan and myself had our first group meeting of the year. Over the Christmas holidays, we had been keeping in regular contact which allowed us to come back to uni with a very good idea of what we needed to be getting on with. My job as a scriptwriter had gone through its initial stage as I had completed the drafts of our script, but updates would still need to be made. My job as a director had already been in full-force during pre-production, as I decided what shot types, cinematic styles and filmic effects would be used. Once again, this role would continue to evolve once George updates me about what restrictions we will have for each scene.

I prepared a list of things that needed to be brought up from my end before this group meeting, these being:

A video for Kickstarter Page.
How we want to go about pitching our idea to possible companies at Autosport International [UK's largest Motorsport show which takes place at the start of January each year]
Information regarding a possible opportunity that presented itself towards the end of 2018.
A big donation was expected to land in our Kickstarter page within the next few weeks
An issue with the crew T-Shirts we had printed
Reworking the finances after the aforementioned opportunity that presented itself.
We need Cailan to present his storyboards ASAP [We expected these to be done before we arrived back, or at least some]
Talk about possible unique angles we could capture through the use of a Go Pro in some of our scenes
Following up more companies to ensure we get as much help with filming equipment as possible
What is George's plan for the interviews and his current filming schedule?
Dates for Diary Room sequences so we can book out equipment
Do we have enough crew?

This was the outcome of these discussions, plus more that was brought up by the others.

I had realised that our fundraising page [Kickstarter] had not received many donations over the past weeks so I had a plan to give one final push for our project. I thought we should produce a 15-20 minute video for the fundraising page and my website. This video would detail, at length, what we are attempting with this project and why we need support. This was my decision as a director because I knew this funding was essential for the story along with actual funding for this project. This video would be recorded on 15/01/2019 and would be uploaded within a few days to allow sponsors to come through before our fundraising page comes to an end on the 26th January. We are doing this to ensure a vital part of our story is fulfilled [Reacting to the fundraiser] and we are ensuring that we give ourselves the best chance of a positive outcome rather than a negative one.
George and I are attending Autosport International on Friday 11th Jan to speak to companies about sponsoring our project. It is a very large event so both of us would be attempting to secure as many deals with companies as possible to further ensure we have the budget needed to complete this project well. I agreed to draw up a "statistics package" which focused on my social media which thankfully has a decent following. We would focus our pitch to the companies on this aspect as that is what makes us different to other drivers out there. This document would be drawn up within the next few days to allow George to print out cards and information and present it in a good way. This event is something we would have ideally been doing in pre-production but the event did not take place within that timeframe. I did have some plans to film this event, but as we are already stretched for time I decided there would be no clips from this show. We would focus on securing/speaking about sponsorship and reveal more information within the documentary itself.
Towards the end of 2018, I had a meeting with "Team Hard" who are one of the largest race teams in the UK [Based in Rochester] Link to site: https://www.team-hard.com/ I went to meet them in December 2018 and I had a great discussion with the marketing manager and team owner, and it seemed as if we now had the opportunity to race for a much more professional team. Unfortunately, this changed after some thought on their end as they decided that they could not match the budget of £1200-1500 we had originally talked about for a test session and race day. I understood this situation as we wanted this opportunity to benefit us all, so we decided to scale down the idea and do something different with them. I will talk in full detail about the proposed plan once I meet the team again at the Autosport show.
I had been speaking with some friends who I met in the F1 gaming community online, and they said they would like to contribute a large donation to our project. I wanted to bring this up with the group as our Kickstarter has stalled somewhat towards the end of 2018. This was motivation for us all and the expected donation of around £120 will be given in the coming weeks.
George had ordered some crew clothing towards the end of 2018 to allow the team to have matching clothing to improve professionalism. Sadly, this clothing had arrived in bad condition and the ink was smudged. I decided to take action and email the company because I wanted this to be done properly if we had spent £150+ on it. They agreed to replace all of our clothing which will enable us to look professional when filming our documentary.
After the plan with Team Hard fell through, I decided to rework the finances as it would leave us with some spare funding if all goes to plan with donations and corporate backers. These updated finances will be shown at the bottom of this blog. The reduction in costs for the race and test day from Team Hard to our original plan with Sam would be in the region of £300 which may allow us to buy some filming equipment to improve the professionalism. I will speak with George about the finances and possible changes and we can decide what the best avenue to take is.
I brought up that I was expecting some progress in the storyboards but Cailan had said he had not found time to work on them over Christmas. We agreed that he would, without excuse, now deliver every storyboard for each sequence at least 1 week before they were to happen. This would allow for amendments. This was important to raise as we wanted to be sure that we had a clear and precise plan in place before each shoot. Cailan should, and will be, in close contact with me to ensure his storyboards match my ideas as a director.
I brought in my go-kart helmet and showed a new mount that I had got that could help create a unique angle. We decided we would play around with possible came angles and decide which ones to trial when we shoot. It was important to have this discussion so that we all were on the same wavelength about what shots we would be trialling. I also ordered a plain black helmet for this shoot as my current one has loads of sticks on it which could clash with my future sponsors.
George had been in contact with a number of companies about receiving free equipment in return for some promotion in our film. This was suggested by myself before Christmas and he received a good response. He secured a free 4K Olympus action camera for us to use in our project. I said he should continue to email companies as it is important we get as much professional equipment as possible. If companies are offering free equipment that will help our project, there is no reason not to take it! I said to George he should continue this approach, which could lead to us obtaining better equipment for our project.
I wanted to understand Georges' action plan for possible shoot dates. Thankfully he came to the meeting with a basic plan already in place. As the director, I quickly understood that certain scenes would not be able to take place as he originally thought. I suggested changes and these changes can be seen in the revised schedule that George has produced. This is shown at the bottom of this blog. This chat enabled us to see Georges' vision for the project going forward and that was very important.
The last thing I brought up with the team is the possibility that we may not have enough crew for some scenes. I pointed out in the license test and race day we may want some more crew, after hearing thoughts from Simon in the group lecture about previous years' projects. I suggested a couple of people we could speak to about helping us, but as a producer, it will be George's job to ensure we are not short staffed, especially with me not being able to be in control of a camera.

It was very important that we came together and had a lengthy meeting to understand our starting point. Going forward I delegated jobs for everyone to do over the next 7 days.

Cailan:

Create storyboards for karting and race licence scenes

Plan camera layouts for these scenes as well

Properly read the script

George:

Contact further companies about sponsorship & free equipment

Contact Billy Monger

Make amendments to paperwork

Create handouts for Autosport & prepare a pitch

Myself:

Conceptualise video for Kickstarter and YouTube

Make a statistics package for distribution at Autosport
Make further updates to the script so George can understand when he needs to prompt me