Production - Possibility of Integrating a Female Driver [Mentor Idea]

After a recent meeting with Simon, the subject of bringing a female driver into our documentary was mentioned. At first, I had some reluctance as I knew the kind of contributors I wanted for my project, but after some thought, I had some ideas about how we could naturally bring a female driver into our documentary. The reason for my original concern was that I wanted to get the best contributors possible, no matter the gender. But as Simon quite rightly said, female drivers, find it hard to get into motorsports elite, because of physical limitations meaning it could be a very interesting interview.

After discussion with the group, I decided to start researching into ways we could possibly include a female driver naturally in our documentary. My brainstorm ended with a few different options. We can speak to a female driver and ask the questions that we could ask any driver. We could replace the Billy Monger interview with Nathalie McGloin who is a racing driver disabled from the waist down. Finally, we could have a female driver be a part of the documentary as a mentor, someone that I could speak to about the basics of motorsport. The later could replace the sit-down interviews we have currently planned.

I think my ideas all have their strong points, but also some negatives. Below I am going to discuss each idea in more detail, as well as my conclusion of which one we should move forward with.

Generic Interviews

Motorsport drivers main jobs outside the car are selling themselves and their brand, therefore a generic interview with a female driver would work well. We have three generic interviews that we want to conduct. One on sponsorship, one on fitness and mental strength and one on obtaining a racing license and the importance of testing. We have other interviews we wish to conduct, but we doubt we will have enough time in our 20-minute piece to fit them all in. These generic interviews are to be set up by George, but my role as director/writer is to decide who would best fit our project and story. I have been lucky enough to interview female racing driver Stéphane Kox in the past and I think someone like her, or even possibly her, would be a great asset to our documentary. Ideally, if we were to go ahead with this scenario, we would have one or two female drivers as a minimum featured in our documentary. I agree with Simon that diversity would really help our documentary, it is now down to me to decide which driver would fit our project/story best. I have already sent out emails to some of the higher-level female racing drivers. If we do not receive any response, I will discuss with the team and decide the course of action. No matter what, I want to have a female driver as a contributor in one of our generic interviews. The difference of opinion could be great for our documentary, as would a documentary with a great mixture of talented male and female drivers.

Replacing the Billy Monger interview with Nathalie McGloin

When Simon mentioned that we should get a female contributor onboard, I remembered that I had seen an inspirational story about a disabled female driver. Her name was Natalie McGloin, more about her journey can be seen in the video, but she would undoubtedly bring something very hard-hitting to our documentary. From what I have seen she seems very good in front of the camera and I would be very excited to possibly work with her. My biggest dilemma is that, to include Natalie, we would have to drop the interview we want to do with Billy Monger. Two stories that are similar would probably be too much for a 20-minute documentary. Going forward, I will suggest to George that we currently go forward with the idea with Billy and see if he is available to work with us. The reason for wanting to work with Billy so much is that he is such a great screen presence and a similar age to me which would enable this sequence to feel more natural to me. If not, Natalie would be the person I would really want to speak to. Her story is equally as interesting, so whoever we interview would be absolutely fantastic for our project. I have sent my brief to George, and if Billy does not want to be a part of this project, we should ask Natalie. If neither wants to be a part of this, then we have to have a serious think about this issue. A driver who has fought through adversity to shine through was a key sequence. As director/writer I would be devastated not to have this in the final cut.

A Racing Mentor

This idea came about when watching Icarus (https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80168079?source=35)  as, throughout the documentary, the main subject speaks to a Russian Scientist through Skype, and follows him through the insane world of doping. While our idea is completely different, it is an idea we could loosely use. My idea would be to have a figure that appears three or four times in our documentary (probably through skype) showing me the basics of becoming a race car driver. I think these sequences could have an impact as the increased screen presence of a single character would allow the audience to connect with him/her. I have given this idea some thought, and for it to work we would need to scrap the regular interviews that we originally planned. We do not have enough time in our documentary for both so we would need to choose the one that has the most impact. My largest worry about this issue is our time restraints. I think it would be very hard for a driver to be available on two or three occasions to speak to us through Skype. If we put all of our efforts into this sequence and did not have a proper ending, we would have big issues. Another issue that has been considered is how we would film this sequence. Undoubtedly it would be less cinematic and give us less creative control, which makes me feel we should not go ahead with this idea unless we could conduct face-to-face chats. As this is unlikely we probably will not go ahead with this idea for now, but as I have given this idea time, I will not completely forget about it, especially when we are waiting upon replies from Billy Monger among others.

My Conclusion

After this idea was brought about by an insightful meeting with Simon, I now believe we definitely need a female driver to be a part of this documentary. In my opinion, the best way we can naturally involve this is to include Natalie in our documentary instead of Billy. However, as a plan to contact Billy is underway, it may lead us to not pursue this option. Therefore I think we should now inquire about interviewing a number of female racing drivers to be broadcast in our generic interview sections. These interviews are still incredibly important to our documentary, but they may lead to less of an emotional connection between the contributor and the viewer. This is now my task over the coming weeks to find the right people for our documentary, then liaise with George about who he should contact. I am very happy Simon brought up this point, as I would like our documentary to be as diverse as possible. I am sure we can find a great contributor who will bring some enlightening points to improve the story of our documentary. Great contributors are going to be key in terms of making my story have the right tone. This means research over the coming weeks will allow me to contact the right people.