Production - Test Day in Saxo & Race Day 2 Shoot

After the quick thinking following the issue with Sam a few weeks ago, I decided to organise another race day with the possibility of this being included in our documentary. The Sam race was always going to be the focus of our documentary, I just thought it may be good to show the viewer that I was eventually able to chase and achieve my dream. I know that the failure with the last race was powerful and did show the reality of motorsport, but I wanted to ensure we at least had the footage of me achieving my dream, even if it was not included in the university version.

After knowing it was a reality, I got to work, understanding who I would need to help me film the final two actuality sequences of this documentary. Thanks to help from Rod Birley, who had mentored me earlier in this project, I contacted a race team and agreed to share a Citroen Saxo race car at Brands Hatch over this weekend, in a similar style race to the one with Sam. We would each take part in the race in the same car, changing over in a pitstop halfway through.

There was a test session on Friday and the race was the day after on Saturday. As Cailan was working, the only crew I had on Friday was George for 1 hour and my Dad who has camera skills as well as being good with a video camera. I needed a few people to be there, as otherwise, we would not have the footage of me driving for the first time, as well as good b-roll of the car and team. We also see the team I am with for the first time so any footage on this day would help us put together the story.

We worked off the same camera plans as we did on the Friday test session with Sam. Dad and George had trackside access and my Dad managed to visit two locations in the two thirty minute test sessions I had, doing multiple angles at both. George was only at the location for one session and stayed in the pitlane to get shots of me putting on my race suit and pulling in and out of the pitlane as well as everything in between.

Friday went to plan and we got a number of shots which were different to others in the documentary, which was my aim as I wanted to ensure not every scene looked the same. Friday was most important as it gave me an idea of what the car would be like to drive, so this day was most valuable for me as a contributor/ race driver! I also learned small details such as GoPro placement inside the car as well as track areas we could use on Saturday to ensure the test and race day would look significantly different.

After a successful Friday, attention turned to Saturday and what I hoped would be my first ever motor race. Filming this new race gave us options for an ending for our documentary and I was happy to have gone out of my way to contact sponsors to ensure a second race could happen. I organised this very quickly and with the test day on Friday, I felt a little bit more prepared for my first ever race.

We had a very strong crew for the race day, with Cailan and George working from the pitlane and Jon and my Dad on cameras around the track. Both of the latter have a vast amount of motorsport videography experience, so their input was solely filming the car on track. As before, we did not acquire trackside access because of Brands Hatch regulations on race days, which we understood, and used the plans for the first race. These took into consideration the fact we could only film in public viewing areas, but we knew we would be able to take advantage of being connected to a race team and the unique angles and places we could film.

As a contributor, I had already built up a lot of tension for the first race a few weeks ago, so going into this weekend I was in a different mindset and was able to relax a little more. As with the first race, the team asked me a few questions as well as my teammate to ensure we had good coverage of the people involved to ensure the sequence is grounded. On reflection, the crew had learned a lot from the first race day and the fact they had missed some key shots which meant that on this shoot they recorded an abundance of footage which will give them many more options in the edit.

After a great qualifying which put us second in class, I started the race which added some extra pressure as I was not expecting that! I was hoping for the second half as the race starts are the part with the most danger when the cars are all bunched together! However, I overcame another fear and started the car which was an experience I do not regret. However, the first start did not go as planned. There was a crash in front of me which took out the leading car in my class as well as another quicker car. This only added to the worry of starting the race, after seeing it all happen just in front of me.

Thankfully I kept calm and took the restart well and drove a timid first stint, not taking any risks to ensure the car came into the pitlane and confirm that I did my part in my first ever motor race! I am so happy I took the start as it ensured we would have no problem in saying I actually competed in my first ever race! I brought the car in and my teammate Chris did the second part. It all went well and he drove well to maintain our first in class position, meaning I won my first ever motor race!

An absolutely surreal experience and one I am so happy that I had. If I had not done this race I may have pondered for a number of months about "what if" I had finished the race with Sam. I am happy to put that misfortune behind me and finally do it! The team did a great job (the best so far) of staying out of my way and allowing me to go about the day naturally. And in doing so, it made sure the footage was incredibly natural and I am a big fan of the unique angles which the crew managed to capture and I am very proud that their dedication did not leave them after the disappointment of the first race day.

Overall, a fantastic day for a number of reasons. The footage was incredible and allows us to have another choice for our ending, although at this stage we feel it may be more powerful to show the disappointment after the first race. Secondly, the race went really well and I was able to achieve a dream as well as getting a good result along with it. Finally, I got to meet a number of really great people and finish this part of the journey with my friends and family. It all came together in the end and I am very happy it ended like it did. The amazing crew made sure all of the emotion was captured, ensuring whatever end we have will be powerful in one way. Now we have just two weeks to get the whole documentary edited and finished. I am very proud of the evolution and excited to see the final cut.

Production - Edit Week Review 22nd - 28th April

As we are closing in on the final few weeks of this documentary, we are starting to get together a full cut of the project. It has taken time due to its sheer length as well as how late we have had to film due to the race and test day dates being out of our control. We have been focusing on the main race day for this week as well as going through the documentary as best as possible to understand what we can do to get to the time limit. I personally think that a lot of stories has been removed because of this time limit, which is a massive shame, but I am doing my best to ensure all of the key parts are included. On the left is the current version which sits at 27min. Once the race day is done and condensed we expect it to be around that, as a few other parts need to be cut along with the race day being trimmed from what it currently is.

My feedback on this cut as Director & Writer

My job as director and writer in the edit is mostly to make sure the documentary is telling the story that I want it to, so I am giving constant feedback about what is working and what is not. These are the notes that I sent to our group chat and they agreed that there is still quite a lot to do in regards to finessing the edit. It's hard being brutally honest on a piece of work that we've crafted, but in doing so we are able to make it the best version possible.

• Audio in 'What's to come' is bad (also this drags on)
• Fitness intro needs to be redone
• The shots with dad sequence still show me on track in events I haven't done, which is a bit odd
• The time between the first two diary rooms should be more?
• L cut the Jamie, MUCH more
• Include audio of cars on track in stuff like Bruno/fundraiser intro, really boring otherwise
• 10:27 - use a better version of this shot
• We need more stuff in the license, happens way too quickly, maybe even one more line from Wil could do it 
• Bruno intro to be redone 
• Kickstarter funding animation doesn't really work (sorry) - overlaying it on clips which have no relevance to it looks SO odd. we also don't want to see it hit 100% as that's the surprise in the PTC. Overall not a fan of this graphic and we should look at other options
• Gaps in the Dan intro for no reason? 
• Audio levels in Donington seq are a bit all over the place
• The intro cutaways (marshal etc) are a bit odd in the race day intro, don't really make sense (it's sunny and looks like a completely different day?)
• "So uh what is qualifying" -> put "Sam, what is qualifying" or "What is qualifying" You don't caption stuff like "uh" and "erm" at all!
• Don't need to hear "looking forward to seeing it" 
• Cut at 26:57 isn't great

RACE DAY

The race day was supposed to be a triumphant end to our documentary but because of the events of the past weeks, that was not the case. Saying this, it did highlight the reality of motorsport and allowed us to give a fuller picture of what this means to me. It is the thing with documentaries of this nature, you don't know what's going to happen and that is part of the excitement.

Therefore, editing it did not really change from what I expected it to be. We built up to the race like we would have even if we did not have the car issue. The point was to build interest in the race and show that the journey up to this point has got me into a position that I am ready to race. We pretty much have all of the footage needed to ensure that this sequence is a success, so the edit was just about ensuring we chose the best parts.

We had an aim of 3 minutes for this segment to ensure we tried to stay as close to 22 minutes as possible. We are struggling to get the documentary, with some of the new scenes, down to this length and we will be making some key decisions over the next few days to make sure it is there. It is hard doing this as we have attachments to all of these sequences so it would be really hard to cut any of them.

The race day edit was not as tough as I originally thought as it was about placing the day into a condensed sequence. To save time, both Cailan and George worked on the edit, with George doing the interviews and Cailan doing the rest. Cailan really edits well to music and throughout the project his choices have allowed the documentary to have greater meaning and place further emphasis on the journey.

After selecting two songs to use in the race day he got to work. The day starts with myself giving my honest thoughts on the day ahead, with the music in the background as well as the cutaways, this scene is powerful and allows the viewer into my mind before I get out on the track. I think this opening works well and pushes home the message that is shown throughout the documentary.

The rest of the sequence that is edited so far is about placing the day into the timeline in a condensed format. Meeting Sam, getting ready for qualifying as well as an explanation of what it is from Sam. Thereafter some thoughts from myself before I get ready to take over the car from Sam.

There is time to cut in both the PTC from myself and Sam and this is how I see us cutting the sequence back to three minutes. My decision to record the race commentary on the race day has also helped us so much in the edit as we can build the tension for the race and throughout with this and the music bed behind it. We also have some fantastic audio of the cars on track which also highlights a sense of speed and danger in this sequence.

The whole sequence is much shorter than I really want it to be because of the time limit and I am certainly worried that a lot of our key messages are lost because of this. There is nothing we can do about it so we are looking at options to see how we can least affect the story and the tone. The race day sequence is not quite finished yet, but Cailan should have a full cut for us over the coming days and it will certainly be in there for the University screening.

The progress is good but as always, we need to be conscious of time and my biggest worry is losing the tone of our documentary. We are having to trim back so much, it is hard to take but I know that its the reality of it. I am looking forward to seeing a full cut very soon and then we can get to work on deciding what needs to be axed for the University screening.

STINGS UPDATE

Over the past week, we have been working on the stings to ensure they are a bit faster as well as showing key information such as the Kickstarter goal and the fitness element. Cailan created a Kickstarter motion graphic which shows the viewer that the money we have been donated is going up. I personally don't think this works as it currently is, as it looks a bit cartoony and doesn't really bring home the point about how hard it was to raise the money. We have not found a solution to this right now so this will be something that we speak to Simon about next week.

The stings are now cut to the beat which makes the whole sequence a lot more snappy and I enjoy them more because of it. This alongside the beep does work, but we are struggling to find a backing track for these to add another layer to the sound design. As they are right now, they look unfinished and I think we need to spend some time understanding how we maximise the use of these in our documentary. They are a way for us to show the immense challenge that this journey was, without dedicating a lot of time to them.

INTRODUCTION SEQUENCE

Originally we were going to cut forward to the race day just as the film started so we would get the viewers attention right away. However, due to the time limit, we have had to merge this and the opening montage into one, because otherwise, we are cutting important parts from the story thereafter. It is a shame as we had a clear visual plan of how this opening sequence of shots would work, but alas, we have changed it to ensure we get the rest of the story within the time limit.

Last week I recorded a new voiceover for this opening sequence and this has been put in with new clips as well as some from the original ones to create a better opening V/O. It identifies some of the issues I may face on the journey ahead of me as well as being condensed in a way that the viewer gets the point of the documentary as well as showing my dedication to the sport and why I want to do this.

This new voiceover, along with the shots from the race day, means this opening segment is much more powerful than before. The shots of my YouTube also show that I have been involved with the sport for a number of years and that I have already followed the dream in one way, creating video content on the sport I love. This opening sequence now works a lot better than it did before as its deeper context and better clips allow the viewer to know exactly what is happening.

As this is a documentary for BBC3 we need to ensure that it is relevant and to the point and this introduction certainly takes the start of our documentary in the right direction. We now need to sort out how the rest of the journey can be filled with the same passion and energy, as without it, the tone of the documentary will have changed and the viewer may not feel much of an emotional attachment towards myself and the journey.

Production - Research into Colour Grading

Colour correcting was undoubtedly going to be one of the more tedious processes' we were going to complete in this project. We have filmed on a large number of cameras and each day has had slightly different lighting, meaning the output from every camera does look quite different. This means I needed to spend some time looking into colour grades to find one that works for our documentary but also one that does not look too far from reality. Messing around with the colours too much could leave a documentary film to look out of place and this is what we need to avoid.

My research into colour grading led me to an article by Patricia Julia Christmann which stated the importance of capturing the right colour grade in your edit. "There are several aspects to the film where color is used as a tool to create special moods and emotions. This involves a certain degree of manipulation, which is partly clearly visible, but in other cases can also unconsciously influence the recipient". (hdm-stuttgart.de, 2019) We know that we have a powerful story within our fingertips and it is our task to enhance that experience in the edit. A lot of the raw footage has bland colours due to the generic format that it was filmed in, but we do have a few reference clips that we all like as a team and intend to use as a starting platform. This article clipping allows me to think about how we can change the grade for different parts of the edit. The part that stands out is the South Downs Sequence which seems to be both visually and audiographically different to a lot of our film. Knowing this allows me to think that we should grade this in a way which is different to the rest of the film to enforce the message upon the viewer that this scene is supposed to be especially powerful. "The unwritten contract between filmmaker and viewer requires a certain responsibility towards the audience and is based on the viewers trust in seeing something that is how it is: true. But is it necessary to reconstruct reality one by one on screen or is it enough to present something that gives an impression authentic enough to meet the audience's requirements?". (hdm-stuttgart.de, 2019). What differences will be in this grade is not yet decided, but highlighting key scenes and encouraging a different thought pattern through the grade is something we want to impose on the viewer.

Knowing that a lot of what we will be doing in the grade is colour matching our camera, I wanted to understand the style I should be going for when we actually make creative decisions within the grade. Once everything is aligned I do not want to change too much as a documentary typically does not have wild tones, rather sticking to more natural tones which many people seem to see as better in a lot of scenarios. "We often think of color grading as a way to stylize our footage to make it look better or moodier than what the scene may have looked like in real life, but in most cases color grading an image for realism will be a more effective approach." (noamkroll, 2014). I personally feel we should be using a similar methodology when editing our film as we want to ensure the viewer feels connected to the story rather than trying to figure out why we tried to be clever with our colour grade. This has thrown me off as a viewer in the past and because of it I have lost the morale of some documentaries. Noam suggests most films go for the natural look because: "They look so realistic that the viewer can become completely immersed in what they are watching."(noamkroll, 2014). The equipment we used, however, may mean that we spend more time editing than more high-end equipment. As we only have access to relatively (Under £1000) cheap cameras, we are not able to film content in such a good codec, which means colours often look off. "Typically DSLR colors don’t blend and bleed into each other softly like they would on film or a higher end digital camera, instead they feel more rigid, defined and separated from each other – more reminiscent of video" (noamkroll, 2014). Knowing this allows me to put the importance on making sure the whole film looks similar before we go to deep into our edit, as this opening process could be what we spend most of our time on. I believe that we should stick to a style which is not too dissimilar to real life as it ensures the viewer has an inherent connection to it. "9 times out of 10, films are best served with a color palette that is at least somewhat natural looking, so don’t feel like you need to stylize your film during the color process just because your can." (noamkroll, 2014). We would be silly to go crazy on our first attempt at a grade and try something very different, especially as we are creating a documentary. Saying this, it does not mean we should not look into the exact grade we want.

Allowing the colours to reflect the mood of the film seems to be really important. As I am going on a journey in a documentary I realise that I cannot play around with the colours too much as the need to keep it close to natural, but there are definitely ways to enhance the standard clips within our project. "Convey mood or emotional state. If your protagonist is depressed, colors could be cool or muted. If they’re happy you might want to use warmer colors or increase the saturation. Just like mood affects color, color also affects mood." (filmmakermagazine, 2014). I feel like my journey has been a happy one in which I go through various challenges to achieve a goal. Therefore, I think we should stick to a natural grade with warmer colours and some saturation. Even though this will be the main grade in our project, we need to ensure some scenes are distinct, which is something I'll speak about later in this blog. Ensuring the skin tones are consistent throughout will be a time consuming but worthwhile practice considering we have filmed on a number of cameras. These all look different and need to fit together seamlessly. "This is also the reason why getting skin color is so important in a color grade — we are experts at knowing when skin color is incorrect, even if we don’t know why. Call it the uncanny valley for human flesh tone. Colorists make sure that people look like people, and also that those people stand out from the background and other non-people things in the frame." (www.premiumbeat.com, 2016). This will be my first suggestion to George, ensure the documentary skin colours look the same before we spend much more time on the edit, this will allow us to use an adjustment layer over the top of these sequences to ensure every shot looks the same. I certainly have noticed it as it currently is, as the cameras are all different and it makes the experience jarring going from one camera to the next. We are honest with ourselves and realise it probably won't be absolutely perfect, but we need to ensure it is close enough so it does not jar the viewer from shot to shot, as that makes watching the documentary a painful experience.

I realise that my opinions will be playing a big factor in how this film is graded. I have been giving the crew consistent reference material throughout the project and it is now my job to pick the best bits of each one to give a case for how I want it to look. Communication seems to be key in this scenario as without being articulate with what I want, we may miss the style intended. "Like any artistic collaboration, communication is key. Communicate well with your colorist and you’ll get the look you want. Communicate poorly and it will be a disaster. How to do you speak to a colorist? It helps to at least know a little bit of color theory. You can use terms like “highlights,” “shadows,” “crushing blacks etc." (filmmakermagazine, 2014). Knowing the terminology I should possess when speaking to the edit team about my colour style, I decided to look at the reference material I have sent to find examples of the style I am after. From what I understand, I cannot change the style too much from the original tone of the camera as a grade far from reality would be very jarring in a documentary, as they are commonly only ever subject to a simple grade.

Both Icarus (above) and Joe Weller: Fighter, have a subtle grade which is used to enforce the messages being highlighted in the documentary. Icarus uses contrast to crush the black which heightens the drama of the film because it is instantly darker. This along with a slight saturation boost allows the colours to pop in the documentary without being too distracting or different from reality. In a particularly dramatic scene, the film uses shadows to make the shot even darker which allows the story to be surrounded by more mystery and suspense. Messing around with the highlights in a documentary is something I have learned not to do unless needed because this starts to make the documentary feel less connected to reality. Bringing back some of the highlights makes the film which is supposed to be showing reality, feel too staged and disconnected. This means I feel we should only be making small changes to the highlights in our edit unless a shot ultimately needs more or less to match the rest of the clips. Joe Weller's documentary follows a more traditional style and does not include much work on the colour grade. Slight adjustments to the saturation and contrast give a style which shows the journey is a hard one, but they are not as sophisticated as in Icarus, but we shall take ideas from both going forward. I was prompted to make these decisions are reading a clipping from an article speaking about how to tackle a colour grade for the first time. "If you’ve seen a look you like in another film (or even a photo), grab some screenshots to show to your colorist. It’s a great way to immediately convey what you want." (filmmakermagazine, 2014) Above are the two shots I have taken as reference and I did my best to find a shot from the daily rushes which nearly matches this. This will give a good base within our edit, meaning some clips may not need to be touched.

This is my reference image for the colour grade of dream chaser. I like how the colours pop and have an orange/warm tone in the face which feels nicer to watch, even though the colours are more saturated than real life. The use of shadows and crushing the blacks is something that I would like to use in the grade and I see us adding saturation as well as some contrast to most scenes as these additions allow the documentary to feel more dramatic. I think that all clips could do with a little sharpening as that will help the documentary become a little clearer, especially on clips where we had camera issues. Along with this, we will adjust the highlights accordingly but ensure they look as natural as possible and also focus our attention on clips which are blown out by light, as there may be ways we can make these shots fit in with the rest of the sequence around them. The brightness and vibrancy of each shot will be adjusted accordingly to ensure that the documentary is consistent through, except for when we are making it clear it is the difference. An example being he south downs sequence will alter to this and I am going to speak with the editor about how we distinguish this sequence. George has a clearer vision about how he wants this scene to look so I am happy to take his lead on the grade for this. 

I am happy to have a clear creative vision for how we want this grade to look and I will be working closely with George in the edit to ensure that we make the best use of the sequences at our disposal. We can make powerful sequences even better if we colour grade them the right way and the intention is to be very consistent but also show off the time spent choosing the right grade. A slightly saturated and contrasted look will ensure our documentary hits home the right message and I believe my reference material has allowed me to make this decision alongside my research. Immersing myself within a colour grade is going to be a different experience, but one that I am interested in learning a lot about.


References

hdm-stuttgart.de, 2019 https://www.hdm-stuttgart.de/vfx/researchprojects/colour/color_grading

filmmakermagazine, 2014 https://filmmakermagazine.com/87033-how-to-survive-first-color-grade/#.XNR5QdNKh-U

www.premiumbeat.com, 2016 https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/the-video-editors-guide-to-color-grading/

noamkroll, 2014 https://noamkroll.com/how-to-color-grade-your-footage-for-the-natural-look-why-cinema-cameras-require-far-less-grading-than-dslrs/

Production - Edit Week Review 15th - 21st April

With race day behind us, we were able to get to work on editing and fully focus on this for the meantime. We wanted to polish the sequence we had before starting the race sequence, which of course did not go exactly as we had expected. Therefore, we wanted to also spend some time understanding how we craft this ending, as we did not get all of the footage that we expected. We did not want to rush into a sequence which we had not fully understood, so editing the rest to a fine degree was the better solution for now. Once we have sorted out our ending during this weekend, we will get to work on editing the race sequence.

Race License - Removed 2 mins
The big part of our documentary that needed condensing was the race license. Until cutting it was by far the longest part of our documentary and in my opinion, the most boring. I worked with George to remove the unnecessary remarks from Wil [My lecturer] as well as combining the audio from in the car with shots from around the track. This worked really well in cutting down the sequence, enabling it to not drag on and allow us to get all of the same information in around half of the time. Keeping the onboard shots ensured we had shot variety because otherwise the sense of speed could easily get lost.

We had the issue with the camera facing me, meaning we didn't have the footage we really wanted from inside the car. But combining the footage from outside and the audio from within added another level to this scene and it allowed us to keep all of the shots along with relevant audio and cut down the time. We managed to halve the length of this scene by making this editing decision and I personally feel the scene is a lot more interesting due to the increase in pace. It still doesn't feel fast, which is what we wanted, but it doesn't feel unnecessarily drawn out like it did beforehand.

Diary Room Questions Gone
While I love how the Diary Room sequences look and feel, unfortunately, they take up a lot of time. We have already had to remove the final part of this sequence due to its long length. I also thought a way we could reduce around 40 seconds from our documentary length would be to remove George asking the questions. While I like the fact he asks them, right now we can't use up our valuable, restricted time in questions that are obvious from the answers given. Therefore we have taken them out of these Diary Room sections which has saved us some time. It's only a small adjustment but these decisions are allowing our documentary to get closer to the 22 min maximum time length.

Abbi Pulling INT Shortened
As discussed in last weeks blog, we had already edited down this sequence quite substantially but this week I went through it in fine detail and decided exactly what was needed. We removed little phrases such as "my Dad used to race here" as they didn't add anything to my story but did cost us time. We kept doing this throughout the whole sequence and managed to cut around 20 seconds from this sequence. It did mean we needed to cover a few cuts with other footage such as Abbi getting in the car and pulling away as this is still relevant and allows us to cut the exact answer we want. We are not changing what is said, rather getting to the point because we all ramble on a little and because of our time limit we can not afford it. This is another sequence that is now probably as short as it can be, but I look forward to seeing the reaction from Simon and our peers to see if there is anything we could cut from it.

Bruno Spengler Introduction
We added music to the introduction of Bruno's sequence which gave a better tone, however, the sound of cars could be enhanced further still to make this introduction both visually and audibly interesting. This led into the sequence much more naturally as well as allowing us to further craft an audio scape throughout our documentary.

Along with this, we cut out the part where he rambles a little towards the end of discussing what the overalls are.  This will be covered with some pre-recorded footage of Bruno putting on his overalls and helmet that I filmed back in 2017 for another project. It is good to finally use this footage as the planned project for that footage never actually became reality.

The sequence, in general, is very interesting and I enjoy watching it. Our biggest issue will be that without colour grading it clearly looks very different from the rest of our documentary. Obviously, I also know that it was also filmed last year, but the viewer does not need to know that. Therefore, when doing the grade we need to ensure this looks similar to the rest of our film and it may take longer due to the differences. However, overall I am very happy with this sequence as it offers a very visually pleasing scene with another professional race driver.

V/O Updated and Shortened - Including Better Shots over V/O
We had two sequences that stood out in being particularly long aside from the race license. Those were the intro to Jamie and the intro to the Kickstarter which was after this interview. Upon review, the first voiceover we recorded was nearly twice as long as it really needed to be. In realising this, Cailan wrote up a transcript of my old takes and I proceeded to edit them to a length that seemed a lot more reasonable.

After rewording and shortening these scripts I recorded the voiceover and we all agreed that they were much better. I took the Jamie intro down to around 60% of its original length, as with the introduction to the Kickstarter. Doing this allowed these sequences to feel more impactful and drag on a lot less than before. We saved nearly a minute by redoing these, which begs the question if others could be cut similarly. This will be a task for next week as I definitely can see wasted time in some of these transitions.

Along with recording these, we put in some better, new material that I had shot over the past year, showing the cost of motorsport through car issues, crashes and mistakes. We also included some visually incredible shots of cars on their limit to the Kickstarter introduction to ensure this sequence has something visually interesting in it.

Dan Interview Condensed
A sequence that has always worked really well is the walk and talk interview with Dan. Simon has always liked this sequence and we have too. Beth, however, criticised its length which spurred us to all look at it again and try and find a way to make it shorter, The problem was, as we filmed it in such a unique way, it makes it hard to condense without removing a critical part of the story.

However, I made the decision to cut the last question of both part 1 and part 2 as they didn't particularly add much to the story and it was the easiest to cut around as there was not a question afterwards which we needed. This along with trimming the ending of his reply for question 3 allowed us to take a significant amount of time off the ending of this scene. In doing so, it has helped us trim our run time even further.

This interview is now as short as I personally think it can be. Any shorter and we remove a piece of key information and I do not want that at all. This sequence would ideally be kept as well because it incorporates one of our sponsors for this documentary which is what they wanted. Cutting this sequence would be bad for multiple reasons so we don't think we need to do anything bar colour grade it now.

Donington Sequence Trimmed Further
After doing a great job to trim over 20 seconds off this sequence last week, we managed to fine tune it even further, taking 15 more seconds out of this scene. This was mostly done through using stronger L cuts as well as removing a few small parts of Sam's dialogue which didn't really add anything. We also removed a section in which I basically repeat what Sam said, so it was no loss to remove that as well.

It has been hard to be so hyper-analytical of even one sentence, but doing this has allowed us to trim a lot of content that we don't need in this documentary. This does mean that some areas are probably a little faster than we had anticipated, but we are doing the correct job in ensuring we keep all of the sequences instead of cutting one altogether to save time. I think it will be worth asking Simon about this sequence once again, as he may find even more we can cut, but as it stands I am happy with this sequence and we are currently just over the 3 minutes we allocated for it.

Jamie INT Condensed
Being very analytical after a full viewing, I picked up on a few small points from this interview that could be removed to save a bit more time. I noticed that he clears his throat, which caused a 5 second moment of nothing, so that was taken out thanks to switching between our numerous cameras.

I also decided that we didn't need him to introduce himself because I already had done so in the opening voiceover. Of course, we had changed the opening voiceover meaning we definitely do not need this introduction. Both of these changes took a further 10 seconds off of this interview, once again drastically helping our run-time issues!

Timers For Stings
Cailan had spent some time in After Effects and created some countdown times for the stings which will build intrigue and show dedication in the build-up to the race. We plan to have four stings from start to around 3/4 of the way into our documentary to condense some of the elements of the journey we don't have enough time for. We will be showing the countdown before showing a little montage of me doing exercises, on the simulator as well as improvements in the Kickstarter. These visual bursts will allow the viewer to see a broader view of the journey I have been on. George has worked on a few experiments and they look good so far. I am happy I suggested these as I think they will add a lot to the documentary and without them, we may miss some of the journey I have been on. This, as well is showing I have been putting into practice the advice I had been given along the journey.

Intro Montage
Finally, we have worked on the introduction to the documentary. I have been looking through all of the material that we have filmed and started picking out some of the best shots that we can include in this dramatic introduction. This needs to be powerful as we need to draw the viewer in. We recorded the voiceover again last week and I am selecting clips that would work alongside this. Once again, there is a time issue and I made sure that the introduction did not drag on, as our first take took forever. I know Cailan is keen to include stuff about my YouTube channel in the introduction, but my thoughts are that this is included in a later Diary Room and I would rather have great shots of cars on the track and onboard footage than looking at a web page. This is my opinion but I am interested to see how Cailan tackles this over the weekend so we can see a cut of this before we meet up next week.

Debrief
This was definitely the hardest week for the edit so far, being so critical of our work was hard but we managed to cut a lot and got a lot closer to our final sequence length. We started the week with a 28-minute project, and thanks to a lot of hard work we have got this down to 22 minutes. This was a great effort from all and we can see that it is possible to make this the right length. A few weeks ago it did not seem possible with the amount of footage we had, but now it definitely does.

Once the race day is in and the content after it, we should be sitting on around 25 minutes, which still leaves us with a good amount to cut. However, at this stage, I am wary of taking out too much before we show Simon, as we want him to see the whole thing before deciding what needs to go. Saying this, we will be going through the timeline again and going deeper into the sequences we've already shown him to trim even further.

The race day is now the main focus and I'm excited to see how it looks. Of course, it is not what we expected but there is still a story there and I know we can make something very exciting. We will meet up as a team next week and go through the sequence once again. I am very proud of what we have done this week as we have significantly improved the documentary while decreasing the time taken. We still have a lot of work to do on this, but at least we know it is possible now.

Production - Editing A Documentary With A Different Ending To Our Expectations [RESEARCH]

With the disappointment of the race day, our expectations in respect of editing have changed. By no means do we not have a story because of the issue, indeed quite the contrary. However, we are now editing a documentary that has a very different ending to what we originally planned. This means that we are all thinking of ways to ensure the ending is crafted in the right way, considering it hasn't had the time dedicated to it that the rest of our edit process has, which has gone more or less how we expected.

BBC documentary editor Sam Billinge says "The film-making process is personal as well as professional. You’re making subjective decisions based on your own feelings and instincts." (BBC, 2017). A lot of what happened at the weekend was to plan, we still managed to get a good number of cutaways shots and a lot of on-track footage. Of course, I never got to race which left us with a small hole in the ending. Nonetheless we captured a PTC at the end of the race which can bring the documentary to a natural end. I did, however, think we could film the "Diary Room" but as we are not sure this would work now we have the change of ending, we will wait until we have a response from Simon before dedicating an afternoon recording a sequence. We need to be very careful with the amount of time we have left in this project and ensuring we use that time wisely is key. I am sure we will film the Diary Room, but it would not have made sense to rush it after the issues in the first race. I needed to spend some time deciding how it would be filmed and creating the right prompts before we spent time recording it. If the race had gone well we would definitely have filmed it because it was all set up. But, after what happened, I needed some time to understand what we would need to change and we wanted to hear an opinion from Simon. The PTC we filmed at the end of the day was very powerful and could be a great ending point, we just need to see how that works in a timeline before making any decisions.

The problem I had with this ending PTC when I watched the rushes was that I was not sure if it fits the tone of the documentary. Even though I was devastated about the result, the video doesn't show me in tears or really upset, I seem somewhat normal. "Ultimately, while the approach and workflow between narrative and documentary editing may differ, at the end of the day, as with all of cinema, we’re still locked in a constant battle to balance story and character and to strike the appropriate tone. In turn, the skills we learn in the depths of real human drama become highly transferable to any genre or medium." (nofilmschool.com, 2014). My issue is whether the viewer will be able to read past the facial expressions which make me look somewhat happy, and listen to what I am saying. You can tell from what I say that I loved the journey but at the same time, am very disappointed about the way it ended. I feel that, by this point in the documentary, the viewer would have connected with me, so I am very wary about the ending being completely different from the rest. This is the reason for me wanting an opinion from Simon as I believe he is best qualified to answer this. In my opinion, I think we should end on the PTC as it shows my actual emotions at the time, even if they may not be exactly what the viewer expects. I think this shot would need blurring of the background to take the viewers eyes away from the car being worked on to myself speaking in the foreground. Visually the PTC doesn't look great because of the limited depth of field, but I will ask Cailan to work his magic by creating this sense of depth through editing it. I personally think this is the ending we should have if we do not film another race day (to be spoken about in another blog). I honestly see this as our best option as I am unsure if another Diary Room could capture the same emotions and thoughts as the PTC on the day, even if it isn't visually perfect.

The issue we would have with ending it with a PTC as suggested above is that we lack footage showing my emotions after the race. The limited resources we have would be enough to make a sequence, but I don't see us having many shot choices in the edit. There were suggestions that we could have suggested the race happened as expected and somewhat cover up that it did not happen. I strongly disagreed with these suggestions as I believe we have earned the viewers trust and to destroy that at the end would be terrible. "The first point of call is to tell the truth. We may find ways of doing that that take an interesting way to get there, but we get to it. It’s essential." (Indiewire, 2012) . I was strongly against these suggestions and once I explained why this would be a bad idea, the team agreed with me. I think this PTC would give us the most authentic and truthful ending, even if we don't have much supporting footage because the pitlane camera had stopped recording. I know I can work on the actual turn of events with the editors to create a fantastic and meaningful sequence and I think that this is our only real choice. This ending allows the viewer to have experienced the highs and lows of my journey and I am sure they will be hit hard by the messages shown in this closing sequence. Using the commentators recording that I suggested, we will be able to build up to the moment where the accident happens and I am sure that the viewer will be struck by the reality of me not achieving my dreams. I see this as the most truthful ending and as we never knew exactly what was going to happen in this ending, it makes sense to do what we would have always done, show the truth in the most interesting way possible.

I was speaking to Cailan and George about how we edit this sequence because we do not now have a clear idea of how we would like it to look. I know how the first half of the race day will look because of the plans I created, but the ending part is where the accident happens and I am not sure exactly how we craft it with our less than ideal material. Joe Bini, who is an American documentary editor states: "We, editors, always have to be absolutely focused on the fact of what is in the material – not on what is pre-planned or what the director would like to have had happen, but what you actually have." (Marta Obršálová, 2017). I think this is where help from George and Cailan will be very helpful. Using the footage we do have available they will undoubtedly be able to make a thought-provoking sequence. I am probably biased towards certain pieces of footage as I specifically wrote them into my shot lists. It will be much more beneficial to the edit, if Cailan and George work together on putting a sequence together, not worrying about who's idea it was to film them. Despite missing some relevant shots, Cailan did get some fantastic visuals on race day and I am sure there is enough to make this ending powerful. My worry on first reflection was that there were no shots of me contemplating what happened after the retirement, which I thought would have been incredibly powerful. Maybe it is just how we work differently, but I would have recorded everything after the car was retired because that is where so much key material would be found. However, I am sure that Cailan recorded enough for us to make an emotional ending to the documentary. I am sure most directors would love to have such a hard-hitting ending to their documentary and to be honest I think it will be powerful. But I would have liked to race after all that effort so it may taint my view on the day, somewhat!

I feel confident about how I want to end this documentary considering the majority of my research has led me to just tell the story as it is. My worry with that is that we may not have enough footage. Powerful documentaries are often those which have an element of unpredictability. "Another big difference between narrative and nonfiction film is that much of the documentary work seen today is driven by vérité storytelling. Editorially, this means that while narrative films have scripts, which can serve as a road map for the editor, while documentaries do not—and may even lack an outline. Documentary directors and editors must look at what they’ve shot and what they might still intend to shoot and reverse-engineer a film’s structure and pacing." (filmindependent.org, 2018) I am clear about what the ending of our documentary will be I am currently just not sure about what footage we have available to cut around. I personally think ending on the Diary Room instead of this powerful PTC would be the wrong decision, as what we have can really connect with the viewer's emotion after such a hard-hitting sequence. I will be looking through the material we have with both Cailan and George to understand how we structure our ending. I think the ending PTC should be the last thing we see before the credits, especially with my words "I'm 99% closer to achieving my dreams, but I'm not quite there yet". I think that is really going to show the viewer how much this journey has meant to me and why this has been a once in a lifetime experience. I think, in reality, if we want a powerful ending we go with this. The truth and reality of what I said on the day. Trying something else would ruin the tone and I suggest we use this as the end of the journey. It means more than a staged PTC and certainly holds the right tone, even with me not looking especially sad. We have our ending - a very powerful one. It is now our job to craft it using the available resources.

This research relieved concerns I had that we would need to drastically change the ending of the film because of the race not going to plan. I personally feel we know what we need to do with the material and should end it with a reflective piece like we always were going to. We want to ensure with Simon that this is the way forward but I think we all believe that it should be our ending. We may probably end up recording the Diary Room anyway to ensure we have the option, but in my opinion, we have what we need to make our documentary ending powerful.

References:

BBC, 2017 https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20170606141808270

nofilmschool.com, 2014 https://nofilmschool.com/2014/10/if-you-want-learn-how-tell-story-edit-documentary

Indiewire, 2012 https://www.indiewire.com/2012/06/here-are-8-ways-to-be-a-better-documentary-editor-46540/

Marta Obršálová, 2017 https://dokweb.net/articles/detail/318/joe-bini-documentary-filmmaking-through-the-eyes-of-an-editor

filmindependent.org, 2018

Production - Documentary Review: Climate Change - The Facts [RESEARCH]

As we are still working on all stages of the project, I thought it would be best to conduct research and watch another documentary to understand their codes and conventions as well as focusing on directorial decisions, contributor styles as well as how the piece is edited. The first documentary that I researched was "Climate Change - The Facts" by David Attenborough. While this documentary does not follow exactly the same style as the one we have been creating, it still has allowed me to pick up information to help us in the final stages.

Video link https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00049b1

The first thing that struck me with this documentary was its use of music throughout, to evoke an emotion in the viewer. The introduction builds up intrigue into the project thanks to a mix of intense music and soundbites from throughout the documentary that follows. I muted the opening to see if, without music, it would bring out a different emotion in me, and it was clear to me that a lot of the power in this scene is thanks to the music which is heightening the drama. This evidence made it clear to me that we need to focus a lot of our efforts in the edit towards music and sound design, as it will undoubtedly transform our piece. Thanks to this research, I have been speaking to the crew about the importance of a consistent but powerful soundscape for our project. This has led to us changing a few songs in our edit to ensure the film does feel the same throughout, not a number of different sequences with different tones set by the sound design. There is still progress to be made with this, but we are getting closer to having a similar style throughout our documentary and I hope further feedback from Simon will show the progress we have made.

This introduction also uses a mixture of video, interview snippets, voiceover, tv talk show footage/audio and powerful video to draw the viewer in. The idea of this introduction seems to be to bombard the viewer with powerful audio and visuals to ensure they are engaged in the subject and realise how important the issue being covered actually is. This tension is needed as without this the viewer could be led to click away and ignore the documentary. After realising the importance of a powerful introduction, I looked back at my plans for our documentary. I had planned to cut straight to raw audio of the race, but due to the events of last weekend, we may have to play it a slightly different way. I feel we have to cut the opening raw audio, in-car clip and go to an opening voiceover with a backing track that I originally planned.  As long as the introduction contains a powerful message and is backed up with an intense backing track and similarly powerful visuals, this will engage the viewer in the subject and allow them to understand the journey I am about to go on. I have been working with Cailan on our introduction and after re-recording the voiceover it is certainly in a better place. I feel it needs some better visuals to show the journey I am about to go on, but after that, I feel it is in a good place to bring the message of our documentary home to the viewer.

I had noticed it in my pre-production work, but the power of silence is certainly something we need to capitalise on in our documentary. After a powerful introduction to "Climate Change - The Facts", we are left for a moment before Sir David starts speaking. This moment allows us as viewers to take in what we have just heard. This silence could include a very light backing track to heighten the feelings we are taking in. This could be a low mellow tone or a baseline from the introduction that continues as a transition from one scene to the next. Nonetheless, this moment is powerful as it gives us a moment to take in what was said which ensures the viewer is on the same wavelength as the production team and presenter. We can certainly capitalise on this in our documentary as well, especially after the events of last weekend. Looking at the edit we are aware of areas that could do with a moment's rest to ensure we have a moment to reflect. However, our time issue is currently not allowing us to have these moments, so I have been speaking to the team and we have agreed to implement a few of these moments before we next speak to Simon to see if these are justified in going over the time limit. I personally think we need to have these otherwise some of the meaning and a lot of the sombre tone will be taken away from our documentary. It is certainly only a small edit change, but it can make a lot of difference to how the viewer perceives the scenes in our film.

I noticed a few small details that will help us in our documentary. Things such as name cards can be used to introduce a character and allow us to save time in voiceover building up to an interview. It also allows the scenes to transition well as you aren't constantly setting up one scene after another, they simply merge into one. This will be helpful in our documentary as we currently struggling to perfect the transitions from one scene to the next. We will be spending time over the coming weeks on these transitions so the documentary feels like one, and the use of detailed name cards will be part of this process. Along with this, when talking about something, visual clues or reference will allow us to emphasise the point we are making. It may sound obvious, but a lot of documentaries I have watched forget to capture enough b-roll. This leaves the viewer distanced from the message, so I am very happy that we recorded a plethora of footage we can use, we now just need to ensure it is placed in the right areas through our documentary to ensure the viewer is never left confused as to what we are speaking about. The team and I have been very proud of this content and I want to ensure it is used in our documentary, even if the footage doesn't go where we initially expected due to us cutting a number of scenes. The use of archive material in "Climate Change - The Facts" allowed the viewer to understand the backstory of why this documentary is being made.  I had always wanted to ensure we had something similar in our documentary, but to this point, I had forgotten to compile this. This will be one of my urgent tasks as a contributor because without these pictures the viewer could lose some sense of the scale of our project, especially how much this subject matter means to me. I see this archive material being used in the diary room sequences as well as possibly in the introduction to our documentary. It is up to me to source this and give it to the edit team, and I will show where I think it will work, but I am happy to follow their lead if they think differently.

An area of "Climate Change - The Facts" that caught my eye was the use of audio from TV segments speaking about climate change to back up the points made in the documentary. This audio also helps fill a gap where the important video shows. Without the context and use of these audio clips, these scenes could drag on, which negatively affects the documentary in terms of effective use of time. However, the use of audio allows this scene to be powerful because it provides a supporting external opinion for the filmmaker. A key decision that I made on the previous race day was to record audio from the commentary team when they were speaking over the race I was due to compete in. Because we have obtained this audio, we are able to make the race day sequence much more intriguing and it allows the scene to have little to no "dead-space" where we do not hear anything that affects the story. I am very happy I made this decision as I feel it has revolutionised the edit of this race sequence. The commentary is so powerful and allows the viewer to hear a different voice speaking on the issues, one that is external and can deliver the bad news in a much more neutral way. This audio has been placed into the race day edit and transformed it. I am very happy with how the edit is progressing and I feel without this commentary, the race sequence could have easily been boring. The tone set by the commentators allows the sense of disappointment to be processed through my emotions and facial expressions which I see as being very powerful. My decision on the day has allowed this sequence to be vastly more interesting and I am very proud that I thought of this in that moment.

Phone footage from contributors added a lot to "Climate Change - The Facts" as it showed an honest and real view of the events. Not every part of the show can be filmed on a state-of-the-art television camera, therefore the use of such material allows the documentary to have further proof of the facts being spoken about. This is somewhat of a relief for myself, as we were not always able to capture key moments on our best cameras due to regulations and safety precautions at some of the locations we visited. This meant that certain aspects of our documentary had no choice but to be filmed on a phone. The fact that even the world's top documentaries have to use phone footage in extreme cases eased my fears that this may be looked down upon in our project. This does, however, highlight an earlier thought about using whatever you have available to capture the needed footage for your documentary. It proves to me that it is better to get a shot in worse quality or with small issues than to not get the shot at all. I am therefore pleased with the work we have all created through this project as we have always got the access needed to get the right shots. When that has not been the case, we have used sources like our phone, to get the required, real and honest shots.

A few more noticeable and powerful tools used in "Climate Change - The Facts" were the use of L Cuts and specific colour grading. These are techniques and storytelling methods that are present in the edit rather than the filming, but they are equally as important for me to understand as they are part of the story that is shown to the viewer. The use of L cuts in the edit allows scenes to transition far more naturally than they would with a plain cut. Letting the audio be in the next scene before the visuals are there, or vice versa, allows the scenes to feel like one. L cuts can be very powerful and were used in "Climate Change - The Facts" typically to ensure the viewer is given all of the facts without the visuals jumping all over the place. We can use L cuts in "Dream Chaser" in many areas to allow our current scene blocks to be more cohesive. A great example of this is would be the sequence with my Dad which follows on from a Diary room about the same topic. Right now they feel like two separate sequences when in reality they are supposed to be one. We are working on an effective way to use the L Cut to merge these scenes and make the documentary as a whole better. It's a small tool that we can use to our advantage and ensure we broadcast the story in the most fluid way possible.

Another thing I noticed in "Climate Change - The Facts" was the use of colour grading in different scenes. They increased the reds in scenes which show fire which brings out the sense of danger and in the scenes speaking about marine life, as you can see below, they toned down the colours to give a sense that all is not well in the ocean. The lack of blues and green in this scene ensured this shot had an impact on me as it is certainly not what I would have expected and added to the mystery and shock about what climate change is really doing. For our documentary, we have been told not to mess with the colours too much as it would make the documentary feel odd in places if we were continually changing them. My idea is to have a base tone which is consistent throughout our documentary and in certain scenes which stand out (The South Downs for example) we could accentuate the colours to make sure the scene brings out the tone which is supposed to come across in this scene. I will be working with the editors on this and together we will choose a typical grade that will suit our film for the majority. For scenes which highlight a certain message, I do feel we should challenge ourselves to ensure they do stand out. This will be somewhat trial and error until we find a grade that works well and does not look too different from the rest of the film. The importance of grading has been shown to me and I am excited to speak to Nathan Caws in the coming weeks. He will be able to show us how we could use colour grading to enhance the tone of certain scenes throughout our documentary.

Finally, this documentary compounds its incredible and insightful story with stunning visuals as well as attention to details in its interviews such as depth of field. The visuals in this documentary would be hard to match on a student budget and our limited filming access. However, something I am very proud of in our documentary is the sheer amount of relevant footage we have available to us in the edit. I spent time before each shoot carefully planning everything I wanted and that has really helped us out when forming sequences together. We seemingly have a number of choices for every scene we create and I am really excited to see how the final project looks as I think we have done ourselves proud, especially in this aspect.

"Climate Change - The Facts" also spends a lot of time on its interviews and you can see how important the depth of field is in sequences like this. Once again, I am proud of the majority of choices I made in relation to our interviews, with the focus being clearly on the contributors in these segments. I spent a lot of time sharing the importance of depth of field with Cailan before we started filming and in the majority of cases, the depth of field looks great. It allows the viewer to know what they are looking at and ensure they focus in on the person rather than something in the background. Saying this, I was always aware that the backdrop needed to be interesting otherwise our interviews could look like any other. I ensured that all of our interviews had unique or interesting backdrops and I think I did a good job in this regard. The Diary Room, especially, is something I am proud of because I worked really hard to create a dynamic and interesting shot and I feel I exceeded myself in this and did better than expected.

Overall, this documentary brings home a lot of important messages that we should be following in the edit as well as allowing me to relax in terms of the footage we have, as I have followed a lot of the right codes and conventions for a documentary. I am proud of the work I have created in this unit and I am pleased a lot of the footage we have is of a professional standard. It is now a big group effort to ensure this is placed in the timeline in the right way to bring across the right story. A lot of what I learned from "Climate Change - The Facts" can be put into the final stages of the edit of "Dream Chaser", meaning our finished piece should certainly be something we are proud of.

Production - How We End This Documentary

After the disappointment of the weekend, we had to work out as a team what we were going to do for the ending to this documentary. The idea for the ending of the documentary was always to capture the emotion of taking part in my first ever motor race, including the celebrations even if we didn't get a good result. Sadly, as I never actually took part in the race we did not capture a lot of the footage that we typically would have during and after the race.

The pitlane camera crew also stopped filming from the moment the car retired for around an hour which missed a lot of valuable footage of me sitting and contemplating about what happened, meaning we are missing quite a lot of actuality for that main part just after the car retired. This is a big disappointment, but one we cannot go back to re-film. Therefore, on reflection, I devised a plan to allow the truth to be shown while working around the limited footage.

Cailan suggested that we could manipulate the footage to make it out like I still took part in the event which I was strongly against as it was ethically and morally wrong. I would never want to do this, especially when we have built up a great story and connection between the viewer and myself as a contributor. George also agreed that there was no way we would ever go ahead with this suggestion as it was completely wrong and destroys the ethics of a documentary like this.

After looking through the footage we have, I came up with a solution. It was as simple as showing it as it actually was. Even though we are missing a big chunk of footage after the retirement, we probably have enough to build up the viewer to the race and allow them into my mind before this big moment in my life. We would edit the first 2/3 of the sequence as we would normally, as the plan for the first part is to engage the viewer in what is about to happen.

When the sad moment happens, we have to edit it in a way to show the pain I was going through at the moment. I know there are a few key clips which we could use which show my disappointment and we need to play on that as that continues the story of how much this race means to me. We also have the "PTC" recorded a few hours after the race ended where I highlight what my thoughts are on the race and what happened. My only thoughts are that I am not sobbing or clearly upset by the ordeal and I feel some viewers may think I don't care enough. My argument in response to anyone thinking that is that I have been on a great journey and what happened today was only the very last piece of the jigsaw. I met so many great people, learned so much and had so many great experiences in the process, it would be hard to sit there in a fit of rage. As I know, without a doubt, this dream will come true.

We could even use some of the footage from qualifying where I am contemplating what is about to happen in the scene after the race as the emotions were the same, even if they were for slightly different reasons. I am sure we can work with the footage we have, I am just a bit disappointed that we don't have a key moment in this journey recorded. There was nothing I could do as a contributor, so it is hard to understand why this was not captured.

Nonetheless, this will be a powerful sequence and we still have a large amount of great footage to use and show off the crazy world which is motorsport. I am excited to see how we can build the tension and drama from this day in the edit with the use of sound and music. It will be a challenging scene to capture the correct mood, but if we do it right it will help the whole documentary close off what has been an amazing journey.

But just as I thought the dream was all done for a while...

After the car issue, I was speaking with my driver mentor from a few months back, Rod Birley, who started to mention that he had a race event in 2 weeks at Brands Hatch and there was a team who were looking for a second driver. I spoke with the production team about this and we all agreed that if I got the finances in place, I should do this race as it would give the ending of actually achieving a dream because right now our ending isn't particularly strong due to the lack of footage.

As we have had so much build up with Sam and the relationship between him and the viewer would have grown throughout, we will still treat the Sam race day as the focus of the ending of our documentary. We would dedicate as much time as we would have normally to this moment. However, we are thinking about fading to black and giving a powerful sentence in voiceover. "Just as you thought the dream was over..."

We could then cut to a shot of me inside the car, in the race at Brands Hatch in a few weeks time. There will be a tag to give the context of what is happening but the viewer should recognise me by this point in the documentary. A quick montage of the day's events will then follow, with myself hopefully celebrating with the team after finishing my first motor race. This race will have little emphasis on who I am racing with and how it came about, because we do not have time and it would ruin the story to suddenly pretend that this was the main race all along.

I know the plan we have right now will work best for this documentary as we still get to see me [hopefully] celebrating with the team and living out my dream. My problem with the documentary as it currently is, is that we don't really get the sense that this documentary has an endpoint. As this documentary is aimed at the casual viewer more than the motorsport fan, I feel the ending needs to be powerful and I feel that a montage of the second race would do this. However, we are open to not including this second race even though we are definitely doing it. We may still do the Diary Room as was planned before, but we really need Simon's opinion on this otherwise we may end up going down the wrong route.

I am really excited to see the expressions on peoples faces if we somewhat trick them to thinking that the documentary is over. I think it will be so powerful to see me actually live out my dream and have the celebrations thereafter. This documentary will also be able to show the highs and lows of motorsport, which most documentaries on this subject matter fail to show. Therefore, I am excited to see how this comes together. We would have never planned for it to go like this, but it is motorsport and we still have a great story to go along with whatever ending suits when we come to the edit.

Production - Race Day With Sam

The big day was upon us. The moment this whole documentary was building up to and the part I have been most nervous about. Obviously, this was the most unpredictable part of this documentary and we did not know exactly what was going to happen, but I had completed my usual work for the race day, using all of the experiences I have had so far to create the most visually interesting plan. These plans can be seen below. Learning from the experiences on Friday, the team knew how to deal with me on the race day and when to leave me and allow me to focus on the race. It was a long event, with the crew arriving around 8am at Brands Hatch and we expected to end the day around 6pm.

We were lucky to have some of our dedicated and reliable crew with us to film the main sequence. George and Cailan would work as a unit in the main pit area with Alex Hargood, Jon and my father. All used the designated plans and George ensured all camera operators knew what they were doing before we started filming. The plans would ensure that we have a wide range of on-track footage from around the circuit, meaning that we have all the choices we would like in the edit. These plans can be seen as below:

Shotlist SUNDAY:

• Alex getting ready at PW [C/U, M/S]
• Alex leaving the house and packing the car [M/S]
• Shots of Alex driving / in passenger seat NO TALKING [M/S, C/U]
• Alex speaking about his thoughts on the day [M/S] Question prompt: So how are you feeling about the big day? 
• Car entering Brands Hatch from inside the ticket gate [UW/S]
• Alex getting out the car and walking to the pit area - Following [M/S] 
• Alex signing on [C/U]
• Alex walking down pitlane [M/S - Following]
• Alex walking down pitlane [W/S - Camera is looking towards garages from side - Walking from right to left of screen]
• Alex speaking to Sam [M/S, C/U]
• Alex watching Sam out on track [M/S - To be used in the race] 
• Alex putting equipment on [M/S]
• Alex getting into the car [M/S]
• Alex sitting in the car [C/U]
• Alex driving out the pitlane - Pan down from sky [W/S] 
• Sam speaking to Cailan behind the camera - What is qualifying? [Answer: Alex is out there now qualifying I’ve already done my laps, Basically the fastest person in qualifying will start at the front of the grid. As we are in Class C we can expect to be around the middle of the field] SHORT ANSWER NEEDED
• SHOTS OF ALEX ON TRACK - POSITION 1
• Alex returning to pit lane and pulling in [M/S]
• Alex getting out of the car [M/S]
• Alex taking helmet the off [C/U]
• Alex debriefing with Sam [W/S, C/U on Alex] !!!NEED TO HEAR THE SOUND!!! 
• Alex drinking XITE [C/U]
• Alex contemplating - Raw audio [M/S, C/U]
• Alex Speaking to Cailan [M/S] “How did qualifying go” “How are you going to approach the race?” “What do you thinks going to be on your mind” 
• Alex speaking to Sam/Dad/Friends [M/S]
• Alex looking nervous [C/U]
• !!!!CHARGE CAMERAS AT LUNCH!!!!
• Alex having final pep talk with Sam before the race [M/S, C/U]
• Alex seeing Sam off to start the race [M/S]
• Sam driving off into the distance [C/U]
• SHOTS OF ALEX ON TRACK - POSITION 2 [While Sam is racing - Change 12 mins into the race]
• Alex on the pitwall watching the start [W/S]
• Alex in pitlane looking at the lap times on laptop [M/S, C/U]
• Cailan asking Alex [M/S] “What's happening right now?” Answer - Sam is out there doing the first half of the race, I’ll be in the car in a bit for my first ever race, nervous…”
• Alex putting his suit on, helmet etc [C/U]
• SHOTS OF ALEX ON TRACK - POSITION 3 [BE READY 20 MINS INTO RACE!]
• Sam pulling into the pitlane and Alex getting in the car [M/S] Don’t worry about being shaky if it means getting the shot.
• Alex pulling off and going down the pitlane [MC/U]
• Shots of Sam [M/S,C/U]
• Cailan asking Sam “What happening right now” [M/S]
• Various shots of the crew and Sam speaking, looking at Laptop ETC [M/S, C/U]
• Phone out of pitwall - Alex going past a few laps to go & Alex crossing line [M/S]
• Sam speaking/celebrating with crew [M/S,C/U]
• Car pulling into the pitlane [M/S]
• Alex getting out of the car and speaking to Sam [MC/U]
• Follow Alex as he takes Gear off/ Goes to podium (If finishes top 3)
• Podium - If it happens [M/S of Alex and Sam, C/U of trophies on ground]
• Alex hugging Dad and team [M/S, C/U]
• Alex debrief “PTC” [M/S - Q: What was the experience was like?]
• Saying Bye to Sam [M/S]
• Taking picture with the car [W/S]
• Alex walking back to the car [M/S]
• Alex smiling [C/U]
• [Fade into Diary Room]

The shoot

As a contributor, it was my main focus to be myself and allow the team to capture the various moments of activity and interest throughout the day. I had devised the above shotlist and plans as a guide, but it was to my understanding that Cailan and George would be filming me whatever happened. Saying this we did want to ensure a number of key shots were filmed so that I knew we would have these in the edit. This did mean that Cailan would ask me to stand in certain areas for a few small scenes, but this worked as it allowed us to get exactly what we wanted.

After George had given his first briefing of the day, the crew head out to their positions while he and Cailan would be in the pitlane as I wait for my first qualifying session in a race car. There were a few various preparations needed before I get out in the car, and while I did these, the crew did a great job of working around the situation to capture the best shots possible. When reviewing this particular footage it is great to see that the lessons learned from previous shoots in which George is the producer. There seemed to be no issue with George being in the shot or walking in front of the camera which meant that what was captured was all usable as well as being very true to our story.

As I got out on track for my first ever qualifying session, we had two 4K action cameras recording on the inside of the car as well as everyone from around the track. I went out first [as we split the driving in both the race and qualifying] as the conditions were still slippery. I did around ten laps and sat 25th of over 40 cars before Sam took over the driving. I was happy with my times and Cailan and the crew did a great job at showing this in the various material shot as I came into the garage and took off my safety equipment. The actuality shot at this time as well as the moments as I watch on as Sam does his laps is going to be a great way of showing the meaning and dedication to this project. This is something that we have been keen to show as we have struggled to capture the meaning of the project in some scenes, which could lead the viewer to disconnect with me, my story and my passion.



After debriefing with Sam, there was a long wait of about 4 hours until my first ever motor race. In this time George got the crew back together and we charged all of the cameras as well as getting all of the footage onto a hard drive to ensure that all memory cards would be wiped before the race. This proactive thinking as a team saved us time at the end of the day as well as ensuring all camera operators would not run into issues with storage. The next few hours went by with little to do other than have a team meeting and listen in as George ran through all of the plans for the rest of the day. The nerves were mounting as I realised what was in front of me as I knew there was a genuine chance we would obtain a podium, as we qualified 2nd in class and the top 3 cars, including us, were much quicker than the rest. The crew filmed a few sections to the camera in this break which will allow the viewer to understand my exact thoughts at the moment. We hope to include these, but time is against us and we need to be ruthless with what is not included.

As I got ready for the race the crew managed to obtain a number of great shots of what I was experiencing as well as showing the pressure and nerves I was dealing with before the race. Looking at these shots I was really happy with how they looked and was sure these would fit the build-up we would be crafting with this sequence. Sam would be driving first, so as I was in my gear, I walked along with Sam and Cailan close behind, to the assembly area where the cars would stay until the race was about to begin. Cailan got some great shots of me with my driver coach Rod Birley and Sam before the race. These will be helpful when explaining to the viewer exactly how the race works through voiceover and why I would not be starting the race. After Cailan obtained these shots and I hit record on the Go Pro's mounted inside the car, Sam was off to the starting grid.

The race started well as Sam qualified us 10th of 38 starters and had a great first 15 minutes in the car.  He was holding us quite comfortably inside the top 3 in class which was great considering the story behind it. In the pitlane, the crew were capturing my final nerves before I suited up ready for Sam to bring the car into the pitlane around halfway through the race. These shots will be mixed in with shots of Sam out on track and the various cameras from around the track, building up the intensity before I was ready to hop in the car.

Unfortunately, the worst possible case for the ending of this documentary happened. The car had a suspension failure when Sam hit a curb. Sam managed to get the car into the pitlane but the race was over. We were out of the race. I was gutted that we could not end the documentary in the way we expected, with me out on track taking part in my first motor race. In the moment, there was not much footage recorded on reflection, which was a mistake. I have told the team that I would have liked some footage of myself coming to terms with not being able to achieve this dream, and it was a disappointment that a lot of this actuality was not recorded. While disappointed that this was the case, I understand the crew may have been confused about what to do, as we had not planned for this situation. But we will have to deal with how we overcome this issue in the edit and possibly use some footage from earlier in the day to cover this moment.

I was very disappointed in how the race finished but I tried my best not to let this get to me. I ensured that we captured as much of the shot list and features as possible to ensure we have an ending to our documentary. It was always going to be the case, in a documentary like this, that there was a chance something wouldn't go as planned. It's just a massive shame that it was our grand finale. As is the case with a documentary like this, we followed the story from start to end, and even if it is not what we expected, we have a story and a powerful ending. We captured all of the footage needed to end this documentary including final cutaways and closing thoughts to camera piece. I was gutted and you may be able to tell that in my voice. Saying this, I did try and put a positive spin on it which I hope will not lead viewers to think this passion was not as big as shown throughout the documentary. I was myself and that is the main thing. This authentic nature throughout the documentary will hopefully hit home the importance of this story.

After going through all of the possibilities of how this documentary ends we have thought of a few options as technically, I did not even take part in a motor race and did not achieve the dream. We will be deciding what to do over the next few days, but we know we have a powerful ending, however, we play it.

I come out of today's shoot in two minds. The footage and professionalism of the crew were fantastic. I would say this was definitely the best shoot in terms of both of these, which was nice to see.  The race itself was, of course, a disappointment but it does not take away from the incredible journey I have been on and all of the great people I have met. This means that even though my biggest worry from the day is the university project and how we overcome this, I am still very happy with all of the incredible contributors we have met and the footage to go with it. I left the day simply worried about how we play this race off. I want it to be genuine as we have been throughout the documentary, I just feel the documentary currently stops a little suddenly, but this will have to be reviewed in the edit.

As for now, we have postponed the diary room ending sequence as I did not take part in the motor race and could not answer the questions that would be asked in the sequence. Therefore, we are working on a solution and how we end this documentary as we know various options, we just now want to decide the best way for it to end. Sadly this hasn't come at a great time as Simon and the University are on Easter holiday. Due to this, we will make a cut to what we think is best and then show Simon upon our return to university. I am excited to show the progress we have made as I think we are in a much better place.