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.
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