Production - Major Project Evaluation

Overall Process

The creation of "Dream Chaser" has certainly been the hardest challenge of my life. I took on board the responsibilities of scriptwriter and director, as well as doing a lot of the producing work in the early stages of the project and, of course, being in the film my self.  This project was one that was very personal for me and being heavily involved in all stages of the process was a challenge in itself. I started conceptualising this idea in 2017 as I knew what I wanted to do for this project, but at that time I did not have a clue how to make it happen, or if it was even possible.

The process began in early 2018 as I started to think about how I could make this project a reality. I approached the 750 Motor Club to see if they had any contacts within the drivers who raced with them and who may be interested in working with me on this project. This early work led me to Sam McKee and we met up in April 2018 at Brands Hatch to speak about my plans. We came to an agreement that we could race together as long as I put together the finances and proved I was good enough to race with him.

I kept these plans going throughout the summer, meeting up with Sam a few more times to ensure that he appreciated my commitment to the idea. I watched on as Sam and his teammate did a great job which led me to believe that I had a great opportunity to race this car and be alongside an excellent contributor. The reason why I did not follow up any more opportunities was mainly the cost. Sam had put together a very competitive price for what he was offering. But, more importantly, Sam was a great person to be around and I knew it would be a massive positive for the documentary to have him as a character in it.

In the pre-production unit for this project, I progressed my talks with Sam and we knew this would definitely be happening within this unit. There were false promises offered to me elsewhere, but I ultimately always knew that Sam and his team would be the best people to work with thanks to the way they presented themselves. More importantly, it felt natural to be around Sam and I think that hugely benefited the documentary.

In pre-production, my thoughts were mostly about the script and piecing together a cohesive story, one that allows the viewer to get to know me as a contributor and connect to my story and why I am trying to complete this challenge. My research in pre-production allowed me to grasp how important challenge and danger was in a documentary like mine. I made sure to include a number of challenges along the way in my script and I ended up being very happy with it. I am particularly proud because I have found script writing to be the toughest part of this course.

I also managed to arrange a number of fantastic interviews in pre-production as, at this stage, I was not sure who was going to be working with me. I felt it was important to start up a line of communication with the people I wanted to include in my project. A number of these played out and I am very happy to have put the effort in at the pre-production stage. I personally feel we had some fantastic contributors.

Overall, I was very happy with what I managed to complete in pre-production, which put me in a good position when I was joined by George Nicholls and Cailan Cook in January. The initial roles were me as writer/director/contributor, George as the producer and editor and Cailan as director of photography. However, this changed in March with Cailan and George splitting the editing due to George not being able to manage the workload alongside his role as a producer.

In pre-production, we had completed a number of test shoots which allowed us to be in a good position when we started filming in January. Our filming process was initially from the end of January to the middle of April, but after the issues in the first race, it ended being a shoot schedule of over 90 days, until the end of April.

The early stages in January let us all get used to our roles, but there was still a sense of overlapping which did cause a few issues with miscommunication within the team. Due to the scale of the project, we did have a few more of these issues throughout, but it definitely did not affect our end product, just wasted some of our time. In January we looked through my script and thought about how we would film it.

As I was an active contributor, it led to us all having to understand what was needed from me as a director before we went into a shoot date. The team decided that they wanted a shot list as well as a camera plan. This would allow Cailan to create storyboards and George could create items such as a call sheet for his role as a producer.  I also made sure to send the team reference material when possible to reflect the style I wanted each segment to look like. I think this was a very helpful process as it allowed the crew to have a lot of information about what I thought we needed, allowing me to be in front of the camera and focus on being the contributor.

During our first shoot dates, the racing medical, racing license as well as go-karting, I thought the team did well to adapt to the scenarios that presented themselves. The medical was routine and nothing untoward happened but in the license shoot we had a number of issues which meant the footage was not as good as initially planned. Firstly it rained, which did not help the camera lens on a few cameras, especially Cailans' who was constantly moving and did not always remember to wipe the water off. This along with being called for my license much earlier than expected meant that the camera crew were not all in position in time and we did not quite manage to get everything that was planned on my pre-shoot plans.

These issues allowed me to rethink what more I could be doing as a director, although I know that what happened was out of my control. My research into "adapting to the unknown" showed me that more communication between myself and the producer would make issues such as this less likely in the future. George could also have created a more in-depth plan from his side which could have potentially allowed us to have fewer issues.

However, I also look back on this shoot and realise that the crew did the best job in the circumstances. This was our first proper shoot date and, in reality, they captured all the actuality that they needed for this sequence. My research told me "Take real inventory of your surroundings and your resources. Still try to creatively adapt, but make sure your documentary film is practical.... Documentaries are much more than just interviews. The real meat of many documentary films is found in the coverage and B-roll which merely uses the interviews as narration. Your subject will dictate what types of coverage are most important" (PremiumBeat, 2016). I understand that due to our inexperience we could all have done better, but I do not think we could have asked for much more considering how quickly things changed.

After this shoot I started to create more detailed plans and also thought it would be good to speak to the team about some of the technicalities of motorsport, as the more information they have, the easier it would be for them to adapt to changing circumstances. Both Cailan and George have done a fantastic job of involving themselves in the sport and, throughout this unit, they improved their  knowledge which resulted in much better cinematography. I am glad we spoke about this as it allowed the creative decision making of the crew to be vastly improved.

The directors statement that I created in pre-production allowed the crew to understand my creative vision, but my reference material such as "Icarus" allowed the team to really see how I wanted this to be filmed. Icarus was a massive inspiration and I feel a lot of the filming styles adopted by the D.O.P as well as myself in my directors shot list and camera card were thanks to this film. The importance of extreme close-ups and powerful actuality were the big areas that I wanted to replicate in our film.

My research into documentaries such as "Danny Macaskill - Riding The Edge" and "Free Solo" allowed me to grasp how we can make actuality interesting. Clear audio was very important but not as important as a natural conversation, so common sense at the time would decide whether using a clip mic would ruin the moment. Other things such as the importance of B-roll came from this research. We had already planned to capture a lot of GV shots in this documentary, but this research pushed me to ensure that, for particular shots, it was included on my shot list.  The production process was made easier thanks to the amount of B-roll captured which gave us an abundance of shot choices in the edit.

I also spent a lot of time doing production work at times as I got in contact with a number of our contributors and set up all of these interviews. I also set up a Kickstarter fundraiser which allowed us to raise nearly £900. I also feel I did a fantastic job obtaining sponsors for this project, spending a lot of time making contact with people, eventually obtaining over £2000 worth of sponsorsship. This, alongside our personal contributions, made sure this project could happen. It was a lot of effort but it made sure that Cailan and George were not worrying about the financial side and I am proud of how I conducted myself in this process.

I was happy with the variety in our interviews with Jamie, Dan and Abbi as they all had a unique style to them. My research into making interviews unique and interesting allowed me to make the creative decision to split them all up, as a repeated interview would show a lack of creative ingenuity. "The same interview with a hedge-fund manager communicates different information if it’s in his marble and polished wood office vs. the floor of a working factory. An interview against the wrong background is an accidental miscommunication." (tubularinsights.com, 2011). I knew I could not change the style and backdrop too much as it would confuse the viewer, as per the above quote, but I wanted to allow myself the opportunity to mix up the styles used. I was very happy with my work on these interviews and the walk and walk with Dan is certainly one of my favourite sequences because of its professionalism. If we had had good lighting for this scene then I would have said it definitely was my favourite. Thankfully we got both cinematically pleasing shots as well as very interesting interviews, I certainly felt I did a good job as a director in planning these sequences.

Due to working around Cailan's working schedule we were limited in what we could do in the early months, which led us to film on pretty much every day he was not working. It was a challenge to work around his schedule, but I think George and I did a great job in creating a process which ensured we managed to get all of the content needed. Without this restriction, I feel like there would have been less pressure throughout these opening three months, but we worked around it to good effect and managed to film the essential parts of this journey.

February and March were essential shoot months for this project as I went through a number of the key challenges to make this dream a reality. I took part in a number of track days which was really exciting and due to the team's knowledge of the style and tone I wanted, we managed to come out of these days with fantastic material. We also had help from friends within the university as well as a few talented videographers from outside. Due to the scale of these shoots we needed as many hands as possible and I think we managed to get the most out of these days because of the dedication from our film crew.

These months also allowed me to get better as a director and I feel that I was able to distance myself when I was a contributor which allowed for better material as I was not worrying about what the crew was doing. This was thanks to my research which showed me what skills I could improve on as a director, which ended up helping me as a contributor. "A good director must possess strong communication skills. If the director cannot be understood, the production team will not be able to fulfill the production design. The director may have a brilliant idea in mind but if they cannot communicate clearly it is all for naught." (ossiemills, 2011). Improving as a director was always a personal aim in this process, but thanks to working in the moment together with my research, I certainly feel I did improve substantially. Being cool under pressure and having clear communication skills allowed me to evolve as a contributor and a director. I was very happy with my progress.

Our numerous scouts and test shoots in this project allowed us to capture a number of emotive sequences. The Diary Room and the South Downs sequences were certainly helped by comprehensive planning and scouts. They allowed us to have a few thoughtful scenes in our documentary and both of these sequences are my favourite as a director because I was able to set out a clear creative vision. This vision came to life and because of the research and planning, I feel these sequences add a powerful style to this documentary, as it is sometimes hard to make actuality speaking visually interesting.

The sequence with my Dad was one that took some planning to ensure that my Dad was comfortable, but it is powerful to ground the documentary and ensure the viewer knows how much my family were a part of this journey. Even though my Dad was sceptical at first, he did a great job on camera and the sequence was one that many people see as a powerful one within our project. I am happy I took Simon's feedback and ensured this happened as it added a personal touch to the story which ensured the viewer was further connected to the story.

After a long process and a number of great experiences, we got to the final stages of our project with a couple of test days before the final race with Sam. These test days went well and allowed us to introduce another location (Donington Park) into our documentary. This opportunity to show a further location made sure not every event we did took place at Brands Hatch. Both of these days we had trackside access thanks to George which ensured we got some fantastic shots and I am proud of the team for using my reference material and shot lists and camera cards to good effect which meant we had a lot of great footage.

We finally got to race day after over 30 test and shoot dates which was a big moment for us all as a team. We did not have trackside but I used my knowledge of the circuit to ensure we had a number of unique angles from around the track. Looking back at the footage, the crew did a great job to ensure we used angles which were a little different to the ones in other sequences. The pit lane crew kept up their fantastic work in capturing the actuality needed for an overall sequence. Of course, the race did not go to plan but we managed to capture enough footage to put together a sequence.

I had planned to have the second race that we completed be the finale of the documentary but, after some thought and discussion with the team and Simon, we agreed that the PTC recorded at the end of the race day was so powerful, we had to end on that. Even though we had limited footage due to the pit lane camera not being switched on in the key moments after the race, we struggled to make the sequence as emotional as it could have been. Nonetheless, the ending sequence is powerful and I am happy that we made this our closing thoughts.

The editing stages of this project allowed Cailan and George a lot of time to ensure the creative vision was met. Even though we did not always agree on what we should use, we managed to get all of the sequences together before realising how long the documentary was. We were looking at  a 30+ minute documentary even after cutting a number of sequences. However, we proceeded to cut each sequence down and keep the story intact which left us with a 25-minute documentary [Excluding credits]. I feel we were tough on ourselves and managed to cut a lot of the nuances within sequences which allowed us to make each scene a lot tighter. I feel we could have been even harder on ourselves and possibly cut another minute, but any more would have left us missing key information within the journey. I think if we had a little more time we could have made the documentary a tiny bit tighter, but due to the fact we had a large number of shoot dates and started editing late, I feel we did a fantastic job and I am very pleased with the final documentary.

Positives

Dream Chaser has always had a great story and I think we all did a great job in ensuring that the story was broadcast in a powerful way. On the majority of shoot dates the team was very productive and we managed to get a wide range of shots alongside the ones noted on my shot lists and camera plans. This dedication to capturing content allowed us to have a lot of choices in the edit on the majority of sequences. I think this meant the documentary was especially interesting visually as we did not have to repeat the same shot a number of times and the knowledge I passed on to the crew about motorsport allowed them to focus to a greater degree on what could be important within the sport.

Our scouting of the majority of locations allowed me as a director to expand my creative vision and let my plans for the actual shoot dates be even better. I was very happy with my work as a director as I feel this allowed the crew to capture my vision as well as allowing them to adapt when something presented itself. I did struggle at times to disconnect myself as a director on some shoots, but by the end of the process I was able to switch off and allow the crew to do their work which ensured I gave a powerful and natural "performance" in front of the camera. This also allowed me to focus on being a contributor and actually enjoy this process instead of constantly worrying about being a director when I could not do anything in the moment.

I think the visual style is very consistent throughout our documentary and I see the scenes such as the Diary Room and South Downs as being very powerful because they are somewhat different from the rest of the documentary. Saying this, I do not think they stand out in the wrong way because the documentary ended up being able to flow throughout. We took great care in the edit to ensure sequences worked together and connected well. The tone was also very consistent, even though we did need to focus in the edit on this as a lot of the tone is shown through the way scenes are edited. I honestly feel the documentary is very natural and I think the viewer can easily connect to me as a contributor and understand my story and come on a journey with me.

I was happy with my job as a contributor. I certainly was not flawless, especially as I was so involved as a director within this documentary. However, many people have said that I am very good on camera and I will accept this, even though I always see flaws and strive to improve these. "A good presenter therefore understands the process of television production. They should be interested and involved in the subject they are presenting and they should have a good understanding of the audience – who is watching and why – because a good presenter is able to engage with the viewers." (http://wanttoworkintelevision.com, 2011). Therefore, thanks to the feedback I have had, I would say I have done a good job considering I do not really have any experience within this role. I would say a lot of this is thanks to my research which showed me the importance of the presenter engaging the viewer. The feedback has told me this is the case which makes me happy.

The scale of this project was massive considering our resources and I feel we can all be proud of how we dedicated ourselves to it and adapted and overcame any issues that stood in our way. It was not a simple process but because we worked very well as a team, we managed to get the most out of a majority of the shoot dates. That ensured we ended up with a lot of material, actually making it hard to make this documentary one of around 20 minutes in length. Thanks to the honest feedback from Simon we continued to work well in the edit and condense down our film to one of 25 minutes and I think this is once again thanks to us working well as a team, even though we did, of course, have differences along this creative journey.

I was very proud of the fact that I managed to attract a number of sponsors who made a large financial contribution towards our project. I used my YouTube channel and social media to good effect as this income made sure the project was possible. Alongside the creation of the fundraiser which helped us with £900 (mostly from my YouTube subscribers), I was pleased to ensure that money was not an issue because, without it this project would not have happened. I dedicated myself to getting these funds together and, in doing so, it allowed me to learn a lot about the way filmmakers need outside financial sources to make challenging creative visions a possibility.

Overall the coverage captured on the majority of shoot dates was fantastic and I am proud of the team for getting this as it allowed us to have many choices in the edit. Without this, we probably would not have had a consistent tone throughout and the documentary would have been of a lesser quality.

I made sure to conduct a lot of research before taking upon new challenges which really helped me ease myself into each process and I feel this research was a big positive in my work. This research was key in my main creative decisions and, without it, I feel the documentary as a whole would not have the same feel to it. This research ensured our documentary had a consistent and interesting tone throughout. It allowed me to see how I could be improving myself which ultimately led to very productive shoot dates and work I am very proud of.

Negatives

In the early stages of the creative process, there were a few communication issues which led to us all wasting time. These issues surrounded creative decisions and most of the time after speaking in person or on Skype they were resolved. We did struggle in the first weeks to ensure we all knew exactly what we were doing due to the nature of this project and the number of shoot dates we had. Creative differences did not often happen on shoots but, as I was the contributor in the majority of these, I did not offer my input at the time to ensure I remained as natural as possible.

On a few of the shoot dates, we did not get quite the footage we were expecting. On the license day, we had rain on a number of the shots from Cailan's camera which did limit their usability. On the Dan shoot, the team did not have any lights which meant we did have grain on this scene, which was a shame as it was a fantastic sequence. George got into the shot on a few occasions throughout this process, but that was probably inevitable as Cailan was due to follow me and sometimes George would be nearby.

In the early stages, we were limited by Cailan's availability which was a shame as it meant some shoot dates were possibly more rushed than they needed to be. The overall quality was fantastic, but I feel with fewer restrictions on shooting dates we would have been able to ensure we had every single shot possible as, on a few occasions, we had to re-shoot due to not getting it how we wanted the first time.

A lot of the shoot dates actuality was fine and exactly what I would have expected. However, I was disappointed that on the main race day, Cailan stopped filming me after the car issue as there was a lot of important actuality that was missed. I honestly feel that this would have made the ending scene of our documentary even more powerful. It was disappointing as it was on my shot list to capture key actuality, but thankfully we saved it in the edit.

Speaking of the edit, we possibly put pressure on ourselves by starting the edit late. George was always insistent in the early stages on doing everything his way which did end up leaving us behind schedule as we did not start editing until the end of February, even though our first shoots were over a month before that. This left us behind for around a month as George ended up giving half the edit responsibility to Cailan, which ended up working well. Cailan did a fantastic job in adapting to this new role, but I do wish George had allowed this at the start as it would have ensured we did not have to rush the edit after getting behind.

We did have audio issues on a few occasions at the start of the unit, which we quickly learnt from, and proceeded to use a clip mic on all occasions where we thought it would be needed. I do wish we had thought of this right from the start, but I suppose I am happy we learnt quickly allowing the majority of the film to have fantastic audio. We used a clip mic that attached to our phones which was made by RODE and gave us a similar quality to that of the university clip mic. This addition allowed us more creative freedom, ensuring these sequences were true actuality.

Finally, the last negative I see from our production is the colour grade. I had done a lot of research into colour grading and I feel this was left too late to make a visual difference to our documentary. I wanted to colour grade a few weeks beforehand but George was insistent on waiting until we had finished the project before colour grading it. This meant that he did the colour grade in a few days, just before hand-in. I personally feel it was rushed and does not quite give the tone I wanted from this project. However, I did not want to cause an argument with him just before hand-in so I went along with his grade and did my best to adapt it to what I had researched. In the future, I would like to spend more time on this.

Learning Outcomes

The biggest thing that I learned in this project is how to manage a team and ensure everyone does the best job possible. I have understood the importance of communication in allowing this to happen because the moments in this project where we have had poor communication, have clearly been our worst days.

Understanding how we work together and collaborate on issues has allowed me to become a better director and I really enjoyed how we came together to overcome every issue we had along this journey. It was sometimes hard for me to take feedback but becoming more open and accepting this feedback has allowed this documentary to be better because of it.

The creative vision of George and Cailan allowed me to open my mind and think about other ways the project could be improved. I think, because of open discussion within our group, we made sure that each sequence was what we wanted. Without these discussions, we may have struggled to ensure each scene was going to work within the scope of the overall documentary.

Time management has been a key part of making this documentary work. We had so many shoot dates and a condensed edit period, and I feel we have done a fantastic job in allowing the whole documentary to be filmed in a natural way and one which truly shows the scale of achieving your dreams. I think I did a great job with my time management as every shoot date was planned well and we always got the content we needed for our documentary. We left time for pick up days and used those to good effect to ensure everything we needed was present for the edit.

I learned to be hard on myself and ensure that the documentary was as tight as it could possibly be. This allowed the documentary to have a professional style and ensured that it did not drag on. We had to cut a large number of sequences and, working as a team, we made sure we only cut those that had the least impact on the documentary. It was a real challenge to get this down to 20 minutes but we did it and I think that is thanks to being brutally honest about what moves the story along.

What I could Develop

Even though I am very happy with the final outcome of the project there are a few things that I would like to improve upon if I had the time.

The colour grade deserved more time and ideally, we would have tightened the whole documentary and possibly cut another minute to ensure all sequences were as tight as possible. Saying this, due to the restrictions we imposed upon ourselves, I think we did a fantastic job to get this documentary to 25 minutes.

Communication could always be better and everyone could always be more productive but I think, taking into consideration the scale of this project, we did a fantastic job. I do wish that we were able to work on the transitions between some of the scenes, as a few of them could have been improved and a little more natural.

We worked well as a team but ideally we would have ensured that we had enough camera operators and crew on certain days. It was not good to have our producer, George as a camera operator and we could have ensured that this didn't happen. These are things we look back on in hindsight, but typically we managed to get everything we wanted and I do not feel the documentary was hugely affected by not having these extra crew members.

Closing Thoughts

I am really happy with the outcome of this project. It took a long time to get it all together and ensure the film actually happened, but we managed to do it. It has certainly been the biggest challenge I have ever had and I feel like I have adapted well to everything that has been put in front of us.

My work before all of the shoot dates allowed the majority of days to go smoothly and I am very happy with what I created before each of these days. I think it aided the progress of this project and, because we worked well as a team, we typically filmed more footage than needed, giving us choices in the edit which was really important.

I don’t think I could have done much more as a director before each shoot as the crew continually praised the work I had been creating. I had been given some suggestions about what the crew needed and I feel like I always did what was needed of me. My role as director in the edit allowed me to give my opinion on how I envisioned each sequence would work, but I always wanted to allow the editors to show their creativity. I feel we worked around our creative differences and ended up with a project that, we all agree, is what we set out to create.

I wanted to create a documentary for a BBC3 audience, one showing what it is like to dedicate yourself to achieving your dream. As a director I believe we managed to do this as the documentary certainly takes the viewer on a personal journey, while including some interesting interviews and contributors.

As the main contributor I am happy to have challenged myself and have been told that I do well in front of the camera, although I expect we could have had a better documentary if I was not included. Maybe this is me being hard on myself, but I like to be honest in this regard. I think being in the documentary myself did cause problems in terms of being connected to certain scenes and specific moments but, as a team, we managed to talk about these moments and always found a solution which worked for all.

I am happy with my work as a script writer, even though I know in myself it is not my best role. I tried really hard and worked with Simon and the team to make a story which is interesting and has depth, and feel that I managed to achieve this. But, looking back, I would make some small changes to the script and give myself a few more opportunities for powerful moments within the documentary. I like the Diary Room and the South Downs as well as the sequence with my Dad, but I think there was a chance for more. Maybe I am being unrealistic, but I don’t feel like I did a bad job in this role.

The feedback from my peers and tutors allowed me to develop the project and ensure that this documentary was one which had a powerful story. I appreciate the feedback given by all my tutors and industry professionals such as Nathan Caws. It has allowed me to see how we can continue to improve, even when we thought we had got everything right. We all strived for a great project in this unit and thanks to my research we got closer than I expected when I had my initial thoughts nearly two years ago.

By the end of the unit we managed to communicate very well within the team and thanks to that the edit was a great process. Our creative differences did not get in the way of making the documentary even though, at the time, some disagreements did take time to resolve. Typically, I believe we acted as professionals throughout this unit and managed to work as a cohesive unit even when these creative decisions divided us for a while. We adapted well and improved consistently throughout the unit to ensure these decisions did not take up much time.

This documentary was a special one for me as I was so involved, but I think it was ultimately a success thanks to the work of Cailan and George. They allowed themselves to be immersed within this idea and because of that they managed to connect to the sport and the story on a deeper level. Through doing this, I believe that we finish this project as one we can all be proud of. We achieved the goal that we set out many months ago. I do feel that I am hard on myself because I always want to improve, but the team always did a good job of lifting my spirits which ensured that we were always productive.

I got a chance to live out a dream as well as work on an amazing project for my final year of university. I am very proud of the work I have completed and happy to have done so with a great team alongside me. I will never forget this journey and will cherish it for the rest of my life.

References 

PremiumBeat, 2016: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-documentary-filmmaking/

tubularinsights.com, 2011https://tubularinsights.com/shoot-video-interview-doesnt-suck-10-tips-ignore/

ossiemills, 2011 http://ossiemills.org/2011/01/social-media-outlets-for-non-profits/

http://wanttoworkintelevision.com, 2011 http://wanttoworkintelevision.com/what-makes-a-good-television-presenter/