Unit 27.3 Be able to plan and research a factual programme for television: Evaluation

For my Level 3 BTEC Media assignment i had to create a factual TV programme using a documentary format by using the codes and conventions of a factual documentary, This included using techniques such as Interviews, Cutaways and sequences to form the structure of my documentary. The title of my documentary is 'A Day In The Life Of A Pianist', The documentary was a human interest documentary which followed a journey style structure due to it following an individual person and his life as a pianist. Throughout my documentary i used an interview to give the audience an insight into Lewis's life as a pianist whilst using cutaways of him playing the piano and of his college (Chethams School of Music) to illustrate what he is saying during the interview. I also used sequences of various shots of lewis playing the piano at the beginning of my documentary and at the end to make the documentary more interesting and so that it gives the documentary a more fluent structure and make the beginning and end correlate/correspond with each other to give the documentary a feeling of closure for the audience when the documentary has finished.

For me to begin filming i had to fill in my pre-production paperwork which included call sheets, Recces, Actor release forms, Production schedule, Storyboards, Shooting schedule, Shot list, and Tape log. The production paperwork helped me plan and formulate the structure of my documentary so that during filming and editing i didn't become confused to what i have or have not done but instead created a plan for me to follow. The production schedule and shooting schedule helped me keep track of when i had to film due to the production schedule giving me the information of start and finishing dates of this project making sure i kept within that schedule and had enough time to film and edit my documentary and the shooting schedule giving me the dates of when i went filming which made sure i stuck to those dates so i had everything filmed before i had to begin editing therefore giving me enough time for me to finish everything before the documentary was due in. The call sheets helped me know who was going to be  helping during filming on a particular day such as the production team and actor, the Recces were sheets that gave me information on the locations i was going to film at such as the lighting and equipment i was going to use at each location, the Actor release forms gave me permission for Lewis to be used in this documentary due to him signing the actor release form to say he was okay with him to be used in this documentary, and the storyboards and shot list helped plan the structure and types of footage i was going to use during my documentary.

The first stage of forming and creating my documentary was filming the variety of different shots for the documentary which was to film an interview with Lewis talking about his life as an aspiring professional pianist and cutaways of Lewis playing the piano at his house which i also used in a sequence towards the beginning and end of my documentary to give the documentary a more fluent structure and make the beginning and end correlate with each other to give the documentary a feeling of closure for the audience when the documentary has finished and give the documentary are more authentic visual feeling such as giving the audience something interesting to watch. I chose to film at this location to give the audience a better insight into where Lewis practices and so the audience can connect with Lewis on a personal level due to me wanting to give the feeling of letting the audience in on how he conducts his social life around the piano and his time practicing the piano which i did by filming at his house making the audience feel he has let them into his life for the duration of the documentary. I filmed the interview at Lewis's house also so that he felt more comfortable and relaxed during the interview due to there being no disruptions from the public or any background noises that could cause Lewis to become distracted or uncomfortable and that he was in a familiar environment and place that he could feel content in. I also went and filmed at Chethams School of Music to get cutaways that were placed over the interview to visualise what Lewis is saying such as placing the footage of Chethams over information of the college that Lewis is giving me. I chose to film at Chethams due to it being the college Lewis attends and being a crucial part of Lewis's life and a major part of his progression to becoming a professional concert pianist. The cutaways of Chethams  were also used to keep the documentary entertaining instead of just having a constant interview through out but to give the audience something to look at and to see what Lewis is talking about. All of the filming was successful as the weather was clear and sunny on both days with no interruptions or distraction from the public.   

The majority of filming my documentary was successful with only minor faults, During filming i encountered difficulties with lighting and editing. The problems i had with the lighting was during filming the cutaways of Lewis playing the piano the lighting was a little to dark on some of the shots such as the long shots of Lewis playing the piano, due to the room not letting enough light in causing the footage to look dark, although the footage was slightly dark it wasn't enough for the footage to be unusable for the documentary as you could still see what was happening during that footage which i used at the end of the documentary in the credit sequence and as cutaways over the interview. Another problem with lighting i had was during filming footage of Chethams the camera had light reflecting off it from the sun causing lens flare on some of the low angle shots of the college therefore resulting in the footage becoming unusable for the documentary, due to this happening i got more footage of the college from various different angles where there wasn't any reflections from the sun or other lighting. The footage i got from the cutaways in Lewis's house involved various different close ups of Lewis's hands on the piano and a variety of mid-shots and Long shots of Lewis in the piano by using a tripod with the camera attached to achieve these different shots without the footage becoming shaky resulting in very successful shots that i was able to use during my documentary. The interview was framed with Lewis to the right of the camera so that when the audience watch my documentary they feel as though it is authentic and so that it looks like a near professional standard documentary. The types of shots i filmed of Chethams school of music were long shots and low angle shots of the college to give the audience an idea of what the college looks and feel like due to the shots making the building seem powerful and important. Another technique i used when filming at Chethams was panning the camera from the left of the college to the right, i chose to do this because i wanted the audience to see the whole of the building in one shot rather than editing different shots together to create a single of the college which could result in jump cuts that would look awful. Another reason i chose to pan was to show the audience the size and scale of the building and to keep the audience entertained when watching rather than just have the audience watch shots that stay in the same place creating a monotonous feeling to the documentary.

The next stage after filming was editing the footage to create my documentary. I edited my documentary in Final Cut Express and took me two weeks to edit all of my documentary. The editing was the most difficult part of producing this documentary due to me encountering the most problems and difficulties during this process. The first part of editing was to create sequence at the beginning of the documentary which involved putting three pieces of footage together to form a sequence, The sequence was of Lewis playing one piece of music on the piano, the first shot was a close up of his hands followed by a shot of his feet then a over the shoulder shot of Lewis which i then added the title over the footage whilst Lewis was still playing the piano. I chose to place the sequence at the beginning to entice the audience in to carry on watching the documentary and create the basis of what the documentary will be about. The difficulties i had with this was matching the audio with the footage due to the audio being recorded separately to the footage so that it appears clearer on the finished documentary. It took me a while too match then audio with the footage by cutting the footage of lewis down to size then placing the audio over the top but i finally managed to achieve this and it worked and matched up well. I then added the interview footage after the first sequence keeping the music over the interview footage but quietening the music down which i kept going throughout the documentary. The problem i had with editing the interview was that it was too long (12 minutes) therefore i had to cut the footage down which involved removing parts of the footage to meet the required length of the documentary (7 minutes) that resulted in noticeable jump cuts throughout the documentary when transitioning between questions i ask Lewis, To cover up these jump cuts i used various different cutaways over the cuts to distract the audiences attention away from the jump cuts, although i did this with the majority of the jump cuts there were still some that were noticeable due to not having the correct or enough footage to place over the top of them such as Lewis talking about something other than the college which if i used the cutaways i had would not of made sense and there would of been multiple shots of the same piece of footage which would not have worked well in the documentary as they would only be there to cover up the jump cuts, Another way i covered up the jump cuts was to place transitions between the different questions i asked Lewis as a way to keep the documentary smooth and flowing whilst still covering up the jump cuts. The final problem i had during editing was adjusting sound levels on the music which i placed over the interview footage, This was a problem due to the sound either being too loud or quiet in some areas of the documentary which sometimes over powered Lewis's answers during the interview. I finally managed to prevent the audio being too loud or quiet by adjusting the sound levels too an appropriate level in areas which i felt didn't sound right finishing with perfect sound throughout the documentary. I chose to place the music over the interview footage to make the documentary more engrossing and entertaining for the audience.

To get feedback for my documentary i had a focus group of three people to watch my documentary and answer questions about what was successful about my documentary and what improvements could be me made. The majority of feedback was positive such as James saying my documentary was 'Professional and well made' which was the overall feedback from my focus group, From watching my documentary Jack said that 'Techniques and interviews were used very well in my documentary'. I also got feedback from my focus group saying that if i made my documentary 'less formal it would appeal to a younger audience' and also that i showed more of the college it would look better, but overall was a very well made documentary that would appeal to its intended audience.

Overall i believe the production of my documentary such as the filming and editing went successfully as i kept within  the given time to create my documentary with everything completed with only minor difficulty that mostly occurred during the editing process. My finished documentary was also successful as i have included several codes and conventions of factual documentary film making including cut-aways, sequences and interviews that all work well in my documentary. The only problem that i can see within my documentary was the jump cuts during the  mid section of the documentary that i covered up using transitions and cutaways to make them less noticeable but overall my documentary was successful.