Research and Commencing Planning
After deciding what the documentary was going to document, it was imperative we start doing research on our chosen topic, and initiate planning in several areas. We first chose to focus on the planning aspect of the initial process, following helpful guidelines that we had taken in our notes:
APPROACH TO STORY:
Going back and forth, Julia and I had several conversations discussing how we wanted to structure and develop our message and story throughout the documentary. We really wanted our message to go along with the approach to the story and for it all to make sense for the viewer watching it. Our goal for this doc was to show the process of students implementing a new environmental project to their school, and for this to motivate individuals to make an impact. So, the approach that would be most cohesive and complementary to our purpose was to create a chronological structure for the doc, to use the interviewees and B-roll as a way to sequentially progress the doc. A sequential structure allowed for us to explain and show the journey of how the environmental project got created. Because I was actually starting this project in real-time with the making of the doc, this approach to telling the story allowed for us to film as I was working on the doc (which would be the B-roll we needed).
We also wanted to approach this as unbiased as possible, so I looked at this article that showed how Robin Hauser (award-winning documentarian) approaches eradicating as much unconscious bias as possible and we used her collaboration tactics.
DOC OUTLINE:
- Next we worked on creating a shot list of the documentary that would help us decide what interviewees to reach out to, what interview questions to make, and what equipment we would need. Here is our original shot-list outline:
After having the shot-list done, we knew what interviewees we needed to reach out to, so that's what we did! We reached out to Mr.Boswell (Interact club's sponsor) and Margarita (an environmental head at Rotary Club of Weston who introduced the environmental project to me). For Mr. Boswell's interview it was easy to set a date and time to record because he said we could go one day to his class and interview him. But with Margarita, it took a bit longer to schedule with her because she had been going back and forth to Miami and was very busy. Thankfully, towards the end of our timeline she reached out and told me that she was already going to be at Cypress Bay and that we could interview her there. We didn't want to push anything on any of our itnerviewees and we were going to make sure we had everything set up by the time we were meeting with them. We also ended up using me as one of the subjects because I am one of the environmental project's leaders and I know that I would be able to chronologically explain our process (because I was involved in it!). All of these interviewees served for what information we wanted to be included in the doc.
Here are the interview questions we came up with:
This is our finalized version, but it took us some and error to create questions that we knew would allow our doc to flow (for it not to seem like we were just throwing information at you) and to create questions with differentiating purposes that would ultimately come together to move the to our purpose.
EQUIPMENT:
Our necessary equipment wasn't elaborate. We realized we only really needed a...
CAMERA:
Sony ZV E10
TRIPOD:
VOICE MEMO:
As audio while recording
OUTLINE B-ROLL/REACH OUT:
The final step to planning was finalizing what B-roll we needed and reaching out to specific individuals. Because we wanted to show the process of initiation of an environmental project, we had to get staged B-roll of certain steps being taken for the project. So, throughout the process of planning, I had to reach to specific Interact Club group members and ask them to prepare to film themselves doing certain tasks like making digital posters, hanging them up, talking to teachers, etc. For example one Interact officer had to plan to go to Home Depot to film herself buying bix cardboard boxes.
Research:
Now for additional research, Julia and I wanted to become more familiar with the topic that we were discussing: plastic and its effects on our health and the environment. I was already somewhat familiarized because I had gotten this project handed a couple days before we started the documentary, but still I wanted to know much more. So, we researched different things like....
PLASTIC IMMEDIATE/LONG TERM IMPACTS TO HUMANS:
Source for research information: https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2023/understanding-plastic-pollution-and-its-impact-lives
- We found that only 46% of plastic is landfilled, and even if it is, plastic still takes up to 1,000 years to break down. The fact that single-use plastic is used in so many ways means that us humans could be digesting about 5 grams of plastic every week, leading to possible reproductive, growth, and cognitive issues. But plastic isn't just a problem for humans, it affects the animals that we are surrounded by. From animals washing up on shore dead to consuming a lot of plastic to simply having plastic contest oceans, this is a real issue.
By us knowing this knowledge, it strengthened our need to make this documentary and also allowed us to narrate the documentary with assurity that we were telling the story we wanted to tell.
OVERVIEW:
Overall, I am very pleased with how this process went. I think that Julia and I worked well and efficiently in reaching out to certain people and getting confirmation on whether or not we could have an interview with them. I do think if I had to go back and change anything, it would be to make one extra shot-list outline that wasn't our rough draft so that we could have it when editing to look back on. The one we had was good, but to me having the visual-drawn out pictures of the shots makes it easier to distinguish each shot, which helps when filming and editing. But overall this process went smoothly!
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