DOCUMENTARY: Testing Ideas

The only thing we could really test was the position we had our interviewee in the camera and how the clip mic's and boom mic work together. Our first try was in the interview workshop at the beginning of the unit and we had a small session with the mic's not long after. We concluded that we definitely want to follow the 'rule of thirds' and make sure we use the clip mic's on every interviewee as they do really bring up the volume in their voices. 

We had a run through with the clip mic's with Jack answering our own questions we were going to ask our gay and straight teenagers. Once we had gone through the questions we realised we didn't have very many and we thought we may as well make as much use out of the interviews as we can while we're there. As a result of this we added a couple more questions, about the future and if they think homophobic remarks and abuse in football will ever change. 

After this we tested the questions and positioning with one of our actual interviewees, Carl. Our main character who is gay. Jack and Callum filmed his interview at his house to see if the questions were fitting and how good Carl was in front of the camera, being our main character we wanted him to feel comfortable talking to us while we were capturing his every word.

Screenshot of test interview

After thought of the test interview
I was at work and was unable to make the test interview. Once I saw the footage they produced I thought it was good but there were a couple of things which I thought weren't quite right. The shot was slightly overexposed, Jack also thought this and they said they need to remember to think about changing the exposure in every location to get the best lighting and therefore, making our shots aesthetically pleasing. 

Another thing I noticed was that the camera was more focused on the background objects which for this test were flowers in a vase. Carl was slightly blurrier which was not the look we wanted. Obviously, we want Carl to be in complete focus and the background objects slightly blurred. In the real thing we know we want something football-related behind him, ideally, if Carl has any football trophies or photos from before, we will arrange them appropriately. We have learnt from this to make sure the interviewees are the most focused-on things in the shots.

The light was above him and was quite bright on his forehead, we realised this wasn't the right angle we wanted the light to come from. In the real interview, we will move him to another room and block out the sun but let a good amount of natural lighting through in the real interview. We know the things to look for now in future also 

DOCUMENTARY: Location Development

We went round to our football locations to fill out risk assessments and to work out where we'd want the camera. We also got to see how accessible the locations were to get to with all the equipment. As shown in the first photo there is a fence up around the whole of the training ground so we needed to find out if we could film inside otherwise our footage won't look as good. 

Update: Unfortunately we will need to film outside the fence but it is quite low so we should be able to get the shots through the gaps or maybe work with the fence, e.g. cutaways with the fence being in focus and then changing so the players behind are in focus. 

Mile End Stadium



Wandsworth Common

Since our presentation we have added more locations because we found a couple more people to interview. We are still filming at the East End Phoenix's training ground (Mile End Stadium) and their game pitch (Wandsworth Common), but we are also filming at Carl's house in Wigmore for the pre-training interview and to film him getting ready and traveling to the grounds. Being at his house also means we can take as much time as we need getting the shots and cutaways. Additionally, Carl should feel more comfortable being in his own home as obviously everyone gets nervous giving an interview, therefore, this may be able to help him become less nervous. 

We found out that it was the chairman of the network who we are talking to, Edward Connell. This is great as he is quite high up in the campaign and will hopefully know a lot about it. We will be filming them at their office in London. We only managed to get photos of the outside until we get inside to interview him. First glance, the offices look very smart, clean and professional - this has given us a good first impression about the network and are hoping for a good interview. I also hope that the chairman would be used to giving interviews, being a well-known support for many people. He said he would be happy to give his views and what the network does towards helping prevent homophobia in football so we look forward to hearing from him.

Blackfriers, Central London

Blackfriers, Central London

DOCUMENTARY: Character Development

We have chosen three characters and are currently waiting to hear who we are meeting from the GFSN. As long as no one pulls out, in the end we should have 4 people to talk to in our 10 minute documentary. So far, our main character is Carl Tyler and the secondary characters are Jason Leadbeater and James Little and the representative from the network. 

Character profiles - 

Name: Carl Tyler

Age: 19

Sexuality: Gay

About: Carl is a drama student so he is quite a character and is perfect to take on a big part in our documentary. He hasn't played football in years because he doesn't feel like he can participate in his local teams after coming out. Carl is good friends with Jack and is happy for us to film him and is more than happy to return to football with an LGBT team. Carl also fits our age range as we needed a teenager to link with the 'teen spirit' theme. 

Name: James Little

Age: 23

Sexuality: Straight

About: James is from London, he manages and plays in the football team we are following, the East End Phoenix. He is straight and still chose to get involved with an LGBT team, therefore, making him interesting to interview. It will be enlightening to hear his views about the LGBT league and why he chose this team and not a team from a standard league. 

Name: Jason Leadbeater

Age: 34

Sexuality: Gay

About: Jason also lives in London, he plays for the East End Phoenix and has been out for about 8 years. He is openly gay and has many views about LGBT so he will also be interesting to interview. Both James and Jason know Callum so they should feel comfortable in sharing their views for us. 









Update:
Name: Edward Connell
About: Ed is the chairman for the Gay Football Supporters' Network (GFSN) and is based in Blackfriers in Central London. He does a lot of work with the GFSN, the network are a massive support for LGBT people and help those people get into sports and hobbies and help them feel more comfortable with their sexuality. 

DOCUMENTARY: Scheduling & GFSN Questions

WE GOT THROUGH TO THE GFSN. We are very excited to say we have planned to meet a representative from the network on Monday. We will look over the questions and create more to make sure we are set for Monday as we will not have this chance again. 

Callum and myself planned out the shoot days and the order in which we want the filming and post-production days to happen in order to finish for the deadline. 

FILMING DAYS

Thursday 4th May (AM/PM)

- Carls' interview 

- Shots of him getting ready and travelling to the training session 

- Trying out the session 

- After training session interview

Sunday 7th May (AM)

- Filming the Sunday League football match

- Location shots 

- James' interview

- Jasons' interview

Monday 8th May (PM)

- Location shots

- Interview with the GFSN - 5pm

POST-PRODUCTION DAYS

- Wednesday 10th May

- Thursday 11th May

- Friday 12th May


Updated questions for the GFSN
I looked over the questions and researched more into the GFSN so we had appropriate questions for the representative. I also wanted to make sure he knew we knew what the network was about and that we understood what they do to prevent homophobia in football. Anything the representative doesn't say we will cover in a voice over as our style is going to be a 'voice of God' type documentary. The V.O will also break up the interview a bit more. 

Below are our final questions:

DOCUMENTARY: Script Development

Script feedback

I sent a script to Helen over the Easter holidays, bearing in mind I haven't written a documentary script before I didn't think it was too bad. Helen gave me feedback and Callum and myself will be working on the feedback this week, improving the script. This so far has definitely been the hardest part and the idea of creating a documentary is starting to feel real. Now we have the base of our doc, I am looking forward to starting the edit and seeing the outcome. 

I was very happy with Helen's feedback, it was very helpful and we will be able to produce a much better script with this. 

At the moment we are onto Stonewall FC and the Gay Football Supporters' Network so while we keep contacting them we have put them both in the script, hopefully we will get through to at least one but we put it in so we have it planned just in case. 

Final script
Callum and myself just about finished our script on Friday and we were very happy with it. Considering we had not written a documentary script before and they are very different to a drama/film script, I think we did very well. It is also a rough copy, this just sets out what we want the interviewees to say and what shots we need to get.

I found it difficult to create a documentary script because we basically had to edit the doc and order it in the script which I would usually do after filming on Premiere Pro. Nevertheless, we completed it and Helen approved of it. We also sorted out the filming days which will take part this week over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and any more the following week. 

Our documentary script - 

DOCUMENTARY: Update with Helen

We had a chat with Helen to see what luck we had so far and unfortunately we had none. Helen helped us find some more contacts on the KickItOut website - Stonewall FC, Pride Sports (already emailed in previous post and heard nothing) and the Gay Football Supporters' Network. After the session I got onto the website to look for a contact and Jack tried to phone them. Again, no luck but Jack is going to keep trying over the Easter holidays. 

- Helen also said we need to follow each new lead and keep going with old leads so they don't forget about us

- Look into Graeme Le Saux

- Football Vs Homophobia website again

- Rainbow Laces campaign

- Stonewall - info@stonewall.org.uk - Ben Briggs

After the session I also emailed the Stonewall contact but again have heard nothing so far. We are determined to keep going though and we will have a representative to interview. 

DOCUMENTARY: Research Into Other Clubs & Campaigns

After our most recent chat with Helen about how our documentary research is coming along, she explained that we need to keep on at the people we are emailing and calling otherwise it'll just get forgotten and we will never get our interviewees. We looked at kickitout.org and found a couple more contacts, ones for Stonewall, Just A Ball Game? and The Gay Footballer Supporters' Network (GFSN) were the ones we thought were best to contact. I was allocated Stonewall FC, which is the worlds most successful gay football club. They are based in Barn Elms Playing Fields in London which is easy to get to for an interview as most of our filming will be done in London anyway. On their website they have also advertised that the newspaper The Sun had been to interview some people from the club and they were happy that someone was interested in getting their story out there, so with any luck they will be more than happy to send someone to talk to us.

http://thesetpieces.com/features/25-years-of-stonewall-fc/

Jack will be contacting GFSN and will hopefully set up an interview and Sophie is onto Just A Ball Game?.