Documentary Planning - Storyboard

Documentary Planning - Storyboard

Me and Steven have taken some pictures of what shots that we would want within our documentary and where we should place them when it comes to making it. We have a wide range of shots within our documentary as we want to cover a lot of the school so that the audience get a understanding of what the school is like. I used Canva to make my storyboard with the pictures that we have taken.

Soundtrack that we used was made by Olexandr Ignatov called 'Inspirational Piano' playing throughout the whole of the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB4SvxKgpAU 

Shot 1

- Straight cut
- Zoom
- Last for about 4 seconds

Shot 2

- Straight cut
- Pan
- Lasts for about 10 seconds filmed but speed up in iMovie

Shot 3

- Straight cut
- Pan
- Lasts for about 20 seconds 
- Include interview with teacher

Shot 4

- Straight cut
- Pan
- Lasts for 5 seconds 

Shot 5

- Straight cut
- Tilt
- Lasts for about 15 seconds
- May include an interview with student

Shot 6

- Straight cut
- Pan
- Lasts for 5 seconds

Summary
From planning our storyboard me and Steven now have a better understanding of what shots we would have go film and what order we should put them in. But all the shot have not been put into our storyboard yet as, we need to look around over locations to see if they could be a suitable location for your documentary.

Me and Steven have decided to go with this particular structure of the narrative because we have looked at other documentaries like 'Educating Yorkshire' and they have the same structure within some of their episodes. Our documentary is very chronological in the way that the narrative runs because its starts off with a normal lesson which then turns into the students messing around which leads to the teacher having to tell the student off.

Next Steps
Next for me and Steven is that we would need to start to discuss when we would want to start to film our documentary and we also need to finish off planning our ancillary tasks so that we are ready to take the images to go on our double page spread and magazine advert.

Documentary Planning - Script

Documentary Planning - Script

Me and Steven are planning what we would like the; the narrator, teachers of the school and maybe some of the students of the school to say within our documentary. We can not do it in order yet because we do not know what we would be filming first but when we know what order we are going to put the shots into, we will do a full script in the correct order so that when we begin filming we will know what shots we have to do and what we would want either the students or teachers to say.

Some of the interviews will be scripted and some will not be scripted. The scripted interviews would be with students so that they do not say bad things about the schools and, the non scripted interviews would be with the teachers so that they can tell the audience what it is like working everyday in a school and the challenges that they have to overcome. This is conventional in a documentary for a school so that the viewer feels like they know the truth and is getting the real truth from the real people but not from some of the students because they may us bad language which we would not want to include.

Teachers

• "This school is a very vibrant place, where we expect our students to excel"
• "We have been rated 'Outstanding' by Ofsted"
• "In the subjects that we offer here, we have very high pass rates at 69% GCSE pass rate and 98% A-Level pass rate"
• "We believe that students are enthusiastic about coming into school, as this school is very different to others"
• "We try to make our lessons as interesting as possible to ensure that the students are enthusiastic about coming to lessons and progress well with their GCSE's to get a better future"

Students

• "The teachers at this school try their best to ensure that we get the best education possible"
• "The environment is very welcoming around the whole of the school. As all teachers and students are nice"
• "This school is very unique from other schools because the school has a good link with local business like 'Southampton Airport' so that we get state of the art equipment that other schools may not be able to afford and will improve our education"
• "The school hosts many events such as the 'Big Picnic' so that us students try our best with our studies so that we can get invited to go to these events"

Narrator

• "We will be taking you around one of Britain's schools based in Southampton"
• "We want to show what school life is really like for the students and teachers"
• "This is Bitterne Park School, a school which has maintained itself as a great representation of a secondary school in the UK"
• "The head teacher of this school 'Susan Trigger' has been running this school for over 20 years and has kept improving the school"
• "In this school are over 1,500 students who are currently working towards there GCSE grades at Bitterne Park School"

Documentary Planning - Synopsis of the Documentary

Documentary Planning - Synopsis

Mine and Steven's documentary, is an insight into what school life is really about. We thought that we should target this documentary towards the older demographic like parents so they can see what their children go through when they go to school. However, from the questionnaire responses that we have got back, we have found out that we would also need to target a digital, free-spirited and creative individuals around the ages of 15-20 year old's as well. 

Me and Steven made some other questionnaires trying to get responses back from the audience about what they would like to see within our documentary. We have got 13 responses from this questionnaire. We would their responses into consideration but me and Steven would have the final say on what we want to have within our documentary to make it look professional. These are what the audience believe that we should use when we create our documentary.

•  Most of the responses that we have got said that we would want to get 'new information and learn' from documentaries (Uses and Gratifications Theory - Information and Learning). So me and Steven want to add in as much information as possible so that the audience would learn something new about the school and the area.
• The audience believed that we should include a 'voice over' during the documentary so that the audience would get a better understanding of what it is going on.
• A 'variety of camera shots' is what they wanted as well, as they want to show the areas around the school and get a better understanding of what the school is like.
• 'Fly on the wall footage' could be used because they want to see some raw footage of what it is like within a classroom or within the corridors of the school.
• 7 people from the questionnaire said that they would like some 'interviews with teachers' because they want to know from a teachers point of view what the school is like. Some of the interviews would be scripted like with students talking about the school and some will not be scripted teachers about what is like working at a school everyday. We would do this so that the audience would get a real insight to the school is like. 
• Some of the audience wanted to have facts appear on the screen during the documentary because they want to learn more about the school.

Me and Steven have to decided between us what we should include within the film but also taking into consideration what the audience would like to see as well. We would want to try and make the audience have a preferred response of the feeling of happiness throughout the film and this is why we should take their thoughts into consideration if that is what they believe to give them a better understanding of what school is really like and how happy children are when they are at the school. 

Ancillary Task - Font Questionnaire Results

Font Questionnaire Results

I have made the results that I have got back from the font questionnaire into graphs so that I can understand what the audience would like to see on the 'Magazine Advert' and the 'Double Page Spread'. From the results that we get will not be the final decision for what goes onto the ancillary tasks, as me and Steven will have a discussion about what we believe looks the best for the 'Magazine Advert' and the 'Double Page Spread'.

For the 'Magazine Advert' we gave the people doing the survey 3 options that they can pick from for what would look the best for the 'Magazine Advert'. These are the 3 different options the audience can choice from when doing the questionnaire.

Magazine Advert

Double Page Spread

And these are the results that we have got back from both the 'Magazine Advert' and the 'Double Page Spread'.

For both the 'Magazine Advert' and the 'Double Page Spread', they picked option 2 as the font that they would like to see on both the ancillary tasks. But this will not be the final font decision as me and Steven would decided what we believes looks the best.

I believe that the audience picked option 2 on both fonts is because those fonts are more popular for Channel 4 type documentaries, and they recognise them. Also the fonts for the magazine advert are the ones from a typewriter which might remind your audience of historical schools and secretarial colleges among the older audiences.

Summary
From doing this questionnaire about what fonts should go on the 'Magazine Advert' and the 'Double Page Spread', me and Steven now have a better understanding of what the audience believe would be the best font on both the ancillary tasks.

Next for me and Steven to do, is we will have to have the discussion about what fonts we believe is the best for the ancillary tasks and then we would have to plan the final stages of both the documentary and the ancillary tasks so that we are ready to film after Christmas.

Mock up Documentary Scene - Audience Feedback Results

Audience Feedback Results

I have made some graphs to show the results that I have got back from our audience on the short scene recreation from 'Educating Yorkshire'. Some of the question I could not put into graphs because it was people giving their own opinion about the documentary but I will still mention what they have said.

For the first question, we asked them to tell us did they think the short documentary scene was good or not.

This is what the people said was good about the documentary and how we could improve when we go onto make our main documentary.


Question 2, was about emotion that they get from watching our short documentary scene.

As you can see from the results that we have got back, we have found out that everyone had a preferred response to what emotion we was trying to get across to them.


Question 3, was about if they believed that the music worked well within the short documentary scene.

From the results that we have got, everyone believed that the music worked really well within the short scene.


Question 4, was about if you believed that the two camera shots used within the short scene worked well.

From the results that we have received back, you can see that everyone thought that these two camera shots worked well so they would like to see them in the main documentary.


Question 5, was about what shots they would like to see within the documentary that me and Steven will be making

From looking at these results, I can tell that our audience would want to see a real variety of shots, because our 'Renaissance Women' are very curious to see the workings of the whole school, especially inside the building, not too much outside it. Therefore, we would only use outside shots to establish the settings around the school to give the audience a better understanding about the school and to fill in edits.


Question 6, was about overall what did they think of the short documentary scene and what we could do to improve it.

These are the results that we have got back from the audience and they all say that they believe it was a good short documentary but we just need to improve it by making it longer which we will do when we make the actual documentary.

Summary
From the results that we have got me and Steven would gain a better understanding of what we need to include within the documentary to make it look professional and what the audience would like to see as well.

Next for me and Steven, we would need to finish the rest of are planning for the documentary and the ancillary tasks so that we can begin them after Christmas.

Documentary Planning - Props and Costume

Props and Costume

Me and Steven needed to plan the props and the costume that we are going to have when we make our documentary. There will not be many props that we are going to use within the documentary but there will be some different costumes.

Props

• Pens
• Books
• Computers

Costume

• School Uniform (Students)
• Smart Clothing (Teachers)
• Suits (Senior Management)

Teachers Clothing

Students Clothing

Summary

There is not much that me and Steven can do for props as, the school proves everything that we are going to have within our documentary and this is the same with the costume as, it is all covered by the school. The computers would be in the IT classrooms and the books and pens will be covered by each department within the school (English, Maths, Science, etc).

Ancillary Task - Fonts Questionnaire

Ancillary Task - Fonts Questionnaire

Me and Steven have made two different questionnaires on what fonts that audience would like to see on the two ancillary tasks. We have given them 3 options that they could pick from to go on the Magazine Advert and Double Page Spread. All of the fonts that we have found we has seen on the website 'DaFont'. This is a good website that we can use for our ancillary tasks to make our two ancillary tasks look professional. 

Magazine Advert Font Questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BXL9RC6

Double Page Spread Font Questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BNFTF9S

Summary

From doing these two questionnaires, me and Steven would get some new information about what people would like to see within our two ancillary tasks (Magazine Advert and Double Page Spread). This would help us a lot about what we should have on both our ancillary tasks.

Mock up Documentary Scene - Audience Feedback

Audience Feedback

Me and Steven thought that it would be good if we should get some information back from the audience that watched our short scene from the documentary. We used SurveyMonkey again to get the information from our audience and we wanted to see what the audience thought of it and how that we should improve it.

Me and Steven hope that we get a few response back from the people that have watched our short scene documentary so that this would be able to help us with our main documentary that we are going to make.

SurveyMonkey Audience Feedback Questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BVK2SCV

Summary

From doing this, me and Steven would find out what scenes that the audience would like to see within our documentary. I believe this would be an good idea because we would found out from who we are targeting this documentary towards, what they would like to see and this would help us when me make the documentary.

From the question about if they had a; Preferred Reading, Negotiated Reading or a Oppositional Reading. We would found out if they agreed with the emotion that we are trying to put across within the short documentary which is happiness.  

Documentary Planning - Locations

Locations

Me and Steven went around the school to look at some locations that we could use when we start filming our documentary. Some of these locations that we have chosen that we would like to do may be very hard to do because we would need to get permission from the teachers to film in the corridors and also in the classroom. From knowing this, me and Steven would have to ask the teachers in advance so that we can use a corridor or classroom for the documentary.

Overall, me and Steven have decided on 20 different locations that we believe would be good for the documentary and make me and Steven think how we can give the emotion of happiness towards the viewer so that they can have a preferred response.

Here is the locations that me and Steven have decided that we would like to use.

Classroom

Me and Steven believe that we should have a shot of the a teacher teaching a class. We believe that this would be a good shot to have because it would show what lessons are like within schools in Britain and for the viewers the could think back to the time when they was at school and compare it to what they can see now (Uses and Gratifications - Personal Identity)

Playground

We decided that we should have a shot of the playground if there is students playing at lunch or not. Me and Steven both believe that this would be an amazing shot because it would show the juxtaposition of the children from being in the classroom working to them playing at break or lunch and having fun which would give off the emotion off happiness. 

Main School

Me and Steven thought that having a shot of the main school would be able to establish the area of the school so that they viewers would gain a better understanding of the school and everything around it.

Sports Hall

We both had the same idea that we could have a shot of the sports hall to show what P.E lessons are like and how children still enjoy playing sport. I believe that this would be good because recently there is a big debate about children in school not wanting to play sport (P.E) in school and this would show that they still do.

Sports Field

We believe that we would want a shot of the children play sport such as football and show how much they enjoy it. I believe that this shot would be good because it would show the viewer how happy they are at school and how that these student could be the next generation of sports stars.

Main School Building

We would want to have a shot of the main school building because we would want to show the children going down to their P.E lesson and with smiles on there faces.

School Corridor

We believed that this would be a good shot to have because it would show the other side of teachers as this is the corridor where the staff room is and could show what staff and students do in the corridors.

View of the Reception

We would want to have a shot of this because it would show the entrance to the school and how welcoming the school is. 

Another shot of the Reception

We thought that we would have another shot of the reception sot hat we can establish the setting that the school is in.

Copeswood Building

Me and Steven thought we should have a shot of this building because it is the other part of the main school. We thought that we should show the whole of the school so the viewer would get a better understanding of the whole school

Main School Entrance

Me and Steven thought that this should be the shot open the documentary because it should the sign of the school and a part of the main school building. We believe that this shot is an very good to have because it would make the audience think that they are invited to watch and see what school life is like now.

Bitterne Park Sixth Form

We believed that this would be a good shot because it shows the Sixth form at the school and the college students that go there. I believe this would be a good shot because they audience would know how good this school is if they have a Sixth Form as well.

Main School Corridor

Me and Steven both believe that this would be a really good place to film as it is one of the busy places in the school at lunch. I believe that we would get some amazing footage from filming this corridor as everything happens there.

The Main School Stairs

We thought that this may be a possible place where we could film because we could have the camera set up before lunch and then film when there is crowds of people going to lunch. I believe this may be a important shot because it could break up some of the footage we already have and give a audience a understanding of how busy the school gets.

Classroom Corridor

Me and Steven both thought that we should have a shot of the corridors when the children that go to the school start to head to lesson. I believe this would give a better understanding to the audience watching of how many children go to this school and how busy it gets.

Library Corridor

Me and Steven thought that could be a possible shot as shows the library and it is on the same corridor as the IT classrooms. I believe this won't be one of the first shots that we would pick but it is good to have some extra shots just in case.

Outside Lunch Area

We thought that this may be a good shot to have when the children of Bitterne Park School are getting their lunch. I believe this is the same as the Library Corridor shot as it may just be an extra shot we can use just in case.

View from Top Floor Of The Sixth Form

Me and Steven had the same idea that we should also show off the sixth form that they have at Bitterne Park School. I believe this would be good to have because it is different to the main school and could show the audiences that are parents what college is like and whether there children would end up going to it.

Teachers Office

This is going to be one of the main shot that we want to have within our documentary for interviews. I believe this is where we would have the interviews with the teachers about the school and the children that come to the school.

Playground Area 2

Me and Steven both thought that this could be a shot we could have for the documentary. I believe it would just be an extra shot we would have but it shows the main school off and the children could be playing table tennis and show that they are happy.

Personally, I believe that the teachers office, the main school entrance and the corridor shots are the best shots that we me and Steven will include within our documentary. I believe that me and Steven would have a high angle shot of the school corridors so that the audience can get a sense of depth and detail.  

Summary

From me and Steven going out around the school and taking pictures of the area that we would like to film at, gives me a better understanding of what we want the final documentary to look like and giving us more ideas that we could us within the documentary.

The next step for me and Steven would be to plan the rest of the documentary out before 18th December so that after the holidays we can come back and start to film.

Planning the Ancillary Task

Planning the Ancillary Task

Me and Steven have been deciding the ancillary tasks that we will be wanting to do for our documentary. We have 3 options that we could do and they are;

• Magazine advert for the documentary  
• Double page spread for the documentary  
• Radio advert to advertise the documentary.

From these options that me and Steven have to chose from, he have both decided that the best ancillary tasks would be; creating an magazine advert to advertise the documentary and create a double page spread for the documentary. Me and Steven have decided to assign 1 of these to each other so, I have the double page spread to make for the documentary and Steven would be doing the magazine advert. However, me and Steven would want to help the other one out if they are stuck and give them some ideas which they could use in the final design of both of the ancillary tasks.

Double Page Spread

I have decided along with Steven that I would be making the double page spread for the documentary that we are creating. During the planning of this, I will be looking at the life matrix groups that me and Steven would want to be targeting for our documentary.

This is the life matrix group that me and Steven would be targeting.

• Renaissance Women: Active, caring, affluent, influential mums
• Tribe Wired - Digital, free-spirited and creative
• Struggled Singles - People with high aspirations and a low economic status

We believe that we are targeting them because they are mothers of children that may go to school so, they may want to know what schools are like now. But to target this groups, we will need to look at the results that we have got back from our demographic questionnaire which we are targeting 'C1C2D' demographic but we may even have to create another questionnaire about what our audience would like to see within our double page spread and magazine advert.

Me and Steven have made two mind maps for the two ancillary tasks of what we could include on them and this is what we got.

Double Page Spread

 Magazine Advert

I would want the double page spread to look neat and professional, but also eye catching at the same time so it can get more people to look at it and then want to watch our documentary. I would want to have one main image in the middle of the page but also overlaying a bit of the left page as this is an convention of a magazine. I believe that this would be effective because for the audience viewing the double page spread they would see the main image first which may interest them to read more about it and having the smaller images breaking up the text, it would make the double page spread look more interesting and would may want them to read on.

On the double page spread I would also want to have a big bold title so that people would know what it was about and it may want them to read more about it. I could use DaFont to look for a text that would suit the double page spread and meet the conventions of an typical double page spread title. I would want the colour scheme of the double page spread to be the plain black and white (Black Text and White Background) that way it would look professional and people may find it interesting and want to read more. Within the article, I would want to add in some information about what this documentary is about and in a way that may persuade parents to watch it to see what school is like. I would also talk about the school (Bitterne Park) and how we will be looking inside one of the best schools within Hampshire.

What I would want to be able to do is to make the audience have an connection to the children, teachers or the memories when they was back at school. I would use the theory 'Uses and Gratifications' to make the audience have an connection with the people that me and Steven would have within our documentary. Personal Identity is when the viewer would compare their lifestyle or experiences within there life to the people within the documentary and try and create a wide range of feelings which we would want them to have a preferred response (Stuart Hall's Theory) of happiness. I believe trying to do this with the main image would be important because it would make the viewer that see's the image remember their time at school and want to see how it has changed over time or they may have children and they would want to see how schools are behind the scenes.

Summary
From doing the planning of what me and Steven would want on the double page spread and the magazine advert, we have listed some ideas that we would like to see in both ancillary tasks and how we believe it would be effective for us to use. Also from doing this me and Steven have gained a better understanding of what we would want the ancillary tasks look like and we have tried to get an understanding of what the audience would think about when they see our ancillary tasks. We would want the audience to have preferred response (Stuart Hall's Theory) with the emotions that we are trying to create which we believe would be happiness and we would want the audience to remember the good times that they had at school so that they can start to relive the memories.

Next, me and Steven would want to start to design what we would put where and what images we should have on both the ancillary tasks such as, a picture of the school, a picture of the head teacher or some students during a lesson. Me and Steven aim to get the planning done before the 18th December so that we can come back after the holidays and get straight onto doing the practical and ancillary tasks.