My Design Process

 During my A levels for my media A2 coursework, I produced a short film documentary genre. I did a lot of research analysing other short film documentaries. I found the BBC channel useful for this. I studied documentaries such as Eel Girl. I also studied sequences from feature films such as Mr and Mrs Smith, Parent Trap to get an idea of lighting, mise-en-scene etc. With the production of my short film I also had to design a poster. And so I also studied and analysed other documentary posters to gather information and ideas eg, The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane. In order to film at The Public I had to produce a Location Recce to confirm it was suitable to film at The Public.

Here are two shots of the exterior and interior of the building:

I decided to film in The Public in West Bromwich. This gave me an insight into design in which a lot of research and planning was needed. In order to design my film I needed to produce a storyboard. I have uploaded my storyboard onto blogger:

I found the storyboard vital in that I could lay out my ideas and so I could get a clear idea what my film was going to include. I could therefore plan, virtualise and produce a narrative.

In order to develop my ideas I wrote three different treatments. This was to include, outline of ideas, resource list, strengths, weaknesses and a conclusion. I also got ten people to fill out a questionnaire in what kind of films they find entertaining and interesting to watch. This helped me choose what to put into my film. For example, asking if it would be ideal to have one presenter throughout the film, what people find boring about documentaries etc.

Even though my film was only five minutes long in total, I recorded over 90 minutes of footage so that it gave me the opportunity to choose what was going to be the final product. I had three drafts in total and used Final Cut to produce the film. I learnt so much from this project not just design but underlying  theoretical significant information in filming.  Learning how to use a camera, using professional software such as final cut was a challenge however a useful introduction to studying multimedia as a degree. I have taken my a level in media as background knowledge into what is essential to know as a multimedia 
student.