Assignment Brief:

The assignment brief for this project was to create an 8-to-10 minute short film or documentary which celebrated the ideology of "community".  The Target Audience was 15 to 25 years of age and both the documentary and short film each had their own guidelines as per the Assignment Brief. 

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As I wanted to showcase "Community" in a factual, documentary-styled light, I adhered and adapted to the following principles:

• 6-8 pages of script that was formatted and script apropriatey.

• A minimum of two filmed interviews with professional contributors.

• Contextual and appropriate B-Roll.

• Considered and dynamic cinematography.

• Sound and Music Design via means such as Dialogue/Monologue, Music and SFX and so on.

• Also required was Behind-the-Scenes material, regardless of whatever format of Media Project you chose to produce.

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My Response:

As mentioned, I did a documentary on community as I wanted more practice in this field, and because (in my personal viewpoint) it best sited the idea of exploring what a community's is and how to celebrate it. After, is a Doc umentary not a form of medium that informs and educates its viewer?

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I had several ideas (all of which I weighed against feasibility) and finally chose Homelessness. The idea seemed as though it could make a compelling and thought-provoking documentary, raising awareness of a very brutal and harsh lifestyle.

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I chose to use a Presenter to make my documentary based on a type of factual media called Participatory Mode (whereby the filmmaker tries to interact with their audience). I also chose to focus on settings which looked run-down, neglected, and derelict - a representation of the harshness of homelessness and perhaps of the mentality and emotions involved with this lifestyle.

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Kit Used:

 

For filming the visuals, I used a:

• Cano 550D (I had planned on using a Canons EOS RP but al of these were booked out at the time of production).

• TH650 Libec Tripod because of its lightweight portability being more than ideal for filming on-set.

• An LED Lighting kit to ensure that my cinematography was correctly lit.

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For filming the audio, I used:

• A Boom Pole, XLR Cable, and a ZOOM H4N Pro DAR for the interview on the regeneration of Farnborough and Aldershot, Hampshire, UK

• A Lapel / Lavelier Mic for the interview with Carole King from Camberley's All-Night Cafe in Surrey - because the shoot was last-minute and this set of kit (alongside a camera and tripod) was highly manageable for a one-man filming shoot.

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Challenges:

Homelessness is a beak, brutalist lifestyle that is full of danger which placed an immediate danger to myself and my Production Team for the production of "Helping the Homeless". Exposure to various substances (some of them drugs, alcohol and most likely illegal or dangerous to human health), the harsh weather conditions (this project was filmed in February), and an increased vulnerability to danger are all part of homeless and thus effect me and anyone else filming the homeless. Furthermore, would you really want the embarrassment of having a camera pointed at you when you're homeless, knowing that you do not want the world to see you like this? It was a big issue which could have easily derailed "Helping the Homeless".

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Luckily, I thought of the idea of having someone else reenacting as a homeless person. Yes, perhaps this may not be an authentic look at homelessness but it did give me control over my Film Set, so that I could ensure that filming was as safe and professional as possible. Furthermore, it helped me to expand upon my usage of Visual Language, so that I hired enough props to make my actor look convincingly homeless, thus portraying a dark, thought-provoking, compelling and evocative tone through my Homelessness Documentary.

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Another large challenge I faced was with kit and personnel, as one of my crew member's family was unwell so they often had to cancel on shoots (sometime during the very lst minute up to the shoot). As they had some of the kit, I often had to adapt to relying on a Lapel Microphone instead of a Boom Mic (which I think produces better audio is it less likely to become Single-Channeled). One one occasion, I also secured an interview but had so little time to find cast, that I had to race off to my interviewee my own with just a camera, tripod, Lapel Mic and a small Digital Audio Recorder with a tight time schedule for an event later that evening. Unfortunately, some of these hasty changes did make some of my audio one-sided and despite rigorous editing, I could not fix this issue (which is a shame as great could have made the documentary my best work).

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Proudest Achievement:

My proudest achieving of "Helping the Homeless" was my denotations of Visual Language because of how it had been informed through rigorous, complex, insightful, detailed and highly extensive research that proved an incredible valuable asset to me when producing this Homelessness Documentary. Below are several areas which I feel I excelled at within my usage of this medium:​

• Settings - My documentary's focus on run-down, derelict, and neglected settings helped to accurately depict the compromising, unsafe, harsh and brutalist lifestyle of homelessness who do not have money for any shelter and are below the poverty threshold.

• Clothing - Again, I was able to use colloquial clothing to reflect the life of a homeless person who would not have enough finance for nice clothing.

• Props - The usage of props helped to accurately portray homelessness: the sleeping bag acting as a reminder that homeless people have no shelter and sleep from place to place with the imagery of bleacks and reds to show bleakness and brutality (a colourful, garish bag would have been at odds which the imagery I wanted to portray because of bright colours in Colour Psychology usually portraying happiness, excluding excetions such as the unconventionally white Stormtrooper suits in Star Wars).

• Research - Another area which I am proud of my documentary's Research and Idea Developments - which investigated various avenues of ideation so that I could fully examine the feasibility of each project idea.