Swales Racing - Documentary

Research

Types of documentary

Once I was given this assignment, I began doing research into the different types of documentaries. During the research process I learnt all the terms of different documentary. A dramatization documentary is a re-enactment of certain events as a documentary, an example of this is True Crime. 

Expository documentary has a narrator, narrating over footage, an example of this is Planet earth and The Blue planet. These documentaries are the most popular for audiences with expository documentary’s, often to do with the narrator David Attenborough. 

Observational is another style of documentary, with the crew not getting involved and just observing certain events (like a fly on the wall). 

The final style of documentary is participatory, this is where the filmmaker is included in the films narrative and directly interacts with the film’s subjects.

Often these terms can be used more than once in documentaries and example of this is Blue Planet as it is observational, observing the animals in the habitat and expository documentary as David Attenborough is narrating over.

Studying Documentaries

Documentaries often have mixed views among audiences as some might find them interesting, but others find them boring. To figure out what makes certain documentaries popular I began reviewing a few documentaries and compare them to see how they change. The first documentary that I researched and reviewed was “Conor McGregor: Notorious”. This documentary is popular with audience’s and is proven with the audience rating on websites such as IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. The documentary has Conor McGregor as the central character. The conflict is the many fights and injuries he has along the way. The film has close up training scenes which show his weakness, he gets a knee injury during training. Which is also a mental conflict with himself. It doesn’t just follow his fighting career the story also follows his personal life with the relationship with his wife which he grew up with and stood by him on his road to becoming champion.

This documentary is an observational documentary observing Conor McGregor’s and his road into becoming UFC champion. This documentary is filmed over the course of four years and follows him claiming the benefits of wealth and becoming one of the greatest fighters of all time. It further shows his defeats and his comeback fights and how he stayed at the top.

This documentary is successful as it has a clear story arc, often with a three-act structure. This documentary has a clear three act structure as it shows the rise and fall of the protagonist. Act one follows Conor McGregor beginning his career and quitting his job to follow his dream into becoming UFC champion. It further shows him getting into the UFC and the end of act 1 is him beating Jose Aldo and shocking the world. Act two is often the conflict with the protagonist, Conor loses to Nate Diaz and the documentary shows his metal state and he challenges him to a rematch. For act three it is Conor redemption to reclaim his title in the UFC. It shows his training and the documentary finishes with him beating Nate Diaz and reclaiming his title and becoming UFC champion once again. Having a clear three at structure makes the documentary interesting for the audience as it shows the rise and downfall of his career, and how he came back and fought against the conflict.

As the audience this documentary made me feel like I could accomplish anything. As it is an inspirational and motivational story, from a young Irish boy who started off with nothing and worked so in the end he had everything. This is something that I want the audience to feel like they learned or gained something after they watch my documentary.

When studying this documentary, I learnt that often with documentary’s that follow a central character (protagonists), often the protagonist needs some sort of conflict or challenge as it makes it more interesting to watch. This is emphasised within this documentary as it shows Conor’s inner conflict with his knee injury and his self-doubt. But also shows the external conflict within his fights and losing against Nate Diaz. So, when looking for an idea for my documentary I want to look at an idea that has conflict within the persons story as it makes it more interesting for the audience. Often the central character for the documentary needs to go on a journey, as in this documentary is his journey in becoming a champion. Furthermore, when looking for a subject for my documentary I will look for a three-act structure as I believe having this will help keep the audience engaged and drive my documentary.

Pre-Production Process

Finding an idea:

My favourite type of documentary's are often sports documentary, this is often be to do with the impact these documentaries have on people as it often makes audiences feel motivated and moved by the person's story. This meant I wanted to do a sport documentary, my next step was finding a subject, team or person to make my documentary on. After discussing my documentary with family members I decided to make my documentary on my dad and his Speedway career. During the 1990's my dad was a big speedway rider and raced for the country's best teams. This always inspired me as a child, so I thought making a documentary to inspire my audience and make them take away something from the documentary. This is what I thought would be perfect for my documentary. 

Pitch and Proposal

The Proposal

Now I had an idea I began creating a pitch and proposal. I began creating a proposal with the proposal I discussed the main premise of my documentary, the target audience and the estimated timing of my documentary. I further discussed the unique selling point of my documentary along with a list of equipment and things I will need for my documentary. I further discussed my goal with the documentary and what I was planning on achieving and how I would achieve this. As we are in a global pandemic I included my contingency plan within my proposal, this is very important as I wanted to make it clear that I have a plan if we went into a national lockdown.

The Pitch

For the pitch I began looking at the inspiration behind the documentary and this is often to do with my love for sports documentary. I then explained my idea and further broke down my idea into a three act structure. When a documentary has a clear three act structure it often engages the audience and drives the story as it makes it interesting with the conflict that the main subject had to overcome. After this I showed the people who I would be interviewing, my target audience and the production requirements. 

Furthermore, I included a contingency plan within my  pitch as I felt like it was important to showcase what my plan was if something went wrong, like going into a national lockdown.

Primary Research

I began conducting research about Stuart's career and began discussing the major elements of his childhood that lead him to be a professional rider. I had a face to face meeting with Stuart and he discussed his childhood and career. This is very important as I needed to understand the whole story, so I was able to plan how I want the documentary to be structured.

Along with this meeting I discussed with Stuart my aims with this documentary, I did this by going through the proposal with him. This will allow him to understand what my aims are and if he has any suggestions for how he wants his story to be represented.

During the discussion with Stuart I really wanted him to be the narrator throughout and not have an external voice narrating his story to fill in the gaps. This was very important to me as I believed having someone other than Stuart narrating would not feel genuine and real to the audience. This meant structuring the interview with Stuart is very important.

Research from meeting:

From the research that I obtained from Stuart I began to Structure the documentary. This allowed me to pick the important events and cut out the less important information. The structure of the documentary also helps me show Stuart what are the important bits during the interview.

Finding Videos and Photos from Career

On the 28th February I began looking for old photos of Stuart as a child and within his career, I further looked old newspaper articles and magazines from his career. Having photos would allow the audience to get a visual representation of certain events with the photos. We both looked in the attic and found old new paper articles, magazines and photos. After this I began picking the best photos, magazines or articles that would be relevant with the documentary.

After going through all the photo's I began going through all the DVD's of the old races, I first went through them with Stuart and asked him to pick out the best from each club that he has raced for throughout his career. Stuart picked out 15 DVD's from different racing events that was relevant to the documentary. Once I had the DVD's I began going through each match and picked out the best races within each match. This took a long time however it was important that i picked the best races as it would make the documentary more entertaining for the viewer with races overlaid within the interview.

Furthermore, once I picked the best races I organised them by year when putting them into folders. Doing this allowed the editing process to be efficiently easier and quicker as when Stuart is going through the years in the interview I know what races are relevant to the year and club he is discussing.

Contacting Locations

The two main locations that I wanted to film at was Stuarts childhood home and Redcar Bears speedway ground. I first contacted Stuart's mother and discussed that we will only be filming outside and around the farm. As long as it was just me and Stuart in contact with each other it was fine for me to film (Stuart and I are within the same bubble).

The second location was Redcar Bears speedway ground, I called the promoter and he informed me that they were getting the ground ready for re-opening. We discussed and he informed me that if me and Stuart come early before the people come we would be able to film. This allowed us not be to in contact with anyone and keep everyone safe during filming.

Risk Assessments

Now I was ready to start shooting I wanted to film certain footage using different locations that were important to Stuart throughout his life and career, including his childhood home and the Redcar Bears speedway ground. Due to the national lockdown this made it extremely difficult for me to film at these locations. After doing research I was able to film according to government guidelines if I had the correct risk assessment and everyone follows all guidelines set by the government. From this I created a risk assessment allow everyone to be safe during the filming of my documentary.

Production Process

Sunday 28^th February 2021

This was my first shooting day and arguably the most important day as I needed to film the Stuarts interview and go on location to Stuart’s childhood home. As I had created a structure for the documentary, I first began going through the different topics to talk about with Stuart. This allowed Stuart to understand my plan for the documentary and allow us both to have the same goal. As I filmed this during the national lockdown, I had to film using my iPhone, this was fine however I did worry about the quality of sound and video during filming. Once we began filming, I wanted to get Stuart comfortable with the camera before filming, so I first began doing a few takes of him just talking with me about the career. Once I believed he was comfortable with the filming I we began the real interview. I wanted to go through his childhood and why he was passionate about speedway as a child. Then go through his career and the ups and downs. Once we went through his whole career, I wanted to ask a few questions to finish off the interview. 

Questions to finish the interview:

When you look back on your career do you regret anything?

Could you sum up your speedway journey? In a few words

How has your mental health been without speedway?

Asking these questions allowed the interview to be summed up nicely and make the audience relate and sympathise with Stuart as he lost something in his life that was really special to him since he was only a young child.

Once we finished the interview, we went to his childhood home to film him looking at where he used to race bikes and build bikes as a child to a young adult. I filmed here as I believed it added a lot to the documentary and allowed to be more interesting for the audience as it breaks it up from just a long interview. Overall filming went well as it was simple shots and before filming I discussed with Stuart what to mention, to allow it to cut well with the interview.

Thursday 4^th March 2021

On the 4^{th of} March I planned to record Martin Dixon’s interview, Martin Dixon is an essential part to Stuart’s speedway story as he was Stuart’s idol as a child and became his teammate and friend during Stuart’s career. My original plan was to record this interview over zoom or teams however I thought it wouldn’t feel right for the audience. As it would be unnatural to cut from one normal interview to a zoom interview. After doing some research, filming was still allowed to go ahead as long as we followed all Covid-19 regulations, set by the government. This meant that everybody would need a Covid-19 test before filming. This was also included within the risk assessment on this shooting day, as it is very important to keep everyone safe during the production, however if someone came back positive for Covid-19, my contingency plan was to just do a zoom interview. Luckily everyone came back negative and was able to film the interview. I wanted to only ask a few questions that would be relevant to the story. This would allow both interviews to cut well together as they would both mention certain occurrence’s that happened whilst racing together.

Saturday 6th March 2021

Before the national lockdown happened, I was planning on going to the Redcar Bears Speedway ground. I wanted to film with this location as I felt like it would make the documentary more interesting and make it clear to the audience where he used to race, during the years 2009 to 2010. Due to the national lockdown this location was difficult to film in. I got in contact with the promotor of the ground and as there are no races happening at the moment, we were able to go to the ground whilst they were getting the track ready. So, we filmed before anyone showed up and the promotor left the gate open for us and just me and Stuart where able to walk around the track and the stands without anyone around.

I spoke to Stuart and asked him to talk about the track and the most memorable races that he had whilst racing at this ground. One of his moments that he mentioned was when he was on Sky Sports, this was great as it would allow me to overlay footage from the night that he mentioned.

Post-Production Process

Editing

Often when making documentaries the edit is arguably the most important part of production. This is because the edit allows you to tell the story of documentary and how you interpreted the story. As often with documentaries the story can be interpreted in different ways but in the edit I will decide how this documentary will be represented.

When editing I first began by importing Stuarts interview, I then sorted the footage together in timeline order. Doing this allowed me to get the base of the documentary so I could work around Stuart telling his story. After this I imported the footage from visiting his childhood home, I cut out Stuart showing his shed that he worked on bikes. I cut this out as I felt it didn't drive the story and felt a bit irrelevant. Instead I only used him talking about the track he used to race around as a child. This was a good transition as in the interview he mentions him racing around the front filed then it cuts to him being at the front field of the farm. Having this allowed me to break up the documentary and split up his childhood and his career, and make it a more entertaining watch for the audience. I did this throughout the edit, when Stuart shows the awards he won throughout his career and finally going to Redcar Bear Speedway ground, where he raced in 2009 and 2010. Doing this within the edit allowed the documentary top be broken up and not just one long interview.

After this I went through the documentary and began overplaying the photo's and speedway videos over the interview. Doing this allowed the interview to be told visually by having photo's and videos to show his story. With this if there was certain bits in the interview that felt irrelevant I would cut it out whist the peak of the audio was lowest and merge both audios together using a Constant Power. To make the video not jump I would overlay the speedway races or photos over the video to make it look like there was no cuts and Stuart was just talking throughout.

I was unsure whether to include the Martin Dixon interview as without it the story ran perfectly, however when getting a second opinion I decided to add it in. I did this as it gives a different perspective to Stuart's speedway career and as he was an important part within Stuart's career I believed it was important to include it. 

Once I had this I believed at the beginning of the documentary I needed some sort of intro representing who Stuart is and what this documentary is about. I wanted to create a montage of Stuarts races to show the audience what and who this documentary is about. I first began by finding some non-copyright audio, this audio felt right as it was music that built up. Along with this in Adobe Audition I overload sound effects from crowds chanting and commentary from a few of Stuart's races. Having this added to the audio as it made it more personal to the documentary and made it more entertaining for the viewer. Once I had the audio I added in all the title cards and the montage from the best moments and best crashes throughout the footage that I downloaded. This intro added so much to my documentary as it makes it clear what you are expecting from the documentary in the first minute.

Once watching back the documentary I believed something was missing as certain emotional events didn't have the same effect as I hoped. I decided to add in subtle acoustic background tracks, having an emotional background music made the interview so much more emotional for the documentary and it was able to connect with audiences. Along with this I added happy background music for the uplifting moments in the documentary. Having this non-copyright background sound allowed the documentary to flow better and allowed the audience to connect with the emotion of Stuart in the different events throughout.

Evaluation of Documentary

Our assignment was to create a short documentary on a topic of our choice. Doing research and speaking to friends and family further allowed me to have a subject for my documentary. From this project and other projects, it has further emphasised how important research is, especially with documentary's. This is because when creating a project, you need to research and know your target audience. Knowing your target audience allows you to understand what type of documentary I will create.

During the pre-production the biggest part in my opinion was research as I needed to understand the Stuart's career and his story so I could represent it right. Pre-production overall went well as I structured the research that I obtained to make a three act structure and allow the documentary to run smoothly. Finally, when filming on location I had a risk assessment this allowed everyone to be safe on set.

Throughout the production process the main struggle was filming during the third national lockdown. This was a massive issue as I was unable to film with professional equipment. I overcame this issue by filming using my iPhone and tripod, I would watch every single footage back once shot, this allowed me to know if the audio was bad or if something went wrong. Along with this I was unable to film on location however doing the correct risk assessment allowed me to go and film on location along as it was clear that I would follow the correct precautions to keep everyone safe from COVID-19. This taught me a lot about problem solving and how important risk assessment's with filming.

During the editing process I wanted the documentary to look professional and look like it was made to a very high standard. I further wanted the audience to connect to Stuart's story so during the edit adding in background music allowed the interviews to feel more emotional. From editing I learnt that especially with documentary's the edit is arguably the most important part of production. This is because the edit allows you to tell the story of documentary and how you interpreted the story. As often with documentaries the story can be interpreted in different ways but in the edit I decided how this documentary will be represented, the way I did it the documentary is about following your dreams and mental health if something goes wrong with that dream.

In comparison to other sports documentary's like the ones that I studied , my documentary  has similar traits with these documentary's such as the structure. As often sport documentary's follow them during events as a observational documentary, however I couldn't do this. Instead I had Stuart explaining his story and visiting certain locations with Stuart that were important within the story.

If COVID-19 wasn't around I was going to get shots of Stuart at a speedway match, however considering we were in a national lockdown my contingency planning allowed me to film in locations to make the documentary more interesting and entertaining.

Overall, I think my documentary was very successful as it was an inter4esting watch and had a strong message that the audience could think about. Throughout this project I learnt how important problem risk assessments are and contingency planning as going into a national lockdown effected my plans but I was able to continue filming due to my contingency planning.

Documentary - Swales Racing