Evaluation

Week One
Context- This week we had to begin to create three initial ideas, one of
which will be the idea for our final major project. My three ideas are all
centred on an LGBT friendly theme; I have a music video to the song small
town boy by Bronski beat, a short animation where the idea of sexuality
was explained with pens and pencils and the idea of creating a factual
programme in which I discuss what causes homosexuality to develop in
humans. After writing my ideas I presented them in a survey I sent out to my
class and on my personal social media.

The most popular idea amongst my target audience was the factual
programme in which I discuss the theories that surround the development
of homosexuality in humans. This will be a good example for my final major
project as I want to study broadcast journalism at university, this project will
show the research, planning and productive skills necessary for my degree.
Week Two
I now have the idea that was chosen by my target audience, I have
started researching into homosexuality and various other topics surrounding
it like; the history of homosexuality in the UK, I have researched into
published papers that detail theories that try to explain homosexuality and I
have analysed debates about homosexuality. All of this research will
improve the quality of my factual programme, by having the all the
relevant information behind me it will help in writing my script later. This
week I have also researched into my target audience and who I am
commissioning my work for. I have decided to commission my work for bbc
three as they take interest in factual programmes that have a personal
element to them as to draw on the pathos of the audience.

These are the guidelines set by BBC three. They already have their set
target audience of 16-25 so I will create my documentary for that
audience. This will be beneficial as I am in this target audience age range
so I will be able to create a production suited towards them. I conducted
target audience research to get an idea if my production would be
something my target audience would enjoy. In my survey I showed some
topics that I thought of covering in the factual programme, I then asked my
survey to pick what ideas they liked and disliked.
A majority of my ideas were well received. The most popular ideas were the
debating with people who disagree with homosexuality and the
investigation into three theories that try to suggest what happens to make a
person homosexual. So I know I will put a lot of focus on these two topics as
they are well liked by my audience. The two least favoured ideas were the
discussing whether or not homosexuality is a choice or not and going on
location to ask people on the street about homosexuality. I believe it is vital
to the unbiasedness approach I want to take that I discuss the possibility of
homosexuality being a choice, even if I or my audience disagree. I will not
put a lot of focus on this topic as it wouldn’t be well received by my
audience. I am also not going to ask people on the street what they think
as my audience don’t want to see and I am already going to include a
topic they don’t want to see.

The third comment down was in reference to me choosing to talk about my

own experience in the documentary. BBC Three prefer factual programmes
that show a personal element the presenter has to the topic of the
programme, so that is why I decided to include it but after not getting
positive responses from my audience I will not have heavy focus on my
experiences.
Week Three
This week I have continued research into homosexuality and the various
sprouting topics that are required for my documentary. I have also began
to research in the conventions of a documentary and how I can apply
them to mine. I have first researched into the differing styles of
documentary making and asked my survey to decide which style they
thought would most benefit my production.
Here I have presented six different styles and asked my survey to decided
which one they thought was more appropiate. 75% responed saying that
they thought a reflexive style was the best for my production. So I
researched more into the relfexice style of docuementary making, so I
have looked into louis theroux and his famous documentaries. I identifyed
tropes and conventions of reflexive documentaries, like a relexed
interviewing techniques where the interviewee feels more comfortable. A
deconstruction of traditional documentary formalities and incorperation of
tropes or techniques from other documentaries styles. Reflexive
documentaries are the most lax and flexible, it gives the presenter more
creatrive freedom to structure their documentaries how they see fit; which
is helpful for me as I can be more creative with it.
Week Four
This week I have continued my research into the topic of homosexuality
and the conventions of documentaries. I am falling behind on task, the
research I am doing has held me back from started to move on. In order to
write my script I need my topic research to be thorough and detailed,
which has kept me behind a bit. I have also wanted to finish up my target
audience and genre research, all of which have haltered me from writing
my script. I have begun to ask people to star in my documentary, I have
asked professors that major in evolutionary biology to speak on
homosexuality with me. I have also reached out to religious leaders and
heads of anti-lgbt organisations like Britain first or the national front.

I am struggling to get people, especially professors, to say yes to the

documentary, I feel like as I am not offering money for the appearance I
won’t get any. I don’t even get responses from the organisations like Britain
first or the local parish in my hometown. If I can’t get people to speak I will
simply have to cover those topics myself, It won’t have as big as an impact
on my audience but I need to include these ideas as they are vital to my
production.

Two of my survey responders said that finding people who don’t agree with
sexuality would prove to be difficult and it has been. I will continue to
source and ask people but I am prepared if it gets to filming and I don’t
have anyone.
Week Five
This week I have begun to finish the research on my topic, genre and
audience and this has let me start the basic outline of my script. I started
thinking first about how I was going to structure my documentary. I want to
open my documentary with a brief history of homosexuality in the Uk, this is
so I can give my audience a little bit of context for those who didn’t know
that homosexuals were persecuted for a majority of history. Then I will
discuss three theories that some people believe is the cause for
homosexuality and then I will finish with a conclusion on what I think.
Throughout the documentary I plan to break up the main narrative of the
programme with interviews that I will conduct with gay men of varying age.
The two young gay men I know personally and they agreed to speak in it,
and the older two gay men I work with and they have agreed to speak
also. I have also started to create the preproduction booklet for my
documentary.
Week Six
In this week I have finished my research regarding the topic, target
audience and genre. After I had finished the topic research I could finish
my script. My script required I had all the topic research done as it is very
factual based and needs to be proof read and fact checked. An issue I
am having with script writing is that I am over writing, I over explain far too
much and my script is excessively long. So I am having to continue to re-go-
over my script to condense the information I am presenting, it’s difficult to
find the balance between oversimplifying and over-explaining the
information. This is the most time consuming part of the preproduction
process, and I am finding myself falling behind on other parts of planning.
For example, I still haven’t found any people to speak against
homosexuality for my documentary. I was prepared for this possibility as my
survey already pointed out that I might struggle to find people.
Week Seven
This week as I have finished all my research necessary for my documentary,
and continued to create preproduction planning. I have researched into
locations that I can utilise for my interviews, I want the places to emulate
the interviewee and be visually interesting. As the majority of the people I
am interviewing go to the Henley college I believe it would be best to
interview them in various places around the college. So one the
interviewees is a drama a-level student, so I believe it would be best to
interview him in the drama studio. I still have not found any professors to
speak on homosexuality or any anti-lgbt believers to debate their beliefs
with me. I am prepared to discuss these views by myself in the programme
but I do not believe that It will have the same impact on my audience.
Week Eight
This week I have focused on finishing up my planning for my production
and I have been creating my pitch presentation. For my planning I had to
source who I was going to interview and scout locations for the interviews. It
was important for the locations of the face to face interviews to reflect the
interviewee, be visually engaging the audience but not distracting. I don’t
want my interviews to be static and mundane, my target audience of 16-24
has be visually engaged to keep their attention on the subject matter. The
locations need to have a good opportunity for me to film b-roll, as this is
another technique I can use to not make my interviews boring to my
audience. The interviews were the most disfavoured idea from my
production, so it is important that they are not drawn out or too mundane.
In the latter half of the week I have focused on creating my pitch
presentation, I will have to present my ideas to my class. In my pitch
presentation I have had to condense my context, research and planning
into a presentation that lasted between 7-12 minutes. It is important I know
my own work as I have to promote my idea to the class like I was trying to
get them to invest or watch my production. I wrote a script in full then went
along and condensed it into bullet points as I will be judged on how well I
show my idea to an audience so I can’t stand there and read off the
paper the whole time.
Week Nine
I presented my pitch to my teacher Adam, the pitch went well I thought
and I got positive feedback on it from him. I had condensed what I wanted
to say into little bullet points that I was able to jump off, this way of
constructing my script was helpful as I wasn’t just standing there reading off
a page. This week I was due to start filming but I haven’t been able to as I
have to go back through my research and add more to it and show clearly
my sources on my bibliography. I still haven’t found any religious officials to
speak to me about homosexuality and religion, I have even reached out to
Islamic and Jewish places of worship to discuss but they are not responsive.
I have also not had any response from anti-lgbt groups like national front or
Britain first. Time keeping and sourcing people of opposing views have
proven to be my biggest issues during my final major project. I have done
my best to keep to my production schedule but I have not kept up with my
work load and fallen behind. This will now cut into time I am supposed to be
filming in so I will have to work longer hours to make sure I catch up with the
work load.
Week Ten
Over the half term I went over my research and add and updated it to suit
my feedback given by my teachers. This has benefitted me as I then been
able to change small details to my script to make sure it the most factually
accurate it can be. I have had issues with my interviews as the three of the
men I was meant to interview have cancelled on me last minute. I have
managed to film one interview with a gay man to get his perspective. I
have also managed to film the majority of the spoken word parts that
involve me. Not finishing the planning and research on time has definitely
effected my filming process and I am concerned I am not creating the best
production I could, I am spending more time trying to reorganise the
interviews I have lost.
Week Eleven
This week I managed to film an extra two interviews with students from my
class who are LGBT, is this very beneficial as I have more footage of a very
important segment in my production. These parts are vital to the emotional
value of my production as it’s these parts where I speak to real LGBT people
and get their unfiltered opinion. I have now started to sequence my clips
together for a basic edit of my production, I am happy with the lighting
and sound of my spoken part but am not happy with the interviews sound.
There are loud background noises and it’s difficult to hear them, I would
rather include a bad interview than no interview at all. If I had better stuck
to my production schedule I wouldn’t be hastily trying to piece my
production together as I would’ve had more time to fix cancellations.
Week Twelve
During the editing my factual programme I neglected to find out that my
camera had cut out at twenty minutes and had lost the last few minutes of
my speaking part. This was very easy to re-film as the studio was free and
my set up was very simple and easy to replicate. I have managed to
sequence my whole production with interviews.
Week Thirteen