1. Review of documentary
Our class was asked to make a documentary based on the Lewis chessmen; we were
split into groups of 3-4 peers. We were then given different options on what we
wanted to talk about with the Lewis chessmen; such as the background or the
historical context of it.
We had help from the chocolate films, who were experts in making documentaries,
and British museum. Chocolate films gave us tips with the editing and how to get
useful footage. We spent over 4-6 hours making the documentary, we had to upload
all the shots into the mac; then we had to choose which footage we needed for our
documentary, we couldn’t use all the footage because some of it wasn’t related to
what our documentary was about. The documentary was about the origins of the
Lewis chess pieces: where the chess pieces were found, how they were made, how
old the chess pieces are
The documentary had to be at least 2-3minutes long. Firstly we started planning how
our documentary would look like and what camera shots and conventions we would
use in the documentary: close ups, long shots, panning shots and many more,
conventions: title and page, visual coding, talking heads, rule of thirds and many
more. We then watched known documentaries and analysed them, then after
watching the documentaries wewrote what conventions, editing and what camera
shots they used.
The target audience for the documentary was 16+ because some teenagers like to
play chess;some are interested in learning about the background of chess and how it
started hundreds of years ago. This documentary was also targeted at tourists, 43%
of visitors that come to the British museum are aged 16-34. We wanted to make a
documentary that would explain in detailed to the people that didn’t know what the

2. Lewis chessmen pieces were, or if they did know what they were then what
happened to them, where they were discovered, who made/found them, how they
got to the British museum etc.
When we met with people from chocolate films at the British museum, we took notes
of what they said about making a good documentary; so that we could apply it to our
documentary to make our documentary more professional.
To make a documentary we needed to collect information about the chessmen
pieces; how old the chess pieces were, where they were found etc. We focussed on
documentary conventions such as voice-overs, archival footage, title and texts
etc.We looked at the background of the museum and who discovered it. We learnt
many new things during this experience.
The research and planning could have improved if I found out more information
about the British museum and the Lewis Chessmen Pieces so I could have more
knowledge on the archival objects I was doing a documentary on. It would also have
helped if I sorted out what each person in my group had to do, or help. This would of
made it more organised and easy to find out specific knowledge on the chesspieces.
In order to understand how to make a successful documentary we watched previous
documentaries that the talking objects collective project produced and we looked at
some documentaries on YouTube such as the Tupac Shakur's documentary about his
relationship with Biggie Smalls another rapper and how they lived their lives
together in other peoples perspectives such as their close friends, who knew them
and family members.
I learnt most of the conventions and picked out what Tupac’sdocumentaryhad; here
are some of the conventions the producers used in Tupac’s documentary: interviews,
titles and text, visual coding, a lot of archival footage,

3. I have learnt that in most documentaries the most common convention producers
use in the documentaries is archival footage, archival footage is when you use old
footagefrom,which is also known as stock footage,file footage is film or video
footage that can be used in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it
saves shooting new material.It is material obtained from a film library or archive and
inserted into a documentary to show historical events or to add detail without the
need for additional filming.
To make a documentary we had to do some primary research with the British
museum and some secondary research by ourselves, primary research consists of a
collection of original primary data, and secondary research consists of second hand
data which is someone else’s data. We watched many documentaries to get a good
view of what a documentary should comprise.
Making a short documentary we had to learn how to get a lot of information in a
short amount of time, making it entertainingfor the audience,we hadincluded most
conventions such as visual coding: links to the idea of mise-en-scene,(e.g. doctors
wearing white coat in a hospital will make it more realistic) montage: conveys ideas
visually by putting them in a specific order in the film, Talking heads is when the
camera catches the facial expression of an object/person.
Titles and text is used to quickly explain what you are looking at without
spendingtime guessing who the person is or what they are talking about, which
makes it very effective, but that’s another convention we didn’t use and in order to
improve our documentary we would need to position titles and texts in the
documentary.
Before we made our documentary, we made a storyboard showing the different
scenes and shots that where going to be used in our documentary also we wrote how
long each camera shot should be; the background music and voice over’s, it also

4. contained what the framework of the documentary. This is why we made the
drawing on the storyboard as accurate as our drawings could be, and tried to make it
as detailed as we could make it.
The strength and weaknesses of producing our footages was difficult at times.
Recording footage without effecting the cameras still position was tricky, at some
points of the interviews, because we didn’t have equipment’s for making the camera
stand in the same position without any movement. The strength would be taking
great shots of the chess pieces; the other groups also used the shots in their own
documentaries. We took some great close ups shots of the chess pieces carved faces
and getting all the facial details of most of the chess pieces, we also took some shots
of the museum; inside and outside, we showed where the chess pieces were in the
museum so when people watch the interview they would know where to look if they
wanted to check out the Lewis chessmen pieces.We also took shots of the museum
outside; we used panning shots for the beginning of the documentary.
The most important thing about making this documentary was the way our group
worked together as a team, everyone had their part in the documentary, and we all
did excellent individually and as a team. To improve the documentary; We could of
spent more time editing the documentary as we spent more time taking good shots
of the chess pieces. we didn’t edited as much as we would of liked to because of the
time limit we had on editing the documentary, but overall the documentary went
better than we thought and we were very pleased with the finishing result.
My favourite shots that worked great in the documentary werethe panning shots we
used during some parts of the documentary. My least favourite thing about the
documentary was the lighting whilst filming the lighting wasn’t as clear as we
wanted. Some parts of the documentary were darker which made the documentary
look dull; we had the fix it by editing it on the mac’s we used.

5. After we finished the documentary we went to the museum to watch the
documentaries the groups made. We got so much positive feedback from the
audience in the museum: teachers, chocolate films people and the other groups. We
got feedback from teachers saying“how entertaining satisfying it was” and how we
made it look like an actual documentary for us first timers at making
documentaries“made it look like a real documentary”. The editing skills we learnt
from our teachers and the chocolate films helped a lot; now we can make our own
documentaries without any help this time.
Overall we managed to instruct people who didn’t know about Lewis chessmen, in a
very interesting and entertaining way.
Look and feel of the documentary
The editing