2. How helpful was the secondary research
Our secondary research was extremely important and useful to us, we did this research in preparation to
this documentary I and my group did a huge amount of secondary research finding out as much
possible knowledge of the death penalty that we could. We found an extremely useful website which
helped us out a whole bunch. It gave us some of the most interesting facts that we used when
conducting our documentary. Here are a few of the facts which I took from the website. At least 1 in 25
people sentenced to the death penalty in the U.S. are innocent. The Death penalty trials are 20 times
more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of life in prison without parole. The Death
Penalty is legal in 32 U.S. states. There were so much more facts with a total of 38 useful and interesting
facts about the death penalty. And then after I and my group noted down the most interesting facts
that we thought where the most relevant we then conducted 5 questions which we asked the students
of Leyton Six Form College.
3. How helpful and successful was the pre-
production
In addition to our secondary research our pre-production process was as equally important and useful to us.
Conduction our pre-production was like writing down a detailed timetable which we just had to simply
follow. We did a hazard equipment/risk assessment, this was so that we would be careful and not be in any
danger or having any of the camera equipment be in any sort of danger. We also wrote the script of our
documentary so we knew what to say and when to say in our film this made the dialogue much easier as we
did not have to think of what to say on the spot instead we could just simply read the script. We also planned
out the 5 most important and relevant facts that we could choose from out of the 38 facts, once we did that
we planned out the 5 questions which we would ask the students of Leyton Six Form College, so like the
script this was equally useful and successful because we knew what questions to ask and did not have to
make any up on the spot there was no improvising needed. It was all helpful and successful information to
note down and once we had done all of that we moved on to the most important part of the pre-production
which was the production schedule. This was extremely useful as we planned out what we would be doing at
each part of the day so we had planned out all the time that we needed for example at 13:50pm to 14:30pm
we could see that at that time we should be recording in Leyton Six Form with Thaddeus interviewing. It was
also successful as I and my group followed the production schedule very closely and fit everything in on the
day our recording was all done in the time provided thanks to the production schedule. And finally our last
part of the pre-production was the recce and the release forms. The recce helped us out by reminding us of
where we would be doing our recording as we took photographs of the location of where we would film so
this was also helpful and successful to us. And the release forms where also helpful and successful as without
them we would of not been able to conduct the film so they was massively useful.
4. How successful was your filming
Our filming was very successful in my opinion. This is mainly because of our production schedule which
helped us out a whole bunch with when and what time we should be recording and where we should
be. We got a whole lot of footage in our documentary, we knew that it was supposed to be on average
about 5 minutes so we made sure that we got plenty of footage. We did an intro with Onder
introducing the documentary then went straight into some interviews with the students of Leyton Six
Form. We asked a total of 6 people in our documentary so we got lots of different views and opinions
which was extremely useful to us. We then conducted an outro to our documentary with Fahim as the
host. The documentary then ender. We got many different camera shots such as medium shots, close
ups, panning and over the shoulder shots. We also added in a feature where we recorded Leyton Six
Form in the street and at the main gate where many students would walk up and down to their lessons.
We recorded this for 3 minutes each and then when editing we speed it up and put some facts on the
screen. This turned out extremely well. We also added the credits too. In addition to this we also added
a bloopers section after the film just to add a little bit of comedy elements.
5. Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
I think that our strengths was our excellent pre-production and planning, we did a very good job at this
making a good production schedule. This helped us out a whole lot with the timing and when we would
be recording.
Another one of our strengths was the amount of interviewers we got, altogether we had a total amount
of 6 interviews
In addition to this because of the amount of interviews we got this means we also got a whole bunch of
different opinions and views because each person had a different view
I and my group was also very good at the editing we did all in one day and completed the editing
Weaknesses
Our camera shots was quite shakier than other shots because of the fact that we did not use a tripod
We had some trouble with the sound as some scenes where more quiet than others
It was a very hot and sunny day and the lighting made other areas look dark for example in one scene
the lighting was coming through a door/window. And we made the mistake of doing the interview in
the corner which made us look dark.
6. Audience feedback
Positives
We was told that the concept of our film was good, strong and a very controversial subject to choose
out of the options that we had.
In addition to this we also got told that the audience like the changes of location because staying in
one place would have been boring.
The audience also added that it was good how we got a good mixture of opinions in our documentary.
They also liked that we had many different camera shots such as an over the shoulder shot, medium
shots, long shots, panning etc.
Negatives
The audience did not like that we had many transitions as they where very varied and there was many
of them it got a bit boring, they also looked a bit cheap.
Another negative which the audience picked out was that some parts of the audio where very low
compared to others.
The final negative piece of feedback which we received from the audience was the lighting, we had very
bad lighting in some scenes of the video.
7. What improvements could have been
made
There was many different improvements that I and my group could of made in our Death by law
documentary. Firstly the audio could have been improved dramatically, it was extremely low in certain
areas of the film and only the introduction was loud. And another improvement that could have been
made was the lighting. In certain scenes of the documentary the interviewer and interviewee looked
darker because the light was shining in a different angle. We could of also improved in using our
cameras better, some of our shots was shaky because we did not use a tripod so in the future we know
to use a tripod. In addition to this there was a scene with me (Thaddeus) interviewing someone and in
the scene you could see I was holding the script which had the questions on that I was asking to the
interviewee, this looked un professional, so in the future we must remember the lines or keep the
camera higher focusing on our faces such as a close up this way you would not see the piece of
paper/script that I was holding.
