FMP contextual research

1. CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH
KIERAN BEAL

2. SCRIPT
According to the official website of the New York film academy the best way to write a script for
a documentary is to wait until all research and interviews have been concluded, and then work
backwards. In fact according to their website there multiple steps to take to create a successful
documentary, which I will be taking following for additional guidance as these steps were
written by people who currently specialise in film and do so professionally.
Instead I will be writing a rough draft of the script that I will be needing to conduct the
interviews, in order to finalise the script to introduce the narration to the film. The reasoning
behind this is that I cannot control what the interviewees are going to say, and they may
change the direction of the documentary that the script was originally pointing towards,
therefore it's better to wait to record what they say, then build the rest of the script around
that.
I will do this by simply drafting the questions that I want to ask the interviewees, that way they
can still answer questions based upon the original script so that they don't deviate from the
point of the interview.

3. DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH
Overall I want to be able to include aspects in my work, from all of these popular directors. By
this I mean I will take on what David Attenborough does with all of his documentaries, provide
a narrative voiceover but write it in a way that is far more captivating for someone to listen
to. This is something that he is renowned for doing, creating a script in a way that describes
wildlife in a form of Shakespearean play. Michael Moore is a director who I don't want to take
much from, as I believe his style of documentaries are closer to preaching to the choir than
being objective, informative programmes that let you formulate your own opinion. However I
believe that gathering the opinions of everyday people is still a useful and crucial part of
constructing a documentary. While it shouldn't be the sole focus I believe it is something that
plays a huge role in giving the documentary a 'sole', for lack of a better word, to make it feel
more in touch with the every day crowd.
Finally I will use Adam Curtis's approach to film making in that he sticks to facts, I will very
much be gathering the opinions of people however for the most part I want to gather
information from professionals in psychology, respected scientific journals and displaying the
facts we currently know for certain. The issue with this is that the psychology of videogames
is an enormous subject, with more content than what I can cover in a 5 or 10 minute video.
Therefore my approach will be to have brief segments of each topic I deem most
interesting/important to cover and film them in an order so that they interconnect, making

4. PRODUCTION RESEARCH
After viewing the documentaries that I have, I want to use the style of filming reminiscent that of 'Supergamers'. The reason
behind this is because they're style of filming is much more close up and personal, the close up shots of the people and the
games they are playing perfectly illustrate what the film is about, the figuratively symbiotic relationship between the minds
of the people and what they are currently interacting with onscreen. This is an effect that I hope to re-create in my own
documentary, I also want to re-create the effect they made using sound, the subtle yet effective atmosphere set by the
hushed tones of the soundtrack set the mood for the film while not overpowering the narration, a mix that want to achieve
myself. In addition, this documentary used a lot of colour, especially in the parts where they were on the games, overall I
liked how in depth it went into the personal life of these people, that down to earth perspective is something that I believe
is very important when creating a documentary.
I also wish to use a production technique used by many documentary creators, this is to swap between a narrative overtone,
and a real person presenting on the show, many documentaries do this to both present the facts and have someone there
to interview the people onscreen. As opposed to just having them talking to the person off camera, this is a legitimate
production technique, however I would prefer my documentary to have that human element to it.
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I would also like to keep my film somewhat dark whenever possible, in terms of the lighting, I want to try and dim
this whenever I can. This is because the light from the screen will then shine into the person's face, that way no matter
what, your attention is always going to be centered on either the actors face, or the video game they are playing. I will
have to be careful in this regard though, as a low light level with the type of camera I use could have an impact on the
picture quality, therefore I will have to spend time learning how to shoot in manual mode. In addition to this I also want to
use a theme throughout the documentary, this theme would be reflections, I would do this by filming my presenter walking
by glass or puddles when heading towards interviews. If at all possible I would also like to do an extreme close up shot
of someone playing games to get a shot of their eyes, this way it is entirely possible I could see a reflection of the
game they are currently playing in their eyes, which is a symbolic way of showing how video games are something that
can reflect in them as people.
Interviews are going to be a large part of my documentary, and after watching the past documentaries they all have a very
similar style of interview. Some documentaries handle it differently, some prefer to have their interviewer on camera asking
questions, some prefer them asking questions off camera and others prefer the technique of not hearing the questions at

5. CREATOR INSPIRATION (DAVID
ATTENBOROUGH)A fairly obvious choice of inspiration however it comes as no surprise, David Attenborough's documentaries
are incredibly popular, in particular his 2 documentaries entitled 'Planet Earth' and 'Planet Earth 2'.
Commissioned by the BBC, Tencent, ZDF and France televisions, they were the most expensive
documentaries they have ever released. The reason David is able to make his documentaries so successful,
is because he is able to do something few other documentarists are able to do. He's able to make his work
appeal to a wider audience than what usual documentaries do, one way he does this is by making his
work incredibly cinematic. Using actual footage of hard to spot creatures and sometimes going as far to use
CGI to recreate scenes of nature realistically, and putting camera right into action, this signature camera
technique made the viewer feel like they were in the perspective of the animals themselves.
Not only this, where some documentaries focus on and explaining scientific data, a lot of people aren’t
going to understand what it means or much less care. Therefore David keeps his documentaries simple to
understand, and narrates his work in a way that is captivating to any audience, describing things as, to
quote him from his series Planet earth 2 "natural wildlife dramas unfolding around us". He does an excellent
job of not only creating these scenes on TV, but narrating over them in a poetic manor, for perspective
according to ratings published by the BBC, the first few episodes of Planet Earth 2, attracted more people in
the 16-34 age category than the Xfactor on ITV. However when asked why he thought the documentary
was doing so well, he responded by saying younger people are “reconnecting with a planet whose beauty is
blemished and whose health is failing”. “The visual signature of the series is that you feel like the camera is
with the animals. It’s very fluid, very active. For example, you might see this wonderful lemur leaping
through the forest. Normally when we’d film that, we’d be standing back observing it, but here the lemur
almost jumps over your shoulder and as it’s jumping over your shoulder, you’re with it - the camera is
running with it!” -Mike Gunton, producer for Planet Earth 2. In a recent interview with Skavlan,
David Attenborough discusses his career and his life, as well as his passion for why he does what he does he
said that from an early age he'd always been an environmentalist and ben concerned about the natural

6. MICHAEL MOORE
Michael Moore is one of the most successful documentarists, consistently releasing different
documentaries, with his most recent one 'Fahrenheit 11/9' released in 2018, he travels
America, interviewing American citizens what they think in terms of the current presidency. To
get a sense on the social, economic and political situation from the perspective of a typical US
citizen. Critics however have described it as subjective, some like the Wall street journal going
as far as to describe Moore as a 'propagandist', with that being said however, Wall street
journal itself is known for shaky news stories in the past, practicing yellow journalism.
Although some argue that despite this there is still a point to it, Common sense media
described it as "the movie, in its way, summons something ominous".
With this being said the documentary is certainly structured in the way a typical documentary
would, using primarily hand held camera techniques to follow Michael Moore around parts of
America. However with the people he interviews it's done in a very specific way that level
headed people aren't included very much, mainly including people with extreme opinions, this
certainly makes for more interesting TV. However this is supposed to be a documentary, not
entertainment, so while the film is structured like a documentary, it doesn't necessarily follow
the rules of one, so whether or not this can be classed as a proper documentary is up for
debate.
In a recent interview in a talk show with Stephen Colbert, Michael Moore talks about 11/9 and
reveals his very strong political views, and it's quite clear that he is very much against a Trump
presidency, and everything he believes the president is endorsing, in addition to this in an
interview with Bill Maher on Real time he openly criticizes people in the media who
ignored things the president said or did, primarily people with Fox news.

7. ADAM CURTIS
Adam Curtis is another documentary producer, however he is slightly more objective than Michael Moore. However he
doesn't just look at the issues being faced in America at the moment, in one of his most recent films called
'Hypernormalisation'. Donald Trump is one of those examples however it also targets topics such as Brexit and the war in
Syria. However a way in which Adam Curtis seems to differ in his work, is that he uses archival footage of the topics he
wants to talk about, which initially seems like a cheap move, however when you consider the topics he's covering, it
would likely be either too dangerous or too difficult to get original footage for what he was talking about. For instance it
would've been incredibly difficult to get an interview with either the US or Russian president, and capturing original footage
of the war in Syria would've not only been difficult and expensive but life threatening.
Listening to a podcast interview with Russel Brand, Adam Curtis reveals what the meaning behind his documentary
film hypernormalisation is, he describes it as confusing and tense situations but no one doing anything about it becoming
the norm, describing it as "impotence in the face of a chaotic world that we think those in charge have no control over, but
we accept it, but we do it because no one provides us with an alternative." In the documentary he tries to argue the point
that we no longer live in a society of old capitalism, and instead now live in a system of power that as he describes is
'Fundamentally managerial'. He believes that in order to make any real change happen in the world, you have to belong or
feel like you do, to a large group of people who believe the same way, which it has mostly been right wing groups who have
made impacts on the world, not necessarily good impacts but they were remembered for what they did, the idea of
individualism being able to change the world is false yet it being inextricably linked to the future. However he also believes
that we are so desensitised to change at this point due to our modern comforts that make life easier, have essentially
disarmed us as people, but that change can be too scary for some, so we turn a blind eye to it. He also points out how
online media such as Facebook, market to you strictly what you want to hear, isolating different groups of people to their
own knowledge, this creates an ignorant and isolating environment, that no one can share their opinions and have someone
beg to differ anymore because that person is shunned.
His approach to work is essentially the opposite to Michael Moore, instead of building his documentary on the opinions of
like minded individuals or otherwise, he likes to build what he does on a micro-scale. In contrast to this Adam Curtis builds
his work on the larger scale, often just sticking to objective facts and using the majority of opinions if anything, as well
collecting the opinions of experts who can provide a subjective opinion.