This document summarizes the creative process and choices behind a documentary film. It describes: 1) The use of a family tree and personal interviews to tell a story meaningful to the filmmaker and their family. 2) How music, photographs, and quotes were selected and edited to complement different tones and emotions throughout the film. 3) Details on title sequences, credits, and a director's commentary were added to provide context and wrap up the film.

2. 0 mind maps
0
meetings/discussio
ns
0 research

4. Family Tree
I included a family tree to showcase
the number of people that this story
means a lot to.

5. Meetings
0 The fist initial meeting took place on the same day (29th April). I didn’t
want the interviewee to go through the prompt script too much because I
didn’t want the outcome of the video to look too rehearsed so we mostly
talked about what would happen on filming day.
0 Because they haven’t done this sort of thing before I had to explain things
such as not looking at the camera when talking but the person who is
asking the questions.
0 Because the documentary I'm making is a personal story to me I didn’t
feel the need to set up many interviews. Knowing the interviewee
personally it was easy to get in contact with them

6. Screening
0 The best way I can advertise my film is through the website I
made ‘Gibson Productions’
0 One of the ways my film is being advertised is by the public
class screenings at the Old Folk Hall.
0 For my documentary I set up a bunch of socials to advertise
my film. One of them being an Instagram account.

7. Instagram
0 The Instagram page was a
easy way of presenting the
documentary as well as
making the link to the
website that I made
available to the public.

8. Website
0 I wanted my website
to look as authentic
as a normal
film/documentary
sight. To help
achieve this, I
included reviews on
my film to give the
website more of a
realistic look.
0 I also wanted the website to have a similar
theme through out to have a nice look to it. I
decided to go with a grey, black and white
theme. I think this color scheme works quite
well and the written work is easy to read.
0 I also added a
comments section
where people who
have questions
about the
documentaries can
submit them.

9. Screening
0 As a class there has been a public screening set up for us to broadcast all
of our films in a public place. This public screening will be taking place on
the 24th of June at the Old Folks Hall.
0 College is also holding a screening on the 3rd of July where we can show
our films to the public yet again, but we can also show off our written
work. And what we did to get our final productions.

10. Directors Commentary

11. Directors Commentary
0 I wanted to start my film of with an opening title sequence that relates to some points in
the film. I decided to go with a clip of the sea because the sea and/or the beach are
mentioned thoroughly throughout. The name ‘The Blackwell Tale’ came from the middle
name of my great grandmother. The music I used in the title sequence was ‘Littl e
Moments’ By Adam Vitovsky, I chose this music to start off my film because I thought that
the music had a nice build up. I liked the ending part of the music so I edited together parts
of the music to get what is heard in the title sequence. The music I used for the starting
half of the interview. ‘November’ By BenSound. I chose this music because I thought that I
complimented the tone of the voice and what was being said. I added in a clip of where
Kirkcowan because when I’ve been talking about this location nobody seems to have heard
of it before hand. I included a variety of pictures throughout my project and for most of
them I edited a polaroid template over them. I decided to so this for a couple reasons; I
thought that the picture would stand out a lot better from the video. I decided to parallax a
few of the pictures so having the border was easier when it came to editing. I also thought
having the pictures represented as polaroid’s relate to the theme of my video.

12. 0 For my documentary I did have a prompt script but here however, I had the interviewee, or
my grandma improvise and elaborate what they were saying. You can tell in the facial
expressions they were making that they were remembering these stories and seeing those
colours. This is what I would hope the audience would be doing while watching. I wanted
to include a family photo here so that the audience could but a face to the children from
the stories. To do this I used a school photo that included some of the kids. In this part of
the documentary I changed the music. I used ‘Lovers’ By Fesliyan Studios. I did this to
reflect the mood of the story that’s being told. I wanted to have more of a sad sounding
audio to help the emotion of the story come across. The quote I included here was said by
a 6 year old, so I wanted the quote to stand out. I did this by expanding the run time of the
clip to have a black screen and the text was the only thing on the screen. The inspiration
for this came from the documentary a beautiful struggle. Where they would take key
words people said and had them appear on screen. Here I would describe the music as
sounding quite heroic. I think the build up of the music works really well with what’s being
discussed. I would say that this is one of the saddest points in my film. I decided to have no
edit of and photos because I wanted the audience to just listen to what’s being said and not
get distracted by any pictures. I used this polaroid picture here because I wanted to show
the audience the closeness of the people of involved in the documentary.

13. 0 The beach was mentioned here again which links back in with my title. I also think that it
relates to the majority of the stories that have been told because the beach plays quite a
big part in their lives. At this part of the documentary the interviewee starts crying I use
this to fade into my credits. It also shows how much the stories mean. For my credits music
I used a cover of ‘Mumford and Sons – Little Lion Man By Reece Williams’ I used this music
because I thought it was quite upbeat and a nice ending to my documentary. (Include
convo here) I also included all the photos from within my project I did this so that the
audience watching could see a photo and link it to one of the stories that was told. I
wanted to leave the audience thinking about their own family and the importance within
that.
0 After recording the audio for my documentary I added it to the final cut
of the doc. I also included any reference pictures to back up any of the
points that I made