This document provides context for a student's contextual research project surrounding Grayson Perry and his early life and work. The student looked at background information on Perry through quotes, reviews, and articles. Images of favorite works were included for inspiration. A mind map was used to brainstorm ideas, with transvestism and Thatcher's Britain recurring themes. The student found clips from a Perry documentary discussing gender and identity helpful. A meeting was held to narrow the project focus, deciding to use Claire as a Soldier as a focal piece and link it to themes of masculinity in the 1980s. Research was refocused on how Claire might be different 40 years later. Tutorials on documentary filming techniques were reviewed

1. Contextual Research

2. Week One Contextual Research
Here you can see I have looked at some
brief background information surrounding
Grayson Perry and his pre therapy years. I
collected quotes stated by Perry himself,
as well as some comments from art
reviewers and from articles. I also found it
important to add images throughout of
some of my favourite pieces to be shown
in the exhibition, so that I am constantly
referring to them for inspiration for my
FMP.
I did some general idea generation by
using a mind map, which I find is the
easiest way to brain storm, and found that
I kept coming back to the idea of
transvestism and Thatcher's Britain a lot. I
also found that a lot of topics such as
masculinity, mental health etc all can link
together to create a bigger idea which
shall be my project.
I enjoyed watching clips from one of Perry’s
documentaries called Born Risky, in which he
discusses the idea of gender and peoples
experiences in life being transgender or a
transvestite, and it is a topic that I find really
interesting.The videos were really helpful as it
gave insight into their lives and also helped to
inspire my ideas.
https://youtu.be/EhisNnSgabo

3. Meeting 1
Today we had our first meeting with SarahYates from theYork Art Gallery where the Grayson Perry exhibition will be
held, and we discussed our plans. I stated the issues that I wanted to talk about, masculinity,Thatcherism ect, and we
decided to narrow down my ideas a bit, as I had lots to talk about, which was good because it means I have many
options.
We discussed how I liked the artefact Claire as a Soldier most, and spoke about how we can involve that piece directly
into my project, and we also linked that to Grayson's Orange sketch book which discusses masculinity and femininity
from the 80’s.
Now that I have spoken to Sarah, the concept of the project is much more concreate, and I am planning on using Claire
as an example and subject, and comparing how different Claire's outfits, the way she presents herself, would be
different in 2020, 4o years on from the initial works and sketch books.
Because of this, I have had to change the direction of my research slightly, looking less at films as examples of storylines
and approaches, and looking more at how they reflected the time period, which we thought would be a good thing to
discus.
I am going to focus now in my research, on the struggles that Claire might face in todays work, in the past it may have
not been able to fight in the army, having a tough time breaking into the industry, so I will explore what challenges
modern women face today.

4. WeekTwo Research
Here I did some quite in depth analysis into the first
highly masculine world Billy lives in, and I loved looking
at how the director used costume and the clothes to
create meaning and representation, and seeing how it
changed over time.This will be particularly helpful for
my project, as when it comes to my visual aspect, I will
be relying on images and things such as costume and
colour to create symbolism and representations.
Specifically here you can see that he is wearing a white
vest, ballet world, and black shorts, masculine mining
community. He is neither in or out of both of them but
feels a draw to both of them.
I also began looking into Jackie,
Billy’s father, and how he is the
typical macho traditional and proud
working class miner, and how he
changes over the course of the film.
We see these changes represented in
his clothes, and also begin to see
how the metal fence represents the
“glass ceiling” of manhood and
masculinity. It will be interesting to
look further at his character arc
throughout the film.
https://youtu.be/BWn
PtXcVAtQ

5. WeekThree Research Part 2
Looking at tutorials is already very helpful, and in my previous projects I have
neglected looking at techniques and how to shoot, which has meant my project
has ended up at a lower quality that I wanted. In this video by Jesse Cervantes, I
have already seen ways and examples of new shots that I can use in a
documentary, learned how important B-Roll is, which is the correct term for
what I have previously been calling “filler shots”, learnt about the rule of thirds,
and found some places to get copyright free music!
https://youtu.be/NJ8rEbVO0pw

6. Vlog Links
• Week 4- https://youtu.be/vq4ZoYwSciA
• Week 5- https://youtu.be/ICh7kvh8Hq0
• Week 6- https://youtu.be/Uj8c7CSzsx4

7. Filming Day 1- ‘Madeleine’ Knaresborough Castle
Today I had my first shoot day, shooting in Knaresborough Castle for ‘Madeleine’s’ Segment of my poetic doc. It
was overall a successful shooting day, spending most of the afternoon shooting, and looking back on the footage
I have, it looks really great and high quality.
Through my research I found that it’s best to shoot B-Roll in a higher frame rate, and because I was shooting on
my iPhone, I could do this by using the ‘slow motion’ feature built into the camera. Looking further into the
camera settings on the phone to see if I could change the frame rate manually, I discovered 2 different settings
regarding the ‘slow motion’ feature, and 6 different settings regarding the normal video camera quality.This was
a great find as it meant I could control more of the shooting in a similar way I would if I was using a real Canon
from college. Initially the setting for the video was on 1080pHD at 30FPS, and naturally I increased the frame rate
to the highest to get that smoother overall look. However after doing some quick experiments I found that 4k at
30FPS looked the best quality and the best smoothness for what I wanted, 60fps looking slightly too smooth.
Making these changes in the camera settings really helped whilst shooting, and made my footage look a lot
softer and the subjects less sharp.
As I found in my research, shooting later on in the day when the sun isn’t at its height is much better for reducing
harsh light, so I went and began filming around 15:30pm, leaving me around 2 hours till the sun went down.
Sadly the day I chose to film on was quite cloudy, and I did look at shooting later on in the week, however the
forecast is much worse. Sadly I wasn.t able to get the beautiful sky and footage of cloud formations that I
wanted, however the cloud cover did help add a softness over the subjects that I wouldn’t have got if it was clear.
Overall, I am happy with how this shoot day went, and I got almost all my footage for the MADELEINE segment,
meaning I will have to go back on a later date to pick up some final shots and some more B-Roll, but as things
begin to open up, it is becoming easier and easier to film and travel.

8. Post-Production Day 1- Assembly
Today I began assembling my final piece. Although I completed a shoot day for the Madeleine segment, I have come to find
that I need to shoot more B-Roll before I can really start linking the shots together, so today I have been focusing on the
introduction. In the introduction we are introduced to Claire through the pieceClaire as a Soldier, zooming in and panning
over different segments of the image. In pre-covid times, I would have liked to actually record the real piece in person,
catching the light on the ceramic, however this was unable to happen due to covid restrictions as well as the piece being in
storage. Instead I have been able to source a high resolution of Claire from the gallery, and instead I have used the effects
controls on premier to highlight different parts of the piece.
To do this, I zoomed in on different sections of the piece, firstly her clothing and her body, moving to reveal more and more
of her till we see her whole face in full at the end of the sequence.This was easy enough to do, as I had experimented with
this on my factual project, and although it isn’t 100% how I want it, works well enough. In the future if I have time I may go
into after effects and see if I can add more dimension to the image and make it seem more 3D like it would have been if I
could have filmed it.
After getting the clips how I wanted, I decided to experiment with the transitions on premier, as I felt without transitions, it
didn't’t look as clean and move softly (shown in the first video). After adding the ‘DIP-TO-BLACK’ video transition between
each of the clips, the sequence looks a lot less jarring than it would have.
I also added an extra transition at the end ‘DIP-TO-WHITE’ which will act as a transition back in time to the beginning of
Emma’s segment.
As well as beginning assembling the introduction, I have also begun assembling Madeleine’s segment, however as stated, it is
quite difficult to do that completely, as I need to collect more B-Roll.The footage that I have got however looks quite good and
can fit anywhere within the piece, so once I have my B-Roll I can complete this segment.
In the piece I have added a music track over the top, however this is just there as a placeholder at the moment, and I will replace
it with my commissioned music further on in the project.The music is royalty free and is similar in tone to what I want, however
once I get my real music I may have to make a few tweaks to the footage to make them both cohesive.

9. Post Production Day 1- Colour Grading
As I have scheduled most of my filming for during the Easter Holidays, I have ran out of footage to assemble at this
time, so today I decided to start on some colour grading. During my experimentation period, I wanted to test out
colour grading techniques, however at that time I didn’t have access to premier pro and the lumerti scopes, so now
whilst I have time, I have experimented with grading and colour correcting my footage.
I began by selecting some clips from my first shoot day, the introductory shot for Madeleine’s segment, a long shot of
the bridge over the river, and some footage of Madeleine looking out onto the river. I chose these two pieces as they
were all shot in different places, and due to the weather that day, some of the footage looks brighter than the others,
so I had a mixture to work with in trying to get them all looking similar in tone.
To begin with I started on the shot of Madeleine looking
directly at the camera for her introduction shot, as it’s
close up meaning you can see the colour well on the
subjects face, and I was able to see the changes made up
close, and it also had a background with a mixture of
colours (the castle wall). Looking at the video and the
notes I took in my research, I started by doing exposure
control, worked on the white balance, and then increased
the saturation and temperature to get it where I want it
to be for the segment. I was surprised at how easy it was
to colour grade, and I think when I come to the final
assembled piece I won’t have any issues getting on with
it. Although these are just experiments, I may use this
introductory clip in the final piece, as I really like the way
it turned out and the grading has improved the look and
quality.
I made sure to look at the
waveform and RGB parade
when altering the whites and
blacks on the footage, but
looking at the un graded piece,
there were not too many
adjustments that needed to be
made, which made this a very
quick job.
The
specific
adjustments
I
made.
Before
After
Here you can see the before and after of the close up introduction shot of
Madeleine. In the first one, it looks very flat and lacks depth, the white of the sky
in the right corner looking abrasive, where as in the second there is contrast and
depth in the subjects face, the ruined wall, and the sky in the corner looks more
cohesive with the rest of the image. I also warmed up the image to make it have a
yellow tinge to represent now, and for Emma’s section I will add a more purple
blue tint to give the connotations of a flash back.The grading also softened the
features of the subject, which is what I want to achieve in both segments.

10. Filming Day 2- Knaresborough Castle B-Roll
Today I returned to Knaresborough Castle and completed the shooting of my B-Roll shots there. Unlike the first
shoot day there, today I was a lot less constricted regarding what I had to film, and didn’t have many shots
which were solidly written into the script. Because of this is meant that the shoot day was very easy and simple,
and it was enjoyable to move around the castle and the surrounding areas simply filming things I found
interesting and relevant to the project.
Although filming the B-Roll was less restrictive, I made sure to keep in mind the motifs and the themes I will be
discussing in the interview, such as progression of time, connections to the past, femineity and womanhood, so
made sure to film varied shots of the castle ruins, shots of the river and the bridge, I also took shots of walking
upstairs to stick with the progression of time and movement motifs. But also as well as this, I simply filmed
things that were interesting and enjoyable for me to do, such as the field of daffodils which gave off a beautiful
yellow colour, and also some shadows made on the floor from things such as myself walking down a street, or
an intricated gate from one of the houses on the river. As I had done on Day 1, I made sure to film in slow motion
as that really helped elevate the quality of the footage last time, and looking back on the clips from today, has
also made them a much higher quality and a much smoother shot.
I was glad to see also that although they weren’t running that the boats were docked on the river, which they
were not on the first shoot day, so I was able to get a few close up and long shots of them on the river.
A problem I ran into today which I didn’t on the first shoot day, was the fact that I only had opportunity to film
during the afternoon, and the sun being high and bright today, has meant that lighting has stepped away from
being soft to be very harsh.There is also the problem of continuity, with the shots from Day 1 being filmed at
the end of the day a few hours before sun-down, and on a cold and cloudy day, and putting day 2 clips with day
1 clips look totally different.A lot of the footage also looks really overexposed, the bright sunlight causing
reflections on the water and lens flares over shots.This problem however, after doing some experimentation
with colour grading, I will be able to make less obvious, and hopefully can soften the clips I have taken today.

11. Post Production Day 2- Interview and Responses
To start off with today, I recorded my interview response to the questions for the Madeleine segment.To do this I
simply used my phone, and conducted the interview in the studio at college, and listening back to the tracks, the audio
sounds crisp and clear. It doesn’t sound such good quality, however, that means it sounds as though it has been
recorded professionally, as my plan is to have some of the background noise and the natural static and echo you get
from recording, kept in, to make it sound more authentic to the viewer. Overall the interview went well, with the
responses being interesting and hitting the points I wanted.The only issue that I can tell from the response however, is
that Madeleine is talking quite fast, which doesn't’t fit with the music and the slow pacing, so I may have to go into
adobe audition and slow down the speech slightly.Afterwards, I began assembling the responses. I am not keeping the
interview question in the final piece, so I can have freedom with where I place certain bytes within the sequence, and
can move them around where I see fit. After putting together the main response, I found that the overall interview
came out to about 2 minutes which is far too long, so I began to listen back and cut out any of the conversation that I
didn’t think was as important. I did this simply by using the cut tool.
Once my the interview response was assembled, I started using my
visual footage I had shot at Knarseborugh Castle to accompany
what was being said and to create meaning.To make this easier for
myself, I referenced my script and my storyboard to help create
sequences within the piece, and add B-Roll and relevant footage
afterwards.

12. Feedback Draft 1
After completing the first draft, I got lots of feedback and improvements. Discussing with my
tutor, we decided that a lot of things had to be changed an re-recorded, the main thing being the
interview response not sounding as authentic and being quite surface level in content.We also
discussed that a lot of the visuals really contrasted with what I was talking about in my response,
the sunny and picturesque town not reflecting what I was discussing in my response. Because of
this, a lot of changes in structure were decided, although not too drastic that it moves to far away
from the project. After the feedback from today I am going to be recording my response again and
using more prompts and in more of a statement like manner, hopefully with the response coming
across more authentic. I am also going to be interviewing my grandmother now in place of my
mum (Emma), and also interviewing my younger sister. Along with my response there will be 3
different responses from women of 3 different ages and stages in life, giving off unique
perspectives. Me and my tutor also have discussed looking at some different visual styles, and
adding some filters similar to super 8 old film reels, adding some edge and feelings of nostalgia,
keeping in with the theme of progression of time.

13. Production Day 3- Interviewing Grandma
Today I conducted my interview with my grandma over facetime, and it went really well. I
enjoyed interviewing my grandma in general and it was interesting to hear about her life and
experiences. Because it was over facetime, I did run into a few issues regarding connectivity,
sound quality, and I did forget to turn my notifications off in the beginning, however the
responses I got to my questions were really great and informative. Because I was interviewing my
Grandma, the conversation was very chatty which was the style I was going for, and I got to reply
to what she was saying which lead onto other points and questions from both me and her. I also
got to thinking about my own responses, and just generally how privileged I am to be a young
woman today.

14. Post Production Day 3- Grandmas Response
Today I started editing Grandmas response.The interview itself was 24 minutes so I had to cut
down a lot of the conversation. After cutting the piece down to around 6 minutes, I started
organizing sections where Gran was talking about certain topics, and grouped them
together.
Once I had organized them into groups, I had to choose between the 2 best responses, which
was the most challenging as each would have provided a different angle and changed the
tone of the piece all together. In the end I went with the response in which my Grandma is
discussing the expectations of women, civil rights for women in the 60’s and the wider
availability of the contraceptive pill. I decided to choose this angle as in my response I can
bounce off from what she has stated and I also can relate more personally to this response in
comparison to the other, where she focuses on sexual harassment in the workplace.
Madeleine's Response
Today I also began editing my interview response, which was similar in length to my grandmas’ and used the same
process of breaking up the response into separate groups to decide what topics will fit best with the project. I decided
to choose the response segments in which I am discussing child bearing and not wanting children, and also the
segments in which I discuss the effects of social media on body image.The audio is pretty clean so I don’t think I will
need to add any effects to it, as it sounds great already.

15. Feedback 2- Super 8 film and GalleryTour
Today we went into the gallery for the first time to meet with Sarah in person and
discuss our work. It was really nice to be there as we got chance to see where the
Grayson Perry Exhibition will be, we got to look around the gallery also which was
refreshing as due to Covid I haven't personally been in a gallery since March 2020, and
because it was closed it was empty too so we had it all to ourselves.
Due to some technical difficulties I wasn’t able to show Sarah the work I have done
from creating the introduction to this point, however we got to discuss where to
progress from here. Sarah suggested to keep in theme with the idea of the past
meeting the present and progression of time, to add a super 8 film filter over the
introduction to make it a bit more interesting and more enticing. I think this is a really
interesting idea and I am happy to add this to the introduction. At the moment the
introduction is simply close up shots of Claire as a Soldier, and I think it looks quite
boring and won’t engage viewers enough to keep watching, so I think adding the super
8 film effect will add a new element to the piece.

16. Post Production- Super 8 Film Filter
Although I haven’t done super 8 film before, I have done things similar and understand the process quite well. It’s quite
simple and requires multiple filters to be placed over the top of the footage you have chosen.
To begin with I watched some quick tutorials online which gave me links to online filter packs to help in my creation.
For this filter I sourced some light burn images as shown in the screenshot below, and also some static grain footage,
super 8 film frame to help reduce the look and size of the introduction, and also some more vintage film grain and static
that people tend to associate old film with. After importing the clips into the project, I stacked them on top of each
other to create the desired effect.The process was very simple and quick to complete, however the mass of layers did
cause me to struggle understanding which layer was placed best where and also slowed the file down quite a lot.
Different
Layers
stacked on
top of one
and other to
create filter.

17. Post Production- Parallax Creation
1.Today I downloaded the images my Granddad sent of my grandma over the years and began
creating parallax sequences out of them in After Affects. Earlier in the day I struggled a bit
because the last time I had created a parallax was back in November for my factual project, and it
was difficult to remember the process. However after completing a few I have made good
progress and understand the technical process too.
2.Today I continued with my parallax creation, and as the process was becoming quite tedious, I
decided to experiment with the other layers I could use and added a layer for SPOTLIGHT, which
added an extra dimension and made them seem more 3D.
Adding the SPOTLIGHT
layer in after effects

18. Post Production- ParallaxAssembly
After finishing the process of creating each individual parallax, today I began working on
putting them together and assembling them into a sequence.
Putting the parallax’s to the audio narration, I didn't’t really have a
method for doing so, as all the images were quite random and
didn’t always relate to each other. It was easier to put the images in
specific places for my grandmas section however as her response
revolved mostly around ideas and opinions on childcare and mother
hood, and there were plenty of photographs of her with my mum
and uncles. For my section it was slightly more random where I put
the images as mine were simply images taken on my phone over
the past few years, and within the images sometimes I wasn’t doing
anything in particular.
Here you can see how I assembled them, leaving the images for 4-6
seconds on screen as the narration and music played over the top.
To keep the theme of the super 8 film throughout the piece I also
added grain transitions from Sues Segment to Madeleine's segment
which was a nice way to keep the visual consistent without being
too imposing.

19. Feedback 3-Tidying up, outro, uhms and ahhs.
Today I had my final one to one meeting with my tutor and SarahYates, where we discussed ways I could
improve my final piece before the deadline. Luckily overall I didn’t have many big changes to make, just
some simple tidying up. Areas that I was told to focus on and specific improvements I have to make
include:
• Removing my voice and replies who can hear during my grandmas interview.
• Create an outro with my grandma and me wearing filters, and a final word to round up the piece and the
project.
• Tidy up parallax pieces and fill in any gaps.
• Add credits crediting the Claire as a Soldier photograph I have used.

20. Post Production-Tidying Up and Adding Music
Today I began tidying up the piece which involved redoing some parallaxes I was unhappy with
and adding them back onto the timeline, and adding music over the top of the pieces. I
downloaded copyright free music fromYouTube and the website Felysian and used some
atmospheric ethereal music to help set tone.
Today I also started on my outro and decided to make it in after effects to make sure the
morphing from filtered image to unfiltered looked professional and natural. I struggled a bit
with all of the markers and got a bit confused at times, however I got my tutor and classmate
to help me and it turned out really well!To accompany the visual I decided to end with the
answer to the question posed at the beginning “what challenges do contemporary women
face today?”, and recorded my response and added it to the timeline.
I used time markers and the opacity settings to create the morphing effect.