This document provides a weekly summary of the student's progress on their FMP (Final Major Project) over 11 weeks. In weeks 1-3, they conducted research on similar documentaries and filmmakers. Weeks 4-5 involved problem-solving potential issues and surveying target audiences. Planning occurred in weeks 6-7, including naming the documentary, scheduling, and storyboarding. Week 8 marked the beginning of production, though there were equipment issues. Filming was done in weeks 9-10, and editing of audio, titles, and credits was done in weeks 11. Technical difficulties were encountered throughout with equipment and locations.

2. Week 1
0 This week I started my FMP. I wrote my pre proposal, which I found to be
quite easy as I had already had my FMP idea for quite a while.
0 On Wednesday I started research for similar products to mine. I looked at
factual documentaries and travel documentaries, both of which include
aspects that I want to have in my videos.
0 On Thursday I looked at directors and producers in more detail,
researching if they work on similar projects, or if the films looked the
same because it was the same director.

3. Week 2
0 From my research I have learnt, from looking at different directors and their styles how I
would like my project to look like/ come across.
0 To make my project look as best as I can I’m planning on doing more research on camera
set ups/ angles.
0 From my research I plan on borrowing different styles of filming to recreate them or adapt
them into my own project. Doing this will change my final outcome of my project to
hopefully give my project a better outlook.
0 The issues I have found when doing research are mostly technical, such as the camera not
working, the battery not being charged, mic not working or the tripod being broken.
0 From my research I found researching the directors/producers to be the most useful
because I learnt about different styles of filming.
0 This week I continued with my research. I created surveys to find what audience cater
specifically to my project.

4. Week 3
0 This week I have done research on existing documentaries and directors/producers. From
this research I have learnt what style of documentaries would work best for my own
documentary. Other research I would want to include research on short documentary
lengths so I know what length to base my doc on and what length to have it at. Doing this
will also help me to understand what length of documentary would fit my project best.
From the research I have done, I hope to take forward existing documentary styles or
adapt them for my own style. Doing research has changed how I thought my project comes
across. Things like how the camera angles are set up and how the setting looks/ where it
is. The problems I have come across whilst doing research has been mostly technical. That
being either footage getting lost, camera gets damaged, battery runs out of charge or a
misplaced SD card. I think that the most successful part of my research so far is my
research on existing products I think this because I have found a handful of different
products and have been able to compare the ones I have looked at.

5. Week 4
0 This week I started doing research on my target audience. For this research I did surveys
to find out peoples opinion of my FMP idea. For my theoretical problems, I thought a lot
about outdoor filming. This consists of things such as the un wanted noise (cars, phones
and other people) to solve this issue I have decided not to film in a densely populated
location. I will also have anyone taking part in the shoot to have their phones turned off or
on silent to avoid any interruptions. Another big issue I think I could face could be
transport. Due to filming an over an 2 hours away from college I will have to make sure all
the equipment that I will be using works, if the equipment doesn’t work and I find that out
when we arrive at the destination it would waste filming time and would be a pointless
trip all round. To solve this issue I will check all the equipment when it is given to me to
avoid all these issues.

6. Week 5
0 This week I continued with my problem solving, but focused more on practical and technical
problems. The biggest issue I have found is mostly to do with the editing software’s such as
premiere pro. It is possible that the application could crash mid edit, having me loose all the work I
had been doing. However, to counteract this issue I could save my work every ten minutes to
always have a back up of work. Another technical issue I found is to do with storage on the
equipment. Previous users of the camera or mic don’t delete their footage and/or audio off of the
equipment before handing it back in. This could cause the camera/ mic to cut out mid recording
due to unavailable storage space. To solve this issue I should check the SD cards and delete any
unneeded files. his week I also looked at previous problems from other projects. The previous
problems I had faced includes cast not turning up. To solve this previous issue I have decided to
work with people I know I can trust and will definitely turn up. For previous projects I filmed
outside a lot, the issues I found with that was that it would rain. To solve this issue, I could
schedule filming for two different days to have a back up day in case the weather is to bad to film
in on the first day. Another previous issue I had was the equipment having either having forgotten
parts or not being charged. To solve this issue I will be checking equipment before taking it out.

7. Week 6
0 This week I started my planning. To start this off I worked on a name for my documentary.
I wanted my doc to have a name that would relate to the documentary its self but also have
a meaning to the people who knew the main story of the documentary. I ended up going
with the name “The Blackwell Tale”. I think this name is quite intriguing and I hope it
leaves the audience wondering what it means. The end goal of the documentary is to
inform the audience of what it means. I also started planning my film schedule. Due to
filming in two different locations I have to create two different call sheets, so that I can
plan out specific filming times I will be filming. I have also started to plan out what sort of
filming set up I would like. I plan on modifying the filming are to what I want it to look like
as well as the camera set up. For the planning the thing I have struggled with the most has
been planning on when the best time for everyone involved to film. Whether that be the
specific date or time.

8. Week 7
0 As of the start of this week I have completed all of my planning I think that I have to do.
The planning I have finished with is a prompt script so that when it comes to filming I
know what order I want my documentary to be in and what I want to actually be in it. I
also created a storyboard to show how I want my set to look from the cameras point of
view I also have it so that I can write out specific actions I want for a scene. I plan on using
my planning all the way through my production because the plan I have at the moment and
I hope to stick to the original plan I have made. In previous projects the issues I have faced
is not having any form of script to look at or reference to, so the people within the project
didn’t really know what they were actually doing the majority of the time. With this
planning I think the problems I could face could be not following it accurately. I have learnt
however it is important to stick to the plan otherwise I could make a mistake during
production or I could miss some part of production out that I had previously wanted to be
in my project.

9. Week 8
0 This week I began production. I started with doing my credits. I did this because it was a
piece of my production that I could do quickly and easily.
0 I also tried to start filming but the mic that I was using wasn’t picking up sound very well
and the only thing I could hear was static. Because of this, I decided to cancel filming and
to start it later in the week.
0 Later in the week I planned on filming again so that I would still be on track for my filming
and editing schedule.
0 Once again when I was due to film I faced some more issues which prevented me from
filming. The location I was supposed to be quiet during the filming but there was another
issue with sound meaning we had to re schedule again.

10. Week 9
0 this week I filmed the opening shot and some b-roll footage. I went to Filey beach to film
the opening title sequence. I decided to film at Filey because it isn’t as popular location for
tourists as Scarborough has so I thought id be less likely to be interrupted by other people
walking into my shot, ruining it.
0 This week I also filmed the interview properly. When setting up for the interview, I faced
another issue with my equipment. One of the legs of the tripod wouldn’t stay locked to fix
this issue I made a makeshift tripod on a table out of old boxes and books. However this
wasn’t ideal as I had to pick up the camera between each shot in order to change focus on
the camera or to change the lighting.

11. Week 10
0 This week I edited all of my audio together
this included any music I had and all of the
clips I recorded on the camera and audio
recorder. When recording I used a
clapperboard to link the audio from the
camera and recorder together. By doing
this there was a spike in the audio (shown
here).
By having used the clapperboard when filming, it was a lot easier to link the
two audios together. I got through 18 lots of clips a lot quicker by having the
spike to guide me, rather thank having to manually find a linking point in the
clips and go from there.
It took me only 1 lesson to have all my audio files linked up correctly and
only 1 other lesson to have the files cut down to how long I want them to be
and what order I want the clips to be in.

12. Week 11
0 This week I started working on my title scene. I used the clips of
the sea I got in Filey. The original clips I have were awful
colours, the sea was grey and the part that goes over the
camera was a murky brown. To fix that put an overlay over the
clip and chose basic correction and turned the temperature of
the picture down, which made the blues in the video stand out a
lot more.
0 After putting an overlay on the video I think that its a lot more
pleasing to look at. It also makes the title stand out a lot more
from the background.
Before
After

13. 0 This week I also worked on the credits. I
wanted to do the credits before even looking
at the main part of my film. I went through a
lot of different styles of end screens until I
found the style I liked. I changed my mind on
the style I originally had because the photos
were all blurry and I didn’t like how that
looked so I changed my idea fully. My new
idea was to have individual photos and have
each one come on at a different time. This
adds a more technical element to my video as
well as another graphic for the audience to
look at.
Before
After

14. Week 12
0 This week I edited together my main interview.
This was fairly easy to do as I already had linked
together the audio it was just the case of making
the footage look nicer. I started by editing the
colour of the video to more of a natural colour.
0 Once I finished the colouring I added in the
photos I wanted to use and linked them up with
the relevant clips.
0 This week I also put together my whole video. I
imported my opening title sequence and my
credit scene and exported it. When I did this
premiere crashed and I lost part of my work. I still
had my clips but I had to re colour and import the
photos again.
Before
After

15. Week 13
0 This week I exported my film again and this time premiere didn’t crash. I
uploaded the final film to YouTube and my website.
0 This week I updated all of my PowerPoints I included new points I made
or issues I found through out the process of making my film.
0 I got some feedback on my current version of my film with ideas to
change it. I took this feed back on board and changed the final outcome of
my video.

16. Week 14
0 I finished editing the new draft of my film, I exported it and uploaded it to
wix.
0 This week I put the finishing touches to my website by uploading all
finished and updated documents.
0 This week I also started preparation for my presentation PowerPoint.