For this group multi-media project me and my group had to create web based research workbook working towards a documentary idea and creating a promo film accompanied by two supporting products. All the research we undertook throughout the module led us to now having a final documentary idea and being able to create the promotional products for it. It was a long but very useful and resourceful period of researching me and my team went through to build on our website before being able to begin any part of production.

The web workbook consists of our progress throughout the project. From the detailed research on various different aspects of Documentaries in general, to our progress through researching into our own documentary ideas and deciding upon which one had the best potential to go ahead with being our final documentary idea. Does main sections of researching leads onto being able to show our progress through pre-production and production stages of our promo film and the two supporting promotional products.

Prior to the creation of our promo trailer and the two supporting products I was in charge of researching and planning shoots, researching the approach and the technique me and my group were going to take when going to the locations to shoot. It was very important for me to plan the way me and my group wanted our photoessay to look. I planned the style would be a look which would make the viewer feel like they we’re present at the locations with us, being able to witness the simplistic and artistic beauty of the Carter’s steam fair holding group. I wanted the images to be very detailed and visual, they had to portray the not so glamorous living conditions and the great artwork they create to run the steam fair. When the producer of ‘Quickthinking Productions’ was in contact with our primary subject we were given access to visit the grounds where they stored and built all their fair equipment when out of season. When I was informed we would be visiting that location I researched into photography that focussed on taking images to capture realistic and natural moments of the subjects life and the places and people surrounding this character.  

As well as being in charge of doing research towards the photoessay, I was responsible for researching into posters and how they are used for the promotion of a product. Posters have a clear commercial purpose to spread the message about a product with their artistic value. With images, taglines, slogans and graphics, posters are created for film companies to advertise their productions. It is also important to think about where you would place your posters, or where you could afford to place them. Having target audience is very important decision to make as it will help towards making decisions towards the others aspects of creating a poster. Our target audience being 21-40 year olds I researched the areas this age range are more likely to see posters and concluded that it would be in areas of public transport where the majority of young adults and adults travel in and out of work or university.

Once the necessary research was done for my areas of the project I was then able to begin the planning and the managing of our products. This pre-production stage was important for the improving of ideas before starting the process of production. Being assigned the art director, photographer and editor of the photos and poster it was very important for me to determine the overall design style of the documentaries promo trailer and the two supporting products. In pre-production following my roles I participated in discussions with the Director and DoP of ‘Quickthinking Productions’ so that we we’re all in sync with each other on how our doc products should look visually. Me being responsible for the photos and poster their editing I planned a colour style to follow with all our promotion products so that they had an obvious link between them which is very important to have in promotion. If a style is carried out the same smoothly through all promotion products everything looks much more professional and the audience are able to recognize out companies work my looking at the style of each product.  In post production I put this style I had visioned and planned into place. I ensure the products had continuity in terms of style, technical and creative aspects. I did this at working closely with the Director to maintain the agreed vision and narrative.

As the art director, photographer and editor of the photos and poster I though the areas I was pleased with my performance within the group was the editing process of the photoessay images on Photoshop and the making of the promotional poster. I always enjoy the post production process of editing, I plan what the vision and style will be like during pre production so that when in comes to the post production I am able to put my planning and vision into action with the technical skills I have learnt over the years on photoshop and lightroom. In most projects I have been involved in I am responsible for the photography and editing because I enjoying doing it and even though I am able to use Photoshop quite well I still learn something new everytime. When I am unsure of how to do something on Photoshop I research into the techniques needed to create the vision I have for the product I’m creating. 

Out of my different roles the role that I may have been able to manage better would be the planning of location. The producer was the one in contact with our primary who was giving us the permission to come and interview them and take photos of the fairs storing grounds. The producer being the one in contact with the primary made it difficult for me to handle the planning of the location. The producer was in contact with the primary to plan a meeting day for the interview but because the primary lived in the fairs storing grounds we wanted to shoot in, this meant the day the primary was available to interview would be the same day we would go to the location to shoot the photos for our promo trailer.  

The way me and my group worked together was good, we had good communication and we would schedule dates to meet up and discuss work. That may be the case now, however initially when we began this project it took us a while to get our ideas on the table, this was because we we’re all a bit confused of what research needed to be done by everyone, some group members were confused to what tasks and research were suppose to be done individually or together as a group. After a bit it was clear by all members that we all needed to sit down together and go through the brief, we were then able to help eachother out by discussing all the points needed to complete the web workbook and the promotional products and then be able to assign roles. Once roles were assigned we began scheduling meetings where we would meet everyone and demonstrate the individual work we had all done and gathered as well as doing the group task whilst together.

The ideas we had gradually improved more and more as we went through the project, the more research we would do on an idea the more we would know. Whether it would have the potential to be carried out and begin creating the idea or whether it wasn’t good enough to be carried through to the production stage. We originally where going to do our documentary on vigilantes but after researching we decided I would be too risky to make a documentary on this topic, it also seemed hard to find a good primary vigilante that lived in the UK and we also thought there would be a high chance that the primary would drop out at some point during the process. Our final idea of the travelling steam fair had good results from the research we had done and it was a subject with great themes and colouring.

With the new images of the carters fair heaving been done I was then able to planned a colour style to follow with all our promotion products so that they had an obvious link between them. Because our final documentary idea was to put across the message that the business of steam fair is running down we decided to improve our 2 supporting products by re editing them to coordinate with the theme of being run down. Originally my poster had a lot of bright colours but I had to change it around slightly so that the ‘run down’ theme would smoothly link through all our promotional products. I did this by changing around some of the technical elements of the poster such as text, colouring and tagline. 

Issues like the changing or adaptation of themes to improve our products is a good example of how our group resolved an issue. We noticed our supporting product weren’t linking as well as they could have been with the mellow and intense feeling the promo trailer had so we scheduled a meeting to discuss this and agree on the changes needed to be made.

To conclude our project we we’re required to pitch our idea, within the 10 minutes we have of pitching our idea me and my group need to talk about all the important aspects of the projects process such as, the ide and title of the project, the genre of doc it relates to, target audience, the theme our doc is examining and about promotional products. My main role in this pitch is to concentrate on giving a clear outline of the two main supporting promotional media products. When doing this I will be explaining how they benefit the main project in terms of interaction with the trailer, how they generate audience participation and awareness, and how these are important to create publicity for the main documentary project which will be created on the second part of this module.