I joined the group late and the group had already formed roles and seemed to have bonded quite well.  The group had already done quite a bit of groundwork and assigned roles.  However  are discussing a number of documentary ideas  I researched  about an incident that occurred in  the village where I  now live involving   a shooting  that  took place  in 1944  involving  American  solders  in  at a local public house.  I contacted primaries and the parish council as well as Hampshire County Council’s archives and a number of other sources. This idea however was felt by the group to be unsuitable as it would involve too much taking head footage.  I also researched some other ideas that the group had discussed such as travelling with gypsies and contacted the  primaries involved in this  production and some of them were not happy about  all the aspects of their lives being exposed to public scrutiny  and  there were issues  such as ethical and legal concerns  in such that if a crime was to be captured on film those  capturing these images  could be accused of encouraging or participating in crime and breaching OFFCOM and university of Winchester ethic rules as well as local civil and bylaws. I also researched an idea that the group had about vigilantes who dress as superheros  and after completing  some  initial  research I discover a number of  websites dedicated to these people  which contained  a good amount of information but after some discussion with the group it was decided that this would  be  too difficult to produce and  as another group had looked into  doing this or  a similar idea it would not be worth doing however,  I felt  we could have still gone ahead with the idea  but from  on a slightly  different prospective  and should have voiced this more clearly.  The idea that we did settle on however I thought was a very good idea. Once we agreed to produce this documentary I decided to do some research and looked online at similar documentaries to see how these they were produced, what mode they were shot in and what  questions we could ask of the primaries and if any, what sort of shots were used  and how they portrayed  the partisan’s  that appeared in the documentaries. But primarily because one of roles in the production is lighting so I studied how the subjects of the documentaries were lit and to work out how the lighting was set up and track the movement of cameras.  I also decided to research other fairs to see how they managed their logistics because having had some experience of travelling fairs I know this can prove complicated and may prove difficult in turns of lighting and camera work angles etc.

As part of my role as a researcher I also looked into how to promote the documentary at the lowest possible cost and the method of doing this.  My research involved online strategies such as social media (Facebook, fan page and Twitter) as well as advertising on Facebook and Google.  One way to promote the documentary is to place a teaser across social network sites, post images of those appearing in the documentary as well as images of he crew at work and images of the editing process on Facebook and create a hash tage on Twitter for the documentary.  creating a dedicated channel on YouTube also promotes the documentary.  I also learned that we could use sites such as Linkedin to create a company page for the production company and using Printerest to create boards for each stage of the production brings the production to the attention of people that normally only visit one site but not others by linking all the sites together.  This would then follow in journey style all aspects of the production, pre-prodction and post-production.  This woudl have the affect of engaging the target audience and causing a desire to see the finished production and a very affective campaign.

My role in the ten-minute presentation was to explain how we would raise money to fund our documentary and how we would make money after completing it. I researched in to this and concluded that the documentary could generate other commissions by generating commissions from other travelling circuses, travelling fairs or street performers to advertise their shows in cinemas before the main features and promotional videos that could be hosted on web sites.  We could approach Channel 5 and Channel 4 and submit our proposal to their True Stories/Documentary Commissioning Editor.  They have a world class reputation in documentaries and are always looking for fresh ideas.  This would be a fantastic opportunity.  They have made programmes like the Big Fat Gpysy Wedding but we do not wish to portray our documentary in the same style but Channel 4 does promote other types of documentary like the secret Millionaire.  we could also contact Screen-South, a Creative Development Agency that offers funding and support opportunities.  Competition is fierce but our documentary is an amazing topic and well produced, we are confident that this will put us in a good position to secure funding and support.  Another way to attract funding is to submit the trailer to IndiGoGo.com, which is a website that tends to attract filmmakers and fans of indie films. In order to get the most cash behind the production you need to give people an incentive to donate to your production such as a mention in the closing credits or meeting them and introducing them to the crew and people involved in the production and may be giving them a small part in the production.  The more creative your incentives are the more money you are likely to attract. We could also submit our documentary to London, Brighton and Cambridge film festivals during 2013.  The reason to submit to these film festivals favour because these are in the areas the fair travels around so people will know of the fair and this may raise interest in our documentary.

As I mentioned earlier I joined the group late, obviously if I had managed to get into the group earlier I could have supported the group during initial stages so obviously there were areas I wasn’t involved in.   Communication is key in any project and whilst I do understand we are all involved in other group projects I did sometimes find it difficult getting hold of the group although this has vastly improved.