Development and Research for Final Project.

For the final projects development I was approached quite early on to get involved with another project. As they had sought me out I didn’t want to say no, so I got involved as the production manager. The project itself was a studio based quiz show, which isn’t something I set out to do at the beginning of the year. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really want to go back into the studio because we had already done a lot of work in there over the past two years. Our biggest project in the second year saw us making a four part series of 20 minute episodes based in the studio and treated as if they were live. In my opinion, making a 10 minute show in the studio just didn’t seem like a bigger challenge so it wasn’t something I was initially interested in. On top of that I had directed one of the final projects the third years had been working on when I was in the second year. But it was a format I hadn’t worked on before so I thought I would give it a go. I’ve been asked to be Production Manager for the project, so I’ve been reading Production Management by Linda Stradling, which I bought after she delivered a really good guest lecture.

I haven’t really been involved with the development of that project but the concept intrigues me and I’m excited about trying a new role, and learning more about that side of production, as the book has already taught me a lot.

I have been involved with the development of another project, based off an idea my friend Hannah had. She suggested creating a documentary about dating in the modern day. My main concern was that this has been done before, but she was quick to point out that we would be focusing mainly on a new form of online dating. There are several apps that have launched on smart phones that really give a different experience to the online dating world. The project itself is titled Love in Your Pocket. 

What we’ll be doing with the project is finding a presenter and asking Him/Her to take part in one of these new apps and documenting the experience. For inspiration I have been looking at the documentaries by Louis Theroux and Cherry Healey. What these two presenters too is really get engrossed in the world they are documenting and ask the type of questions that average viewer would probably want to ask. In terms of visual style it will be mostly about making sure I’ve got enough cameras to capture the action. This is something I noticed immediately when doing research, as any documentary we have worked on before has only used one camera. The plan with this documentary is to set up dates with other people using the app, so I’ll only have one opportunity to capture the event but as I have a lot of experience working with live projects, I feel like I’ll be able to achieve this.