Monday, 29 April 2013

Final Proposal

Final Proposal 

Over the last couple of months, myself and my work partner have made and edited a documentary about James O'driscoll and about his life behind being a blind personal trainer. We also show footage about a charity event which James  recently took part in called the 300 Workout, this was to raise money for the charity Save The Children. During the documentary we show James and some of his fellow friends completing the workout, we found this inspirational to put into our documentary to show how amazing James is and how loosing he's sight has not stopped himself from doing ANYTHING. We also show footage of James talking before and after the workout and what he found was hard about doing this challenge. We also have a small clip on some of his friends talking about the workshop and how they felt after completing the challenge.

I think one of the main reasons myself and Ryan chose to make a documentary on the life of a blind personal trainer is that he is an inspiration to everyone! I feel that it literally puts into perspective anybody can achieve or be what they want to be if they put their minds to it. James also does a lot of fund raising for the charity Save The Children, so to complete such a hard workout to raise money is a great achievement.

I feel that from filming this documentry I have not only learnt myself but taught over people never to give up in life. James is this first blind persoanl trainer in england and after loosing is sight during his mid 20's it just goes to show that for anyone who has lost their sight from birth or midway through life, they should not let that put them down, they should pick themselves back up and achieve what they want to. This may not happen straight away but you will certainly achieve the highest you can one day, and be proud of it!

Friday, 26 April 2013

Production Log

Production Log


During our documentary planning period, we decided to arrange meetings with James to discuss with him exactly what was going to be happening and what we wanted to gain from this documentary.


09/02/2013 - This was our first meet with James to discuss all our ideas and intentions in which myself and Ryan had for our documentary. This was a very successful meeting as James had agreed to take part in our documentary and allow us to film one of his biggest charity events 'Save the Children'. We also arranged our next meeting in which we will be filming the event at Virgin Active Gym. The only down fall in which we had at this meeting was that we were unable to get any filming done and this was just a meet to secure dates in which we would be able to meet up with James.


16/02/2013 - This was the big day for the charity event which James was taking part in at the Virgin Gym, this was our first day in which was doing our first part of filming for our documentary, this was a very successful day for us as we managed to film the whole charity event, and speak to James and several of the other boys who took part in this event before and after they had completed the 300 workout.


02/03/2013 - After a very successful day the other day when filming James and others doing the 300 workout, we then went back on a third meet to speak to James a bit more about his life and about the effects he has been left with after durning blind at just 22 years old. We had previously thought and discussed about some of the questions in which we would like to ask James, We had his permission to ask him anything what we wished to. I thought that all the questions in which we asked James were very effective towards our documentary and interview.


23/03/2013 - This was our last and final meet with James to finish off our any last inputs which we needed for our documentary. This was very successful and we thanked James a lot for all his help with taking part in our documentary and interview and giving all the information and shots in which we needed to put it all together to produce the best documentary that we could present.

Thursday, 25 April 2013

News Vs Documentaries

News Vs Documentaries

I will be exploring and comparing the similarities and differences between The News and Documentaries.

News Channels broadcast their information in a very different way compared to a documentary. The News channels give us audience members minimal information about a matter or cause. They give a brief overview of the story, this overview will mainly include live or archive footage. A story can be presented by either 1 or more presenters speaking about a story or they will have news presenters at the scene speaking live about the news. In some situations news channels may have guest speakers or even witnesses speaking, this will obviously depend on the story. The news will also occasionally have one to one interviews, this is where wither the presenters is speaking either face to face with someone or over satellite. Some news channels have a ticker bar which tells you things that are happening at that exact time, this will instantly be updated when a new story is released.

Documentaries will explore a pacific document in a lot more depth and detail. Documentaries do the useful job of exploring a story or matter in a lot more detail for example in the Bin Lade: Shoot to kill documentary the audience is given a first hand account from the men and women who were responsible for taking down Osama Bin Landen. The documentary is based around the reasons why Bin Laden was the most wanted terrorist and talking about the day they would finally capture him and eventually kill him.

There is quite an obvious difference between a news program and a documentary. This is, the news is always live and read from a TelePrompTer and includes voice-overs and short clips between reports, however documentaries are usually pre-recorded before being broadcasted on television.
News reports usually inform the audience on the key facts about a story whereas documentaries go into a lot more detail about these facts or stories instead of highlighting the key points.
In both The news and the Bin Laden documentary narration is shown. It is most likely that whilst The News is on new stories are being released this can then be shown through narration on screen.

The layout for a News Channel and a Documentary are extremely different.
The mise-en-scene for a news channel is usually two presenters live in a studio presenting the viewers with the top headlines and news stories across the world, they would usually be sat behind a fairly high desk with screens behind them and in some cases ticker bars will be shown on screen. They will usually start but quickly a quick overview of some of the stories they are going to viewing on todays show they also show some pictures of the topics they are going to be discussing. They then go on to speak about the headlines and stories. In some cases they have other presenters and the scene of the story reporting back to the studio .
 The mise-en-scene for documentaries will always be changing depending on the chosen topic, all documentaries are difference and will be documented and shown in a different way. The majority of documentaries will have a narrator, director and even a scientist or someone who the documentary is based on to back up their facts.

Friday, 15 March 2013

Equipment List For Interview


Equipment list 
The equipment that we will need for our interview is very minimal due to the fact that everything we need to film is in the gym already.









The camera that we are going to use is a sony HD Pj260VE full HD camera. this camera will be used to film our in tire interview. this camera we will loan of our schoo. we choose to use this camera as it has a very sensitive microphone that will pick up the majority of sound that we want it to.




We are also going to use a camera stand. By us using a camera stand will allow us to have perfectly still camera shots and will allow our interview to be still not to have wonky moving shots. we choose to use a stand as well as it will make our interview allot more professional.






We need to take a phone each as this will allow us to contact each other in case we get lost in virgin active health club. we can also use our phones to track time so that we can make sure that our interview isn't too long but also isn't to short.








We need to take a clip board pen and paper so that we can have our questions clearly shown to us so that we know exactly the questions that we want to ask. We will use a pen to tick off each question as it is asked so that we don't ask the same question twice as this would make our interview not very professional.

Friday, 15 February 2013

Story Ideas

Documentary research 

idea 1- my first idea is to create a documentary based on the uk's first
 blind fitness instructor. his name is Jame's O'Driscoll, he is 38 and was diagonesed with optic neuropathy.

One morning, construction worker James O’Driscoll woke to discover he couldn’t see from his left eye. Over the next few weeks, the sight in his right eye deteriorated too, leaving him completely blind. After months of testing and extended stays in hospital, the 26-year-old from Bromley, Kent was diagnosed with Leber's Optic Neuropathy, a rare genetic condition that affects just one in 20 million people.

when we researched and found james we was fascinated by his sheer dedication to overcome his illness. we was impressed with how he overcome the illness not only mentally but physically.

He struggled to cope with his disability, finding solace in junk food, cigarettes and alcohol. His moment of clarity, however, came four years after losing his sight, when he realized it didn’t have to stop him leading a relatively normal life. He cast aside his vices and began exercising. Now, at the age* s is England’s first blind qualified personal trainer, having exceeded the expectations of all those around him. For the determination and tenacity he showed to become a fitness professional, James O’Driscoll is the MH Man of the Month.



Loss: The radio station which allowed two of its DJs to prank call the Duchess of Cambridge's hospital has suspended all advertising on its shows. 2day FM radio hosts Mel Greig, left, and Michael Christian, right, are pictured idea2- our second idea was to base our documentary on the radio station that prank called kate mideltons hospital. we wanted to firstly highlight the key points on why they did it and the controversy that it caused also the consequence it had on someone's life. we also wanted to get a non biased view from the public on the prank call, i would also like to document what consequences it has on the radio station and what the police intend to do. this prank calls has caused an uproar worldwide and has also put a invasion in the privacy of the most security family in the world. if it was that easy to find out information on kate in hospital what else can people find out about the royal family?
idea3- my third idea was to base our documentry on an insperational english architectue called norman robert foster. Norman has designed many famous building around england some of his most spectacular designs are the hearst tower in new york, torre caja madrid in madrid and the Gherkin. all off these building's are very spectacular. i wanted to base my documentary on the design and structure of the Gherkin. i wanted to display special features of the building and the history and designs behind the making of the gherkin. into my research of norman i was also going to display some of his other projects he has created around london.