the other sidea documentary by:ollie wainwright

the brief

i intend to make a series of 1 to 3 minute documentaries about people i find on the streets of london.

the concept of the documentary is that myself and a team of people i have put together will head into london one night and try and find as many interesting people as possible to tell us a story in a positive light or memories from the past or advice for the future.

the documentary will be shot by hand and graded to give it a down to earth feel about it. normally you wouldn’t see this genre of documentary shot in this way however this is how i prefer shooting and i want my style to be represented in my film.

i intent to walk from westminster to london bridge, finding people on the way and talking to them about events that have happened in their lives.

the documentary is observational focusing on the people outside, however the crew shooting will be asking questions and could be occasionally be featured in the production.

Part of a series

i will produce two examples of the type of documentary i intend to make out of a 10 part series that will be feature on the internet free for people to watch.

i want to show an example of the types of film i wish to produce so you can get a real feel of what i intend to produce.

i feel that it is import for all types of people to be heard no matter what they have to say. as we live in a society promoting freedom of speech it is easy to take that for granted. by approaching people and asking them to share their stories, happy memories or advice i hope to communicate how everyone has something interesting to say.

no matter what you want to say within reason you will be given the chance to voice that, and have an audience that will be interested and listen.

types of people

When you go out into london one of the things you are most aware of is the many different types of people that are habitants of the city. whether they differ in race, sexual orientation, profession or heritage the fact that london is so diverse must be communicated in my documentary.

The main focus is to find people that are normally on the street, a few examples are:

buskershomeless peoplemarket stall holderscleanersor people just out having a drink.

the reason i want to find a variation of people is to communicate to my target audience how diverse london is and the stories, thoughts and opinions of the cities unique population.

so many people just walk past each other without acknowledgment. Now it’s your time to be heard

target audience

my documentary is aimed at adults aged from 18-30 who are interested in factual documentaries about culture and communities.

at the moment social realism is quite trendy within the design and fashion professions and people that follow trends or “cool stuff”. companies such as vice magazine, more specifically VBS.tv, an online extension of the magazine, focus’s part of it’s website to similar themes of documentary that proves popular within the age range and professions above.

My documentary series is designed to be short and aesthetically pleasing so they can turn viral. the whole series is online based because my audience is accustomed to searching for the latest popular viral videos online.

the idea that they are between 1 and 3 minutes is to keep the audiences attention at bay. being young professions with a busy social life they just wouldn’t have the time to sit down for a lengthy period to watch the episodes. The idea is they can watch the short stories in their lunch break or show there friends on a smartphone at the train station.

by interviewing such a variation of people on the streets there will be something that everyone can relate to whether it be funny

questions for reaction

its a difficult prospect knowing how i am going to approach random people and for them to instantly react with me and start telling their stories or opinions naturally. as i am aware that the ice needs to be broken there are a series of approaches i plan to adopt before we actually start shooting:

the first is if i walk up to someone and offer them a cigarette they can chose to accept in, then i can start explaining to them what i am doing whilst i light it for them.

also the crew will need to hang back until i give them the thumbs up to come over so they don’t intimidate the subject.

initially whilst i am explaining what i am doing i will ask them subtle questions and give a friendly presence off.

there are no set questions however there are certain things i will say to give the subject direction.

i will ask if they have any strong childhood memories or times in there life that puts a smile on there face? do you find there is anything wrong with the world on the moment and can you put a positive spin on it? what is the easiest way to express you self?

these are questions that can’t really be answered so it results in conversation that i will record and that will be my content to edit.

location

when taking into consideration where we would shoot i had to think of practical route that was efficient.

we will aim to head into london at 11pm and shoot until 3am it is key that the crew knew where we were going and what lay ahead of us on route.

as public transport won’t running at 3am we will have to drive into central london. i located free parking in a number of locations on the route before the shoot so we don’t have to drive around looking aimlessly.

after parking and setting up we will walk along the south embankment from blackfriars to the southbank. once there we will walk across the bridge to parliament square and up to victoria where there is a well known soup kitchen. once there we will walk back down to the river and along the north embankment towards temple, cross the millennium bridge towards the tate, up to london bridge then back on ourselves to blackfriars.

the locations i chose were due to the street activity along the river at night were buskers, pub dwellers, homeless people and commuters travel along to where ever they be heading.

in the evening we will target pub dwellers, buskers and late commuters and in the early morning homeless people

crew

i need to compile a small crew for the shoot for a number a reasons.

i feel that i need to separate myself from the shoot so i can direct it and interact with the people i am interviewing.

although i am experienced in camera and sound operation i want to collaborate with a student from broadcast that is more experienced than my self so he can add value to the production visually and with high quality sound.

also i need to add a certain measure of security. i will be hiring out a lot of expensive equipment from the CLR and i need to make sure i am safe and the equipment is safe from thieves so it can be returned to the college in the condition i hired it out in.

after talking to people from different courses i decided to have a team of 3.

myself as the director and interviewer

phil heron as camera and sound operator

jack bebbington as a runner/assistant so phil doesn’t have to operate the boom whilst filming.

shooting style

i want to shoot my documentary in a certain style using different camera angles and movements.

i want the camera to be hand held to the camera operator has great flexibly when he is shooting the subject. i want him to move around the subject freely focusing on the eyes and mouth. the main interview will a head shot, because the audio is external it is easier to cut away getting many different angles whilst still controlling the continuity of the interview.

the lenses i will hire out have incredibly wide apertures so they can get a very deep depth of field even in low light. i want the camera operator to pull focus from the subject to the background but only in the cut away shots.

also whilst walking around trying to find people to interview i want the camera operator to get shots of london and the scenery behind the interviewee.

the footage will be shot at 1440 x 1080 at 25fps for maximum resolution.

graphics style

the graphics style i want to go for is a sleek oblique style. i want the squares to represent the slabs of pavement that we walk over casually everyday and that the people we are interviewing are standing over.

as my target audience is designers and people who like trendy cool stuff i want to make my graphics very grid/swiss but with a san-serif font to give it a twist.

the colours are supposed to be soothing and easy on the eyes so the viewers are drawn to the subject rather that the graphics. they also represent different types of people with different types of colours.

i will use big caslon medium for the titles and courier new for the project report.

the other side.short story : Lee

assistant: jack bebbington

camera & sound: phil heron

director : ollie wainwright

equipment

the equipment i want to use has to be small and compact as we are shooting on location and will be walking from location to location.

the quality also has to be of a professional standard which is why i want to hire out the colleges expensive lenses. i have decided to hire out the 24mm f1.4, the 85mm f1.2 and the 16-35mm f2.8. i feel this gives the appropriate range of shot sizes that i will need to get the aesthetic look and depth of field i desire.

the camera i decided to use is a canon 550D DSLR. i want to use this camera because it is small, light weight and has a variety of different settings that will help me out on my shoot. the minus point of this camera is the sound.

as the sound isn’t ideal on the DSLR i have decided to record the audio on an external device that connects to a shotgun microphone which has the correct polar pattern for interviews yet doesn’t invade the subjects privacy which a lapel microphone might.

as i will be shooting at night i will also need to have a light source. the CLR has a light called the sun gun which is a location lighting source with a battery pack. this is perfect for close subject lighting.

i will also be taking a sturdy tripod for cut away shots.

poster

i want the poster to be classy so the audience don’t know necessarily whats going on.

it features the title of the documentary series and a tag line. there is also a silhouette of a man that represents the face of everyday people we walk past on the street. it is only when you sit down and talk to someones their face and personality becomes clear, so if you want to know who the man behind the silhouette is you will have to watch the documentary.

from experience i know that the more low key you keep something in my specific audience the more it interested them to find out about it.

by having a cool sleek design i hope this generates interest and people investigate the poster to find out what it’s fronting.

the other side.

conclusion

as the project has come to the end there has been some really positive notes to end on.

first i’d like to thank my crew who sacrificed their time to work with me. it’s always great to work with people from different courses, making friends for the future, gaining new experience and techniques and also for the social aspect. i have made a special effort in this final year to work with as many people from different courses as possible, i think this really shows how i am ready to enter the professional work as in my 1st and 2nd years it was something i always tried to avoid.

this project was always going to be difficult because the whole point of it was to be completely spontaneous. i never knew what was going to happen despite how much i planed, i think thats what makes the content so interesting, the fact that with each episode you don’t know what the subject is going to talk about is intimidating however the people i found were kind enough to share there thoughts, opinions and memories with me.

i can see this series sitting comfortable on VBS.tv and featured on vimeo under a short documentary channel.

my overall aim was it to be an experiment within reason so when we were shooting, apart from the interview, there was no specific shots we had to get just an aesthetic look to aspire to. it was cut how in the same linear time it was in real life. the final piece hasn’t be edited to mislead, thats what i love about unbiased experimental documentary film making.

if the series was to be produced i feel that it would generate a successful viral atmosphere around it and could lead to 50 people being interview over the years.

ollie wainwright