Documentary and Commission - Influences, Creative Process and Research.

R&D and the creative process.

Introduction

In this post I will reveal the evolution of our team's documentary,  the pitched concept was the first here listed, the iterations listed thereafter are evolutions created by necessity as our production went through setbacks and re-designs as needed. listed are the influential work, how it influenced our concept, and why changes were made when they were.

The initial concept

the initial concept(Named "A Day on the Medway") was brought about through a surge of inspiration during the first lecture of this unit. this idea was developed through an already formed working knowledge of format and documentary codecies, a "ten minute nature-based documentary with a theme regarding doorstep nature" being the essence of the brief. from this I was drawn to my own doorstep from wich my immediate concept flowed. outside my door lies the River Medway and was is this geological feature that I focused on.

Great British Railway Journeys(GBRJ)

Produced by Talkback Thames for the BBC, and presented by ex-conservative politician Micheal Portillo. Great British Railway Journeys is about journeying along historic railway routes, as presented through the lens of an 18th century Railway guidebook. Portillo follows notary routes from the guide in the modern day, contrasting the experiences of the original(1800's) journalist, with his own experiences upon the route. Each series follows either one or two complete routes, stopping at interesting or pertinent stations along the way. Each episode is split between several different 'Destinations', each stop corresponds with a story based within the town of, or in the vicinity of the station.

 Episode breakdown:

each episode is split into "destinations" each destination forms a segment of the episode, with either one or two stories per segment, a breakdown of an average one story segment is below:

• beginning with anecdottal,descriptive or history commentary
• interview/sequence-each segment is made up of a mixture of actuality and either commentary or interview over a sequence formed of relevant visuals, actuality, interviews or archive footage
• Segway to next destination or segment depending upon episode

In the example episode the "destinations" visited and their associated themes are broken down below, listing their story count and a breif description. 

• Lynton and Lynmouth - one story about the funicular cliff railway, touches on operation, history, inception and conservation.
• Lynton and Barnstaple railway - one story about the partially reopened railway between Lynton and Barnstaple, touches on operations, conservation, heritage, history and inception and future expansions planned.
• Barnstaple town - two stories, the first about a particular factory, segway via a now demolished bridge to the second story about a clock tower that was not mentioned in the railway guide guide(compares then and now often)
• Eggesford - very short anecdotal-like story about why the train stops there at all(mentions the guide's lack of interest. segment is footnote-like) 
• Exeter city - two stories, the first about Northernhay Gardens, segway through "nature" theme into 2nd story about floral science and Exeter museum.

each "destination" is about 5-6 minutes long for a total run time of 30 minutes.

Its Influence

I had planned to use the vehicle of a boat ride along the Medway estuary, using localized waterside features to propel the programme through each segment.(segments were defined  by the results of research into the riverside features of the relevent, selected part of the river.) The planned show would also take cues from the way each story was presented, using a mixture of interview, actuality and commentary to advance the story.

having done some research, the influence that Great British Railway Journeys, and other light documentaries that I have viewed informally informed me of the style that I wished to impart. my observations show that this style of documentary is often broadcast late afternoon/early evening on weekdays, or during the day on weekends. it is light, pre-watershed, and genuinely relaxing just after returning from a place of work or education. 

my personal relationship with the above mentioned television show is reflective of its broadcast times. my father and I would often spend our evenings(while I was in college) watching films or television, this show would be the first as it often runs most of the year round, we'd watch GBRJ, then move onto Dramas or more serious documentaries after dinner. 

Concept 2

 The initial concept failed at a late stage in the production process, necessitating the redesign and re-writing of the project, this was due to our boat charter falling through, and the (at the time) lack of a response from two of the key contributing organisations, (the third was unable to help at all) thankfully a member of our team had found an interesting terain and wildlife conservation project that we decided we might be able to base our documentary around. unfortunately it was found days later that this project had been inactive for two years or so. I then wrote a script for the second concept, initially called "Hidden Medway". in keeping with my waterways theme, and inspired by the following programme, we designed a walkers or walking based show borrowing heavily from the programme described in this section.

Railway Walks With Julia Bradbury 

the programme uses a walk along a disused railway to frame the show, talking about local issues, nature and the history of the now deceased railway upon which the presenter walks. the act of walking theses trails and paths drives the story, and providing an overarching narrative. the show uses few experts, often joining the presenter upon their walks, there are long sequences of the landscape, and almost no VT's or archive footage, large amounts of actuality are used to express the story of the routes that are walked.

Its influence

from a format perspective it gave me the idea of using walking and a walk as a framing device. instead of using abandoned railways, I found a walk that hugs the bank of the river Medway from Maidstone to Rochester, described by several walking blogs as scenic and interesting. the walk deviates from the edge of the river at points, going past industrial and dilapidated, ex industrial areas.

I originally watched the show years ago and it was merely the framing device that I thought might work in this instance, and my team agreed.

Why it didn't work out

the second concept fell through after a day of filming, we managed far fewer miles in that day than expected, and due to the relative unfitness of our team we took a long time to shoot what we did. the other failing is the lack of interesting nature upon the leg we managed to shoot, however an organisation that we had contacted did get back to us so we decided to reformat and start again as far as content goes.

Final concept

The final concept has been created out of necessity and convenience, upon our visit to the previously stated organisation we where given the opportunity to film around the grounds of theur headquarters, as a conservation organisation they had sample ecologies on site and we saw a huge amount of interesting wildlife and received a lot of interesting new information. this lead to our final concept as it is described below:

A completely actuality driven shoot, with heavy emphasis upon the conservation work done by the above mentioned organisation, following a group of their volunteers as they work to conserve the landscape and wildlife. with heavy use of interviews and commentary. following the exploits of the volunteers and rangers who work hard to keep Kent conserved.

other stuff (related)

notes made on sample viewing of episode:

( S04 - E19 - Lynton And Lynmouth To Exeter)

• initial intro music.
• Intro sequence featuring commentary, introduces the show, the episode's route, and snippets from the three segments. tone is light and airy, feels as if travelling.
• segways to PTC within the first segment, Portillo describes the episodic starting point(villages of Lynton and Lynmouth) through a quote from the railway guide.
• sequence establishing the towns, commentary broadly describes the towns.
• segment with story about local feature(cliff railway), interviews and commentary over vision sequence.(history, geography, causes etc.)
• first segment ends with a cut to an arial shot of the North Devon coast.
• sequence introducing segment 2 (Lynton and Barnstaple railway)(NOTE: most episodes do not include segments featuring a railway, most use it as a vehicle for the story)
• segment two broadly follows the same format as segment one.
• show uses Arial shots of trains at speed or interesting geographic features to connect segments