Production Diary

Production Diary

Definition:

  A production diary is an account of the making of something within the media industry. This could be in the form of a film or a television show.

Coming Up With The Idea and Deciding How To Go About Making The Documentary:
 When mind mapping our initial ideas, we decided to make a documentary about book to film franchises and vis versa. Our main goal was to aim the documentary at a wide target audience because books and films appeal to people of all ages and do not specifically fit into one small target audience group. We felt like using examples of popular franchises in our documentary such as Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We felt this way because if we included franchises that are well known, then there would be a greater opportunity for a wider audience because more people would have a genuine interest in what we have to say. We decided as a group to film students from the college and people from outside of the college, this way would could collect a variety of different opinions about different book to film franchises.

Filming
  When we filmed in the college media studio, we have one person controlling the lighting, one controlling the camera and another crew member directing. This was effective because we could get the footage recorded quickly and efficiently. 

How Well The Group Managed Health and Safety Issues

How Well The Group Managed Health and Safety Issues

  Whilst filming on the college site and in Farnham, as a group we had to be aware of health and safety issues that could cause a problem whilst filming for our franchise documentary.
  Firstly, we had to be aware of the hazards at college. We had to make sure that the cables attached to the lights were out of the way of the people filming and being interviewed so that they wouldn't trip over them and injure themselves. We also had to make sure that the lights were not facing directly on the interviewer and interviewee. If we did that then the brightness of the lights could've damaged someone's eyes.
  Other hazards whilst filming in the college's media studio would involve the camera and the tripod. I needed to make sure that the camera was fully attached to the tripod. If I hadn't of done this then the camera could've fallen off of the tripod and could've caused an injury to someone. I also had to make sure that the tripod was set up properly, meaning that I had to make sure all the legs of it were securely fastened and stable. Without doing this, the tripod could've collapsed and fallen onto a member of the filming crew or onto someone being filmed.
   

How Well The Group Managed Equipment

How Well The Group Managed Equipment

Within our group, Sophie Fielder and myself have been operating the camera to collect footage for our film franchise documentary. When filming on the college grounds, specifically the media studio, I operated the camera by setting it up on a tripod. I had to steady the tripod and make sure that it was based central to the person being interviewed. I also had to make sure that the camera was on the correct function. Another job that  I had to do whilst filming at college was to make sure that the lighting was consistent throughout each interview. To achieve the same lighting, I set up the big lights in the studio and kept them on the same setting for each college interview. This kept the interviews looking as professional as they could do.

When Sophie Fielder operated the camera at a residents home in Farnham, she used the camera to get close up shots of each interviewee. She steadied the camera whilst it was being operated because she was trying to match the steadiness of my shots. She had a bit of difficulty steading her shots because she forget to use a tripod to help steady the camera. The shots are clear enough to use for our documentary, but if we could re-do them then we would make sure that a tripod was used to make the shots more professional looking.