26.9

In class we continued our pre-production stage of the documentary. Pre-production means all the work to be done (planning) before turning on the camera, before shooting. We mainly focused on working together to produce a letter/email that we will send to the principals or heads of the schools we want to film at. This is really important because before we can really move forward with our plans we need to get permission; this is also a huge part of filming documentaries, as you're filming true events or real life, so you have to respect people's privacy rights.

There's so much work to be done during the pre-production stage of filming any movie, although with a documentary the different aspects of planning are slightly different to a feature film. For example documentaries don't need to go through the casting process of picking actors for specific roles, but they could consider possible interviewees and select the most "suitable" one. We don't need to draw out a storyboard because we're not exactly manipulating each shot, but we can use visual references to give an example of what we're hoping or trying to make it look like. The shot list is extremely important, for almost any type of film. I don't think it would be as detailed as a feature film's shot list because with a feature film each action each movement each spoken word is planned out so the directors would know exactly what each shot should look like.

An interesting thing I learned during class was that location scouting is really important, probably just as important as the actors because the place has to match with the story to make it believable, as well as to establish the mood. Location scouting is actually a real profession, and apparently people get paid lots of money to find good places.

What we still have to do is to make a shot list, get background information on school and students, get permission from the interviewees and set up time/location for interviews and think about making a visual reference (sort of like a storyboard type thing). There's a lot so I think we need to think about picking up the pace to finish the pre-production stage so we can start filming. It's good that we can allocate tasks between the three people so that each person has a responsibility to fulfill to get the whole job done. What we're kind of scared about is what if the principals don't let us come to their school as we feel it's a little awkward, but that would just mess up our whole plan. So fingers crossed!

"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." - All About Eve