Original Passion Project | Josephmugridge

Passion Project

1.1 Purpose and context

Introduction - This is my passion project and this is what, why, how and when it is going to happen.

Outline - The general idea of my passion project is to make a wildlife documentary (around 45 minutes) at Bristol Museum and Arts Gallery and i would be filming the Western Wildlife area of the Museum as this Documentary will be shining light on the local wildlife in and around Bristol. I will be doing this with a member of staff who will allow me to record a voice over for the documentary and they will just talk about each local animal.

Context - The reason I want to make a wildlife documentary is because I've always had pets and have been fascinated by other animals. I’ve been thinking of going to Bristol Museum. If i can get permission to film there, I would like to make a promotional documentary for them and go around filming different animals they have on display and have them talk about them. I would be uploading this on their social media accounts (like Instagram, Facebook and twitter), and my personal accounts.

Need & Market - This would be relevant as there are very little videos and media around the Museum, most I have seen has been has been from the public. Hopefully I can work with them and get a worker to do a Voice over, just in front of a camera and whilst they’re speaking I can cut to shots of the animal they’re talking about in the museum and in the wild. Compared with other Wildlife documentaries, like on the BBC (Dynasties, Blue planet), this would have a different style as it is not solely filmed in the wild, there will be half and half inside the museum and in forestry.

1.2 Pitch Preparations

Mindmap of initial ideas

Mood-board

Sample Material

These are my editing examples for my passion project and what I have done is I have speed ramped these videos so that they are slowed down for a part of the video. So in the first edit, I have speed ramped it so that when my cat yawns, it is in slow motion.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Legal Issues:

Copyright - Protects your work from other people trying to steal it so they'll have to pay for use. Copyright on say a youtube video can do many things, like take some of the revenue, all of the revenue or take the video down completely. To prevent this, I will use my own footage and whatever isn't mine, I will get written permission to use.

Permission to film - If you are trying to film something in the public, people might come up to you and tell you to stop if you don't have permission to be there. This can cause big problems with production and can even cause it to be stopped indefinitely. What I'll do to prevent this is get permission from Noah's ark (or wherever I film) to film there and make a promotional documentary for them

Health and Safety - You must comply with health and safety legislation, so you must make a good risk assessment analysing all the risks in the location you are filming and you must use the equipment you have the way you've been shown. If these guidelines aren't followed, you are at risk of injury and the location is at risk of been deemed unsafe. The way I would prevent this from happening on my shoot, is by using a 400mm lens so I won't have to get close to any animals that react rashly.

Ethical Issues:

Stereotyping - Saying people can't or have to do certain things because of there gender or race. For example, there is a song called "Blurred Lines" that got a lot of slate because they were insinuating that women are objects and should do as there male counterparts ask. In my documentary there won't be any stereotyping but the viewers are allowed to choose what they're more interested in, so not all girls are going to like horses and not all boys are going to like lions.

Omitting information - Only showing the positives of a product and ignoring the negatives. This can really control the outcome of a product as, for example, if a bottle of soap claims it kills 99.9% of bacteria and the next day you get Corona, it isn't going to look good for that soap company. This is hard to prevent for my project as it isn't up to me as they might only want me to film what they want you to see.

Representation - not treating everyone equally, for example, if the press wanted to take a picture of a football team but they only took a picture with white players, that not really discriminates, but it isn't fair as they are apart of the team as well and for them not to be included in a team picture is wrong.With my project, this doesn't really affect it as I'm going to be filming animal, but I still understand the premise.

1.3 Project Pitch

This is my Passion Project Pitch for my wildlife documentary at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm. Overall, I think my pitch went well but it could've been better as I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be when speaking. Another thing that was wrong with my pitch was there wasn't as much information on the slides compared to the actual amount of research I did, so I could've added a lot more info.

Passion project pitch.pdf

1.4 Survive Questioning

Questions

Do you feel like Noah’s Ark has enough content for 45 minutes?
What happens if no-one wants to voiceover? What is the contingency?
Do you think there is a reason why no long videos there already?
Who is subscribed to their channel already?
What kind of audience do they have?
Would you release trailers to build up an audience before the release?
Are there ways you can get the animals attention whilst filming?
With wildlife you need to be very patient? Is 2 days filming enough?
Using GoPros
What are you going to do for soundtrack? e.g. music, animal noises
Representation of different animals
- Why those animals in particular?
Are you going to script for the voiceovers?
- Could you include interviews?

1.5 Project Evaluation and Project Feedback

For my Passion Project (unit 304), I have made a google slide presentation which I have pitched to an “investor”. In this presentation, I have done slides on the purpose and context, the target audience, a graph showing the most used devices, the budget, my production schedule, any legal and ethical issues, the location, sample material and editing examples. The parts of this project that went well were the purpose and context as it helped get my idea across and was clear in what I wanted to do, the target audience went well as I explained what age range would watch and be interested in this documentary.

The graph showing device usage over 10 years helped me prove that more people use their phones and computers than their TVs so this would make it easy for my target audience to access the documentary. Something I could have changed was my budget document as it was missing some costs and didn’t link most of the equipment, and what I have done to change this is I have listed more equipment that I would have to buy, for example adobe creative cloud and sound, and I have also linked all the equipment that is listed to where I found it. For my production schedule, I was pretty accurate in the fact of how long it would take for me to produce this documentary, however I started filming in early September as it worked best for the people in Noah’s Ark and for me as I was able to get a staff member to voice over the documentary. The legal and ethical considerations helped me outline the problems I may have with this documentary, but these problems weren’t an issue during production as I got permission to film on their site and I didn’t cause any disturbance to the animals. Getting there on the day wasn’t an issue as they are situated quite close to my college, however it was a bit busy in the zoo at certain parts of the day but it wasn’t that big of an issue. Finally, I think my sample material showed the style of footage I would like to film very well and the editing examples, which I have made slow motion, helped show the techniques I used in Premiere pro to piece together the documentary.

Overall, I am happy with the way my pitch was presented and the way the final documentary looked and the things I would change would be my Budget document, the day I filmed on, even though I didn’t know how the day would go, and I wish I would’ve added more to my pitch slides because I did a lot more research than the amount that was on the slides.

Improvements

I have added screenshots of Noah's Arks' Youtube and Instagram accounts to show their following, However their instagram has a lot more followers than their youtube as they post more frequently on there. So, when I start production I might have to make a trailer or something so that they can post it on their instagram to get more traction towards my wildlife documentary as it is still a promotional documentary.