Unit 38: Soundtrack Production Proposal

Proposal for Documentary

Documentary- Making The Grade

Requirement of brief
The documentary will be completed by the 25th of May
Summary of requirement
As the final unit for unit 31, we had to make a community media project as our documentary. We focused on student stress and what is being done to combat it. As the first part of the assignment we researched the issue in order to analyse it properly. We looked at reports and psychological statistics to find out how stress affects the body. We then gathered this information and put it into a power point to compile everything we had done. The next part of the production was pre-production. We conjured a script, a storyboard, a location and actor release form, a copyright form, a shooting script and other things in preparation for the shooting of our documentary. Some of these forms became useful. The location release form was used so we could use a room to record in for interviews and voice overs. In addition, if I were to use a piece of music that was not royalty free, then the copyright form would be useful here. The next stage is production. For this stage we decided to do 4 B-rolls, 3 interviews and a voice over. We aim to put the B rolls where there is narration and the interviews will be solitary with their own backing music. The group consisted of myself, Alex Garvey and Lloyd Bailey. We all had some control of the camera and we all edited individually. The editing hold cut the video down to 5-7 minutes. I was in charge of script, Alex was in charge of release forms and Lloyd was in charge of storyboards.

Client
Coulsdon College

Purpose and impact for documentary
The intended purpose of Raising awareness of depression and how college is dealing with it is to educate how some people feel in college, what backgrounds they may have come from and the situations they may be dealing with. It will also look at what services the college provide for such students going through such things. The impact of this would be for people to be a lot more sensitive and open minded about people going through the issues and to direct them to the necessary services. The college could create a specific service for people going through these things and then those vulnerable people would not feel alone and feel like they have a way to talk to people.

Recording location information
We chose a classroom to record in for two reasons. The first is that the setting matched the theme of the documentary with students and the work being focussed in class. The second is because of the sound. The Class room we recorded in had a slight echo so the sound carried better, although it did mean that on one of the recordings the voice was too low and some additional volume was added in the edit. Additionally whilst the room was very quiet, the ambience of the college can just about be heard. Location recording is not always as successful as directors want it to be but in this instance, it worked in our favour as all 3 recordings were captured with relative ease

Personnel
Saiosire Garvey-A level Student (Interviewee)
Malachi Barker-BTEC Level 3 student (Interviewee)
Kate Worrel-Psychology teacher (Interviewee)
David Allan (Producer)
Romilly Walden (Technical support)

Spoken Word Information
Questions for students
What subjects are you studying?
2. What qualification level are the subjects?
3. How are you personally affected by student stress
4. What do you think could be done to combat it
5. Do you feel enough is being done? If not, why?
Questions for Teacher
1. How does stress affect neurology?
2. How does the body respond to stress?
3. What are your opinions on student stress?
4. A brief description of the HPA axis and on the adverse affects its
activation has.
5. What do you think is being done to combat it
6. Do you feel like enough is being done? If not, why?

The voiceover will strictly be narration . It will be at the beginning and at the end of the documentary and it will be studio recorded. The interviews will be live location recorded as that is the best way to get raw reactions and the best footage.

Music Ideas for postproduction
In my edit of the documentary, I aim to have some sombre music playing at the beginning and at the end of the video. I feel as this would grab the viewers attention and make them feel more sympathetic to the students who are going through stressful times. It also makes the viewer realise the reality of the problem.

Sound FX ideas
There will be no sound effects added to the documentary simply because it des not make sense to and there is no place for it.