Documentary Unit: Script 3

After speaking to Helen (tutor) and showing her our sync cut of the film she agreed that we did need a narrator to our film. Initially we planned to use Roy but after speaking to the group we felt that it may be slightly weird to have him narrating and interviewed. We then decided to see if it would work without a narrator at all. We agreed to use myself as a example narration until we decide on a official person. Based on this feedback we also came up with a better version of a set up for our script.

Here is the new Script reflecting this change:

Script for Dogumentary - Draft 3

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Music

After a chat with Chris he decided it would be easier for him to go away and look and source music for the edit. With the option of using our composer anyway this was the most practical way of working. It meant that Chris could edit to music at the same time rather than waiting for a piece of music that may not work.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Editing Workshop with John Ramsden

Today we had an editing workshop with John Ramsden. We learnt more about the sync edit and rough cut edit today which as a producer in the project helped me to understand what we needed more. We then were tasked with editing a interview with the help of a transcript and taking out all the um's and stutters. I was very pleased with myself because i don't enjoy editing as i feel i am no good and take a long time. However i really learnt a lot today and am very glad we had the opportunity to learn from John. I would never have thought about editing out the pauses and um's and stutters as i wouldn't have really noticed them before. I am now pleased that i can offer Chris some assistance when he is editing and help to pin point any parts of a interview that need to be reedited. I am also pleased that John and Helen both gave me a lot of feedback on my edit and helped me to improve on it further by using a technique called sound mixing. I even learnt the short cut on the mac so it will definitely come in handy in the future.

Here is my edit i made during the lesson:



I am very pleased with this work and although it still isn't perfect for a first attempt at anything like this i am over the moon

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Filming Day 4 Reflection

Today myself and Hayley went down to the centre to put the go pro on a dog. The shoot was very good and the footage was much more stable and usable now we had secured the go pro as best we could. I also decided to see if we could get a dog to either carry a clapper board or sit next to one for a potential idea for our trailer. As we didn't need much shots today we only were at the centre for an hour and got all the shots we needed. Now i will meet with Chris and Danny and go through the edit chris has started work on and see if we need to go on one last shoot for any pick ups.

stay safe,

helen.

Documentary Unit: Filming Schedule 4

Here is the schedule for day 4. We were happy with the majority of the shots but needed to go back and film the go pro sequence.

HH Schedule Day 4

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Transcript of Interview with Nicole Crockford

Here is the Transcript of the interview with Nicole. She was very nervous but i think the interview went really well and i helped her to read by just having a nice chat with her before the camera was rolling and helping her to relax. 

Transcript of Interview With Nicole Crockford

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Transcript for interview with Kerry Burman

Here is an interview with Dog Handler, Kerry Burman. Her dog, Ruby, is a Cynophobia dog and Roy Arranged for us to have a quick interview with her before the class started. 

Transcript of Interview With Kerry Burman

Kerry's answers were really good and she was very comfortable on camera.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Transcript of interview with Tony & Summer Nay

Here is the Transcript for Tony & Summer Nay's Interview

Transcript for Interview With Tony and Summer Nay

This interview was the first i did with a family and i think i could have asked more questions but due to time constraints it was difficult to get the questions we needed done. I am happy that we got the interview as it is important for showing the effects of cynophobia on the family.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Transcript for Gemma Collins Interview

As we managed to get a quick interview with Gemma Collins and we weren't sure about if we would use the footage of her speaking i decided to transcribe her interview anyway just incase.

Transcript of Interview With Gemma Collins

This interview might prove to be unnecessary but the footage of Gemma and her shop will prove useful for our set up of the location at the start of out documentary.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Uni: Transcript for Roy Dyer Interview 1

I have transcribed the Roy Dyer interview that we did initially. Unfortunately the sound quality on this interview was not as good as we needed so i felt transcribing the interview would make sure we could get similar if not improve on his answers from last time.

Transcript of Roy Dyer Interview

I felt this interview was very strong and i really hope we can get a interview as good with him next time.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Film Day 3 Reflection

On day 3, Chris unfortunately had transport issues due to his train ticket being unable to take him on the underground and this would mean he would miss the shoot. Danny made the decision to alternate using the camera as we did not have a tripod and at times the camera can become heavy for one person. We also did not have a clip mic for this shoot so this was another problem we had to over come.
We wanted to focus more on Roy at this session so we could use cutaways of him in action as he will be a big focus of our film. We decided to try and get one or two more interviews with parents and children but without a clip mic this proved to be a problem. All the interviews we did on this day were brilliant in terms of content and we can only hope Chris is able to boost the audio quality in post. We had 2 interviews with children and 2 further interviews with parents and their children whose stories were very powerful.

We also filmed Roy's interview today and although the content was brilliant when i listened to the footage back after the shoot i could here a big echo of his voice and i think this will mean we will have to reshoot.

Overall the shoot was very successful and we got some nice sync footage and i feel i am learning more about the filming process now.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Filming Schedule 3

Here is the filming schedule for day 3:

HH Schedule Day 3

Due to Chris being stuck in london, the roles have changed from our initial plan. He will be in contact with us if we need any help with the camera.

Stay safe,

Helen

Media World: Interviewing Gemma Collins

When we were on location in Brentwood, Roy gave us a tour of all the local hotspots. This included Brentwood cathedral and various shops that are featured and owned by the stars of The Only Way Is Essex. The tour was before we started filming so we could make a note of any places of interest for our opening sequence. When we were heading back to the car to collect the camera Danny noticed that Gemma Collin (Star of TOWIE) was in her shop and that the colours of her shop were very stereotypical for what the General public would associate with Essex - Pink & lots of Beauty Treatments! He thought it would be a  good idea to see if we could film the outside of her shop. Roy said he would go and check with her as he has met her a few times before and had trained a few of the TOWIE cast's dogs. Gemma was lovely and agreed to let us film. I explained to her about our documentary but also in the back of my mind had Roy's film project. I though if we could potentially interview her it could work well for his documentary. Gemma agreed to answer a few questions so Chris and Danny set up the camera and sound and i explained a bit about where we'd been today so we could check her audio levels quickly. As soon as Danny gave the go ahead i briefed Gemma on the types of questions i would ask - mainly about the Essex that she knows compared with the General Public's perception of Essex. The interview went really well and although i was incredibly nervous and the interview wasn't planned i think it went really well. Danny and Chris set up the Perfect shot for her interview that featured her shop signs in the background. It was our first interview as a team and I'm really proud of us for pulling it off under a lot of pressure and dealing with a lot of interest from the public. I think they though we were from ITV and from that moment on had a fair few followers around Brentwood. We are going to keep the footage for Roy's Documentary and also potentially use it in our's if it is useful in the opening sequence but like Danny said the shot they got of Gemma's shop are enough to help orientate people as to the location and the Essex style.

Stay Safe,

Helen

Media World: National Youth Film Academy

I applied a few months ago to the National Youth Film Academy to take part in their summer program where they select the best up and coming young filmmakers around the country to take part in making 1 of 4 films. At the audition i had to prepare a new short film idea, a show reel, and examples of my script work and have an interview with 2 of the Academy reps.
I was so happy when i got a phone call to say i had been offered a place on the course!

Here is a bit about the course:

The National Youth Film (NYFA), supported by the Directors Guild Trust and the Directors Guild of Great Britain. The NYFA (National Youth Film Academy) is a non for profit organisation created to locate, educate, develop and showcase the talents of exceptionally gifted Young Actors and Film Makers aged 16-25 years old from around the UK. We provide all Young Film Makers and Actors with the opportunity to train with respected industry professionals and meet with like-minded individuals to write, film, produce and showcase their own short film.

Some of the people in the past NYFA have had speak on the course include:

Here is an article from the Guardian about the course:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/aug/31/national-youth-film-academy-talent

Really excited to start it now and feel very lucky to be one of the chosen few.

Stay safe,

Helen

Media World: Side Project - So You Think You Know Essex

Roy has asked Danny, Chris and myself to help him with a project he has wanted to do for a long time. Thanks to the show The Only Way Is Essex, the view of Essex people in general is very stereotypical. Roy has an idea for a TV show called So You Think You Know Essex where we discover the real Essex, from its history of being the last place in Britain to burn a witch, to having one of the best schools in the country. With this in mind, whilst filming our Hero Hounds Documentary we were able to film some of the other side of Essex such as Brentwood Cathedral with the possibility of using this footage in our own film to again show the side of Essex people might not know about.
Im really grateful to Roy for asking me to be a part of this project and hopefully in the summer we can join him on a couple of shooting days to various places in Essex and potentially turn it into a documentary.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Hero Hounds Logline

Here is one of the tag lines for Hero Hounds:

"You don't have to wear a cape, to be a hero."

I thought it was interesting and possibly a funny idea especially if we had a picture of a dog with a cape on with a speech bubble saying 'now you tell me'.

I created this as an example:

I think its fun, interesting and gets your attention. It gives people something to think about and hopefully that would be enough to get them to tune in. Promotion of TV shows is a big thing and hopefully something like this would help our show to do well. 

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Hero Hound Test Logo's

As Chris is the editor and by far the best person in the group with anything technical he began working on a logo for our film to make it more professional. We want to not only make this project a success for us in terms of our university mark but also to potentially take it forward as something bigger in the future as Cynophobia is something that affects peoples lives on a large scale and if our film could help with Roy's ambition to take the project to a UK level then that would be brilliant.

Chris created 3 different versions of the same logo design as a basis to see which he should continue to develop for our intro and for any promotional things such as DVD's and posters. He is still working on a example for text as we all agreed that just plain white text writing may look tacky and not up to the level we want for our film. Here are the 3 choices we had:

We all agreed that the red paw was the best idea and was simple enough yet still very interesting. Chris is now working on the official version and i will post that we we have it.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Picture Consent

One of the Cynophobia Assistance dog handlers took a picture of the dogs that we all felt would be really great to use for any potential promotional work such as posters, Press pack stills or DVD cover pictures. I decided to send her a message asking if it would be possible for permission to use her picture. I will then follow this up with a consent form when we go back to the Cynophobia class during easter.

Here is our conversation:

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Hero Hounds Facebook & Twitter

I though it might be a good idea to have a Facebook page and Twitter account to help promote our documentary and so that the children, parents, Dog handlers, and other people associated with our film could have somewhere to see the finished film and potentially promote the film if it is good enough to push forward with.

Here are the pages:

Twitter: @HeroHoundsTV

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeroHounds

As Producer, i think part of my job is to help set up a fan base and promote the project as best i can. I have learnt that doing this is a good move from submitting my 'A Journey Through Love' Film to festivals and having seen the question asked - 'does your film have an online presence such as Twitter/ Facebook accounts'. If we did decide to submit our film it would be useful that this was already in place. Stay safe,Helen

Documentary Unit: Go Pro Dog Test

One of the important things to do was test the go pro on the dogs. We needed a dog who was big enough so the go pro didn't affect the way it went over jumps and was also comfortable wearing the device. Roy suggested a Border Collie called Charlie who was incredibly fast. The way we had fashioned the go pro was similar to how it was on Danny. This time however the loop was attached to the dogs collar. We were still a bit concerned that this may lead to a lot of movement from the camera so wanted to try it in 2 different places - one on the dogs collar facing front and the second on the side of its collar. The hope was that we would be able to attach it to a harness very securely but this would depend on sourcing a harness that would be suitable.

Here is the footage:

None of this footage would have been useable for our documentary so we are again very pleased to have done the tests shots. One of the centre's instructors found us a harness we could take away and work with the go pro on to make sure that it would be a stable shot. When we go back to redo the go pro shots next week we will have the harness ready to go and are very certain that there will be no movement on the camera as it will be securely places in the centre of the harness on the dogs chest.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary unit: Go Pro Danny Test

In order to plan for the go pro filming, we asked the centre if we could do a test shot with Danny. We wanted to see which location would be best for the Go Pro and decided to try out a set up with the Go Pro on his Chest.
Here is the set up:

We wanted to see if it would be a better shot in terms of the angle than from the head mount. Here is the test footage from this angle:

As you can see the footage is fairly good until the dog latches and then the movement from the camera is too poor quality for us to use. From this test we have decided to use the head mount on the proper shoot and make sure that our other camera which is also recording is not in the go pro shot although this can be cropped in post if there are time constraints etc.

Overall i am pleased we did a test shoot so we could see what the footage was like and whether or not to place the camera in a different area. If we had not done this most of the footage we had would have been unusable if we had only placed the camera in this location.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Cynophobia Class Facebook Group page

Roy mentioned when we did filming on Wednesday that the Cynophobia classes had a Facebook group and often parents would write thank you messages or updates on how their children were doing. I asked him if we could join the group and he agreed. We thought if we saw any comments that were particularly positive or had a really interesting back story of how far the child has come it may be useful for our documentary and we could ask for permission to use the comment or maybe even interview the family.

This will also help with our promoting of the film as the group has 145 members.

Here is the page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/311236165581940/

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Filming Day 2 Reflection

The 2nd day of filming we were due to travel from Rochester to Brentwood but due to our train cancellation we had to stay at Danny's dad's so we were already in London and this meant we would be in brentwood earlier than planned. This also meant that we needed Hayley, our production Assistant to bring my laptop over to the Centre before filming so we could save all the footage and wipe the memory sticks.
We began the day by having a production meeting at Nando's. We discussed the good and bad points from the previous day and agreed on a shot list that Danny had devised. This gave us the chance to refuel and talk about the filming, multitasking at it's finest.

After making our way to the centre, Danny and Chris went and filmed some of the signs around the place so we could use them for establishing shots and information. When i filmed the display team the first time Roy mentioned about getting Danny to take part in the session and the opportunity to film him in attack work training. We discussed this before hand and wanted to put the Go Pro on Danny and film it from both that and the other camera so we could use the footage as a potential physical representation of the cynophobia sufferers fears. This worked well and we were excited to use this as a potential idea. Roy also mentioned about getting a dog to bark into the camera. This was a great idea and poor Chris had to film one of the dogs barking right down the lens and it was pretty scary.

Chris and Danny then both took part in a race with 2 dogs and an obstacle course. This gave us a good opportunity to get some action shots from the shot list. I took control of the camera and managed to get a couple of nice shots and the boys did a good job as they were aware of the camera they managed to keep out of all the shots without loosing control of their dogs. Then while the boys took charge of the camera again, i placed the go pro in various places around the course and managed to get some interesting shots of dog jumping over the camera and gave us a different option for a potential edit.

We then attached the go pro to a dog to see the stability. The first test didn't go well and the go pro was far too unstable for us to use. We tried a different fixing but still the shots were far to shaky. We then were given a harness by one of the trainers and said i could go away and try and fashion something more secure which was a great idea.

We then drove back to Rochester and the filming went really well so were pleased with the day.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Filming Day 1 Reflection

On the first day of the filming we got our trains to Brentwood and were picked up at the station by Roy. He took us to a nearby cafe in Brentwood town centre and we discussed with Roy in more detail our brief for the shoot. He was very accommodating and even had a few ideas of his own to add which was very helpful. We mentioned the idea that we wanted to have a few establishing shots of Brentwood, and he agreed to take us on a tour and show us the all the local hotspots. We first went round Brentwood without the camera and this was really good as we were able to make notes of places we wanted to film and not waste any battery.

We then went back to the car and collected the camera and got some lovely shots of Fast cars, stereotypical 'Essex' looking people, Some of the famous Shops from The Only Way is Essex, Brentwood Cathedral and Brentwood School - Famous for its former Pupils including Frank Lampard and also one of the best in the country. Roy even managed to get us an interview with Gemma Collins from the show which was really good. Danny put me in charge of interview's and so it was my job to get Gemma to warm to us and also think of questions from the top of my head to interview her. I quickly thought of some and made a note on my iPad and had a brief chat with Gemma before our interview so she knew what the questions were going to be. This turned out to be great and although i don't think we can use her interview i'm sure that we can use footage of her when she isn't talking as part of our introduction to Essex. We were very lucky with our footage of Brentwood people as many locals would just come up to us as they thought were were a crew for TOWIE. After explaining what we were they still wanted to be in out film so we asked them to walk down the street - casual. Unfortunately most people were very OTT and this caused a bit of a problem as we would never be able to use that footage but some people were very good.

Roy then took us to his training centre. This was the first chance Danny and Chris had to see it, and they were very impressed. Roy gave us complete access to the centre and this gave us the opportunity to expand our shot list. Danny and Chris went round the centre getting some establishing shots and working from Danny's shot list.

As the dog handlers began to arrive, Roy asked if we wanted to do a couple of interview's before the class so the boy's set up the shot while i spoke to our interviewee's and made sure they were comfortable with the questions and had good answers ready. I think this was a good strategy as it didn't waste time. After both interview's went really well, we decided to go outside and film the dogs and handlers and this was a good opportunity to see each dog individually. As i went over and talked to the handler's, Chris and Danny again set up the shot's and got some nice footage of the dog's walking around and socialising. They also knew at this stage the 2 dogs we may focus on during our film - Ruby and Emily, as we interviewed their owners, so they knew to get some nice shots of them playing. I sent over each dog handler to do a little piece with the camera as this way it not only helped us to avoid any anger from a dog owner not picked, but also gave us a potential trailer idea.

Part of my job on the day's of the shoot it to make sure all contributors sign a consent form so before the class began Roy made it clear that we were filming the session and that anyone who wouldn't mind an interview to let me know. I asked all the parents and dog handlers to sign consent forms and if anyone didn't want to be filmed or have their child filmed to let me know and we would blur their faces out if they were in a shot we wanted to use. Luckily everyone was very happy to be a part of the film and this helped us amazingly. I got consent forms for every person we filmed that day.

As i spoke more with the families, Chris and Danny went outside to film the class. This gave me the opportunity to scout out a potential interview with a parent. This proved an issue but we managed to find one parent who agreed. So i told Danny and Chris to focus on his daughter for some of the session as we would need cutaways of her.

After the session we filmed the interview and again it was very good. The one problem we had was the Daughter summer spoke very softly and we immediately knew that any footage of her interview would be unusable even with a sound boost. We tried our best to get her to speak up but she was very shy and nervous and we didn't want to stress her out to much. She gave good reactions while her father was talking so overall we are pleased.

Roy then took us back to the station where we got the train to Stratford and we found out our train had been cancelled. Danny asked his dad if we could stay at his house in London and luckily we managed to make sure we would be safe for the night. We had to go back to film the next day in Brentwood anyway so this would save us a bit of money. 

Overall a great day filming.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Parental Consent Forms

This is one of the Parental Consent forms from our 1st day of filming at the Essex dog training centre.  I added a part about children to the regular consent forms to turn it into a parental consent as i wanted to make sure we were allowed to film each child and told anybody who didn't wish to be filmed to let me know so i could make i note of what they were wearing for blurring purposes in the edit. Nobody had any objections to being filmed so this was great. 

Here is a form filled in by one of the parents:

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Consent Forms

We have 22 Consent forms from Dog handlers and Essex Dog Training Centre Workers and Members of the public who were in attendance on the 2 days we have filmed so far. We have 2 more days to shoot so there may be more Consent forms to come. Everyone at the centre has so far agreed to being filled which is brilliant news as we will not have to blur any faces out from the footage w shave so far. 

Here is one of the forms filled in by Cynophobia Dog Handler, Nicole, who we interviewed.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Narrator

After a brief group chat about it we had decided to ask Roy if he would like to narrate the documentary. Roy is such a character and not only knows brentwood like the back of his hand but is obviously very passionate about his centre that anybody else might not do it justice.
As soon as we asked him he was thrilled to be asked and is looking forward to it.



Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Budget

After Speaking to Chris and Danny we came up with the cheapest travel strategy to get to Essex for our first 2 shoot days and an estimate for 3 further days of shooting if needed & a maximum for food of £10 per person a day.

On day 1 we are getting the train to brentwood and back to rochester. On Day 2 we are having a lift from my housemate so are paying for the petrol & toll (£2 each way). any further shoots we are hoping to travel by car as this is the cheaper option and helps with carrying the equipment around.

Day 1: 3 Adult return train tickets to Brentwood - £87 (Danny £25 with railcard, Chris & Helen £31))
Food budget - £30

Day 2: Petrol & toll- £20
Food Budget - £30

Day 3: Petrol & toll- £20
Food Budget - £30

Day 4: Petrol & toll- £20
Food Budget - £30

Day 5: Petrol & toll - £20
Food Budget - £30

                Estimated Total  = £317

This is obviously split between the 3 of us so works our roughly £106 pound per person. This is a decent budget as we do not need anything special for the shoot itself as Roy is helping to provide anything dog related and we are not anticipating any other purchases. The food budget i think will be a lot less but have given it as a maximum amount just incase we have a meal out in brentwood.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Cynophobia Psychological Report

After my Location Scout and Meeting with Roy Dyer on Sunday, he gave me a report that was compiled by a Psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire. The report was a really useful and interesting read as it helped me to understand more about the process that goes into helping the child overcome the fear. I have made a PDF copy as Roy has given us permission to use quotes and discuss any information from the report with either himself or our Psychologist Emma. I especially found useful Page 11 as it discusses what roy does with the children at each stage of their involvement with the classes at the centre.

Here is the Report:

Cynophobia Report PDF by helzwelsh

Stay Safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Call Sheet Day 1

Here is the call sheet for day 1 of the shoot.

Call Sheet Dy 1

As i am traveling by bus my call time is earlier, danny is traveling by train to rochester and chris lives in rochester. We are all meeting at rochester train station to get our trains to Brentwood to meet Roy at 14:00.

The Cynophobia class starts at 19:00 so the call time for the parents, children and dog handlers is 18:00.

For privacy i have removed the phone numbers.


Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Feedback Meeting with Helen (The Tutor)

Today Danny and I had a meeting with our Tutor, Helen. We talked about the issues we had with changing our idea focus from the charity to the the dog training centre and that actually it was working out quite well as the access we were having was pretty unlimited as Roy was incredibly generous with both his time and providing us with anything that could help. We explained each of the key stories involved in our film so far:

       - Roy Dyer
       - Dogs
       - Dog Handlers (Helper done good)
       - Psychotherapist Emma Evans (Expert)
       - Parents & Children - Cases

We also explained how our film could possibly be 2 parts - the Rescue dogs and the Cynophobia dogs. I was worried about how we would link both of these together and Helen said that there would be something inout film that may prove a easy transition but he had to find it. It may be something as simple as a Narrator saying 'but the Cynophobia dogs aren't the only heroes at the centre'.

Overall i was really pleased with our feedback as due to illness i hadn't been able to talk to Helen much about the film so was happy that i had the chance. It is really useful to have her opinion and helps to keep us on track and remember everything we've been learning in class.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Interview Questions for Cynophobia Dog Handlers

Myself and the boys came up with some interview questions for the Cynophobia Dog Handlers. Here is the list:

• Introduce yourself and your dog
•  
• I’ve heard that (Certain Dog's Name) is very popular with the children, why do you think that is?
•  
• Do you use any form of reward system with the dogs in the cynophobia class?
•  
• What’s it like working the Roy?
• What have you found are the biggest phobias the children have? 
• What do you find rewarding about helping the children? 

• What do you think that your dog gets out of doing this?

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Psychotherapist Interview Questions

Here are the planned questions for Emma Evans, our Phobia expert. We have a set list of questions for her and will just have a chat about anything else she feels may be useful to discuss before hand and see what other things crop up from her answers that i can ask her to expand on.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs Research

Paul O'Grady is a massive dog lover and is the presenter for For the Love of Dogs.

"Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs is a multi-award winning British documentary series presented by Paul O'Grady. In each episode cameras follow Paul as he helps the Battersea staff rehome some of their Dogs. The show is made by Shiver Productions and premiered on ITV on 3 September 2012. The first series averaged 4.07 million viewers, with the second series averaging 900k more, achieving 4.97 million." - Wikipedia

As it is very popular among all age groups and features rescue dogs it is a really good program to look at shots, interviews and format.

Here is an episode:

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Tekkers Productions

Chris, as editor, has been working on our Production company introduction for our film.
We came up with the name fairly quickly as one of the things we have in common is football and tekkers is something used to describe skill on a show called Soccer AM. We all bring different skills to our team so this works perfectly.
Chris then went away and came up with this initial logo test:




We all though it was really cool and i really liked what he had put under the company name but we all thought perhaps a black background would work better. Here is a still from the next test Chris did with a black background:

Im really pleased with this and can tell Chris has been working hard already to get things ready for when he begins his editing of all the footage.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Call Sheet Day 4

Here is the call sheet for day 4:

Call Sheet Day 4

We will be travelling by car again but will also be interviewing Roy today and potentially recording our voiceovers. This could potentially be our last shooting day but we will know more after the 1st weeks filming. We are going to record some pick up shots and our go pro action shots.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Call Sheet Day 3

Here is the call sheet for day 3:

Call Sheet Day 3

As Chris is coming from Bradford his call sheet is much earlier than the rest of us as we traveling by car and he is coming by train.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Call Sheet Day 2

Here is the Call Sheet for the 2nd day:

Call Sheet Day 2

We are going to have production meeting at lunchtime on thursday so we can establish the good and bad things from the previous shoot and listen to Danny about anything we need to improve on or do for shoot later.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Making a Documentary Research

In Filmmaker Magazine i found an really great article about making documentaries. I have posted it below:

The article is really useful and talks about everything in a really simple way. Things like editing are really important as often during documentaries their are cutaway shots that link with the audio. I am glad i have researched this as it will be useful for this unit and further documentaries i make.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Filming Schedule 2

Here is the Filming Schedule for Day 2:

HH Schedule Day2

Today we are traveling back to Brentwood by car and are filming the Display team in action. This will be outside and also under time restrictions due to filming when it is getting dark luckily their are lots of flood lights around the centre so we should be able to keep filming if the lighting is good.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Filming Schedule

Here is the filming Schedule for day 1 of our shoot.

HH Schedule Day1

We have to film in 2 locations and it will be the first time Chris and Danny will see the location in person so we are spending the whole day in Brentwood so we have plenty of time. Roy has spoken to Danny and has offered to give us a lift around Brentwood and show us places of potential interest.

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Interview Questions for Roy Dyer

In order for us to interview Roy, The group came up with a few questions to ask him. We felt the questions would help us to get a particular answer or story that we had heard Roy mention during our time with him at the centre. I mentioned to the boys that if his answers needed some expansion or he didn't mention the answer we were hoping for i would try and probe him a bit further in order to get the story we were poking for. Here is the list of questions we came up with:

• Introduce yourself
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• Tell me why you first decided to create the centre
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• What is your background with dogs?
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• What does the training centre offer here?
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• Did you ever have a fear of dogs as a child?
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• What affect does seeing the change in the children have on you?
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• What do you enjoy most about running the classes?
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• Why did you decide to start the cynophobia classes?
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• What is a children biggest fear of the dogs?
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• How do you select the dogs that you have at the class?
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• Tell me about the rescue dogs in the display team    
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• Tell me about the display team and how the exercises do something to show the dog’s character
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• Is there a particular story about one of the rescue dogs that when you heard it, it hit you, and your glad you’ve been able to change its life?
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• Can you tell me the story about the little dog that was thrown from a car?
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• The future – Psychology side and hope for the cynophobia nationwide scheme

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Interview Questions for Parents & Children

Here are the questions we thought of to ask the parents and children:

• What are you most scared of about the dogs?
• Who is your favourite dog at the centre?
• Is their anything that you can think of that may have triggered your child's fear?
• How has the class helped?
• How has cynophobia affected your lives?
• What do you think of Roy, the dogs and the handlers?

We think these questions will give us a overall idea about how it affects the lives of the families and the improvements made from attending the classes.

stay safe,

helen

Documentary Unit: Selecting Characters

After meeting with Roy today he told me various story's about the dogs and handlers that we could use for our documentary.

The ones we are considering going forward with as characters are:

• Rescue dog who was thrown from a car but is now performing in the display team
• Handler who's mother asked Roy to let him join the team as his life was spiralling down. After joining the team his life has turned around. He is now one of the top handlers at the centre and is helping to work with the rescue dogs.

Roy himself is a confirmed character of our documentary. Roy has a fantastic personality and plenty of stories and knowledge to really capture the attention of the audience. One of the people we met in Essex referred to Roy as 'Mr Brentwood' and this comment alone helped us to know that having him on board was a good decision. 

Where the parents and children of the Cynophobia class are concerned we have to speak to them on the day and see who is willing to be interviewed. I will speak to Danny and see if he wants me to approach the parents before filming and see who is willing for an interview as then we can use this to make sure we film the relevant child so we can have appropriate cut aways and don't waste memory or battery filming other things. 

Roy has said he will speak to the Dog handlers on the day and send over 1 at a time for us to film. They are all keen to be involved so he has said that he will pick a few with interesting backgrounds or who are more relaxed on camera. 

Stay safe,

Helen

Documentary Unit: Location Scout

Today i went to Essex Dog Training centre with our Production Assistant Hayley, to have a look around the centre and see the kind of filming opportunities we could get. Today the display team were rehearsing and learning new skills for their shows in the future. Talking to Roy was a great opportunity and has really helped me to find links between the display team and the Cynophobia classes. Roy explained that during the display's he commentates and explains to the audience that while the things the dogs do is for entertainment they are also linked with other things such as the aggression exercise shows how police train their dogs and in term of filming for us will show how scary some dogs can be in the wrong hands. During fire skills he explains that dogs are not scared of fire (a Common myth) so it is easy to teach them to jump through or enter search and rescue sites to look for people trapped. Everything that was going on roy was able to give a really good explanation for and this will be vital when we have our interview and voiceover's. Roy is more than willing to help us get all the footage we need and is such a great personality that he could easily carry our show as the lead man.
The centre itself is very nice and professional, They have an air conditioned bus that they use to transport the dogs when they go to shows and an air conditioned tent so after they have performed they can have somewhere nice to cool off. As many of these dogs are rescues I was interested to find out some of the background stories. One of the dogs was thrown from a moving car and was in a very bad way when roy took her in. He himself therefore is one of our hero's not only for this but for his work in the phobia classes. This along the Cynaphobia dogs will make for a strong plot for our film.
Another interesting story Roy told me was about some of the team members who have had tough backstories themselves brining another possible story to our program.

Here is a video of the location scout:



Here are some pictures from the location scout:

                                          Stay safe,

                                           Helen