MEST4 Linked production: Research and planning

Confirm your production brief. You write this yourself but it's absolutely crucial this is clear, appropriate and achievable. You should have done this already - the original blogpost was here - but it may have changed as a result of your preliminary exercise.
My criticlal investigation topic is: "To what extent did the media coverage of the EU referendum affect the engagement of young people in politics?"

My linked production brief will be to create a Newsnight-esque report on the political engagement of young people in London and across the UK. 

Research: detailed notes on at least THREE texts similar to what you are creating. What are the key conventions? What can you learn/borrow from the examples you have looked at?

Key Conventions

• One, two shots/cuts of interviewer and interviewee
• Tighter and closer shots of people when they are answering the questions
• At times the interviewer is not at all shown asking the questions
• Voice over narration, asking questions and providing details
• Host looking out in the distance in front of a visually appealing background
• Skylines, time lapses and establishing shots
• Camera follows host as he delivers lines and walks away
• Lower thirds
• B roll footage of people doing things with voice over, such as young people talking etc
• Vox pops?
• Statistics, data, research, reports. These are either challenged or reinforced. "50% of young people are lazy. Is this true? Let's find out etc"
• Background music
• Filler shots of interviewer and interviewee talking with voices drowned out with narration over it - SEE: Have we fallen out of love with experts? Ian Katz reports - BBC Newsnight
• Interviewer has notes, pen and paper - SEE ABOVE NEWSNIGHT
• 
  

Project schedule: when will you shoot and edit this production? Make this a week-by-week schedule leading up to Easter. Key dates: we break up for Easter on Friday 31 March and the final deadline is Wednesday 19 April.

• Week 1 (27th Feb - 5th March) 
• Organise the Shotlists, Storyboard, Script and overall structure of the documentary
• Email people that can be interviewed
• List of questions that can be asked in the interview
• Week 2 (6th March - 12th March)
• Film B roll
• Establishing shots
• Hyper and time lapse of Ealing/London/Tower Hamlets
• Week 3 (13th March - 19th March)
• Ealing Interviews
• Week 4 (20th March - 26th March)
• Tower Hamlets Interviews
• Week 5 (27th March - 2nd April)
• Post-production
• Week 6 (3rd April - 9th April)
• Editing, leave space for any improvements
• Leave space purposely for BYC residential filming
• Week 7 (10th April - 16th April)
• Edit and drop in BYC filming
• Week 8 (17th April - 19th April)
• Finalise the post production

Script - see the BBC Writers' Room for advice/script formatting. If you're making a music video, you'll want to write a treatment instead. This is an example treatment that I provide for GCSE Media students studying this topic. For print productions, this means writing all the text for the cover, contents and feature articles. Write this in Microsoft Word so you can proofread and spellcheck the work before moving it into Photoshop.

Sketching and drafting - for video-based productions this means a storyboard - sheets available in DF07 or you can print out your own AQA storyboard sheet. For print productions, this means detailed sketches of all your pages.

Shot list - use Microsoft Word or a template like this to help you. Remember, you need a shot list whether you are filming or carrying out a print photoshoot - professional quality original images are essential if you want to reach the top level.

Mise-en-scene: casting/model details, costume and make-up, props, lighting, location scouting for video productions etc. Use photographs to document and plan your mise-en-scene - using your phone is acceptable for this.

Casting/Moswl

• Presenter/Host: Me
• Interviewees: Tejas Dattani, Pervin Kaur, Gemma Benton, Julian Bell, Steve Pound, Deng Yan San, Tower Hamlets Youth Council, Ealing Youth Council, British Youth Council

Costume/Make up

• Smart wear for host - Suit, tie, professional business attire
• Casual to smart for interviewees

Equipment

• Two cameras, with two collar mics
• Tripods, wheeled?
• Possibly in need of lighting to properly compose scenes

Locations

• Tower Hamlets, Mile End mural if possible that was used in BBC documentary (http://www.filmoffice.co.uk/umbraco/imageGen.ashx?image=/media/192514/Tower-Hamlets-Mile-End-Park-Legal-Grafitti-Wall-Film-Location-2.jpg&class=locationImageBig)
• Tower Hamlets Council
• Ealing Youth Council
• B Roll - Ealing, Tower Hamlets, Central London - Possible time lapse with skylines