What was your intention for the FMP?

My intention for my FMP was to educate my audience, to raise awareness for

women’s football because it is becoming more serious and more recognised by a
multitude of people.
I wanted to educate my audience on women’s football, especially my female
audience so they feel empowered as women and understand they don’t have to feel
threatened if they want to work in a male-dominated industry.
I also wanted to educate my male audience who like football that women’s football is
something to start watching as the female players are just as good, if not better. My
intention was also to educate myself as well as my audience because I didn’t know
half the statistics and facts that I have used in my documentary prior to creating my
documentary.

Why did you choose this?

I chose to do a documentary about women’s football because I am passionate about
women’s football and I want to raise awareness to people who may not know a lot
about women’s football but they know about men’s football.
I also chose this subject because it is a gateway for university. I am going to study
sports journalism at university, so I wanted to learn more about the sport throughout
this documentary process so I would have something I had created myself that I will
use in the future.
I also am just extremely passionate about women’s football which is why I knew I
had to do my documentary on the sport. I wanted to create something I would have
fun with because I am choosing something I am interested in and I wasn’t limited to
my options in what I could create and what content I could use.

Which technical/software skills were you confident in before starting the FMP?
I was quite confident using Premiere Pro because I have 4 years-experience with the
software, so I knew what tools I need when editing my documentary such as
importing images and MP4 clips into my project, adding in text in the right places and
having an effect to bring the text in to the clip so it isn’t blocky as my documentary is
going on, its smoother.

I was confident with my primary research skills when making my surveys on my

documentary to collect my audience’s responses.

I was confident with using the Weebly website because I was familiar with the
website as I have worked with it previously, so I knew how to add things to my
website such as creating pages, titles, uploading files and YouTube videos.
I was also confident with getting my secondary research online for my documentary
because 75% of my documentary is footage and research from the internet and the
other 15% is from my interviews and text I have included in my footage.

Sound design: I was confident in recording my voice into a Zoom H1n voice recorder
because I had used the same voice recorder when recording my specialist subject
and I knew to hold it 6 inches from my face so I’m not speaking directly into the
microphone because it would then make a louder noise other than my voice whilst
putting my voice recordings into Premiere Pro.
Which technical/software skills did you need to improve or learn during your FMP?
Technical skills I need to improve are my camera skills, working with the Canon XA
50 cam recorder which is something I have always struggled with because if I was
working in a group, I’d step away from working with the camera and let someone
else work with the camera.
This is something I need to improve, but when I was using the cameras for my
interview, I had help with the camera set up in the green screen room from my
lecturer.
I need to also improve my time management skills because I felt as though I was
losing track of time quite quickly and things weren’t going the way I wanted them to
which was challenging, but I did manage to keep track of everything I needed to do
in order to make sure I was taking ownership of my time and keeping within the time
constraints.

What primary research did you undertake and how was this useful to your
project?
For my primary research I created a survey asking my audience questions to do with
my audience’s demographic – age and gender and then I asked questions specific to
football and unfortunately due to time constraints I only had two responses, who both
identified as female.

I asked if they were interested

in football and one response
was ‘somewhat interested’ and
the other response was ‘no’.

Another question I asked was

‘Do you know about women’s
football?’ to which both
responses were a yes. Which
was interesting to me because
one response to my previous
question was a ‘no’, but they do
know about women’s football
which is good as it means more recognition for women’s football.
I also asked if they could name a
women’s football player and one of
them said ‘Megan Rapinoe is very
cool and I don’t even like football’
which tells me there’s growth in the
recognition of women’s football
globally.

Another type of primary research I have conducted was an interview, I asked the
same 4 questions which consist of:
1. Do you think women’s football will ever be as big as men’s football?
2. What do you think women’s football become in the future?
3. What got you interested in women’s football?
4. Can you name any girls from the Lionesses squad?

All of the responses for the conveyed mixed emotions, one response was ‘yes, but
we are very far behind in comparison to the men’s games’
Another response was ‘sadly not, no’ which I personally disagree with because if you
look at statistics on women’s football in 2023, the numbers are doubling, even tripling
since the beginning of women’s football, so I believe women’s football will be as big
as the men’s games in the near future. Most of the responses for my third question
were from growing up watching the sport, to having her daughter getting interested in
the sport and getting excited over women’s football and the final response was that
she wasn’t interested.
2/3 could name lionesses players such as Leah Williamson, Beth Mead and my final
interviewee could name Megan Rapinoe.

What secondary research did you undertake and how was this useful to your
project?
A lot of my research was secondary, from various sources such as Football Beyond
Borders who work with young people from disadvantaged socio-economic
backgrounds who are passionate about football. I got quite a few statistics and facts
from their website which I used in my documentary such as how many teenage girls
got involved with the Euros 2022, the viewing figures and how the Euros have
inspired them. This was very useful for my project because it will contribute towards
educating my audience and making them aware of the impact of women’s football.

I also used a website called #LetGirlsPlay which gave me more of an insight on how
they are trying to introduce football to younger generations and they are also
promoting training for teachers to bring football to young girls in school. I chose to
use this website because they fight for girls to play football in school which is
something I also stand for, to give girls the right to play football and believe they can
do or be whatever they want to be. Again, this was extremely useful towards my
documentary because I needed to do research into women’s football.
Another source I used was from YouTube which was a documentary by Alex Scott:
The Future of Women’s Football which I took inspiration from because she was a
former player and now a pundit who got the opportunity to interview players which
unfortunately I haven’t, but I did get the opportunity to interview people interested in
women’s football. This interview inspired me basing my final major on women’s
football to get the recognition it deserves and to get the opportunity to create a
documentary about something I love and I am passionate about which hopefully is
conveyed through my documentary.
I also watched a docuseries called Equals about different female footballers talking
about the pressure to perform and how to be a successful player and make your club
and country successful. Watching this docuseries helped me to know what important
topics of women’s football to include in my documentary so my audience are more
drawn into my documentary.

I also looked at brand advertising for secondary research because I know my

audience will be more intrigued in my project if I am naming a brand, they are
familiar with such as Nike and Puma which are two brands that are heavily
advertised in women’s football which I have included in my documentary because
the players will get their football boots from Nike and Puma and it is an important
factor for football.
Rebel Girls also were sponsored by Nike shedding light on international female
football players which I included in my documentary because they’re two globally
successful businesses looking to work with women’s football and their players and
not just men’s football. Which hopefully with get through to my audience that it’s not
just men’s football that is important now, women’s football also now has a platform of
thousands of active fans who go to the games and show up and buy their teams
merch and have the name of their favourite player on the back of their shirt which
you can also buy on the Nike website.

I watched YouTube videos on interview tips because I wanted to make sure it looked
professional and to a high standard as it was my first time ever creating my own
content to create a documentary which I worked on independently excluding my
interviewees for my documentary. I wanted to get ideas on the lighting and where the
lighting should go for an interview to give it a higher quality effect which is why I
watched a particular video from Mark Bone on YouTube who interviews a lot of
people so he has experience with working with camera placements and lighting
specific for an interview. This video really helped me with my project because it gave
me ideas on where the best placements for lighting should be to get the high
standard close up shots you’re looking for in an interview

Which technical/software skills have you used during your FMP?

Technical skills I have used are:
• Using 2 Canon XA 50 cam recorder, setting up the video camera in the right
settings for me to film my interviews.
• I also used 2 tripods to hold my cam recorders on because I didn’t want a
handheld shot as for interviews they’re almost always on a tripod in the right
spot and my camera was set up for a close up showing from shoulders
upwards because I wanted a head shot of each of my interviewee’s.
• Lighting is another technical skill I was using which I had 3 different pieces of
lighting equipment. One was stationed to the right of my interviewee, the other
two were closer the camera than the person I was interviewing, one hanging
over the camera titled in their direction to make sure the lighting is perfect and
 it’s not too dark. Obviously to get the full effect, I turned off the lights in the
room otherwise it would’ve ruined the spotlight lighting.
• Usage of the Rode NTG-3 boom mic: this is another technical skill I have
used during the process of my documentary which I mainly used when I was
filming the interviews.
• Using a Zoom 1Hn voice recorder – this I used to record my audio for my
documentary which I used a closed off room and recorded my script speaking
into the microphone which is all of the audio used in my documentary.
• Premiere-Pro is a software skill I have used in my post-production process
when editing all of my footage using a lot of cross-dissolve when transitioning
my clips together and even when I was adding captions and text on top of my
video. I also used a tool to flip around my
• Managing my Weebly website, uploading clips, text, images, YouTube videos,
photos to my website is something I was very confident on doing because I
was familiar with Weebly as id worked with the website previously.
• Qualitive research being my survey about women’s football and if my
audience interact with women’s football or not. Due to time constraints, I didn’t
manage to get many responses, but I know my audience will be my peers.
• Using Photoshop to create my exhibition poster which I made a collage of
images promoting my documentary on women’s football on my exhibition
poster.

How did you use particular technical/software skills during your FMP?
I used my Premiere-Pro skills when I was in my post-production stages and editing
all of my footage in the right order and layering the content so it was on top of the
audio. Meaning there was hardly any blank cuts whilst speaking, unless I am moving
onto the next topic.

I also was using 2 Canon XA 50 cam recorders which was

for my interview and set up in the green screen room. I was
also using tripods for both cameras to make sure the
camera is at the right height of the interviewee to capture
their side profile. One was directly in front of the interviewee
which was set up in a close up shot. The set up I am
describing is shown clearly in Figure 1.

Figure 1
 The other camera was set up to the side of the interviewee
to ger their side profile and right next to where the lighting is
set up which is shown in this image figure 2 which is set out
like that to make sure you can see the interviewee against
the black background and there aren’t any shadows
showing when filming the interviews.

Figure 2

I used a Zoom 1Hn voice recorder at the start of my production journey as I had my
script written, I just needed to speak into the audio recorder to record me speaking
my script out loud.
This was one of the most important things for me to do because all of my audio I was
using for my documentary had to be perfect, it had to be clear and I needed my
audience to understand what I am saying by projecting my voice and making sure
I’m not using slang or abbreviating words my audience might not understand.
This is something I made sure and I did a few retakes when speaking into the audio
recorder to make sure it was perfect and something I can actually use when I came
to using Premiere-Pro.

Secondary research was a technical skill that very important for me because all of
my sources were from YouTube content or finding images of football from sources
such as the BBC, The Guardian, Sky Sports, Google Images, Nike, Football Beyond
Borders, Rebel Girls and Twitter. I think I used this skill the most to make sure I had
enough footage relevant to the topic I was talking about which was extremely
productive and worked well because all of my topics within the subject I have chosen
are covered and there is enough content for my audience to indulge in.

Lighting is another technical skill I used whilst

in the green screen room for my interviews.
As you can see in both figure 3 and 4, you
can see how the lighting is set up from behind
where the interviewee will be sat and also
from the other side to capture the lighting.
I used 3-point lighting which meant two of the
lights was in front, leaving one to the side.
This was a very important set up for my
Figure 3 documentary which I am very happy with how Figure 4
it turned out which you will see whilst
watching my documentary.
For my exhibition, I made a poster shown in figure 5
using Photoshop by using images from Google and
importing the images into Photoshop using the scaling
tool and free transform to get the image smaller to fit
the other images onto the poster.
I wanted my poster to be simpler because everything
else I want my audience to see is in my documentary.
Photoshop is a piece of software I was confident in
using so I knew exactly what to do with the images and
how to scale them to the perfect size. I am happy with
the images I chose because I am promoting women’s
football and showing images specific to women’s
games and the success women’s football has had in
the last 2 years.

Figure 5

How close did you stick to your original Statement of Aims idea?
I stuck extremely close to my original statement of aims, I didn’t change my idea and
I was happy with my statement of aims to continue with the idea and then turn it into
a documentary.
I even chose some of the research sources such as videos from the BBC, Indivisa
and new resources.
I didn’t use all of the resources which I should’ve done such as the podcasts, getting
new facts and information on women’s football – I did use new resources for that
information so my resources I originally was going to use expanded.

If you changed your Statement of Aims – why did this happen?

The only thing that I changed in my statement of aims is being able to interview
football players at a local club like AFC Bournemouth Women’s. I tried numerous
times about getting in contact with the club and I managed to get in touch with AFC
Bournemouth’s liaison officer Liz Finney via telephone and she passed the voicemail
I had left onto the women’s teams head coach to get in contact with me, but
unfortunately that didn’t happen.

What challenges did you face on your FMP?

I faced many challenges including not being able to book in an interview with a local
club due to them not responding, I did email 3 separate people about 3 times hoping
I would get a response saying I could do an interview, but that never happened. I
overcame this challenge by being able to interview peers such as Megan and
teaching assistant Jess and also my personal development tutor Georgia who were
a massive help in letting me interview them.
I also found booking out the green screen room for my interview a challenge
because there was such a high demand for using the room. By the time I wanted it, I
had to wait two weeks which was challenging because I feel as though I could’ve
finished editing my documentary a lot sooner if I was able to get access to the room
sooner than I did.

Keeping within my time frame was challenging because some things I needed to add
or change to my documentary took longer than expected which set me back with
how much time I had left to complete my documentary such as I had lost a lot of my
documentary because I didn’t save my project from the 0.00s time frame and saved
it from half way through my documentary which meant I had to start from scratch.

Finding the right background music was a challenge because I wanted to make sure
the music I chose goes with my documentary. I didn’t want to choose sad music or
too upbeat because that isn’t the style of music I want for my documentary. I chose a
compilation of ambient music that is happy and calm and I adjusted how loud the
music is over my dialogue and it was quiet so you could still hear my voice, but you
can hear the music faintly and it stays that volume until the end of my documentary
until I had a clip from the 2022 Euros press conference when the Lionesses crashed
the conference.

Filming was a challenge because I was unsure if I would be filming my documentary

in college in the green screen room or filming elsewhere when I was hoping I was
able to get to interview actual football players and film at their stadium

How did you meet any challenges on your FMP?

• I met the first challenge by email; trying to get in contact with people at the
club via email which was a mistake because no one reads their emails which
is something I learnt during my final major project.
• Not being able to book out the green screen room in time was met by myself
not checking in advance what dates it was available and what was sooner
than the date I was able to use it. This is me taking ownership over a mistake
I made by not being as organised as I usually am.
• Keeping within the time frame was a challenge because I knew I didn’t have a
lot of time from the beginning, so making sure I’m on track and doing
everything that needs to be done such as finishing my documentary and
making sure everything on my website is up to date.
• Choosing the right music for my background I found challenging and I faced
this challenge right before I started editing because I wanted to make sure I
have everything ready to start editing. I had chosen two music ideas I thought
I liked, but I put it with my documentary and it didn’t sound the way I wanted it
to and I did this with both original ideas, but didn’t like either. This is why my
music choice was different to what I actually chose but I think it works a lot
better with my documentary.
• Filming was a challenge because I was unsure if I would be filming my
documentary in college in the green screen room or filming elsewhere when I
was hoping I was able to get to interview actual football players and film at
their stadium.
• I met the filming challenge by realising I wouldn’t be able to interview an
actual football player, so I was able to interview people in my college.
What problems did you face for your FMP?
A main problem I faced on my FMP was losing my half of my Premiere-Pro project
and having to restart the editing process. Luckily, I was able to start quite quickly and
I knew where all of the footage I wanted to use was in my folders. This frustrated me
because it was my own fault the fact, I lost my work but I had to deal with it and
make sure I am saving my work in the correct places which I did after I learnt from
that mistake.

Another problem I faced was in the post-production stage which was when I was
trying to export my documentary, the sound wasn’t working after exporting it and
uploading it to YouTube. I had to keep exporting a different version of the same
documentary to make sure everything was in my documentary and to make sure the
sound was working, which eventually it was working and I was able to upload it to
YouTube properly.

When I uploaded my documentary,

I came across a major problem that
my video had been blocked due to
my documentary including
copyrighted content.
This meant after all of the problems
exporting onto YouTube, I couldn’t
even use my video on YouTube
which stressed me out because I
didn’t know another way of
exporting my project onto my
website.
However, I asked one of my
lecturers and he manage to get my
documentary that I exported as an
MP4 file and uploaded it to my
college OneDrive which is the only way of accessing my documentary which I will be
showing at my exhibition and to the examiner.

How did you overcome any problems on your FMP?

For when I lost my work on Premiere-Pro, I overcame this problem by restarting on
Premiere-Pro and saving all of the content I need for my documentary in one place
on my globe with the rest of my work on my final major.
All of my audio clips are saved under the name of the topic I am talking about in that
specific audio clip. This really helped because I was able to put my documentary
together quicker the second time and making sure I am saving it all which lead me to
finishing editing my documentary successfully.

Overcoming the exporting problem, I needed help with but we managed to save t as
an MP4 file and upload it to my college OneDrive and uploading the file to my
Weebly website. I used my critical thinking and made sure there was another
solution to my problem, which there was.
Overcoming my documentary getting copyrighted, I tried to flip the footage that was
copyrighted by using the mirror tool in Premiere-Pro which I then uploaded to
YouTube again which unfortunately didn’t work and I ended up getting copyrighted
again. After this problem, I then had to upload it to my OneDrive and save my
documentary onto my Weebly page as an MP4 file.

Which skills have you improved during your FMP?

I feel as though I have improved my skills with Premiere-Pro by using more effects I
all of my clips to improve the smoothness of my transitions between my footage and
clips. I also think I’ve improved working with Premiere-Pro in general since previous
years as I want it to look professional with smooth transitions.

I have improved my camera skills from before my project as I was always nervous
with using the cameras for filming content to make sure I was getting the interviewee
directly in the centre using the rule of thirds. Because my camera was set up directly
in front of the person I was interviewing, the subject was automatically placed in the
rule of thirds.

I have improved my website building, making sure everything is on my website that I

need and displaying all of my work clearly under the headings provided in the brief. I
have made sure I am explaining what everything is under each of image or video I
put onto my FMP Weebly page.

I have improved my confidence skills when speaking into the audio recorder, making
sure I am speaking clearly and pronouncing my words clearly, not speaking too
quickly. As I looked through the audio, I made sure none of those problems occurred
and my audio was very clear throughout.

Which part or parts of the FMP did you feel worked well?
I feel as though the process of creating my documentary worked really well when
using Premiere-Pro. I was able to make it look as professional as I could by putting a
lot of my time and effort into editing my documentary and using a certain font
Helvetic Neue to make my writing look almost like a newspaper print as I am
informing my audience and my documentary’s purpose is to educate and inform my
audience about women’s football.

I think my interview process went extremely well because nothing went wrong, all of
my interviewees turned up on the day, I was able to book out the equipment on time
for my interview and when recording there was no distractions so I was able to film
quickly. The camera angles were in the right place when using the tripods to make
sure the camera is steady. These are quite a few things that went well during the
interviewing process.

Another thing that I feel went well was my primary and secondary research. Making
sure my surveys have clear questions, making them short questions so there is not
an expectation of a really long response, making it easier for my audience to
respond.
My secondary research was a massive part of my documentary when adding all of
the footage I have downloaded and changing the YouTube video to an MP4 file so I
can use it in Premiere-Pro as the software prefers MP4 files which is easier to export
from Premiere. All of my footage and images I found was saved into the same folder
so I can import the folder into Premiere whilst I was in the editing process.

The planning process went well because I stuck quite closely to my original
statement of aims idea and I have shown everything I wanted to use/ did use on my
planning page on Weebly. I had all of the documents I needed such as location
recce, statement of aims, contingency plan which were all included which I
personally think quite well.

What might you do differently?

I would make sure all of my clips I used are copyright free so I would have no
problems uploading to YouTube so my video wouldn’t be blocked. That is a major
problem that happened but I would definitely do different next time.

I would also make sure I could interview someone in the job my topic I have chosen
because unfortunately, I wasn’t able to interview any women in football from local
clubs even though I tried quite har to make contact, I got no response back.

I would also make sure my time management skills are a priority, making sure I have
enough time for all of the criteria I am meeting. I will be making sure nothing goes
wrong, i.e. saving it in the wrong place or losing half of my work due to not saving it
properly.