Initial Proposal

Sebastian Spielmann

For this unit I have chosen to work individually and I have planned to make a documentary
lasting approximatley 11-14 minutes which will be a more informative style than
investigative compared to my previous projects.

The documentary will be centred around pottery and mainly focusing on four sections. The
sections I plan to document are two processes of pottery which are called ‘raku burning’ and
‘wheel spinning’. The other two sections I plan to document are different cultures of pottery
such as from other continents and the business side of art and pottery.

I want to create this documentary by filming at a pottery studio in Missenden and this will
help me make a more cinematic visual documentary which firstly agrees with the genre and
secondly improves on strengths from previous projects. I will film each section individually
which will help with organisation and time management. Moreover, to help with concerns
about the project being too boring or having a small target audience I plan to be
interviewing at least two experts in the field to fill the gaps in my knowledge of pottery
I thought about my options for entering a competition or making content for a client and I
concluded that making content for a client felt more personal and would encourage me to
deliver to the best of my ability

Rationale
Prior to joining the college and completing seven units I had never made a
documentary, YouTube video or any type of media. I had no skills in editing,
filming and my main qualities that spiked my interest in the course was my
strengths in journalism and photography. In the early units and projects, I
developed my understanding in framing and colour grading from photography
into transferrable skills in filming with a 4k camera. I knew from my interest in
journalism that I wanted to make documentaries throughout the year and my
first doc titles ‘the phone’ followed suit. From help from teachers and other
students I gained knowledge for techniques such as shooting b-roll and having
multiple angles for an interview to cut between in the editing process. This
helped me gain valuable experience filming as it made me realise how long a
project can take to plan and film. I also reflected in my evaluation that editing
was my weakest point in my first documentary and I would improve this
throughout the year.
As the units passed, I gained more skills such as understanding of background
music, sourcing interviewees, planning location recces and specifically
developed my understanding of audio in the audio unit.
I feel like now I have gained so many new skills that it means I can be more
ambitious with project ideas as I know what I am doing and are more confident
in my ability. This can influence your creativity as well as it allows my mind to
explore outrageous ideas.
To conclude I now want to use my skills learned to produce a distinction level
documentary which has improved on every mistake learned throughout the
previous units.

Project concept
The aim of my production is to create an informative interesting documentary
which people feel like they have learned something while also enjoying the
format. I want the audience to not even realise they are watching a student
production and to feel like the visuals and editing are professional. I will
achieve this by reaching out to communities and clubs that I think represent
the subject I want to film and the scale of this should be manageable. Moreover,
I will be using a mixture of online and in person research from YouTube videos,
surveys and more to justify my knowledge and ensure accuracy in the topic. I
will be able to complete this within the timescale as I have chosen an idea
which I have a clear vision for how I want it translated on screen. Finally, I
want my documentary to do these things because all my previous work has
been building on documentary skills and I want to perfect these in this unit.
Skills such as camera techniques (pans, close ups, focus/unfocused shots) will
all be used and a specific focus on editing will be a theme. I really want to have
clean professional edits that work with background music and foley sounds as
this was one of my previous weaknesses.

Evaluation
Of course, evaluation is key as there will be projects after this one which I will
need the feedback to learn from. I will do this by constantly evaluating
throughout the project by doing weekly blogs and getting constant feedback
from teachers. This will allow me to make key improvements or edits as I go on
instead of all at the end when it’s too late. I will be taking screenshots
throughout the project to show improvement and key decision-making
moments. Furthermore, I will make it my priority to respond to audience
feedback. Finally, one of the main evaluation aspects will be how well I have
handled the time scale, and this will help me plan for the FMP next year
Target Audience
My target audience for this documentary will be the stereotypical pottery
audience which is vaguely 40–55-year-old adults. This would be a target
audience for people, I know from research, have a passion for pottery and
would immediately be interested. This is because the audience for shows such
as ‘The Great Pottery Throwdown’ are this age. Despite this, with the new age of
social media and trends – pottery has actually become quite a popular hobby of
which more and more new people have taken up. Therefore, despite them not
being the target market for this I hope for many 21–34-year-olds to watch my
documentary as it will expand my reach. Furthermore, the cinematic element
of the project should shift the target audience to more on the young side as
modern techniques attract more modern audiences.
Overall, my target audience is 40–55-year-olds
Legal and Ethical issues
In terms of Ethical issues there are very little concerns. All filming taking place
has and will be approved by the person in charge of the location. Documenting
the pottery event on camera does not get in the way of any people attending
and request to not be filmed will of course be respected. The actual event has no
ethical issues apart from slight environmental concerns. The burning of clay
inside a kiln can release some greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide but all
other waste such as scrapings or burnt sawdust is responsibly disposed. In
terms of legal issues, I will have to make sure there is no misrepresentation of
Wendy’s business in the documentary and that everything is factually correct.
Furthermore, any of my research that I source secondary will need a complete
Harvard reference. In the documentary I will need to make sure my production
can't get blocked on YouTube for copyright reasons and lastly any background
music will need to be sourced from free sites and non-copyright music sites.