DOCUMENTARY UNIT: UNIT EVALUATION

For this unit I feel that me and my team worked really well together. 

As a team, we always worked professionally and communicated well. We divided up all the roles equally and everyone contributed to pre-production, production and post. When choosing the idea we all came to an equal agreement and if there was ever an objection we would sit and discuss the issue and resolve it somehow. During the pre-production stage we all worked together on the script, shot lists, choosing the presenter and we would consult each other when we got in contact with our selected interviews. 

Our main strengths here were definitely our choice of interviews, communication and how well we handled the issues of drops out. As well as rising the money and choosing to go abroad for this documentary. This was a huge task and production to take on and we are also the only first year students on the course to have gone abroad but this really helped push the documentary higher and made it as good as it was. As well, we managed to keep our interviews onboard as well as our presenter throughout the entire project. As well as getting really interesting and relevant interviews for this topic. We didn't make assumptions and didn't give off a bias opinion from the Presenter. Simply had him question and look into the topic and ask the experts their opinions as well as getting the opinions of the Holocaust Survivors. 

Our post-production had good strengths. Specifically, our turn around of the edit from going from a linear structure to a non-linear structure and making our documentary work well, despite not being able to record the voice over and beings stuck with what we had. We also concluded the documentary well based on what we had found out throughout the filming. 

I would say our weakness for this unit was our timing and organisation on certain aspects. Specifically, with the Holocaust Survivors. Due to miscommunication, we got the wrong address and ended up going to the wrong location at first. Although we worked around this and got to the survivors centre in the end we did go over schedule. Also with filming the survivors, we had the issue that we didn't mix up the shots, so all the survivors are framed the same which is very noticeable in the edit, we did manage to work around this once we had cut Sam from the documentary and we used one of the angles for Ziggi and another for Miriam. 

Another weakness I would say was during pre-production when we took on far more interviews than was needed. This nearly broke the documentary as we would have had far too much to edit through and fitting all of that into a 10 minute documentary would have been near impossible. 

But, overall I think this project went very well. Filming both in the UK and Berlin went smoothly as well as working through the editing process. Some issues along the way but nothing we couldn't fix as a team. 

LOUIS THEROUX DOCUMENTARY STYLE - RESEARCH

Louis Theroux was the biggest influence for me during this documentary. Louis is an English Documentary maker who became huge through the BBC. He's classed as the king of documentaries on social media and is known for his documentary series such as "Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends" and "When Louis Met...".

He was known as well for having a strange friendship with Jimmy Savile while he was still alive and also made one of his episodes "When Louis Met Jimmy" about him with the intention of uncovering the truth about Savile's crimes but never succeeded. However, when the news broke he went and made his documentary "Louis Theroux, Savile" which referred back to his original documentary and Louis also interviewed friends and victims of Jimmy Savile to look more into the truth behind his crimes and how he could fool so many but also show that even though he was a horrible criminal, we was once loved by millions in Britain.

Louis Theroux's style of documentary is very much Expository but always through his own Presenting. Louis is always the one asking the questions, always the voice over. He is very much present throughout the documentary and it's always him looking into the topic or investigating into the story and because of how much he has done, it's become iconic for him to be there. He's very relaxed on camera but he always talks and presents like he knows what he's doing, never having a crossed opinion and always asking the right questions.

The style of having a presenter has been done by many but it has been done so much by Louis that people will often assume the style as "Louis Theroux style".
My other reason for looking into Louis's style is because he'll go that extra mile to get the good stories. Such as in the 90's he looked deeper into the Porn industry in a documentary which hadn't been done before. As well as looking into Swingers and UFO's. These were all part of his popular documentary series "Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends" where he would deliberately go and look for the out of normal stories to look into and bring to our television screens.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: AUSCHWITZ: THE NAZIS AND THE 'FINAL SOLUTION' REVIEW

Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution is a BBC 1 Documentary series consisting of 6 episodes. It was broadcasted back in 2005 and is currently available on Netflix as well.
This documentary series covers the history and development of the infamous death camp which is known to be one of the Nazi's biggest camps the Nazi's made during the Holocaust and one of the starting points for the mass murder of the Jewish People.

The documentary was written by Laurence Rees, Doris L. Bergen, Megan Callaway and David Orenstein. It was Produced by the BBC. However, the screenwriters did state that there isn't actually any screenwriters, but rather researchers as the documentary uses historical documents to explain the history of the camp. As well as this the series also has GV's of the camp in it's current state as it's open to be viewed back the public back in Poland. The biggest thing this documentary has is it's interviews, not only does it have interviews with Holocaust Survivors and survivors of Auschwitz, but it also has interviews with people who worked at Auschwitz. Not as the men or women who committed the act of murder. But people who did witness it never the less.

Episode 1 - Surprising Beginnings
Episode 1 introduces the main character that is focused on throughout the documentary which is the man that set up and ran Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss. The documentary shows all of the scenes referring to Rudolf with reconstruction using actors. In a sense this becomes more of a drama but having watched the series I found it feels more like you're actually there and you're actually witnessing what happened at this point in time.
This episode focuses on the beginning of Auschwitz and how it was brought up from a few bunkers to become this infamous camp of death. The episode refers back to original blueprints of Auschwitz that only become available in the 90's. As well as GV's of the camp and a large amount of Archive footage being used for this episode, it leads the viewers into the history of the camp slowly but no mention of the killing comes about until the end of the episode.

Episode 2 - Orders & Initiatives
Episode 2 begins to go into the main area of the documentary, the mass murder of the Jews. It's here that we begin to see archive photos and footage of starved Jews, walking into what they were told was a shower but was actually the back of a lorry and they were gassed with the fumes made from the engine. This episode mostly uses the reconstruction with actors to tell the story of the Nazi's and how they embarked on their 'final solution'. The episode gives us more information and also gives us eye witnesses from the 'hell vans' which were the early make shift gas chambers before they introduced the poisonous gas Zyklon B.

Episode 3 - Factories of Death
This episode is where we got much more archive footage and interviews from survivors of the camp and how they would work in the gas chambers having to clear up the bodies and burn them. We also get reconstructions of the gas chambers done with graphics as the original chambers were destroyed before the end of the war to try and cover the Nazi's tracks. This episode focuses on the most well know fact of the camp which is that it was a death camp and murdered hundreds and thousands of Jews.

Episode 4 - Corruption
This episode focuses on the workers from Auschwitz and shows more than just murder happened at the camp. The documentary takes a slight detour and shows the profit that the Nazi's made by stealing the belongings from the arriving Jews as they entered the camp and how easy it was to steal from it all. Here we'll see much more recreation with actors on the stories of greed and how some even managed to avoid it.

Recreation is done to a large extent in this documentary simply because there isn't actually any footage that could be used or photos to help show what happened so recreation was the only solution but it works as it shows you rather than tells you but the researchers use minutes of meetings and memoirs from soldiers to help with the dialogue and ensure everything is factually correct.

Episode 5 - Frenzied Killing
This episode gives the biggest shock of the documentary, showing how the Nazi's went from Murdering thousands to Millions in only a matter of weeks as they moved from the Jews for a period and went over to the Gypsies. We also find out facts and figures of how many people had died so far in Auschwitz and then we discover the cover up that began when the Nazi's learnt about the fact they were losing the war.

Episode 6 - Liberation & Revenge
This is the final episode and the one with the most archive footage as this is the time where the camp was liberated so footage was being recorded to show the world what the Nazi's had done and we learn the final truth of the total death that came with the camp. The final word comes from one of the workers of Auschwitz as he clears all the theories that the Holocaust never happened. He explains that he saw it, he was there and it did truly happen.


My reasons for choosing this TV documentary is because it was about the most infamous death camp in the Holocaust. But also, because it's a completely different documentary to what I'm creating but it still uses some of the techniques that I aimed to use in my documentary. The GV's of Auschwitz in the modern dat helped to explain with the voice over where people were. The archive photos worked to show the tragic history of the camp. I also found how they did the reconstruction of the events with actors working really well as to not only explain, but show rather than tell the audience. Since the majority of the documentary series is through voice over.

As well as this, they broke down the entire history of the camp section by section, but this is also what I wanted from my documentary but on a much smaller scale. I wanted to bring in the information bit by bit, with each Interview offering a new part of the argument we couldn't have guessed, we see an artist that took outrange from the selfies but we see that actually he was trying to help them see what they were doing. Holocaust survivors that find the selfies seriously insulting only to then see the public finding the memorial a nice calming place to sit and rest.

This documentary didn't so much as offer me structure, but rather it was the complete different to what I wanted to make because I could see that my documentary wouldn't work like this. It's too formal and isn't right for what we want to get accross but that helped me to make that choice.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: FINE CUT

With our fine cut we made a huge amount of changes.

The structure we changed. Firstly we got to Shahak straight away. he's the first interview we get as his project is the biggest proof of selfies being bad that we have. Once that was done we went on to the memorial.
The issue with our last cut was that it wasn't making sense, after each section the topic would change. So when Shahak says some people might not know what the memorial is, we went to the vox pops and showed that to back up his comment. Then with that we got a vox pop explaining that the Memorial is for the Holocaust which we then went on to show the Survivors. When the survivors question why people sit on the stones we were able to go back to the vox pops.

We chose to have the vox pops as the returning feature of our doc since these are what's building our case more and more. We then had David Glenwright and after that the Jewish Museum but when showing the rough cut to Zoe, she recommended having David last as he gives more of a solution to the selfie culture with his interview and he also is better to end with Kamran as well and she would have rather a survivor end the documentary but we didn't have any sync which worked as a conclusion.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: SYNC ASSEMBLIY WORKSHOP & ASSEMBILY

In today's workshop, we were shown how to Transcript and then do a Sync Assembly of all the interviews and voice overs that we have.

Helen explained that a transcript is a written document of the entire interview, which you  then go through and high light what parts you want to use together and work it in with the script. Essentially, it's a paper edit which you work from and it makes putting together the documentary much easier and less time consuming.  Helen showed us how to do this and also gave us some clips to edit together with a script and transcript.

Once we'd done this we wrote up our transcripts and then put together our sync assembly. Our aim issue that Helen found was that it was too Linear, we had literally gone by our filming dates and as well our voice over was very boring and locked us down to that structure. She recommended that we change it around more and have different interviews in different places.
This was still an issue with the rough cut. We managed to re-record the voice over with Kamran, getting it more lively and flowing better. However, Helen told us this wasn't the way as you are meant to record the voice over last, once the edit is complete which we weren't aware of at all.

We had moved some parts around such as interviews but Helen explained that it was still very linear and that by 5 minutes in, we were then getting to Berlin and that is where you want to get to first because it's the interesting and exciting bit of the documentary. She explained that interviews can come and go throughout a documentary and we can always bring them back We should do this with either our Holocaust survivors or our Social Media expert.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: BERLIN SHOOT

1st May
Once we were in Berlin, we checked into the Hotel, got some food and then packed up the kit and went straight over to the Holocaust Memorial. When we got there we set up Kamran's clip microphone and the boom microphone so we could easily get around and record the audio when needed.
For the camera, we set up one of the DSLR's on my Shoulder rig so that we could get the vox pops done much quicker. We weren't allowed to use a tripod on the Memorial site. The filming here went really well. We had George on camera for the interviews and we had Simon walking around and getting GV's as well as footage of anyone taking selfies, climbing or being disrespectful on the memorial.

The interviews went smoothly and worked really well with the questions we had. When walking up to the public we made sure we were polite and most important we didn't have the camera facing up until it was time to record. We worked professionally and on time with the schedule as well.

Surprisingly, what we found was that most people didn't really know what the memorial was. Unless you went downstairs to the Exhibition to see the history of the Holocaust. We found that it didn't really feel like a memorial either.

2nd May

With this shoot, it was Shahak's interview. We had to recce the location, which was the Hotel we were staying at. We found that the breakfast area was the best since it was lit quite well and acoustics were good and not too echoey. We set up for the interview and Shahak turned up early as well so we ended up ahead of schedule.  

This interview was probably the poorest interview delivered by Kamran. This is because Shahak turned out to not actually be religious like we originally thought he was, Kamran did question him a lot on his religious beliefs which we found unprofessional as that wasn't on the questions list and we were worried we would offend Shahak. Thankfully he wasn't.
It also appears that Shahak didn't start the Yolocaust project because he took insult from it. It was actually because he found that people were ignorant and he wanted to show them what they were actually doing by taking these selfies.
Our set up was the same as David's with the cameras and we used the defusers with the lighting as well.

May 3rd
With this shoot, we packed up 2 DSLR Camera's and the shoulder rig and we traveled to locations which were iconic for Berlin:
- Berlin Wall
- Check-Point-Charlie
- Reichstag Building
As well as walking around Berlin to get general GV's of Kamran and the city it's self.


May 5th
This was our final day in Berlin. This was also our best filming day as well. We filmed at the Jewish Museum both on schedule and effectivly. As soon as we had done this we filmed the conclusion for the documentary with Kamran in a small cafe so that we had the conclusion decided. From all the interviews we had done and the vox pops we found that it's not that we are insensitive to the Holocaust, but rather that we simply don't understand the Holocaust as much since we can't connect and the selfie culture that we're stuck in has made us obsessed with taking unique photos.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: UK SHOOT

25th April

For our first shoot we were kept on schedule and worked professionally throughout the day. We arrived and met Kamran, Recorded all the voice over and GV's of him on the laptop and researching the Yolocaust project. After this we went over to London and filmed the GV's and the PTC's. With this our main issue was sound. I found it hard to get good sound due to the amount of people around London, which we couldn't do anything about but found the quietest spot in London which was just by Westminster.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

Once we had all the interviews set, flights and hotel for Berlin booked up and confirmed all the dates with Kamran. I wrote up the Production Schedule.
We set out on the 25th filming the voice over and all of Kamran's GV's and PTC's in London. We got the voice over here so we had something for the rough cut and agreed we could re-do during post if it was needed.

26th was the section for the Holocaust Survivors. The 27th Myself and some other crew weren't available so we had this as a day with no filming.
28th was our interview with David in Birmingham and after that we weren't to be filming again until the 1st May but due to time constant I had to update the production schedule on the 25th and allocate a time for us to film Kamran's Driving Sequence because Kamran didn't have his car until the allocated date.

I wrote up all of the Berlin dates as well from the 1st - 5th Explaining all the interviews and when writing up the schedule I double checked all the travel times on Google Maps and included them all with the addresses of all the locations to be able to ensure enough time was allocated for the travel, interviews and de-rigs.

Production Schedule

DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE: GO-FUND PAGE

Since we have to cover so much, money-wise, with this documentary as well as food, travel, plane and hotel costs for the Presenter and cover archive footage. We all agreed that we needed to set up a fund raiser to get some more money for the Production as well as putting money in ourselves.

Simon set up a 'Go-Fund Me' page and we all sent it out over social media in order to get some funding. We added up how much it would cost everyone in the production with travel, flights, etc. and it came to just over £1,500. So we put this as our limit. Our aim was to cover the presenters costs before our own and get the archive footage paid for as well.

The page raised £275 out of £1,500 which is enough to cover both the Presenter and the archive footage as well which is our biggest priority with funds that're raised.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: 72 HOUR CHALLENGE

During the lead up to this documentary, Trine and I entered a competition called 'The 72 Hour Challenge' which is where you're given a brief and then you are given 72 hours to make a film between 5-10 minutes from that Brief. There isn't a specific type of film it just has to follow the brief.

The brief was to make a film about how Technology can help someone with a disability (visible or visible, learning, mental, etc.) in the work place, education or in everyday life.
At first, we were going to make the documentary about myself because I've got Dyslexia and struggled hugely through education but have lots of different softwares and technology to help me through this.

But we found a better story. Joey Thompson is a third year Jewlery student in UCA. I've know Joey since coming to University and he's in the Wheelchair and has been for just over 2 years.
I've never know the story behind it but Joey's always made jokes and made light of his disability to make everyone treat him as if he wasn't in a wheelchair. His confidence has been something I've admired since meeting him. We asked him if we could make a short documentary about him and he agreed to which we did a simple set up interview with 2 DSLR Cameras and our own Rode Microphones. We interviewed Joey and his girlfriend Molly and got some photos and videos off Joey as well both of him in his chair and before the accident.

We also filmed him in and around University. We focused on the fact that it was Youtube and gaming that helped Joey more than anything else and that he doesn't let his disability get the better of him.

We entered and we've been short listed for the Film Festival in June and have been invited down there to present the film. Below is a short clip of the documentary.

The Wheelchair Man Teaser

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: SCRIPT EVOLUTION

When creating our script we made 3 different versions, having gotten feedback from Helen and Zoe on the structure and the content for each version.

Are We Numb Script V1

We decided to open with some facts and figures that we had found online, just to try and show how huge the selfie culture is these days. Try to make the audience see how big this is before dropping the question "but a picture is just a picture right?" We want to audience to start to think if a selfie could be harmful, if it could be dangerous and get them thinking while our title sequence comes on.
We then added in the stories about disrespectful actions towards the Holocaust, showing that we as a generation are being disrespectful and there is a growing issue but this needs to be sorted.

We went on to have the first interview as the Museum, which originally was going to be the Imperial War Museum but they dropped out so we cut this in the next version.

After this we wanted to move on to interview the Holocaust Survivors and get their opinion of these disrespectful acts and introduce the selfies that we found online at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Which afterwards leads in nicely to discussing Shahak Shapira and his Yolocaust project and then te travel sequence to Berlin.

When geting to Berlin we go over to the memorial to find peoples opinions and see the vox pops and then we got to Shahak Shapira to talk about the Yolocaust project. Then finally, before going back to England we'd see him go over to the Jewish Museum and interview the final expert.
We'd like the documentary to be concluded by Kamran, since he's the one going on this trip and we follow him throughout the documentary.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: JEWISH MUSEUM IN BERLIN

Trine came forward in the group and explained that she had found an expert in the Holocaust over in Berlin who she believed would be an excellent interview. His name is Christoph Kreutzmüller and he is a Holocaust Expert based in the Jewish Museum over in Berlin. Christoph is based in the newest Jewish Museum building which also has a large Holocaust Exhibition in it's gallery.

Christoph is only available to do an interview on the 5th of May. This would mean filming in Berlin from the 1st May - 5th May with 1 day being free in those 5 for any pick ups, footage logging or extra coverage needed. We agreed that this would work and benefit the documentary.

In total now, we have the following interviews for our documentary:

- 3 Holocaust Survivors
- David Glenwright (Social Media Expert)
- Shahak Shapira
- Vox Pops at Holocaust Memorial
- Christoph Kreutzmüller (Holocaust Expert)

This is more than enough for our documentary and will help us investigate and make an argument on the topic.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: IMPERIAL WAR MUESUM DROP OUT

Hannah from the Imperial War Museum got back in contact with be confirming dates but told me that due to time and current events the Director wasn't available anymore for an interview. But, Hannah connected me to a woman called Rachel Donnolly who is the IWM's Learning and Audience Advocate for the Holocaust Exhibition. Hannah explained that she would be better for our project as Rachel works very closely with school educational trips with the exhibition. Hannah also included in her email that we could film in the Holocaust Exhibition as long as it was before the opening time so it would have to be between 9am-10am.
The email I got off Rachel then was:

"Dear Gavin

I'd be happy to work with you on the 24th April. As Hannah mentions below if you want to film inside the exhibition we will need to do this between 9-10am before the museum opens. Then we can move to another space to do the other filming.

Were you also hoping to speak with students on the day - I would need to look into how we could facilitate this.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Rachel"

After this I called Rachel to discuss the project more. After I called her and confirmed the date, Rachel asked me for the full details of what we were looking into with the documentary. So, I explained that we were looking into whether or not the younger generation is numb and insensitive to the Holocaust or whether it's just because of the selfie and social media culture which we live in today. We want to look into whether young people are disrespectful towards the Holocaust Exhibition in compassion to what we have already found online at the Holocaust Memorial.

After speaking with Rachel, she explained that she would need to double check with her workers at the museum but then I received an email explaining that she cannot help with the project now and that the Museum won't have any involvement either. She said this was due to her workload.
She recommended that I contact the Centre for Holocaust Education. Our issue here is we already tried contacting them and we didn't get anywhere.

After talking with my group, we still want a Holocaust Expert for our documentary and their opinion not only on this topic, but to explain the Holocaust briefly as well. But, Trine had the idea to find an expert in Berlin rather than the UK since we're running out of time and getting closer to the Shoot dates.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

Both George and myself, emailed different organisations involved with Holocaust Survivors, most of the time we either didn't get a response or we were given a simple 'no'.

When I emailed the Holocaust education I didn't get a response and then when calling them I was kept on hold so we gave up with that section. 

George however, got in contact with a woman called Aviva Trup, who's one of the managers of the Holocaust Survivors Centre through The Jewish Care. Aviva took an interest in the project and offered us a chance to interview up to three Holocaust survivors which is much better than just one because we can get another 2 opinions. We spoke through what we were going to ask the Survivors, deciding to not only show them the selfies we've found on Social Media, but also to talk to them about whether or not our generation has become numb to the Holocaust and if they have ever seen anything disrespectful with the Holocaust. After sending Aviva the suggested questions George asked if we could film as early during the filming dates as possible. Since their opinion would be good to have to go through the documentary. The response he got back was this:

With the 26th April being the suggested date, we took that one since this meant we could get the Holocaust survivors opinion's and these are going to be the most important ones since these people are the only ones who have any right to say what can or can't be done at the Memorial and whether these selfies and photos are offensive or not. 

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: PRESENTER DROP OUT & CASTING CALL ADVERT

Liam Alexandru, who was signed on as our presenter had to drop out of our documentary because he was offered paid work which was more beneficial for him. So, because of this we had to go forward and find a new presenter. Since none of us knew anyone who would suitable. I went onto Casting Call Pro and sent out an advert for a Presenter.

Since this project is a lot different than our last 2 projects I felt I had to explain this. We needed someone as a genuine person, not as an actor. We need someone that the audience can connect to and someone who is confident on camera. Gender isn't important as either Male or Female would work for the Documentary. In the advert I also explained that the applicants must have a full and clean driving licence and a valid UK Passport in order to work on the Documentary. We also explained that they must be completely free for all the production dates which I listed as the dates we intend to film.
I put in the description that we wanted someone energetic and most importantly, interested in the topic. If someone is just doing this for the sake of experience it wouldn't be as effective. I wanted a Presenter who has a real interested in the topic so we get that in the documentary presentation as well.

Since we can't afford to pay the Presenter, we had to think of what we could offer the applicant since this project involves giving up 8-10 days of filming which would mean the applicant giving up 10 days of potential paid work. We agreed that we would have to cover travel expenses and food as well as playing for their plane ticket and hotel while in Berlin. As well as giving them a copy of the documentary once it has been finished for their showreel. This is unfortunately, all we can offer the applicants but as well we will have to find a way to get the money to pay for all of this as well.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: INTERVIEW SET UP AND PRACTICE

Since we needed to test how long it would take to set up for a 3 camera set-up with DSLR's, lighting and clip microphone to have 2 cameras covering the interviewee and one covering the presenter. Our aim main with this was to set up to the best possible way and find out how long these takes. We were thinking this about our interview with Shahak because we have such limited time with him.

The amount of kit we had to set up was:
- 3 Canon DSLR Cameras
- 3 Tripods
- 2 LED lights
- 1 Ring lens light
- 1 Zoom Audio Recorder
- 2 Clip Microphones

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: DOCKYARD LOCATION PRACTICE

With our workshop today, we went over to the Historic Dockyard in Chatham (Medway) to practice filming on location but without being able to recce the location prior shooting day.

The Historic Dock Yard has been used as a filming location for years now having films such as Sherlock Holmes,  Muppets Most Wanted, Les Miserables, Victor Frankenstein, as well as Television shows such as Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife. This workshop was for us to learn what it is like to have to evaluate a location and film all the footage with only limited time since a lot of the time in the industry, you'll be going to locations to film and won't get a chance to recce until you arrive there.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT

Since we want to look into the social media aspect of this topic as well as actually going to Berlin to speak with people about why they're taking these photos on the Holocaust Memorial, we looked up any social media experts based in the UK. We found a woman called Jodie Cook.

Jodie is one of the UK's leading experts in Social Media. She set up a Social Media agency back in 2011 and the company and her reputation has grown and grown since then. Jodie works with both company and education based companies. Her agency (JC Social Media) is one of the largest social media specialists in the UK and offers Social Media Management and training for their customers.

Social Media has become such a huge part of our lives, not only as a young generation but as a society. On my phone I've got the following social media apps:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Instagram
- YouTube
- Snapchat

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: THE PITCH

Are We Numb Pitch
Pitch proposal document

Today we pitched our documentary to Helen and Zoe. We pitched our idea, including our confirmed characters so far (Liam and Shahak Shapira) and we also included about 7-8 photos of people taking these sort of selfies at the Holocaust memorial which I found on Instagram the night before to help show that, even though Shahak's Yolocaust project brought awareness, there is still an issue with these selfies.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: MEETING WITH ZOE - PLAN SO FAR & PRESENTER

Just before our meeting with Zoe, we confirmed our presenter for the documentary.

George has a friend from school who has been doing acting for a few years now and is confident on camera. George explained the documentary and he is interested in taking on the project.
Liam Alexandru is 21 years old which is perfect age for us as we're aiming for teenagers and young adults. He's studied history, including the Holocaust at A level and just recently returned from a trip to Berlin with his Step sister who is currently studying Hebrew and Jewish Major at Barcelona University so he's passionate about this topic and he's educated in the Holocaust as well.

We've given him the production dates which we've said is from the 24th April to the 5th May and he's told us that he is available for them and would be happy to come with us to Berlin as well.


Once we'd done this, we went on for our meeting with Zoe. Explaining how we are now covering whether we are numb to the Holocaust by taking disrespectful selfies and photos at the Holocaust memorial and that we're going for a 'Louis Theroux Style' documentary with having the presenter going on this trip and investigating this topic. We explained that we are waiting for confirmation from the Imperial War Museum and the Holocaust Memorial for whether we can get an expert. We also explained that we have gotten Shahak Shapira onboard with the Documentary and that we're going out to film at the Memorial and Interview him.
Zoe explained that if we're focusing on the Holocaust and this idea of the selfie culture then we should be focusing on a Holocaust expert but rather a Social Media expert. This would help our investigation much more since this isn't a history documentary.

Zoe also explained that we don't really have anyone other than Shahak for our documentary and we should consider getting in touch with some Holocaust survivors since their opinions would be amazing for the documentary and really build it up more.

Although, we are pitching this documentary tomorrow so we won't have time to make these changes but these can be made in we get our idea green lit.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL INTERVIEW

We've already been given filming permission for the Holocaust Memorial and are currently writing up the risk assessments for this location. Our aim for this location is to do Vox Pops with the members of the public that we see taking selfies and simply question why they're doing this.
This is probably the biggest part of our documentary as this is where we will actually see if people are or aren't being disrespectful there. We've agreed that we'd need to do this entire sequence hand held to keep the pace moving and to help filming throughout the day since we won't have time to keep setting up a tripod and camera every time we get an interview. But, we've got the option of the Fig-rig for the Sony EX camera's which I've used on both of my previous productions and it works really well for steady shots and operating the Sony Cameras. For the option for DSLR Cameras, I've got my own DSLR Shoulder mount (Photo to the right) which works really well for mobility and steady shots. It also comes with a pull focus which we used on Trine's shoot for Directions unit.


As well as filming at the Holocaust memorial, there is an exhibition to the Holocaust below the memorial where you can walk around and read all the history of the Holocaust. We've talked about having an expert from the memorial to talk in our documentary so that we've got both an expert in the United Kingdom and an expert in Germany so we have 2 opinions and a good amount of information for our documentary. After getting back in touch with the memorial they told us that this would be possible but they will need to speak to their staff and get back to us with confirmation.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: SHAHAK SHAPIRA INTERVIEW

One of the main people we saw and found inspiring for our documentary was Shahak Shapira. I explained in a previous post about his Project 'Yolocaust' where he saw people being disrespectful at the Holocaust Memorial and photoshopped them to make them see what they're doing and how inappropriate they were being.

Shahak lives in Berlin, where the Holocaust Memorial is and where we are already planning to go out and film. So we decided to get in contact with Shahak and see if he would be interested in meeting in Berlin for an interview about his project and the current situation with young people. Shahak is a freelance artist and also a stand-up comedian. He is sometimes considered racist as he likes to joke and mock religion and also, even though he was born Jewish he doesn't consider himself Jewish. This actually interests us a lot about him because even though he doesn't consider himself Jewish and likes to mock and insult Religion but he hated seeing people being disrespectful at the Holocaust memorial and decided to do something about it.

Trine took the role of contacting Shahak. We have to do it through his agent as there isn't a direct contact detail for him.

After emailing his agent, Trine recieved an email a few days later explaining that Shahak would be interested in helping with the project but that he wasn't available until the 2nd May and would only be available for a maximum of 2 hours. We took this and agreed that we would need to practice a interview. So setting up, questions and then de-rig to ensure that we can keep to this time frame. But so far we have Shahak as a confirmed interview. 

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: DRIVE 'VLOG' PRACTICE

When planning this documentary, we have been discussing the choice of shots that we're going to be having in the film. Currently we have:

- GV's of locations (Berlin and London)
- PTC's with the presenter
- Interviews
- Archive footage/photos

But we wanted to add something more to the documentary that would help it. One type of filming that hugely popular with younger people these days is 'Vlogs' where the person onscreen will talk about their day. The word comes from 'Video Log' and these have become huge on YouTube and Facebook. It's especially big with young people and YouTubers such as Casey Neistat made their career by Vlogging everyday and from this they've ended up with millions of subscribers. A classic style for them to do during filming is talking inside the car when they've either traveling or on their way to an event, etc. An example of this is below.

Car Vlog

This sort of filming is also used in BBC 3 documentaries and with documentaries with a presenter. It's a great way to connect to the audience and tell them what is happening while showing actuality in a documentary as well. What's also helpful with this is that you can film this sort of sequence very easily because you can use a Go-Pro and a simple car mount which can fit nicely in the corner of the car and not distract the driver and still records in HD/4K so the quality is really good. Simply adding a clip mic can help us get the audio we need as well. 

So for traveling to and from locations we'll have these sequences to add to the documentary and add some actuality as well. 

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: CHOICE OF TITLE

Are We Numb?

We sat down today and began to discuss the title for our documentary. Since the documentary is about young people and investigating whether or not they are disrespectful to the Holocaust? We talked about having the presenters name and then the title like Louis Theroux does, such as these:

However, we haven't chosen a Presenter yet and this only works well for Louis because he's such a well known documentary maker. It's also slightly stealing his style if we did it like that. So we decided to try and come out with a title that sums up the documentary. We did come up with the following titles:

- Holocaust disrespect 

- Memorial Selfies

- Snap first

But none of these jumped out at us. 

When discussing, we asked what we were trying to answer and decided that we needed a question. We finally came to the question "Are We Numb?" as in are we numb to the Holocaust, this is the answer that we are trying to find in the documentary. But this works as a title. It jumps out and catches your attention, its what we're trying to find out and it's not giving away any of the documentary before you watch it but makes you question what it could be about. 

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: FILMING IN LONDON AND TRAVELING TO BERLIN

One of the main aspects of this documentary we're planning is the disrespect towards the Holocaust. One of the main stories I found online was the project 'Yolocaust' by Shahak Shapira. Since was about young people taking disrespectful selfies are the memorial. After searching #holocaustmemorial on Instagram, we found these selfies taken there:

DOCURENTARY UNIT: PRESENTER & DOCUMENTARY STYLE

With planning our Pitch for the Documentary, we needed to decide on the style of the documentary and how it would be presented. We spoke as a group and also looked online at BBC 3 for what sort of Documentaries they have and the style they go for.

Looking into the style of documentary that BBC 3 usually goes for, when it was online it would often be Expository Documentaries, which are often what people consider 'Documentaries' where the aim is to inform or to show and tell a story and more than often uses the 'Voice of God' method of having a voice narration to accompany it. BBC 3 was classically using this method but going with a more informal and young presenting style to help relate and appeal to the younger audience. This classic style has been done in a number of documentaries, but we wanted something slightly different. Although, this documentary is going to be Expository as we are looking and investigating into this topic and we're aiming to find out what the answer is.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: IMPERIAL WAR MUESUEM

With our chosen idea being about disrespect towards the Holocaust and we wanted some experts in the History of the Holocaust, George and I decided to visit the Imperial War Museum in London and see if we could find an expert or if the staff could help us in any way.

When we got there the first thing we took in was the building itself. Visually, it's stunning and a very well known location. As you can see from the photo on the right, it stands out and visually looks amazing so getting footage of this building would work really well for our documentary.

When we went inside, we spoke with one of the volunteers of the Museum and asked about getting the Director of the Exhibition involved on the project and they explained that we would have to contact the Museum and arrange a meeting as the Director isn't usually on site apart from meetings and special events. They did also explain that it would have to be beneficial to the museum and that it would have to work within the guidelines of the museum as well. We questioned if we would be able to film inside the actual exhibition and they explained that no photography or filming is allowed but this could be negotiated with the museum.

Once we went inside the Exhibition, we were both shocked by what we saw, from the shoes worn by Prisoners of the Camps, to the uniforms worn by them as well. The Exhibition is such a shocking experience but as well, holds so much information and artefacts that could be really good to have in the documentary because it's not only facts but footage which can help show the seriousness of this event. It's great having someone saying that thousands of Jewish people lived and wore this uniforms but it would have a much bigger impact if we could also show the artefacts.

Once finished here, I got the contact details from the University and emailed ahead asking for the Director and explained the project. The email I sent is below.

"Dear Sir/Madam

I am writing from the University of Creative Arts in Kent. I am trying to get in contact with the Curator of the Holocaust Exhibition. Myself and 3 other students are currently researching and planning a 10 minute Documentary for our final project. Our aim is to investigate young peoples opinions towards the Holocaust and whether or not the Younger Generation are numb to what happen in this horrific time of history. 

We are looking to find an expert to interview for the documentary and would like to also meet and discuss this topic for research as well. We'd be very grateful if the Curator would be able to help with this project.

Please feel free to email me at gavinroberts480@gmail.com or phone me on 07#########. Phone call would be much better as I could explain the entire project and what we hope to gain from the Curator. 

Many thanks and hope to hear from you soon."