RAISED BY QUEERS REVIEW

Channel 4 produced a the Documentary Raised by Queers which follows Hollyoaks star Kieron Richardson as he looks into same-sex parenting and also talks about the birth of his own twins. Kieran is a gay dad and he and his partner had a surrogate who carried their twins which we learn about through the documentary as well as being introduced to his new born twins. What's different about this documentary compared to the others I've already reviewed is it's a lot more hands on and observational in the sense we're following someone, we have a presenter here and someone who not only wants to learn and talk to others about same-sex parenting but is waiting for his surrogate to give birth to his own children.

JIM CARREY THE GREAT BEYOND REVIEW

Back in 1999, Man on the Moon was released. The film stars Jim Carrey as the famous comedian Andy Kaufman. Through the during of the filming, Jim allowed a documentary crew to follow him as he took on the role but later on, Universal (as the Production company behind the film) decided that they didn't want the footage being released and show to the public because they believed it would make Jim "look like an asshole" which is explained by Jim Carrey in the film.

In 2017, Netflix released a Documentary called Jim & Andy The Great Beyond which uses that behind the scenes footage as well as a brand new interview with Jim Carrey, at his current age of 55 and talks about what he was going through and explaining the way he chose to take on the role the way he did. However, through the documentary we actually learn that Jim was taken over by Andy Kaufman (or so Jim says) and explains the craziness of having Andy communicating through him and coming back (as he had died from cancer) to do his movie. It's a very surreal documentary to watch and personally makes you question whether Jim Carrey is 'Method Acting' or if he really did have Andy take control. Through the behind the scenes footage we hear cast and crew explain that it really is Andy, we even see Jim (as Andy) meeting Andy Kaufmans family. It's a fantastic insight to this actors work on the film but also an excellent insight to just how well Jim was influenced by Andy Kaufman.
As I've done in my previous reviews of documentaries, I'll be focusing on the visuals of this particular documentary and although I'm actually taking very little influence from this, I feel it's one to right up on as it's done something I haven't seen many other documentaries do... Break the rules of documentary film making.

PRE-PRODUCTION - DOCUMENTARY STRUCTURE (PRODUCTION MEETING 1)

Above is our (rough) structure for our Documentary. In the Production meeting, Victoria and Jemma worked through the structure and how the story would work out. (This led to a lot of thinking and planning and at one point a drawing of Deadpool while we took a break. Credit to Victoria for the drawing).

Jemma and Victoria walked me though our contributors. We have a Female Drag Queen called Tanya who is the main focus of the documentary, we also have a Professor who can discuss how gender doesn't hold back people and also talks about the different sexualities and genders these days and we also have Oliver, a Drag Queen who we have been in contact with before. Jemma explained that we were going to have interviews with regular people, she considered two people from the straight community. When Jemma explained these 2 contributors I had a thought from my documentary research which was the locked off centre interviews. This was seen in my review for Dreams of a Life where all the interviewees are centre frame. These interviews stand out a lot and aren't often scene in documentaries. With this in mind, I thought this could work for these interviews with the people from the straight community as the idea is they may not agree with Tanya as a new Drag Queen or might have a different opinion and later we'd see then once they've watched her performance.

Also with this structure, Jemma wants to reveal Tanya as a Female Drag Queen later on in the documentary, how I'm going to do that I'm unsure but I've been recommended to watch the Documentaries Queer Britain and also the 10th Season of RuPaul's Drag Race for ideas and inspiration for how we could film these sections of the documentary. I know that I would probably have the Professor's interview as a classic interview style (one side of frame) but the location being her office or a more relevant location to her job/role.

DREAMS OF A LIFE REVIEW

Dreams of a Life is a documentary exploring the lie of Joyce Vincent.

Joyce Vincent was a 38 Year old woman. Back in 2006 she made the front page of the Sun Newspaper and many other newspapers and channels. When officials from the North London Housing association arrived at her bedsit flat in Wood Green to repossess due to rent not being paid. However, when they got into the bedsit a horrible discovery was made as the skeleton of Joyce was laying on the sofa, the television was still on in the corner on BBC1 and a pile of unopened Christmas presents laid on the floor. Joyce had been dead for nearly 3 years and no one had found her or even reported her missing. Her body was so badly decomposed that the only way to identify her was by comparing dental records to an old holiday photo of her smiling. 

Joyce had friends and family and still she wasn't discovered until 2006 and it was found she'd been sat there since 2003. Filmmaker Carol Morley saw the article to the right in the Sun newspaper. What amazed her was that there was hardly any information on Joyce, not even a photo of her! It was of the flat. Carol put out an ad in the newspaper asking for anyone who knew Joyce to get in contact. Through this documentary she explores her life. One of the upsetting things about her story and this documentary is that all the contributors are her friends. None are family.

ALFRED AND JAKOBINE REVIEW

One documentary that I've always enjoyed watching is the winner of the London Independent Documentary Festival 2015. Alfred & Jakobine is a Feature Length Documentary which tells the story of Alfred and Jakobine, two people who fell in love and decided to travel around the world in an old London Taxi. However, as well as telling this old story of these two characters past, we also see Alfred at his current age (84) as he attempts to repair the old London taxi and then drives across America to see Jakobine one last time as we learn that he left her over 40 years ago.

Contributors
This documentary is all interview led, with the only 'Cast' member being Olivia Marei who is the voice over for Jakboine in the translation of her diary from her days traveling with Alfred. Throughout the documentary the story is being told by Alfred, Jakobine and their son, Niels. Later on in the documentary Jakobine's new husband _______ joins the story to explain how Jakobine was after Alfred left her. These are the only 4 characters that come into the story. It stays relevant to the story.

Story
The story of this documentary follows both a present and a past. All focusing on the two characters, Alfred and Jakobine. It starts by Niels introducing the characters and we learn how they met and they talk about how the two fell in love and decided to buy a London taxi for $80 and travel all around the world in it. With archive footage and photos of the original trip in the documentary as well (See trailer below for examples):

Later on though, we see Alfred and Jakobine in the modern day and Alfred explains that he's fixing up the taxi to drive across America to see Jakobine one last time. Throughout the story we learn that Alfred then walked out on Jakobine one day which broke her heart which adds to the emotion of Alfred rebuilding this taxi.

PRE-PRODUCTION: PREVIOUS IDEAS

Over the summer, Jemma, Victoria and I came up with many ideas for the documentary. All were very original and took a new turn on the LGBT community. Our main aim was to find a story which was new and original.
Although my role is the Director of Photography and I knew this had nothing to do with deciding the content and the story. We agreed as a team we would choose the right one to go with, as we all had to look into how it would effect our roles. With me, I was looking for a story were I could tell it visually but also the most effective one which wouldn't have anything boring or slow. We wanted this documentary to be fun and exciting to watch. Below is a PowerPoint of all our previous ideas, which Jemma kindly put together.

Idea 1: Drag Kids: USA

Early into the summer, Victoria found a contributor called Desmond. He's an 11 year old Drag Queen based in New York City over in the USA. This instantly brought out an interest as we had never heard of it and doing a quick google, we found no documentaries about this topic. Drag Queens are hugely popular these days, not only as a form of entertainment and performances that we get in clubs such as Gliterbomb. But, also mainstream with RuPaul's Drag Race quickly becoming one of the most popular shows on TV. As well as this, Desmond takes part in 'Drag Queen Story time' which is where he reads to children but also teaches children about gender fluidity and allows children to learn about people who identify as different genders. Some people did argue that Desmond is cross dressing but he openly identifies as a Drag Queen. This is something really new and interesting and already I could see there being a story here to film and follow. 

In regards to filming this documentary. I found that as the DOP, I would need to organise a Carnet which allows us to take filming equipment over to the USA. Not only that, we would also be required to get working visas in order to go over to the USA and film this documentary. I released very quickly as well that I wouldn't be able to recce any locations out there so I would have to do a blind set up where I turn up on location and work out all the lighting and camera angles on the day. This didn't scare me, it's something every DOP has probably had to do previously. But the idea of not being able to look at ANY of the locations did put me off a little bit. Also, if we weren't able to get a Carnet I would have to look into renting kit in the USA which could mean the codex for the cameras could be completely different, frames per seconds, etc. All this as well as the cost for everything made us decide this wasn't the best idea to go with. 

THIRD YEAR - PRODUCTION IDEAS

Myself and my team have been planning to create a documentary before we went into the third year. Since July we have been coming up with different ideas and stories to follow with for a documentary (written up in separate blog post).

Currently, the idea is still in development between Victoria and Jemma as they're the ones who are writing and structuring the documentary. However, we do know that the Documentary will be focusing on the LGBT Community. Primarily on Drag Queens. This idea came after our Studio Production Steal the Style in our second year, where we chose to end our Fashion Chat show by bringing in a Drag Queen called Sapphire Stonee to show the audience how much work goes into their performance and look as well as focusing on this being a serious form of Fashion which magazines and high end TV shows don't focus on enough. We also knew that we needed something different which would stand out. There are already plenty of Documentaries and Reality TV Shows out there such as RuPaul's Drag Race, so this story needs to be something very original and never before seen (which can be difficult to find).

In regards to the visuals for this documentary. I want this to stand out documentaries have a standard structure and visual style regarding interviews and footage. I want to change this and go more experemental, how I'm going to do that I'm not sure as I haven't done my research yet.