During the first week the class and I were informed of our main assignment for this semester, to come up with our own documentary ideas for our main second year assignment. We all went away and thought up our own ideas and during the next three weeks we had various group meetings in which to discuss our documentary ideas. During this brainstorming period, I did not properly consider nor research any of the vague documentary ideas of which I had, instead I chose to contribute to the group by commenting on their ideas when in discussion in group meetings. Eventually we all agreed on going with Chris’s real life superhero idea which I strongly approved of. During the first couple of weeks were the lectures in which we learnt about setting up a Yola website, the tabs we would need and the research and information that we were to put into those tabs. In retrospect I should have started to research information immediately with these lectures in mind, instead I merely considered the possibilities of what information I would need to research, especially in relation to my own still vague ideas.

I also, after the group discussed and assigned production roles and I was assigned the role of the director, did not begin to develop directors vision as I found this difficult to do initially as I personally doubted that we would follow through with the superhero idea due to a general lack of complete commitment from every member of the group. While everyone remained enthusiastic about this idea, I did not begin to research into other documentaries with the same theme. However within a few weeks Lucy and Chris did then Paul and Rosie did. While I did eventually search for these documentaries myself, I did not watch them as I reasoned that watching one or more documentary on the same topic would give me bias me towards a particular opinion or way of filming. I did not watch these documentaries because I did not want to be influenced into re-creating them for our own documentary. Instead I chose to research and watch other documentaries such as Bowling for Columbine (Moore, 2002) and to watch any documentaries that would be played during the lectures such as Pinfall (Pacitti, 2010). During the third week while we were having training on the Canon 450 D’s, I did not pay enough attention during the workshop itself on how to operate it professionally. Instead, as I noticed Paul was taking notes as were most of the other students in the class, I asked him for his help with and during me shooting my photo essay. Mid-way through the semester Alex swapped groups and then became Line Producer / Marketing for our group. With his arrival came two more documentary ideas which further fuelled my lack of attention on my own documentary ideas.

Generally throughout the semester I did not download and look at the readings and guides from each week as and when they were up on the learning network. However, during some of our group meetings upon discussion of what knowledge would be required in the next lecture and or workshop, Lucy would explain in brief what it was, and if I and or other members of my group didn’t understand it then Lucy then would give us all a brief explanation of what it meant, which gave me a slightly better understand of it. Although, even with the consideration of Lucy’s explanation, I still did not fully grasp the meaning of some of the readings, nor did I ever fully grasp the urgency or need to download all of the readings. Throughout most weeks of the semester I remained somewhat unfocused on my own personal academic requirements and was not attentive enough during the lectures and workshops except the workshops in weeks 4, 5 and 7 on advanced final cut pro techniques. This I found to be the most encouraging and interesting as I learned simple techniques of editing to make the editing much easier such as multi-cam editing and green screen. Learning both the green screen and multi-cam techniques I found extremely useful and furthermore kick started my director’s vision for our superhero documentary.

During the workshop on advanced Photoshop techniques, I paid close attention as I considered the photo essay assignment to be quite important and I was more encouraged at that time by the techniques of editing in post-production than with the professional practice, technical expertise and generally how to use the 450 D’s, as previously mentioned when I asked Paul for his help when operating the 450 D’s. Towards the end of this semester, I have been using my time to finish uploading the required information to my Yola pages that I should have uploaded or started to research and upload from the first few weeks. I have mainly concentrated on researching my own ideas that I thought up during the middle of the semester when most of the other groups and my own group member’s research was well underway. I gained my inspiration for my own research from Lucy as she had researched possible primaries within the local area, even though we were not intending to go through with this. I merely researched upon the internet interesting statistics relating to my chosen ideas, which were about the global economy and drag car racing. The information I sought was the location of the biggest drag car racing circuit in the UK and any drag car racing blogs from which I could connect with potential primaries. The information I sought for the other documentary idea based on the economy were how many VAT registered business there were in the Winchester and the local area and furthermore how many VAT registered business’s there were in the whole of the UK. 

My research results failed to show up any information regarding the number of businesses operating in and around the Winchester area, However I did find information on how many small businesses there are in the whole of the UK. Within the last few weeks of this semester, my directors vision and imagination has been most active, however it has been more focused on aesthetic of the documentary with my most prominent idea being of how I want the documentary to end, specifically on how I want the documentary to end and with which music I want to end it with.

After the proffessional pitch, the whole group and I had been bestowed with the knowledge of what we needed to research more, how to better market the documentary and what is of the utmost importance to do during the christmas break. From the feedback of our pitch, we did not research and input as much information on the primaries as we should have. I personally feel this is predominantly down to me as I should be discussing with the group about and to the primary sources. How I intend to redeem myself is to put myself forward and speak to the primary sources myself, especially over the christmas period. 

As director, my own personal role within the group remained largely quiet until towards the end of this semester. This was not due to any one factor, except a combination of the lack of a firm group dynamic until several weeks in, my own personal tendency to be quiet and to let the major decisions be taken by other more seemingly prominent members of the group such as Chris, Paul and Lucy, especially as Lucy is the group leader and Producer. Upon reflection, my main downfalls are being too comfortable letting other people decide everything, not speaking up enough whether I agree with something or not and my main flaw, despite my personal confidence flourishing towards and during the last few weeks of this semester is my tendency to not grasp the sense of urgency or the benefits of planning and researching from the beginning. Having realised this, and realising that I cannot continue down this path I intend to take a more promintant stance as director, over the christmas period and from the beginning and during the next semester.