The first step we took as a production company saw the birth of our production company name. Here ‘High Violet Productions’ was formed. High Violet represents the height of the work we would produce and the beautiful and clear productions formed. Many logos were created for this but were declined by the group due to how aesthetically unprofessional they looked. We worked well as a group and even though quite a few group members created many logos, we should have just asserted that job to one person. But based on the research I went into and ideas I had, I designed the final logo (as seen on the homepage http://highvioletproductions.yolasite.com ).
A huge problem we faced throughout this whole researching process was the main idea for the documentary. We played with so many ideas, however there were flaws with each idea, disallowing us from pursuing them. As a group we were very content on creating a documentary on taxidermy, this would involve us interacting with a lot of people inspecting taxidermy as a hobby and as a life. Quite a few people with this strange hobby arose as contacts, such as a pub that collect them. However feedback was essential to this very important decision and our idea seemed to fade out soon. To make the documentary interesting on a much higher level than we’d anticipated, we would have to find a subject, who lived taxidermy and was keen on taxidermy on such a great scale, this made us realize that it was a better concept but seemed extremely tricky to find, so the idea changed briefly.
Another idea that we skipped after realizing that it probably wouldn’t work out as a high level documentary was an insight to the lives of failed musicians and new bands trying to make it big. The contacts had been found, however this idea didn’t seem to work, there was nothing in the story that would make it stand out from other documentaries. We would play on the emotion of loss and target our audience perfectly to connect with them, however we soon took it out. Spirituality was the next attempt, the contacts were there, however with further research and when feedback was given we realized that there were so many existing documentaries, there would be no reason for us to create something that was already there.
My idea, which I believe is very strong, is on Celebrity Worship Syndrome, a deep look into those who are obsessed with a celebrity or someone in the public eye. Here I had researched the idea and wrote up a summary of what it would contain. The group agreed with the strength of this idea however I had not been able to pursue the contacts I so strongly needed. The kind of subjects I would need to use would be worldly known people that have been seen in the media, as crazy fans, however there has been no talk of Celebrity Worship Syndrome in the media, so it could be our duty to finally create this. The contacts were on such a level that we were not able to pursue, this didn’t seem a likely production for High Violet yet, so again we skipped it. However it’s still an ongoing procedure to find contacts, so in time this is placed as a back up idea.
Very late into the development of the documentary process we eventually came up with our final idea. Here we are going to venture the life of Speed Dating, the subject’s life to find a partner and hopefully find love. We were going to use one subject and follow their life going to all sorts of speed dating, however I suggested using both a male and female subject and watch from both their perspectives. This in order would not segregate one gender and would avoid the other to feel discriminated. They would then possibly go out on a date at the end if they were to fall for each other, this would make a great ending, however could look staged.
The mode I am to abide by is the poetic mode, by this I would be free to film beautifully constructed shots as the director of photography and make sure every shot flows rhythmically and take attention to the mood and more so portray the objective view on the idea of speed dating. We saw this as quite an interesting concept as it would appeal on so many levels of audiences. However I feel like this idea is quite broad and could seem quite safe to produce, in order for this not to happen we would have to impress our audiences with how entertaining the subject is. By keeping to the aesthetics of realism and the truth behind our subject’s lives, we would hope to convey a comedic value for our audiences to applaud. Mainly we want our audiences to relate to these people and partially connect with how lonely they are and furthermore connect emotionally.
As the Director of Photography in the group, it was my duty to be inspired by a range of photojournalist and filmmakers to ensure the filming we finally get to do, is able to suit the mode and genre of documentary. Poetic mode documentary maker Joris Iven heavily influenced me with his film Regen, I was so intrigued with the mood he was able to emphasise. It captivated me so much I hope to use emotion as well as he did. The first piece of filming I was able to control was the trailer, it was a very simple idea to perform in which we would interview people taken from the streets and have them sat down In a chair ready for some questions. The camera was placed in the same position on a tripod to allow smooth editing from shot to shot, however the subjects sat down in different places. In the end there were slight changes to the framing, so something I would change would be the framing of each subject. On the other hand the trailer was more successful than expected, due to the editing, the framing wasn’t too much a flaw to the story told. Another addition of the work I produced, as the director of photography was the interactive webisodes to only be aired on YouTube, here I filmed two subjects whom characters were fictional. This was to emphasise the idea of speed dating in order to captivate audiences and more importantly create word of mouth as a large part of promotion. We hope to continue these series of videos in the New Year to keep people interested and keep them keen fans till the documentary is aired.
For the group presentation, I took charge of producing the physical and aesthetical aspects of the whole product. We managed to create a pleasing presentation and with hours of practice, we pulled it off pretty successfully. With the name of our documentary thought up, ‘But Is It Love?’ it was incredibly important that a logo was created as a visually pleasing piece of promotion. I then created this, in which I based the design on the love heart sweet by Swizzels Matlow. The design consisted of the shape of a love heart with the words ‘But Is It’ inside the heart, then with another heart inside that with the word ‘Love?’ in. Making the design look like the authentic sweet, I gathered a similar font and played around with the embossed effect, successfully the group took a liking to it, however I will change the colouring a bit, as it does look a bit too feminine. As head of merchandising a part of promotion, I was able to pitch the created template designs I produced of what our t-shirts are to look like. Here we have both black and white t-shirts, with our main logo, a shortened version of the logo, the secondary logo and a ‘But Is It Love?’ logo. With more of a choice of t-shirts on sale, audiences are able to choice their favorite out of a broad selection and furthermore help promote the documentary. In order to pull of this idea, I will make sure I create them in all sizes and have them as professionally looking as possible on a fashionable scale, to not only attract our documentary fans but also fans of fashion. Furthermore helping with promotion, I set up an inidiegogo page in which it helps to publicly fund our film. This is a brilliant site, which interacts with fans on a more appealing and physical level, here audiences are able to give us a bit of money but also get something from it. An example of this is, if you were to send us £10, you would receive a copy of the dvd straight on release. I am still to set up new rewards such as t-shirts when they are produced. Hopefully our audience will expand and help create a successful documentary (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/293739/x/1883987).
Even though it
took a while for our group to finally come up with a strong main idea for our
documentary, we formed as a group brilliantly and were able to produce some
high quality work. With more time in the New Year, we will research our
audience even more and create an even better and entertaining film.
