Proposal

Where I will be looking into what my FMP ideas are and see what factors I want to experiment with, contextually and technically. 

Influences and Inspirations and Idea's and Concepts

When setting out within my FMP I need to establish three main ideas of what I am interested in doing so that I can then progress to develop these ideas. I wanted to experiment with something I have not created so far over the course of my time in media as I want to gather more experience and learn more about differing moving image projects. So far I have created two music videos and an advertising and marketing campaign so I will be looking into different forms of media I could create. 

After outlining each product I am interested in making I will look into influence's and inspirations of pre existing products and how these motivate me for my FMP and what I like from them (what inspires me overall). Once looking into these inspirations I will then discuss what my idea concepts are for each.

There are a range of participatory documentary creators that I will take inspiration from going forward in my project. Two of these directors/filmmakers are Stacey Dooley and Louis Theroux. They are both well known for creating documentary's in which they speak to people from different backgrounds and interesting situations and get involved with their life. We see them both on screen very often as they are participating in the subject themselves. I will be looking at examples of these influences.

that only the film maker wants to understand. All questions and action taken needs to be relevant to the documentary and the subject. Stacey's documentary's are definitely my favourite participatory documentary's as I find her very relatable and think that she makes documentary's interesting. Over the past few weeks I have watched all three series of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over and also more of her other work and have found that topics that I wouldn't typically choose to watch documentary's on, I have found rather interesting and have actually found myself trying to find out more about the topics Stacey covers. 

Something I particularly like and want to feature in my documentary is the opening sequence. As Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over is a series and my documentary will be a one part documentary instead I will not do what is seen here (different clips, interviews and memorable moments from each episode in the series) however I would like to have a really clear, fun and intriguing opening scene which helps hook the audience in and make them want to know more about my documentary and my role within it. A feature of this opening scene I want to learn more about is the use of motion graphics and logos. At the end of the opening sequence a animated logo appears with the title of the show and the title of the episode, I would like my documentary to feature something similar to this as I aim to improve my After Effects skills, more specifically using motion graphics. This would also help provide my documentary with a fun and professional effect. 

Documentary's are typically made to reflect on social and cultural topics and products, for example in this episode of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over, she stayed with an "off grid" family who are very eco friendly and are apart of the extinction rebellion movement. This already is a excellent way to reflect on social, political and cultural aspects of life and provides the audience with a look into what these peoples lives are like, what their thoughts are towards the extinction rebellion moment and why exactly they live their lives that way. I found that when initially starting the documentary I thought I wouldn't enjoy it due to my opinions of "civil disobedience" which extinction rebellion partake in however, just listening to the facts and statistics the family provide surrounding climate change, carbon emissions and ecological factors of day to day life - it made me think about my contributions straight away. I find this really inspiring and influential as this is the exact affect that documentary's should have on an audience and that I want my documentary to do. 

Overall, "Stacey Dooley Sleeps over" influences my documentary as I feel that Stacey's role as filmmaker, makes for a really great participatory documentary in which entertains but also intrigues the audience and makes them think further about the subject. I like the use of opening sequences and the structure that it adds to the opening of the documentary by making it seem fun, intriguing and clear as to what the documentary will cover. I would like to use a motion graphic for a logo to add to my opening sequence and would also love to challenge social, political and cultural aspects of life to help bring my thoughts and feelings to life and add to the audiences experience of watching my documentary. 

I find Louis Theroux's work very influential as he has a way of making connections with the people he is interviewing and working with as well as how he captivates and audience. I love Louis Theroux as I think he is seen as very genuine, has passion for his work and is eager to allow the interviewee to discuss what they want to and does not want to upset or offend them. For example, in "Shooting Joe Exotic", When talking to Carol Baskin (Joe Exotics "rival") about the disappearance of her husband (after Joe Exotic pushing the narrative that she had killed him and "fed him to her tigers" causing her to gain vast amounts of hate and harassment, instead of Louis asking "did you kill your husband" or "were you involved in the disappearance" instead he asked her what did she want to take about in regards to her husbands disappearance/the theories people were making. This inspires me as it shows that Louis has contributed to balancing peoples thoughts and opinions of Carol (due to Tier Kings making her a villain so he has helped show her side of the story and make it less bias). This is a beneficial skill for documentary's to use as it enables the filmmaker to look at all aspects surrounding the subject and not being bias or stick to one side of the story. I want to do this in my documentary as I inevitably feel as though this grows the relationship between the audience and the documentary filmmaker as it is naturally more likeable and provides a happier feeling to the documentary. 

Another feature of "Shooting Joe Exotic" that I found influential was the use of cinematography. In scenes where Louis was conducting voice overs over B - Roll footage, I found that the shots used were always very clear, very satisfying and often used the rule of thirds. B - Roll will be a huge aspect of my documentary and is an extremely general code and convention of documentary's so ensuring I get it right is very important. I liked that most shots has purpose for being used, weather it matched what Louis was talking about in the voce over or inferred what location he was at or what he was looking into, the B - Roll used into just to fill up the scene, it is used for inference. I would like to use this in my documentary. 

Linking to the social and political aspects of "Shooting Joe Exotic", it follows on from Louis first interaction with Joe almost 10 years prior to this documentary and also follows on from Tiger King which arguably hit all aspects of society and politics . For example, socially, "Shooting Joe Exotic" adds to a follow up of life since - Carol Baskins thoughts and feelings towards Joe Exotic and Tiger King as well as how her life has changed. It also reflects on how society view her and how they view Joe - for instance, she plays Louis some voice notes and voice mails left by angry followers of Joe that showed they hatred for Carol and how Tiger King has shaped these opinions. Politically, Shooting Joe Exotic discusses and shows the talk of Joe receiving a pardon from President Trump allowing him to leave prison. Once again it is extremely important that documentary's work with this in mind as it will relate to what the audience think about and what they take away from the documentary. 

Overall, "Louis Theroux : Shooting Joe Exotic" inspires and will influence my work by showing the connection between the filmmaker and the subject of the documentary as well as the people involved in the documentary. I liked this as it made the filmmaker feel more genuine and passionate about the subject. I also liked the use of cinematography especially within B - Roll shots and the effects that they made me feel as the audience when watching and trying to figure out what they inferred. I also liked that it met social wants and needs from target audiences as well as political aspects that have been faced in the story of the documentary. These influences will be taken forward to lear and understand more about the use of them in participatory documentary's. 

Early on in the documentary she talks about her upbringing around religion, saying she hadn't been to church in a large number of years and that she was never brought up being religious so that now as an adult she had a lot of thoughts and questions about what religion means to the sisters. As the documentary proceeds Stacey becomes more aware of the sisters beliefs and their life in the convent so that at the end of the documentary Stacey says that its been enlightening and its been life affirming. She said that she had opportunity's to sit with herself and recognise what she likes about herself and that she has learnt loads. This influences me for my documentary as we are able to see as an audience that Stacey is open minded to understanding the nuns in the convent and she reflects on her initial thoughts and her thoughts after spending some time with them. Reflection will be a predominant theme throughout my documentary as it is important tpo think about what my initial ideas and thoughts towards a subject are and what they are at the end of my documentary. 

This documentary features and reflects on social, cultural and religious themes. It is all about understanding how and why these women decide to become nuns, turn to religion and live in a convent. This reflects on social as we see the community of nuns that live in the convent, their thoughts and feelings towards one another and their thoughts and feelings towards religion. It is cultural as we are told about what their day to day life is, what the structure of the day is, when they pray, how they pray, and simply how religion impacts their lives. This is also where religion plays its part, the nuns talk about their relationship with god and their belief in Christianity. I find that the way the documentary is structured is what makes it so interesting. We are shown what their days in tale and what they get up to. I find this interesting and a influence into my documentary as I would not typically choose to watch a documentary on a convent filled with nuns however I think that it has been done well and does intrigue an audience as it focusses on the people not just their religion. 

3. Music Video

Overall I want to a make a music related documentary for my FMP.

Skills Web

editing images and found Photoshop extremely confusing. Whilst  I do think that I improved my use of using photoshop there is still so much that I want to learn and improve on. Whilst in this project I will focus on moving image if I find a way to incorporate the use of Photoshop in my work I will use it. 

The third skill was meeting deadlines. I put this towards the outside of the skills web as I have found that whilst working on my projects I want to ensure I stick to deadlines so that I don't leave to much work undone and leave things unfinished. I have found that I very rarely have things unfinished for the set deadlines. I want to continue this as it is an extremely important aspect of time management in my project. 

The fourth skills was evaluating my work. Evaluating my work and the tasks that I complete are extremely important as it is where I can express my thoughts and feelings towards what I produce. I put evaluating my work in the second to last place as I felt as though I am quite confident in doing this but think that there is room to improve and make my evaluations better. In past project I may have watched an advert or music video of what ever I was making and analyzed and evaluated all of it where as in this project I want to focus on keeping research relevant. When evaluating existing products I will focus on the essentials. When doing my end of project evaluation I will ensure that I cover all the points I want to make. 

The fifth skills was working sustainably as in past project I have felt as though there has been lots of waste and I have over spent in projects. I want to keep my work sustainable as ethics are very important to me. If i need to purchase any of props or costuming for my documentary I want to shop in charity shops or on platforms like vinted and depop. Whilst I think that this is a relatively easy skill which I have completed already, there is always room to improve.

The sixth skill on my skills web was my use of Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro is the main video editing software that I use to create moving image products. This will be incredible important in my documentary as this is where majority of my editing will be. I placed Premiere Pro on the second to last place on the web as I do feel confident using Premiere Pro however again there is a lot that I think I could benefit from learning and improving. 

Finally the last skill was using After Effects. Over the past two years when using After Effects I have really struggled as I have found the software difficult to navigate and confusing to use but I want to experiment more with After Effects as it is an excellent tool to use to create interesting motion graphics and effects. After Effects is the furthest into the middle of my skills web as I have extremely low confidence with using After Effects but want to improve this.  

I will work with these skills in my FMP and be able to try to improve and strengthen them over the course of making my project.

Initial Documentary Ideas and Concepts

When deciding that I wanted to make a documentary I always knew that I wanted it to be focused on music. However, something that came to mind very early in the idea generation period was that so many documentary's have been made regarding the music industry so I want mine to be unique and different. 

Idea 1

One idea that I have for my documentary is making a participatory documentary with the theme of "can someone without any music theory knowledge and does not play an instrument make a song using software?". My first initial thought was to make a documentary about the music industry and the difficulties to find your place in it but felt as though this was very basic and I have seen this done in several different documentary's so would not be unique and different. I think that the idea of seeing weather the use of DAW (Digital  audio workstation) soft wear such as Logic Pro X, Band Lab, Audition or Garage Band makes this an easier process due to not actually having to use any instruments. I liked the idea of making a participatory documentary as I would be able to actually get involved in the process as in my last projects I have felt as though as much as I like directing I would like to physically do something instead of just ordering other people and filming them. I think that this is a new and exciting concept and could help experiment with seeing weather artificially made music is better or seeing how it compare to music made with all real instruments. 

Idea 2

My second idea is to look into the use of AI and see what it is capable of. This would help me to see if AI could do tasks such as write song lyrics, give me cords to put into the software to make a riff or sequence, or to see what it can contribute to. With the use of artificial intelligence on the rise I feel as though I do not know what it is truly capable of and would like to put this to the test. I could still use the plot of my first idea (can I make it but have ai come up with the creatives and again see how it compares)and when finished compare it to something of the same genre. I would again make this participatory and I feel as though this is an intriguing concept and would interest an audience as I feel that ai is something that many people struggle to understand and get behind the concept of it. 

Idea 3

My third idea is to look at how music production has changed over the years. This would be more of an expository documentary, this would involve me gathering lots of B roll footage and interviews. I would make a point of saying weather "artificial made" music is either better with instruments being substituted for DAW effects or if it is better being physically made, played and recorded and put into DAW and how recording and production with these upgrades has been improved over the years. I could find pre existing past footage from the 60's or 70's and evaluate how the recording and mixing process is and then see what it is like now. I can speak to upcoming artists to see what they profer in production. I think that this idea isn't as intriguing and interesting to an audience but would be fun to make and I would love to experiment with b roll footage and making a really cinematic documentary. 

Out of these three ideas I want to combine my first idea and second idea to see if someone who doesn't have much music theory/production experience can use a DAW (digital audio workstation) to make music using artificial instruments. I also want to see if I can use AI as an aid to this, experimenting with different prompts to see how capable it is of creating music. I want to look at features of this and see how it compares to songs that have been recorded using real instruments and only formatted using a DAW. I will take this idea further to develop it and learn more about different factors. 

Target Audience

Understanding my target audience is important thought my project as I will need to think about how my overall project will relate to them, intrigue them and entertain them. Target audience refers to who my documentary will be made for and will involve understanding different codes, conventions and trends which this audience may follow and relate to. 

Understanding my target audience will mean thinking about what age of people is my project catered towards and what does this group of people find interesting/what will make them want to watch this documentary. For my documentary this will be music lovers or anyone who may make music themselves. Talking about the use of AI in music production could also intrigue wider stakeholders in the music scene such as labels, producers, artists and also any teachers who teach music who may want to know more about the use of AI. Target audience will also reflect gender, location, income/life style. This will be varied for my target audience as I want my documentary to reach as many people as possible however it will need to be catered to a certain audience. I will conduct a small survey to learn more about peoples opinions. 

I put 1 as "don't know anything about ai" and 10 being "I use ai everyday and know everything about it" and asked my focus group what they thought. The most popular rating was a four and then was pretty evenly distributed for the rest of the responses. This shows me that there is lots of space to teach and entermain my audience about the use oof ai in music. 

Overall, my target audience will be around 15-21, more female but open to everyone of course, will be relevant to people around Cambridgeshire/Hertfordshire and will be based around house music or pop music. Next I will look into what my primary audience will be within this target audience.

Primary Audience and Secondary Audience

My primary audience is who the documentary will be catered exactly for and why they would like it. At first I thought that my documentary's primary audience would simply be anyone who liked music but this needs to be more relevant and detailed. With my participatory documentary idea being based around seeing the possibility's of creating music using ai and investigating how music production has changed over time my primary audience may relate to musicians and producers or anyone in the music industry. With ai becoming used more frequently within modern life and entertainment  and the capability's of it being interesting, many musicians may be interested to find out how they could use ai in music production and the changes it makes to their music. As ai is popular with 51% of 14-22 year old's (nagelhout, 2024) my primary audience may lie within the age bracket. I will conduct more research into this but as a provisional idea my primary audience may be 14-22, use ai or are interested in ai and make or produce music.

My secondary audience will be someone who likes my documentary but is not a direct fan of it. Talking generally this could be like a parent of a fan for example. I think that this is where my documentary could be more catered just anyone with interest in music or who just likes different music. The wider secondary audience could be teachers, older adults who aren't as interested in ai, anyone who likes listening to music but not making it themselves and any parents of musicians. 

Pen Portrait 

A pen portrait is used to create a fictional person who would be the main interest of my documentary. This is based on factors regarding age, gender, job, income and likes and dislikes. Making a pen portrait is beneficial for understanding and visualising my target primary and secondary audience. 

Top Slice

A top slice is used to take a practical element of my work and do a small amount of research into it by making it.This will help me ensure my work is doable, the technical ability is possible and that I can have a feel for what the product will be. For my top slice I decided to have a go at using ai to create a song to ensure that I was actually able to make it. I decided to use the generative feature on a website called Band Lab as well as asking chat GPT for lyrics which matched the BPM of the song and fit the vibe. 

Going forward I want to do more research into the use of lyrics in the song I create and weather its beneficial to sing them myself or find an ai platform that may take the lyrics and sing them with the song. Something interesting I found from using Chat GPT is that it tells you how to use the lyrics with the BPM for instance it says "Intro/Outro: 5–7 syllables per measure Verses: 7–10 syllables per measure Chorus: 10–14 syllables per measure". I will be looking into this further. 

Something I thought went well in my top slice was using a generative ai created beat. As this is all a new process it was something I wanted to test out early in the proposal/research section of my EPQ to ensure I could actually do it in my documentary. I found that it worked well using it and had lots of space to change the beat it gives you and make it your own which is exactly what I want to look further into in my documentary. 

Something I found easy was that it enabled me to simply say what song I wanted and the mood I wanted it to be. For some musicians this may take a long time but it only took me a number of seconds. It also made me interested to understand it more as I could also change the notes, scales and octaves that it was set as. Something I found more difficult was understanding the layout of the tracks and how to alter them. I have experimented with DAW (digital audio workstation) before but as they cost a fair amount for a subscription I do not have one myself so being able to find one for free is great but I did find it slightly more confusing to use. 

Next time, something I would do different is look further into different music genres. I used pop music as the two most popular genres from my survey was either pop music or house music so I would look into these different genres further and see the differences that ai gave me and look at the codes and conventions of these genres. This would help me understand more about where and what artificial intelligence is using to format new music sequences. 

I enjoyed making my top slice as I found it interesting and a good look into the capability's of AI in music and the potential that it creates and holds. This is what I hope also will intrigue my audience within my documentary. I am glad that my top slice has had this effect on me as it has emphasised the importance and the questions that I want to ask and the narratives I want to show and push. 

Whilst doing my top slice I would say that I began to develop the skills of music production however I would find it unfair to say that I actually played a big part in this as obviously I got AI to do it for me. I did alter what it made as I wanted to make  it slightly more human and slightly alter the chords and beats ect. I think that i had to use listening skills and problem solving skills to figure out what I liked from the ai generated version, what I didn't like, how I could alter it and what I had to do to get that outcome. 

In my documentary when I come to making the song using ai I am hoping it will be to a much higher standard in which I will research into further. I want to see what other researches I can use, what ai sources are programmed to make music like I want it to and what the capability's are. I am hoping that with more research I could come out with a very high quality product. I aim to make the song and then show it to people and see what their initial reaction to it is and if they can deduce weather it has been made by ai. I think this will be interesting to see if upcoming artists are able to understand it. 

After completing my top slice I am very excited to continue with my project and am very hopeful that all aspects pull together and I am able to create a interesting and new documentary. 

I will be moving onto using a documentary technique for my action research. 

Action Research

In my action research I want to experiment with documentary techniques as in my top slice I focused on the ensuring I was able to complete the technical ability of my subject. 

A common feature and code and convention of documentary's are interviews. Interviews in documentary's are important as documentary's cover different points and different aspects of the subject. Interviews could feature anyone who has relevance in the subject, has a reason to know about the subject (job or relation related), or someone who could have potential interest in the subject. In my documentary I want to talk to musicians or producers in either documentary's or focus groups as this will help me gain accurate and relative feedback. and insight into the topic of my documentary. I also want to interview music consumers to understand what they look for within a song and what their opinions of AI in music are. 

Overall, my B - Roll/ interview technique was a quick test to outline my understanding and practise this common code and convention seen in documentary's. I will take this forward in my research to use this more detailed and authentic. I like the use of cinematography in my B - Roll as I can get creative and have either stationary shots or motion shots and see what ones work best. A feature On using B - Roll footage over an interview which is commonly seen that I did not use is to film the interview itself and have the interview actually seen on screen at the beginning, middle or end of the dialogue. This can gauge reactions to questions, emotion from the interviewee, the tone of conversation and potentially add to the audiences suspense of wanting to know the interviewees thoughts and feelings towards a subject. I want to experiment with this as this will increase the quality of my featured interviews and make them more authentic to the use of interviews in documentary's. 

Something that went well with my action research was that I felt like I would be able to see something like it in an actual documentary. As the use of interviews commonly paired with B - roll are a general code and convention of most documentary's it is extremely important that I get right. B - Roll footage provides me with opportunity to experiment with cinematography skills and get footage that related well to what the interviewee was talking about. In my music documentary, depending on what questions I asked I could have footage of people playing instruments, writing songs, performances and technical aspects that effects music performance. Going forward I will need to ensure that I gain enough B - Roll footage to cover my interview, I will also need to work on filming interviews and experimenting with lighting and sound in interview as well as what codes and conventions are seen in documentary's. 

I found this action research rather easy as I simply conducted an interview and then filmed B - Roll to go over it however this does not mean that I conducted this interview well. Next time I would have recorded the interview so that it could be seen on camera as well as beginning to look into testing different microphones/what is best to record audio. 

I enjoyed making my action research as it was a good introduction into using B Roll as it is not particularly recognised in anything other than documentary's as it is a general aspect that is usually seen. It enabled to me get creative and find things to film that were related to the interview that I had conducted. These were a mixture of stationary and static shots from around college as the questions I had asked were about college life.

In my research I want to continue to look into this technique as in my opinion it is one that is incredibly important for my documentary as it I view it as the biggest code and convention of documentary's and is what I think of when I think about what typically features in them. 

Primary and Secondary Data & Theory

In my FMP I will do a lot of research to help back up my ideas and look further into codes and conventions of my project, the message I want to send, what I want to investigate, the social aspect that feature along side my documentary and how I will actually make my documentary. Primary research is research that I conduct and the data I gather myself. Secondary research is data and recourses that someone else has found and made which I can use in my research. 

Primary research is beneficial to use as it will be personalised to my documentary. Primary research methods can range from creating surveys and questionnaires, meeting with a focus group to ask them more detailed questions, completing my own existing product analysis and looking into trends. For completing this I will conduct surveys using google forms and send these to my primary audience, secondary audience and peers. This will help me understand what they look for in a documentary or in a song, what improvements I can make and overall just gain quick feedback which will help my project progress and meet any aims I set out. When working with a focus group I aim to speak to a group of people who have relevance or interest in my project, for example teenagers who make music or are interested in making music/how music production has changed over time. I could either do a focus group in person by sitting down with a group and giving them questions and examples and seeing how they react or I could use another google form. I will have to see what is the most cost effective and time efficient way to complete a focus group. For existing product analysis, I will need to find documentary's that are similar to mine and analysis what made them successful. Existing product analysis are useful as I will be able to see what has been done well and how it has intrigued the audience. For completing this I will need to use YouTube or another type of  viewing platform to find examples. 

Secondary research is beneficial for my project as it is less time consuming and allows more opportunity to find data. Secondary research can involve looking at different studies and statistics from other relevant studies, looking at different news articles and story's, books, magazines and documentary's. When completing secondary research I will need to  have guidelines as to what is actually relevant for my product and what I will need to look into in detail. I will use recourses such as Youtube, BBC news, ITV, Rolling Stone magazine, Wikipedia, Google scholar.  For example, just by searching in a few different factors about music production and documentary's I have found these recourses. 

I plan on researching into the different features of participatory documentary's and the affect that they have on the audience, this will be looking into mise en scene, interviews/ vox pops, editing features ect. I will conduct primary research to learn more about who my target audience, primary audience and secondary audience and what trends there are within this groups interests.

Project Workflow

Creating a project workflow is important as I will be able to outline the order of the tasks I will be completing. This is my project workflow.

Idea generation > Start my proposal > Start research into my primary and secondary audiences and crate a pen portrait > Do a Top Slice > Gain Feedback > Begin my primary research > Secondary research > Action research > Academic research > Gain Feedback > Planning > Pre Production > Production > Editing > Rough edit > Gain feedback > Reshoot if needed > Final edit > Evaluation 

Final Plan

Overall I want to make a participatory documentary to understand that challenges of music production and learning about the possibility's of ai in music production. I want to investigate different property's of pop or house music and how this has changed over the years. I want to look into the technical factors that create manufactured music using a digital audio workstation and music that is create using actual instruments. I want my contextual focus to be surrounding the narrative of "can anyone make a song now that the use of ai and how difficult is it to actually make authentic music". I want my technical focus to be to use b roll, voice overs and interviews which intrigue an audience in my documentary. I aim to make a mock up sequence for my later action research to ensure that I can add all the fundamental features of a documentary. I am aware that whilst making my documentary I will need to ensure that I maintain the focus of it being a documentary about my time using ai to make a song and investigate changed in music production not just that I am making the music, a big part of my documentary will be actually documenting my progress.

One of the biggest factors of participatory documentary's is that the film maker is seen on screen interacting with the subject and is the main lead. This will involve me actually needing to be on screen and be involved in everything shown on screen. This is different from my past projects as usually I have just come up with the concept of what i'm making and then directing others to meet this where as this time I may have to direct someone else (with what I want to them to film) and then star in it myself. My performance in my participatory documentary will need to be strong and leading as this will help shape the view of the audience and the thoughts they take away from my documentary. I want my perspective to be based on someone with interest in the industry and music production who listens to lots of music, goes to lots of gigs and follows general music news. This perspective may interest both my primary and secondary audience as it is about making music as someone with little experience  but also how the industry works.

I want to set myself aims that I can work towards and work with in my mind during my FMP. My aims are both theory and practical based and I want to set them out as I am always wanting to improve my work as well as complete all the tasks and guidelines I have set myself. One of my aims is to improve my use of graphics using after effects. After Effects is a software that I have a lot of struggles with as I find it very difficult to use and confusing to navigate however I do want to experiment with it so in my documentary this may be to create a title sequence or opening/end credit scene and use After Effects to make it slightly more interesting and this will allow me to experiment with After Effects and build my understanding of it. Another aim is to provide a fair argument within my documentary. Many documentary's focus on taking one side of an argument but I want to fairly look into both sides and my narrative is to investigate the changes made over the years and new tools that are coming into use and then to create something with this in mind. Another aim is to step out of my comfort zone within my project and take any opportunity available. Within the music industry there's is a phrase thrown around a lot that is "it's not what you know its who you know" and over the past year or so I have built up a range of music contacts which I want to use to answer surveys and complete interviews. I will be stepping out of my comfort zone by just asking for their responses to surveys and interviews as I feel as though I don't want to bother anyone. Overall I will work with these aims in mind so that I can complete my documentary to a high quality. 

Role

My role in my documentary will be to present and direct my documentary. When generally looking into documentary's, there are plenty of job roles to be involved with in production these are being a director, a producer, a cinematographer, an editor a sound mixer and a researcher. (FilmJobs UK - Navigate the Film Industry Professionally, 2024) . As I am working on my documentary alone I will need to cover these job roles myself. I am always looking for way to improve my understanding of media projects so when creating products like a documentary It is great hands on experience to test each role and see what they do. Whilst making my documentary there are too main job roles I want to focus on my performance in and these are the role of a director and the role of a editor.

participatory documentary as participatory genre documentary's are based around the filmmakers involvement in the documentary, whilst the film maker will have direction from others there are typically the director, producer and writer or have heavy input on these roles. For example here are the credits for two of the most well known participatory documentary's - Morgan Spurlock's : Supersize me & Michael Moore : Bowling for Columbine.

The other role  I want to focus on or look further into is the role on an editor. An editor is extremely important as they are responsible for formatting the structure of documentary's and ensuring that what the viewer and audience see's is to a level of quality, makes sense, is in chronological order and may provide shots that feel cinematic and interesting to the viewer. Over the past two years I have really tried to improve and work on my editing skills specifically using Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects. At the beginning of year 1 in introductory tasks I really struggled with software as I found it confusing and difficult to use but so far I have worked hard at increasing my confidence using them by creating products that will need to be made using them. For example, to improve my Photoshop skills I set out to make a album cover and posters, to improve my After Effects usage I applied effects and changed the properties of them to shots to make them more interesting and infer something to the audience and to improve my Premiere Pro usage I have constantly tried to use premier pro for my moving image products and find improvements within my work to keep improving. I want to work more on After Effects as out of all the software's I will likely use, this is the one I find the most complex. In my documentary I would like to use After Effects to make a opening or closing credits scene. 

The role of directing and editing my documentary will be my responsibility and will only effect others when filming (making sure I'm organised and plan everything I want to do) and in post production (ensuring my documentary is high quality). 

Timing

Keeping my project on track is extremely important as I will need to ensure that I stick to interim deadlines and have all work completed for the final deadline. I am going to break down the tasks I have to do and the time I am allowing myself to ensure that I can meet timing deadlines and keep up with the flow of work. 

I will be taking everything I have outlined in my proposal forward to research into more depth.