Difficulties encountered when trying to gain permission to film

Whilst making enquiries about getting permission to film at an organisation, I have encountered a number of difficulties, as follows:
I have phoned multiple times to try and speak to someone about filming permission, I did get through to someone and spoke to them about it, they told me they would call me back when they had checked whether it would be ok or not. However, I never received a return phone call.

Furthermore, I have phoned them since and now been told that their marketing department no longer take enquiries on the phone, and to email them instead. I have done this, and have been told my enquiry has been passed onto the relevant person, but have so far had no response. I have today sent another email to the person who was dealing with my enquiry to ask if any progress has been made on it.

Whilst I appreciate that organisations have many enquiries to deal with, me and Gemma have put a lot of time into planning this shoot, so when people do not get back in contact with us and we have to keep chasing them, it could put our plans in jeopardy and potentially mean we are unable to film.

Given that I have had no response from them regarding filming permission, I feel that I have no choice but to go and see them in person and discuss this matter as all the ways that I have tried to contact them so far have had no response at all.

Documentary viewing: Britain's Hidden Hungry

I viewed the BBC documentary Britain's Hidden Hungry on BBC iPlayer recently, and it has given me more insight into how a documentary is made. There were some good interview shots of Charlotte, one of the main character in the documentary, who tells us about the last time she ate three meals a day. There is some good camera work in the programme, with over the shoulder and fly on the wall shots used throughout. There is also a commentary used which gives the audience more insight about the issue the programme is covering.

There were certain aspects of Britain's Hidden Hungry that we will be using in our documentary, in particular the voice over, as this is a good way of getting information across. However, there is one thing missing from the programme which our documentary will have, and that is video diaries. I feel these are important in a documentary because they give a very personal insight from the character themselves and allow the audience to engage intimately with them. I have put a link below to the episode on youtube, as it is no longer available on BBC iPlayer.

Britain's Hidden Hungry (Youtube)

Phoning locations for filming permission

I phoned up Arriva earlier in the week and was asked what the specific time, day, and route was that I wished to film on. Given that at the moment I am unsure of this information, I will phone them again when me and Gemma have discussed when we will be filming. I am also going to phone Hadlow college again today as they have not returned my call from Monday.

Getting Permission to film

I have been phoning around people to get permission to film in certain locations that we need to film in for our documentary. However, one of the locations we want to film in have proved to be a bit tricky to get hold of, so I will try and phone them again tomorrow. Also, I have been editing the shooting script further so that it is coherent and tells the story effectively.

Script- Gemma Whipp

Today myself Helen and Scott went through the script in more detail making sure we included my points which i wanted to touch on:

About Kathy:
Her life at Hadlow
Friends
Jobs
Relationships

In our script all these points where covered we have managed to get the script to flow better instead of jumping from one point to the next and cut down how much we did at Hadlow college a lot as well over all the script is looking more structured and will give me more help when it comes down to filming Kathy.

On Thursday 15th November 2012 I have asked Kathy to come up to the studios where she can meet Scott and if she has any questions Helen is on hand to explain anything to her Kathy that she may be worried about. My aim of this doc is the inspiration behind Kathy NOT the bad things but the bad things will help her move along.

Over all i am pleased I've also been in contact with Orlagh and Kaylash to get them for a chat so i can explain what i want from them in the interviews and so they are also aware that they need to fill some forms in for consent to use them, I also need to get hold of Alex Kathy's boyfriend and give Hadlow college another phone call, Scott has also been asked to ring the bus company to get permission to film on the bus if that is at all possible.

All the interviews i want apart from Kathy's to be done in the common room of where we live just because it has a more of a homely feel and the interviewee's will look more relaxed and be less concerned about the camera being there. Kathy's interview will be in her room just cause thats her space and her room shows a lot of her personality in the little bits and bobs around the room.

My planning hasn't been brilliant there are things i could of changed for example sharing the jobs more instead of me just doing everything and expecting Scott to do work, But scott needs to learn to think oh i could help by doing..... instead of waiting to be told to do it.

Script and shooting script. Gemma Whipp

Over the weekend i asked Scott to do a script while i carried on thinking about the shooting script, the result of scott's script proved for this two people need to be together since scott did forget about a lot of things that needed to be included and he focused a lot on the college which is not what i wanted, In-between helping Lizzie and Sam with their filming i've been in a fighting battle to try get scott to be more pro-active in this project which i am finding difficult he wants to be told what to do instead of thinking about what needs to be done.

The shot list is almost complete i am just trying to fill in some small gaps without using cut away shots i was going to use Kathy's video diary to help build the story more on the more personal level get my audience right in there kind of like a nick broomfield interview where he is always pushing the boundaries more and more.

Some of the documentaries I've been watching are:
Kurt Cobain- For the drug usage in this doc they are quite open to talk about their drug uses which Kathy is finding difficult to talk about she didn't use the drugs to get high she did them purely help ease the pain when in her early stages of her M.S
Festishes- the reason i watched this one was to see how i can talk about difficult subjects in interviews things that can happen with MS that cant be helped are always quite sensitive and in this film they used lots of different ways to show this with clients and the mistresses in the film. They interviewed the mistresses in their homes as well as in pandoras box, they concealed clients identities to get better interview responses all these things made its easier for the interviewees to give good answers.

Watching Nick Broomfield has helped me a lot to understand how to talk about certain subjects and to understand there are ways to get the answers you want by the way you word things.

Research Part Two. Gemma Whipp

When I spoke to Kathy when she came home from Ireland I popped into to have a chat with her and see how things went. As we was talking Kathy handed me  bag full of paper work in the paper work there are reports of things Katy went through I.E depression also there are articles on cannabis use all these options are open to Kathy. I also got from Kathy DVD's of her MRI scans where we can see selections of muscle and brains and Kathy will be pointing out the bits of the scan my audience will need to know and this is where my narration skills will come into play.

My research has helped me map together my script which I have placed on my wall at home on a post it note form so when it comes to writing my script I can in a sense copy from my wall into a script form where i will add other details for example when im going to add narrations.

Shooting Script

Today I wrote the first draft of the shooting script. Gemma has done the shot list so once we combine these two items we will have a coherent shooting script which can then be approved for filming.

MS Society website

Here is a link to the MS Society website, a portal to everything to do with MS, including diagnosis, treatment, and background information on the disease. This website has been a useful research resource in the production of our documentary which looks at the life of someone who suffers with MS.

MS Society Website

Research M.S- Gemma Whipp

After my documentary got picked to be commissioned i went and told Kathy the young lady i have based my documentary on.

For around four days i have not been able to speak to Kathy as she went home so when she got back last night once i got her up to date with what i've been doing such as using post it notes to create a shot list and mapping out what shots i want where, i also got some information from Kathy so lots of different paper which all speak about symptoms Kathy had and how she went through depression brought on by her M.S there is also information about using illegal drugs to help ease pain, for me to be able to touch on this sort of subject i need to look at other documentaries where people speak about drug use and use a similar way they use to get around the subject.

I have to ring Hadlow college to make sure i can film there, the shots i want to use at Hadlow are shots of things that Kathy will be up against that other class mates wouldn't think twice about doing for example maybe steps leading into lessons.

I have asked Kathy if she would be up for doing a video diary where she can talk about things that are on her mind or if she is feeling particularly painful, there are certain things that i wouldn't be able to film and this is another way to capture moments for example when you suffer from M.S you lose control over your bladder so there could an example where this has happened and she might want to mention it. Also this is another way for my audience to relate with Kathy and feel like they are friends and they have known each other for a long time.

Research on M.S Gemma Whipp

When I was thinking about this documentary unit I was wondering to myself what do i have in my life that i could do a 10 minuet documentary on, Then it came to me that i have this person in my life who is so great and just aiming high all the time but her down fall is she suffers from M.S but that didn't stop her then i thought what is M.S and so i did my research and looked on-line and this is what I've found out. 

MS is a disease affecting the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) the symptoms can come and go and they can also depend how sever the pain can be. The illness is different for every one who suffers from the illness, as much as this is horrible and painful people who suffer from it but cause M.S as it stands has no cure BUT there are ways people can treat the symptoms. 

The symptoms can start off as small things like Loss of balance, fatigue, Bladder problems there are lots of symptoms and some people might not have all of them but they will have some and they will hit at different times. 

The reason i wanted  to base this on Kathy was because of her drive she isnt letting her illness beat her and she just keeps on moving forward with her life she now lives in Maidstone she has a relationship with a guy called Alex, these are good steps and she just keeps on working to be the best she can be and doing it while she can.