Interview - harassed skateboarder

Tomorrow I will conduct an interview with a skateboarder who has been harassed. As of yet I am not completely sure how the interview will go as the interviewee has not disclosed under what circumstances he was harrassed other than that it was due to him having a skateboard at the time and "looking like a skateboarder".

Our feedback from the audience screening advised that we get an interview of a skateboarder who had been harrassed or assaulted and stereotyped, and hopefully this will help us achieve our goal and round off our documentary.

First Audience Screening - Feedback

A concern was expressed about the sound on our film, and we will bring the sound metre to six and normalise everything.

Some also thought that we should change the music - we may keep this music but also add some different music to different sections of our film.

We also need to add some footage of what London authorities have done to prevent skateboarding.

We will also interview a skater who has been harrassed.

Revisions

Originally our documentary was going to show different sides of the 'skateboarding argument' those for and against, but as we've gotten closer to the completion of our project, we've found that this isn't feasible. Not only were we unable to get in contact with all our interviewees who were against skateboarding, but they didn't fit in with the tone of our piece, and broke the flow of our film. So we decided, instead, to make our documentary focused on the more positive side of skateboarding, using all our interviewees who enjoyed and practiced skateboarding to reveal the creativity of the activity. Even though this makes our documentary biased I think, personally, that it won't effect our piece, and that forcibly trying to make our film unbiased could not only be fruitless but could also damage our project in the long run.

Shona ☺

Styles of Animation

As I mentioned in an earlier post I'm interested in animation, and before I started my animation project  I researched different styles of animation, mainly styles used in documentaries, or education films. I first looked at 'Persepolis' an Autobiographical piece which was originally a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. The film was done entirely in black and white and had very fluid animation making the piece flow neatly from one scene into another, also the drawing style was simplistic and cartoony but very effective. While I admired the style I didn't think it suited the subject matter of our documentary, however I decided to incorporate the cartoon-like style of the drawing into my animation as it worked well with the image skateboarding creates.

 I then looked at 'Waltz with Bashir', an Israeli feature length animated documentary about the 1982 Lebanon war. The colours were dark and brooding corresponding with the subject matter, and the animation was very direct, with no wasted movement. I found the animation style itself very appealing and decided to attempt to use a similar style for my opening animation. I've also taken the bold block colours and shadows which suit the rebellious side of skateboarding very well.

Shona ☺

Radio Advertisement

We intend for our radio advert to be broadcast on XFM at 16:15pm. We have chosen this time as this is when our target audience will be on their way home from school or are already home, this will mean that they will be most likely to hear the podcast. We also chose this time slot as this is during 'Dave Berry's' broadcasting time, this particular presenter is quite young and he is the most likely presenter to attract a youth audience. He tends to include things which would attract younger people, and hence our target audience, such as celebrity gossip and new music. XFMs 'rock and roll' reputation means that it would appeal more to younger people who are interested in non-conformist sports and activities such as skateboarding - unlike radio stations such as 'kiss fm' or 'heart' as they tend to appeal to a more mainstream audience, and for this reason, we have decided that XFM would be the ideal station for our podcast. 

We have also chosen to use "the motorbike song" as the music for our radio advert. We found this fitting as it was indie, upbeat music, which we found fit in with the tone of our documentary. 

Last minute filming

Today I was able to arrange and complete an interview with a youth worker. An outline of my questions and topics of discussion are as follows:

Do you think that young people are badly represented by the media?




Do you find that people hold unfounded stereotypes on young people are certain groups of young people?


In your experience, are skateboarders generally regarded as being anti-establishment?


Do you think that the stereotype of skateboarders as anti-establishment is a valid one?


Do you agree that a general trend for authority figures is to regard skateboarders, and young people as a whole, as delinquents?


Do you think that skateboarding is badly represented?


Do you think that the general public regard skateboaders as anti-establishment?


Do you think that older members of the public, or people from certain social backgrounds regard skateboaders as anti-establishment?


Do you think that older members of the public, or people from certain social spheres regard young people in general as delinquents?


Do you think that such stereotypes should be disgarded or that they are simply exaggerated truths?


Do you think that the state establishes such biases for any particular reason?

Hopefully this interview will add more film to our sequence and give a different perspective to our film. Tomorrow we will capture this and continue editing.

Introduction

As I'm interested in animation, I'm planning to make an animated introduction for our media documentary. I've looked at various different types of animation and styles, and i've decided to make a short action sequence for our film. Reiss has made a logo for our documentary, which I'll incorporate into the animated sequence to polish off the ending. I'll be using Flash CS4 because I've seen several tutorials on it's use and I feel comfortable around  the programme. Unfortunately school only has CS3 which despite being quite a recent release is very different in programming to CS4 and I find it hard to navigate. Hopefully, allowing for time, I should have the animated sequence finished by next monday.

Shona ☺

Editing

In todays lesson, Shona and I made a lot of progress with the editing. We cut up some more subclips and put some more clips together on the timeline, everything on the timeline is now in chronological order. We currently have 2 minutes of fully edited footage on our timeline in the correct order. Reiss produced a logo which we will incorporate into the introduction of our film.
We still need to do some last minute filming, hopefully Luke will be able to get one more interview and we also need some additional cutaways for our introduction and ending.
We also need to produce voiceovers for some of the footage.
We need to work on our radio advertisement, as we haven't begun this yet.
Shona is also going to produce some animation which we will use as part of the introduction to our film.
Hopefully I will be able to get a camera later today so that I can work on another project, and if I do then I will also try to film some cutaways which we will be intended for use on our introduction.
On wednesday I plan to stay from 10:40 (as I finish at this time) onwards, until I have finished editing and complying together all of our obtained footage, aswell as capturing any additional footage that I may film tomorrow - This will hopefully mean that we have nearly finished the main portion of our film, and this will mean that we are free to work on:
Our Radio Advertisement
Any Music which we will use
Any Voice overs
Any video transitions such as dissolves, fades etc.

Podcast and recent decisions and progress.

In todays lesson, we experimented with using Garage Band, which is the program which we will be using to create a radio advertisement for our documentary. We also came to decisions based on our target audience about which radio station would broadcast our documentary and at what time of the day. We decided that it should be broadcast on XFM at 4:30 during the drive time radio slot, as this is the time of day when our target audience may be coming home from school in the car. XFM is a suitable radio channel as it caters for young music tastes, and their target audience is quite compatible to our own. XFM also has various podcasts for documentaries, making it one of the only radio channels which does this, and making it even more of an ideal channel on which to broadcast our advert. We also decided that we will use a voice over to place over the clip of James playing the XBOX skater game and disable the audio on this clip, we thought that this would be a very appropriate place to put the voice over as we will not loose out on any speech as their is none in this clip, and the audience will have something to watch while the voice over speaks. We have now cut all of our footage and are currently in the process of complying it all together.

Teacher Feedback: One more thing

Put your archive at the end or the side of your blog. It should not appear at the opening. The reader should see the recent entries first.

Teacher Feedback

Your blog reflects your progress. Well done. To improve, continue to look for opportunites to add photos/images.

Also, include more about decisions and revisions along the way.

18/11/2009

On the 16/11/2009, we resolved some problems which we had with final cut express through talking to Blossom, an expert in final cut. We also learnt how to encorporate some techniques which could improve our film, such as how to place two clips next to one another on screen.


This morning we captured all additional footage which Luke had filmed. This included interviews and various cutaways, however not all of this was useable; so we are in the process of cutting it. We are in the process of cutting our footage down to only the relevant material, however, due to technical difficulties, this is proving to be quite difficult.


We have lots of footage and have very nearly finished filming, however, we plan to film some more cutaway footage in order to further enhance our documentary.

Time Managment

Due to the unforseen problems we have encountered with the editing programme 'Final Express' we have been lost a lot of valuable time. In order to counter this our group has spit up in to pairs, that we can work on seperate tasks at the same time. The pairs vary from week to week and sometimes all four of us go our seperate ways in order to use our time in the most effective way possible. We make sure that at least two to three people are focussing on editing, and the others are working on side projects such as research, the blog, or finding appropriate copyright free music for our documentary.

On Thursday 12th of October, Sorcha was ill, so Me, Luke and Reiss worked alternatively on the editting, getting input from the other two, while they did the blog and made a section of music on 'Garage Band' for us to use in our documentary, because the music we found didn't suit our film.

Shona ☺

To Do List

Things we still need to do:

1) Complete all filming: 

We are almost finished but we still have a few cutaways and locations to film. This task was allocated to Luke, who has access to what we need to film.

2) Upload all footage:

Although we have got most of our footage filmed we haven't been able to upload most of it yet, but hopefully come monday, we'll have the tape ready in class so that we can upload it.

3) Edit all footage: 

Due to all the issues we've had with the editing programme the editing isn't going as fast as we would like, though now, with most of the issues resolved, we are making good progress.

4) Continue with blog:

We're still documenting our filming process and we will continue with it until the filming task has been completed.

We're happy with the progress we're making and we should have most or all of these tasks completed during the coming weeks.

Shona☺

Using final cut express: progress and problems; 09/11/2009

09/11/2009


Luke was able to fix the issue which we had previously with the scratch disk, meaning that we currently have enough space on our scratch disk to accommodate all of our footage.


However, we have encountered other problems today which hindered our editing progress. Firstly, footage was un-rendered, although this was relatively swiftly resolved by simply rendering all the un-rendered footage.

We experienced other minor problems however this can largely be attributed to adjusting to a new editing program, and we were able to edit some of our footage successfully today.

Technical problems: editing

This morning we attempted to edit the footage we had gained so far, however things did not go as planned. Initially, it seemed that there was some problem with the connection between the camera and the computer, as Final Cut Express was not recognising the device - this has been a recurring problem. Eventually we resolved this issue, but also experienced various problems involving capturing our footage. This was mainly due to having to capture the audio seperately, we also had difficulty in capturing Shona's interview. As her interview was 10 minutes long, the scratch disk appeared to not have enough space, however attempts to create a new scratch disk failed. On further inspection, it was apparent that there should have been enough space for Shona's interview as there was ample memory left on the scratch disk. We have not yet resolved this issue as we do not know how, we are experiencing similar technical difficulties to other groups which it is quite likely, could be attributed to the confusion of using a new editing programme.
Sorcha

On the 5th of november we were able to capture all of our footage so far by using a laptop.

I found some pictures of Stockwell Park skatepark and Meanwhile 2 skatepark at Royal Oak as location reference.  Later on today i will be filming at stockwell to get some footage of skaters in action for the film.   We chose stockwell park (also known as 'Brixton Bowl' or 'Brixton Beach')  as it is an easily accessible location and a hub for the skateboarding scene in south London.  From experience, the community is vibrant  and there are many interesting characters to meet.  it goes without saying that as one of London's best skateparks you will find some truly amazing local skaters, which will be very useful for cutaway footage.

Interviews

On Monday 2nd of november, I contacted one of our interviewees who said they'd be happy to be interviewed on that day. Jen Campbell arrived at 7.00 and I set up the camera while talking to her about the questions I was going to ask. I set her up so she looked comfortable then started filming while warming her up. The first take I filmed I experimented with zooms and moving the camera but I didn't like the overall effect it gave so I retook the footage with a static camera and I personally think the second take came out much better than the first. (Below: Jen Campbell)

 

I asked her:

Why did she skateboard,

Who did she Skateboard with,

Had she had any injuries while skateboarding,

Had she experienced any violence because she skateboarded,

had any of her friends, 

and,

Had she seen any negative press about skateboarders. 

I enjoyed the experience and I think we got a valuable interview from the filming.

Shona ☺

Filming

We tried to get together to film during half-term but unfortunately we couldn't get any decent filming done. Both Sorcha and Luke were away for the week with previous engagements. I tried to meet up with Reiss at Clapham Junction, but the station was too busy and we missed each other, not being able to find each other we decided to stop and film on sunday instead.

Luke was still unable to film and so was Reiss but Sorcha came and we met up at Stockwell to take footage at the skatepark. However, despite the fact we were organised and met up with plenty of time and a charged camera, The weather was against us and we were unable to film due to rain.

Shona

unsuccessful filming attempt

This afternoon I went to the skating area at Southbank in an attempt to get some footage of skaters performing tricks and skating. Unfortunately, there was no skaters skating at the area due to the current wet weather conditions. Although this is disappointing, hopefully tomorrow afternoon we will be able to gain some more footage as our group will go to Southbank again and try to gain some footage of skaters skating in the skating area at Southbank.
Sorcha

Planned Filming

As I only have lessons periods 1 & 2 tomorrow (Tuesday 2nd November), I plan to use the rest of the day to visit the skate part at Southbank, underneath the Royal Festival Hall. I plan to film skaters and ask them to answer a couple of short questions on what they find interesting about skateboarding. Hopefully this filming will go ahead, but it is dependant on weather conditions. The weather forecast at the moment exibits a possibility of rain for tomorrow, but as the skating area in Southbank is underneath, and hence, covered by, the Royal Festival Hall, hopefully bad weather will not prevent me from getting any footage from tomorrows excursion.
Sorcha

Attempted Filming

On Sunday the 1st of November, Shona and I attempted filming some skateboarders in Stockwell skatepart. This did not go as planned and, unfortunately, due to adverse weather conditions, no skateboarders were at the skatepart when we went there. The rain meant that no skateboarders came to skate on this particular day and hence, our planned filming was unsuccessful. This has further demonstarted the importance of trying to anticipate weather conditions by reguarly checking the forecast for our filming days.

Teacher Feedback

Your entries reflect a lot of work into all aspects of planning and research. Your research into other documentaries is excellent although would have benefited from individual entries of the definition of documentary.  A clear presentation of audience research. You have arranged for a range of interviewees and produced a creative storyboard. Well done to Sorcha for conducting the initial interview!

To improve, your blog needs to be more visual. Include more photos and video links to make this easier to read. Also, used bold letters and font colour changes to make this easier to read. Lastly, you should leave more space between points. Look at your interview questions entry. It is too difficult to read.

You have not included your original pitch or feedback from it.

Survey results graph

One of the handouts we used in our presentation. This was put together using the results from the survey.

Posted by Reiss

Media Presentation

This is the visual aid we put together for our 10 minute pitch. There's no writing on the presentation because all the information was presented verbally. The youtube video is the link shown on one of the slides. It's a video of one of our interviewees, Rory Milanes, skateboarding.

Shona 

Media Documentary

View more presentations from skateboardingdunraven.

Locations, Props & Costumes

Locations: We have decided on using several locations to use for our documentary. For our visual scenes and out interviews with the skateboarders we are going to film at the skate parks (South bank, Clapham ; Brixton). This is because they are all accessible to us and they are all well known skating locations in the Lambeth borough.

The interviews with those who aren’t skateboarders will more than likely filmed in the comfort of their own homes so that they are in an environment familiar to them. In the background can be visual connotations of what type of family or person they are, whether its photographs of their children to posters on the walls.



Props: for our documentary we only really need one prop and that is a skateboard.

Costumes: Skateboarders: Regular skater attire-baggy jeans, checkered shirt, flat trainers, possibly a woolly hat.

Officer: we are going to ask the officer to wear his or her uniform so that it is clear to the audience what profession he is in and the relevance he/she has to our documentary.

The old Parents: Shirts, Cardigan, Formal trousers, the look of that generation.

Posted by Reiss.

List of Interviewees and Questions

Community police officer: we've gotten his contact detail and have left a message for him, but unfortunately he hasn't contacted us yet. Though he's an important part of our documentary we are able to replace him with another person in authority whom we have contact with.

Edward (casual skateboarder): We have confirmed an interview time and Sorcha has already interviewed him.

Rory Milanes (pro skateboarder): We have yet to finalise a date but Rory has told us he's happy to be interviewed and that he's free during the next month, we will most likely film him during half term (next week)

Vivienne and Geoffrey Kempin: These are our "other side of the argument" interviewees, they hold traditional anti-establishment stereotypes of skateboarders. Again we haven't got a final date, but they are available during any day of the week.

Jen (casual skateboarder): Jen is available this weekend for filming (24th and 25th october.) we will film her and some of her skateboarder friends, asking them about skateboarding and those who have a negative opinion of them.

Jack Graham and Sofia Barnett King: A skateboarding couple who could be interviewed together for a more comfortable atmosphere. They are both regular skateboarders and are very experienced in this field.  They are available for interviewing between the 3rd-4th of november and should be valuable assets to our collection of interviews.

We are also going to have a voice over for parts of the documentary and this will either be Luke or Shona as they both have clear understandable voices and Luke especially is enthusiastic about the topic we are exploring.

Questions for Interviewees:


We will be asking different questions to every interviewee, though for most we will ask their opinions about skateboarders and if they think there are any negative stereotypes surrounding them. We will ask the biased couple why they think skateboarders are a bad influence in the community, and we'll ask the community officer why he thinks that people hold such stereotypes and why young people might decide to become skateboarders. Here are some questions Reiss thought we could ask Rory Milanes:

1. How many years have you been  skating?

2. Have you had any bad experiences with people because you are a skater?

3. Do you think the attitudes towards skating have changed? if so how? (positive or negative)

4. How do you overcome this negativity?

5. How does skating affect your everyday life?

6. Which areas do you tend to skate most?

7. What do you plan to achieve in your skating career?

8. Have you had abuse from the community or people in the local area?

Shona Sorcha and Reiss

Storyboard and Drafting

This is my first storyboard and written draft. Both in the initial phases of design, certain elements will be disscussed, altered, and /or removed with parts yet to be finalised. This will hopefully give us a rough idea of the shape our documentary is going to take and will help us to hone it into a much better whole.

Shona ☺

Audience Research

I created a survey to find out about the attitudes towards skateboarding and skateboarders in general. It was given to various age groups, but those of a younger generation seemed more at ease with skateboarders than older citizens. Younger people seemed to be more relaxed around skateboarders, comfortable in their presence and even stopping to watch them practice. They also seemed more enthusiastic to learn more about skateboarders, even those who hadn't expressed intrest in watching skateboarders perform. The older generation was more close minded and more awkward around skateboarders, prefering to cross the street rather than confronting them. Personally I think that this research has shown that our documentary is designed for a widly ranged audience: the younger members will enjoy the information about skateboarding as well as the visual style and numerous skateboarding tricks. The older members will see the more creative side of skateboarding and hopefully will see that some of the negative stereotypes that surround skateboarders just aren't true.

(The questionairre pictured below was filled in by one of the older generation of people we asked.)

Shona☺

Arranged Interview and conducted interview

I have arranged an interview with a regular skateboarder for tomorrow afternoon at 1:30pm. I will interview him in his chosen location so that he will be most comfortable. I will only be conducting a short interview which may only be a pilot interview and will not neccesarily be used in our final documentary, however if our group deem it satisfactory then it may well be used in the final piece.
My interview questions are as follows:
Have you had any hostile experience as a skater
Do you find that certain groups have particular opinions on skaters
What are you're opinions on the restrictions which the authorities have placed on skateboarders in terms of the use of public space
I have intentionally made these questions open-ended so that the interviewee is able to elaborate and in order for the interview to conversational in some manners. These questions are subject to change as at the time of recording the interview our interviewee may present ideas which I have not previously though of.
Sorcha


Post Interview:


After interviewing the subject this afternoon it has become more apparent the level of communication skills needed to successfully conduct a professional interview. Although I think that overall the interview went rather well, I am also aware of its weaknesses. I found that the awareness that my voice was being recorded made it slightly more difficult for me to articulate my questions as well as I would have liked, I was quite disappointed with this as it could be percieved as the interviewer having a lack of knowledge on the subject on which they are interviewing which could possibly be damaging to our documentaries quality. However, I have also acknowledged the good points of this particular interview which could possibly be treated as a "pilot interview", namely the interview was well lit, and the interviewee kept at eye level with the camera. I was also quite pleased with the location of the scene - one which the interviewee himself chose as a location which he felt comfortable in, and one which was appropriate to the subject of our documentary - a place where the interviewee sometimes skates. I also attempted to stick to the rule of thirds although it is debateable how rigidly the rule was maintained throughout. I found that the interviewee developed his answers sufficiently and gave satisfactory responses, however I thought that the interview as a whole lacked a certain chemistry between the interviewee and the audience which would be neccesary were we to successfully market our documentary. Although I thought that considering it was the first conducted interview of our documentary, it had its qualities, I also think that the interview seemed almost tedious at points and that this will need to be developed in order to keep the audience intrigued in future interviews.
Sorcha

Interviewee possibility - update

I now have a contact for PC Wells who we will be able to interview, I have attempted to contact him and have left him a message with a contact number so that he can get back to us and let us know when he is able to film.
Sorcha

Similar documentaries and potential target audience. Presentation preparation.

"An inconvinient truth" is an example of an expository documentary which follows classic genre conventions which we will attempt to follow in the making of our documentary. These include trying to persuade the audience to agree with one point of view based on appealing to a common sense response using logical arguement,  a voice over; and incorportaing images into extracts.
"Hot Chocolate" is an example of a similar documentary about skateboarding which is a half skateboarding film and half documentary on the life of skaters. It incorporates a lot of film of skateboarders skating into the documentary which we would also like to do in order to engage the audience visually.
"Slammed" is a skateboarding documentary which tells the reader of the physical pain and hard work involved in being a skilled skater. Although it is unlike our documentary, in that it showcases personal journeys and ours involves exposing negative opinions of the public and in particular, authority towards the skater community; it has edited into it a lot of footage of people skateboarding and cutaways, which we would also be interested in incorporating into our film.
Another documentary which is on a similar subject to ours is "freedom of space". This documentary shows the nature of skateboarding culture and, in particular, skateboadring in public spaces. It is similar to ours in that it talks of the access which everyday skateboaders have to using public space to skate, and the way in which public spaces have been skateboarder-proofed, thus refelcting the anti-establishment stereotypes and assumptions which the authorities hold of skateboarders.
From research of similar documentaries, I have noticed that the target audience seem to be mainly from the skateboarding community. From further research, it has emerged that the viewers of skateboarding documetaries are often from middle class backgrounds, between the ages of 14-23 and are highly interested in skateboarding as a lifestyle or a hobby. From this I think that a potential target audience for our documentary could reflect this : young boys from middle class backgrounds who are highly interested in skateboarding. However, I do not think that our target audience has to be limited to skateboarders, as I have seen that many viewers of similar documentaries do not infact skateboard, but are aspirational skateboarders, because of this I think that our documentary will be very interesting to younger males (12-16) who are interested in potentially taking up skateboarding. Our skateboarder interviewees are mainly older (17-20), so this may possibly be aspirational to younger males, particuarly those who are able to identify with the programme in some way or who take a keen and regular interest in skateboarding.
Sorcha

Genre of our documentary

A documentary can be defined as a text which presents social, political or theoretical issues in a mainly factually based manner. Some can be very biased where as others give the audience the opportunity to form their own opinions on the subject in question. Over the years documentaries have evolved and sub-genres such as docu-dramas and mockumentaries have emerged although it is debated whether or not these count as true documentaries or mere entertainment.
Our documentary fits into the subgenre of an expository documentary, as we intend to expose some of authorities and/or the publics true opinions and schemas of skateboarders.
Documentaries which have inspired us are "Scratch" as the style in which it was filmed was incredibly interesting and very visually based, as our documentary shall be. Our main inspiration for this documentary has been "Hot Chocolate", a half documentary, half skateboarding video. It focuses on similar issues as we plan to and has set a standard for us to hopefully be able to achieve. This documentary has given us a world of insight into what we intend to make of our documentary. We have also researched documentaries which are not directly related to our topic of choice, but are from the expository documentary genre which we will be attempting to follow conventions of. One such documentary is "An Inconvinient Truth", which uses logical argument to present opinions and perspectives and makes a strong case against global warming. Some conventions of the expository documentary genre which we have noticed are a voice over, an attempt to convince the audience of a certain point of view usually using logic and reason and images used to support the voice over's comments. The expository genre of documentary is very widely used and conventions of it are followed throughout most documentaries and many television programmes. Although traditional conventions are quite dated, they are still very relevant and over-arch into use in genres other than the documentary genre such as the news and even some "reality" television shows.
Sorcha ; Shona.

Interviewee possibilities

In todays media lesson, I arranged a definite contact for our documentary. I have yet to arrange a time or date for the interview, I am to go to see Miss K Burgess tomorrow as she is the gatekeeper to the dunraven community police officer.
The purpose of interviewing a community police officer is to find out if the assumed stereotypes about skateboarders are held by this individual, who represents the police as an authority. We assumed that authorities and governments held negative stereotypes about skateboarders such as them being anti-establishment. This interview will enable us to discover if this assumption is actually a factually based one.


Sorcha

skateboarding clips from youtube

PITCH

What is your USP?
Our idea is interesting and it isn’t a topic people usually focus on, making it unique. Also our documentary has a positive message, which is unusual since most documentaries have negative tones.

What type of documentary is it?
Expository: We are attempting to expose the truth about skateboarders and to stop the negative stereotypes they are often unfairly labelled with.

What documentaries inspired you?
Scratch: the way the documentary mixed the narration with the images of people performing their music. We want to use a similar technique, overlaying the skateboarder’s stories with their skating, to emphasise the creative side of skateboarding.

Is it viable? Prove it. How will it be managed/filmed?
It is viable. The members of our group are interested in our topic and Luke has access to skateboarders who are willing to talk to us and the rest of the group also have people we can interview about this issue. We will be mostly filming outside so we will have a lot of access to our chosen locations. Also we will be filming during weekends which will be easier to organise.


What locations will you use? Who have you approached for interviews? What other interviews remain?
We will be filming mostly in skate parks and locations familiar and comfortable to the interviewee, this will create a sense of intimacy between the audience and the interviewee. We have approached several skaters for our documentary, since we don’t know whether they will be able to do the interview, we have several back ups including some casual skaters and those who only skate for a hobby rather than a lifestyle. We have some people who, because of their dislike for the skater community, could showcase a different perspective and make our documentary one free from bias. We also have access to members of authority to which we could pose the question: “are skaters really anti-establishment?”

What further research will be required in order to be well informed?
We will have to look on news websites to see if there have been any incidents involving skaters or any violent attacks on people because they are skateboarders. We will also make and distribute a survey asking the reader about their opinions of skaters, which, when collaborated, we may use in our documentary.

How will the five minute extract fit into a longer whole?
It could be a segment on a documentary focussing on the positive side of modern youths, dispelling common misconceptions, not only about skaters, but also hoodies, chavs, groups of young people who could be seen as a gang. Showing the creative and overall good side of the youth which is often hidden beneath all the negative stereotypes.

Who is your target audience? Include initial audience research?
People who may be ignorant about skateboarding: making it accessible to people who otherwise wouldn’t have had any knowledge on skateboarding before, hopefully educating them on the entertaining side of skateboarding. We will need to do a survey seeing which age groups are more interested in skateboarding, although we can assume that the younger generation will be most interested in skateboarding.

Why would C4 or another channel want to commission this documentary? Is there a global market for your documentary?
We think that our topic would be commissioned for television, mainly because our idea is unique and it is celebrating the good side of the youth, in a time where most documentaries about the youth show that they are dangerous and violent. There may not be a global market because skateboarding is more prominent in different countries and also has a different emphasis, so in some countries skateboarding is seen as a healthy sport and in some countries it’s seen as a form of rebellion.

Sorcha and Shona.