Vegetarian Documentary: An (Almost Completed) Evaluation.

Even though we haven't finished editing our documentary, I would like to reflect on this experience and talk about what I've learned and how we got over problems we faced.

I have been passionate about this idea from the start; however, I wasn't sure which part of the vegetarian lifestyle I wanted to delve into because I think I washed over the fact that there is so much information but at the beginning, I didn't want to believe that. I didn't want to feel like I had to pin myself down to one particular area of vegetarianism, which is why the range of questions I asked are quite broad. So throughout this process, ideas have constantly been thrown in by myself, Caoimhe my producer, and our tutor. It wasn't until we actually started editing that we were able to pin down exactly what we wanted to the audience to know. I don't particular think this is such a bad thing because I was learning so much throughout this process and I feel if I had of pinned down a certain area at the beginning, I wouldn't have learnt as much as I have done.

Our passion came through in the pitch which I had posted about before. We wanted it to be a pitch to remember so having our t-shirts with our ideas on them as well as food and beauty products brought into the meeting, done this. I do feel like we were given ideas to push us away from our original idea and while I do very much appreciate those ideas and they were great, I had a vision in my head from the start and I didn't want to veer from it too much or I would feel like it wasn't what I wanted anymore.

When we first put the ad up online at the beginning and we got two responses, I personally didn't think we would get any so when we got two people, I was over the moon. We were very organized and got to meet with both Richard and Lindsey a few weeks beforehand, we showed them the questions we would ask them over coffee and this gave them the chance to ask us any questions or express any concerns they had about it. They were both really interested in what we were doing because they've never had the opportunity to talk about or vent about being a vegetarian before. When we shot with Lindsey, we were quite happy on the day of shooting but I think Caoimhe and I both knew there was something not quite right but because we only had Lindsey and Richard, we both pushed it to the back of our minds, hoping that it wouldn't be as bad as we expected. When we went to watch the footage it was clear that no matter how much we tried to colour it, the lighting was going to be an issue as well as it not being the look I was looking for. We didn't use different angles so if we were to use the footage, we would need a lot of cutaways to cut the interview up or else it would just look like the footage was jumping, and whether that is on YouTube or a big cinema screen, it wouldn't look good and I wouldn't want people to remember "the documentary with the jumping shots". This show is the building block for us all as film makers so we wanted to make the best film we possibly can with our skills, budget and time, that we can, so I don't want my mistake of using the wrong person, dodgy camera angles and not the best lighting to ruin that. I would rather not show my work if that was the case.

I feel like both Caoimhe and I were organized, we were one of the first groups to film but we ended up being one of the last groups to film too. This definitely struck a cord with me because we had been so organized, we got an ad set up, we had our coffee meeting with both interviewees, we had very regular meetings even over Easter and whenever we were off, and both of us were very reliable. We can't say that everything goes perfect when making a film, but I think I thought that because we had been organized, that things would go smoother for us. A few people had actually said that "documentary was the easy way out", they did mean it jokingly of course, but doing a documentary is just as difficult as doing a fictional film. We may not need so many actors, but we still needed people who were willing to talk about the subject, as well as finding locations to film as well as the same problems as filming a fiction (Lighting, camera angles, people's appearance etc. etc.).

I have never been the best at taking criticism and I have had to deal with it more in this particular unit than anything else. Not necessarily against me, but ideas that we've had, footage that we've shot; when we talk about it in our blog or we say how well it went and then we're told that we can't use it or that we should try it this way, it does make you feel a little silly and makes me think "am I just trying to put a positive spin on everything even though it wasn't that positive". I'm not sure if I've gotten any better at taking criticism but I have learned not to take everything so personal, which I still think is a bonus.

I'm really happy with my producer Caoimhe, she has been there for me from the get go and even though she is producing some one else's film too and she has her own projects outside of the Final Year Film area, she has been very supportive and offering up suggestions to help make our film better. Speaking of reliability again, because we both know how people can let you down on shoots and having to work around people's schedules (In both of other projects that we are producing, we have experienced this), we thought it would be best to shoot it and record sound ourselves and I'm very glad we chose to do this. We only had the three of us to worry about, the interviewee was able to book it off work, Caoimhe was able to work us around her work hours and because I don't work, as long as I wasn't shooting something else, I was good to go. This enables Caoimhe to gain more sound experience for our sound unit whereas being on camera has always been one of my favourite things on this course to do, and even though I'm not the best camera person in the class, I think my camera ability was made better because I played around with shots and angles and didn't have to ask permission, I could just do it and if it didn't work, it didn't work, I wasn't wasting anyone's time.


Overall, this has been an exciting but stressful experience for me. I got to work with someone who I'm very good friends with, who was reliable and who was there to back me up when it came to talking about our documentary. The situation with Lindsey and the problems arising there did make me feel like I had done something wrong but I soon learned that this is just the way the business works. I have had different problems to this arise in past projects so I'm not totally oblivious to sorting problems out. I believe that I researched this subject quite well, I could have researched it further but due to other projects, I didn't have time but if I ever felt like I wanted to expand on the documentary in the future, I would know what other research I would like to go into to further the information I want. I'm extremely happy with the second interview footage we have and editing is one of my passions, for the majority of the time, it's quite relaxing so I don't find it a burden. Both Caoimhe and I are producers at heart you could say. Some just think about the story but don't think about the pre or post production work, whereas we thought about the pre and post as well as filming itself and this helped us greatly. The edit isn't finished yet but I can't wait until it is because so far, we are both very happy with how it is shaping up and when it's on the big screen, I will probably still be a little embarrassed, only because it'll be weird seeing my work up in the cinema, but even if it hits home with one person or if it makes one person think twice before making a vegetarian joke, then I feel like I have done my job: made an informative documentary that is still enjoyable and that people remember.

Starting to edit (again!).

Last Tuesday (6th May) began the editing process again. I imported the clips onto Premiere Pro which took longer than expected, then I sorted the interview into bins, so when I was going back to each clip, it would be a lot easier to find it. So Tuesday was more of a logging and organizing day for me.

Wednesday afternoon (7th May) after another class was when Caoimhe joined me and we started clipping and cutting pieces together. We're both really happy with the footage and the way it's visually told on screen that it sometimes kills me having to cut something up, even though I know I have to do it due to time constraints.

We have a lot of information from Richard's interview that we can't all possibly fit in to five minutes which is a shame but as we were editing, we decided to try and keep in the information about parmesan cheese in because we are assuming that most of our audience don't know that this particular cheese isn't actually vegetarian, despite restaurants serving it as vegetarian. We want our audience to walk out of the audience finding out something new, and we think this will do the trick.

We also have some really nice shots of Richard talking about the Vegetarian Society and labels on food and as I was shooting this on the day, I moved in to see the labels and it auto-focused for me. We're using these shots because the audience will be aware of the different types of labelling in stores and we think it's something that some people may not be aware of.

On the Thursday (8th May), we showed Sharron our rough edit and I would say she was quite pleased with it. Caoimhe and I came up with some other titles because we personally didn't feel like "Green Beans and Everything In Between" fitted the documentary anymore. These titles were "Suitable for Vegetarians", "Vegetarian Options Available" and "A Vegeducation". However, talking with our tutor, she thought the title added quirkiness to the film and if we made the start quite quirky too, it would fit in quite well. We also had a lot of footage of Richard talking about the cheese which I didn't really mind but after our tutor telling us that the audience may start to think the film is about cheese, we thought it was best to cut it down but still have an appropriate amount of information still in there so the audience can understand why it's not vegetarian. 

Because of other on going projects during the week, we know from Thursday, we will not get any time to do another edit or go out filming apart from possibly next Wednesday afternoon so we do intend on editing more next Thursday (15th May) during class while the tutor is going over other people's work. 

Richard's interview.

On Saturday 3rd May, we finally had Richard's long awaited interview. I went to Tesco the night before and bought quite a lot of food to have in the background including pineapple, apples, coconut bites, peppers and almond milk as well as having bananas, strawberries, pasta and melon in the house already.

In the picture above, we set everything out on the cooker to have in the background of Richard but once we actually had Richard sit down, we realized that the food would look much better on the right side of the counter, so everything was moved to there and then Richard was re positioned.

Both Caoimhe and I think the interview went really well, much better than Lindsey's had went before. We took our tutor's advice and changed angles every few questions so when we came to editing, we had a number of different shot variations enabling us to cut in between different questions if a certain answer was spread out within other questions. 

We're both really happy with the day and we can't wait to start editing!

"Dislocation" Filming.

The filming for "Dislocation" is complete! We started on Monday 28th April and finished on Tuesday 29th April. For the first guy, we had Richard (Josh), Ryan (Dan) and Patrick (Old Man) on set and we filmed in the car park of Hillsborough Forest Park and in the park itself. The first day we ran out of battery so we didn't get all the scenes done that we had scheduled to shoot for that day but the footage we did get, we were very happy with. For crew, we had our sound recordist Pearse, our camera operator Conor and our director/writer Andy on set.

Ryan and Richard got on really well and had fantastic chemistry that you were able to see on camera right away, which we were all very pleased with. Below is a photograph (taken from Andy's Facebook) of Richard (left) and Ryan (right) on set.

Tuesday was slightly different. Crew was changed around slightly, both Pearse and Anya had to go and shoot part of Pearse's film the same day, which I had known about. What I didn't know however was that Anya would be helping so we had to find out from Pearse, and not Anya, that she wouldn't be there on the Tuesday. The only thing I'm thankful for is that we were told a few days previous and not the night before. I still wasn't very happy though, because throughout meeting with Anya and recalling the last big production meeting we had, she didn't seem to have a strong interest in what Andy had asked her to do, even though she aid she was up for it weeks before. I volunteered to do make-up that day, I didn't think I would be any good at it, but we needed to have someone doing it. I only had a few days to find out what I had to do in regards to applying gashes and make-up to actors, and it simply wasn't enough time. I didn't do a very good job of Melissa's make-up, I dabbed in white paint which in hindsight I shouldn't have done because white make-up is normally zombie, and that wasn't the look we were going for. Andy then said to me to take the make-up off Melissa because it wasn't what he was looking for, and I got her to apply dark eyeliner around her eyes and smudge it in. Applying the gashes was a lot easier and looked the part a lot more than Melissa's make-up. I wasn't annoyed at Pearse for not being there, he was the one that told us and he apologised a number of times for not being able to complete the shoot, so I stepped in to do sound recording and this enabled me to do sound work too and I could use it for another module on the course. I just wish Anya had've told us herself that she wasn't going to be able to do it, or that she wasn't really into doing it in the first place. Maybe she was, but previous meetings and constant requests to play about with the make-up and test out the gashes before the shoot that had gone unheard, told me otherwise. For cast on Tuesday we had Richard and Ryan again, along with Dave (Groundskeeper) and Melissa (Dead Girl)

The previous day Andy and Conor went up to see the old house that we wanted to use but they couldn't see anyone about, so they went over to the house across the street and the woman who they were talking to, her brother owns the house that we were looking at. She gave us his number but we couldn't get through until the next day. I rang around lunchtime on the Tuesday and I got talking to his wife who was unaware of what we wanted to do, so I explained it to her and she passed her husband's mobile number on to us. I then rang him and explained what we wanted to do, which was just to film a few scenes near the house. Thankfully, he said that that was fine and we came up to see how we were getting on a few hours later. They were both really nice about it, and they were really interested about what the film was about, and we couldn't be more appreciative.

Overall, I'm really happy with how both days went. Everyone was a professional on set, everyone got along, and we all ended up swapping details afterwards.