Production Diary - The Chronic Issue Documentary

Production Log:

27th Feb - Conceived the concept of my first idea. I am planning to make a documentary regarding the war on drugs and cannabis prohibition. Will conduct further research. Other ideas still pending.

29 Feb - Posted a number of posts online regarding research for the documentary on cannabis. I have had an overwhelming response from people wanting to be involved or interviewed. Lots of stories from medicinal users.
I have decided to name the film The Chronic Issue.

2nd March - Have conducted preliminary research in to my topic. Have also booked a trip to Amsterdam with some friends. This will be a great opportunity to film and arrange some interviews. I am going to begin to start planning who to talk to. 

I have also met a medical researcher. Possible good link? 

8th March - Having conducted primary and secondary research I am confident of the potential content for this film. The trip to Amsterdam is going ahead on the 20th March. Interviews and meetings being arranged. Have also scouted ahead for future events over the coming weeks. 

15th March - Interviews and filming planned for Amsterdam. I have contacted a number of researchers and coffee shop owners and they have agreed to talk to me. 

24th March - Have just arrived back from Amsterdam. Got some lovely cutaway footage and spoke to some interesting people. Got average footage due to surroundings and technical mishaps. Some is usable but sparingly. 

3 April - Massive interest in the film developing. Companies from America who I have contacted in America for research purposes are considering sponsoring the film. Continuing to plan interviews with suitable people. Planning to go to the 4/20 event in Hyde Park london. A good opportunity to document a political and cultural event. 

14th April - Planned interviews with a MS patient and a Crohns patient. Hoping for good material to be usable in the film. All equipment and plans have been made to attend the Hyde Park event. Will be an interesting day. and will certainly be a lot of good footage to be gotten. 

25 April - Hyde Park was a big success got a lot of good footage and made some excellent links for the films for possible interviewees. Relentless contact from people wanting to be featured in the film. 

4th May - Formulated all research to develop a good understanding of my target audience. This will help me angle my film appropriately to attract the best response from my target audience. I have decided to approach from and legal, medical and ethic perspective. I am planning to attend a cannabis conference in Bristol on 18th May. 

I have also conducted the interview with the crohns patient. All footage has been gotten from a skype interview. I used a screen recorder as well as a camera to give another angle. I used a range of audio equipment including radio lapel mic's and an onboard computer audio recorder. This gave for some decent footage given the Skype call.

5th May - Conducted interview with MS and Sativex rep. Interview went extremely well. Same film and recording set us as previously stated. Again all footage and audio has been synced. 

6th May - Conducted interview with cannabis and hemp historian. Again interview went extremely well. Lots of usable good quality information. Skype call again and same recording and audio setup as previously stated. Again all footage and audio has been synced. 

!5th May - Planning for trip to Bristol. Press pass's and interview with Tom Lloyd - former Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire and Annie Machon - former MI5 agent and European head of LEAP. Hotels and transport have been arranged. All previous footage compiled into folders and ready to be cut down to the usable parts.

19th May - Just returned from Bristol. Couldn't have hoped for better footage. The interviewees were extremely professional and gave incredibly insightful answers. I believe these interviews will make the core of my film. I also filmed the entire convention. Beginning editing entire project tomorrow. 

23rd May - Editing complete. I edited the entire project in Prem Pro and had to cut through 6:30hrs of raw footage with all footage combined. It was a long task but I got down to 46 minutes of rough edit footage. I then cut this down further and began to intertwine the interviewees to form a cohesive argument. I used alot of transitions, archive footage, cutaways and inforgraphs to give a wide spread of easy to view information. I hope this works as its the core idea of how the film should be delivered  I added music, voice overs and title sequences to complete a project im happy with. 

Animation Character Profiles and Storyline

Once upon a time there where three young men named Leonard, Eric and James. All three boys took the same history class together and Tree Falls High School in Boulder, Colorado.
The boys had been childhood friends for as long as they could remember and were infamous for consistently "being in the wrong place at the wrong time" as they always protested. The teachers and parents knew better.
The 2013 Summer term was drawing to an end, everyone at Tree Falls were gearing up to finish the year and break up for Summer, all except Leonard, Eric and James. The boys had failed their final piece of History course work and in turn were set a last minute, 2 day deadline project on the Wild West (a topic of their choosing)  Unless this was completed within the deadline the boys would miss their entire summer and spend it at summer school.
Walling home the boys are extremely disgruntled and this recent turn of events and agree that the best course of action would be to orchestrate a "flashback" and present their findings to their teacher the following day.
After hours of brain storming and failed attempts to spark the legendary flashback Eric has, what he deems to be, a fantastic idea. He erects a swing set in his living room from which he is hanging by the ankles above a paddling pool of water. His Tivo box is set up on the History Channels Wild West Weed recording all the shows possible on its 120GB Hard drive. As soon as Tivo is full it is propelled into the paddling pool while at the same time Eric falls from the swing set head first. The Tivo box hitting the water electrifies Eric and thus combines both their energy fields inducing a Flash Back.
The 3 boys sprung up in a bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the same moment as the legendary Billy The Kid is out in the street having a duel.
The boys then impersonate some local kids the same age and proceed to join Billy's entourage. They find out more and more about Billy The Kid as he travels further West to rob to newly rich Californians.
The boys find all they need to know and the flashback ends. All three boys wake up in hospital a mere 5-6 hours later.
They then rush to school and give one of the finest presentations the teacher has even seen.
Everybody lives happily ever after.


Leonard - A tall bespectacled lad, Leonard is the goody two shoes of the group. He suffers from asthma, poor eye sight and requires prescription shoes to help aid his ferocious ingrown toenail.

Eric - A loud, brash and chubby lad. Eric is rarely seen without some sort of emergency snacking device. He's rude and unsympathetic. Many argue hes racist.

James - James is always keen to have a good time, no matter what the cost. He often is the one behind a number of the boys ideas. Clearly the leader of the group and by far the most impressive, James brings an air of calm to an other wise uncontrollable group.