FMP Evaluation
This evaluation of my final major project – a documentary
film names The Chronic Issue, will look at all the strengths and weaknesses of
not only the film but the production process as well as what I would have done
differently if I could have.
The film itself was looking at the situation of Cannabis in the UK, specifically focusing on legal, medical and social issues. I also focused a small amount on the War on Drugs and a whole. During the making of this film I travelled to various locations both in the UK and abroad.
I managed to secure a number of interviews with good quality interviewees; this provided me with good quality content.
Strengths –
I think I succeeded far better than expected within the
making of this film. When I look back at the interviews I was able to arrange,
the places I was able to go and the support I was given from external groups
was fantastic.
I still hold this view despite a number of outspoken objections from certain lecturers. From the moment of conception this film concept was not greeted in a particularly positive light, this was one thing that drove me to make this film the best I could possibly do. I believe I was right to stand by my concept as I was able to use my skills with people and my abilities to make links with the specific people I needed to.
I was able to identify the people I wanted to talk to rather quickly. With the help of some very supportive organisations and individuals I was able to gain access and peoples time in nearly every framework I had chosen.
For example I travelled to Amsterdam in order to talk to a couple of extremely experienced and educated guys – to be able to acquire some of these peoples time is quite difficult and so I felt as though I was on to a bit of a winner by them even agreeing to talk to me. I was taken to a number of coffee shops to meet the owners, unfortunately I was unable to get footage of the inner workings of the store due to legal boundaries. However I did gain some extremely useful insight and angles with which to incorporate in to further aspects of my film.
I was able to set up interviews with Cannabis historians, Ex police chiefs, ex MI5 agents as well as MS patients.
I genuinely believe that the success of this film came through my ability to link with people and cherry pick the exact person I wanted to use. The film would have suffered dramatically if I had not been able to interview the people I was. It would have lost a lot of the credibility I wanted the film to have.
I think despite the expectation for the film to go wrong and be a bit of a half arsed disaster I ensured that this wouldn’t happen by sticking to the concept I had originally envisioned.
My planning was a really helpful aspect throughout the project. I was able to plan for everything that I did and kept notes of what was coming up over the coming days. This helped me to stay on top of everything and be aware of the more important aspects of the film. This shows in through my production diary.
Upon the showing of my film despite a few weaknesses (which I will go into further later) I felt very proud of the piece of documentary film I had managed to assembled despite some frankly ludicrous criteria and the emphasis put on being “unbiased” – a notion I strongly disagree with.
Initially I was urged not to attempt a film regarding the laws around Cannabis and drugs. A number of other topics where suggested because I “already had a huge knowledge on this topic. It would push you to learn about something else” I completely disagree with this. You wouldn’t ask David Attenborough to make a fashion documentary, that would be ludicrous – stick to what you know. It made sense to me that I use my knowledge to create a well-educated piece of film. Not attempt to learn an entire new subject and then document it poorly.
Returning briefly to the notion of remaining totally unbiased, this again makes very little sense. I agree if you are making a documentary with no heart or passion. It is impossible to make a documentary that credits idiocy.
With regard to the War on drugs there is no sense to it, it is wrong, it costs millions and a cacophony of lies have been told. If I were to acknowledge these arguments it would undermine the political view point of the film. If I were to make a film about murder, kidnapping or rape (many of which are a direct subsequence of the war on drugs) would I be a neglectful film not to show the positive sides of these things? No, of course not.
The same can be said of my chosen topic, I cannot show a good side to the subject matter if there isn’t one.
I stand by my choices with this film and am proud of the result.
I still hold this view despite a number of outspoken objections from certain lecturers. From the moment of conception this film concept was not greeted in a particularly positive light, this was one thing that drove me to make this film the best I could possibly do. I believe I was right to stand by my concept as I was able to use my skills with people and my abilities to make links with the specific people I needed to.
I was able to identify the people I wanted to talk to rather quickly. With the help of some very supportive organisations and individuals I was able to gain access and peoples time in nearly every framework I had chosen.
For example I travelled to Amsterdam in order to talk to a couple of extremely experienced and educated guys – to be able to acquire some of these peoples time is quite difficult and so I felt as though I was on to a bit of a winner by them even agreeing to talk to me. I was taken to a number of coffee shops to meet the owners, unfortunately I was unable to get footage of the inner workings of the store due to legal boundaries. However I did gain some extremely useful insight and angles with which to incorporate in to further aspects of my film.
I was able to set up interviews with Cannabis historians, Ex police chiefs, ex MI5 agents as well as MS patients.
I genuinely believe that the success of this film came through my ability to link with people and cherry pick the exact person I wanted to use. The film would have suffered dramatically if I had not been able to interview the people I was. It would have lost a lot of the credibility I wanted the film to have.
I think despite the expectation for the film to go wrong and be a bit of a half arsed disaster I ensured that this wouldn’t happen by sticking to the concept I had originally envisioned.
My planning was a really helpful aspect throughout the project. I was able to plan for everything that I did and kept notes of what was coming up over the coming days. This helped me to stay on top of everything and be aware of the more important aspects of the film. This shows in through my production diary.
Upon the showing of my film despite a few weaknesses (which I will go into further later) I felt very proud of the piece of documentary film I had managed to assembled despite some frankly ludicrous criteria and the emphasis put on being “unbiased” – a notion I strongly disagree with.
Initially I was urged not to attempt a film regarding the laws around Cannabis and drugs. A number of other topics where suggested because I “already had a huge knowledge on this topic. It would push you to learn about something else” I completely disagree with this. You wouldn’t ask David Attenborough to make a fashion documentary, that would be ludicrous – stick to what you know. It made sense to me that I use my knowledge to create a well-educated piece of film. Not attempt to learn an entire new subject and then document it poorly.
Returning briefly to the notion of remaining totally unbiased, this again makes very little sense. I agree if you are making a documentary with no heart or passion. It is impossible to make a documentary that credits idiocy.
With regard to the War on drugs there is no sense to it, it is wrong, it costs millions and a cacophony of lies have been told. If I were to acknowledge these arguments it would undermine the political view point of the film. If I were to make a film about murder, kidnapping or rape (many of which are a direct subsequence of the war on drugs) would I be a neglectful film not to show the positive sides of these things? No, of course not.
The same can be said of my chosen topic, I cannot show a good side to the subject matter if there isn’t one.
I stand by my choices with this film and am proud of the result.
Weaknesses –
I think that my weaknesses within this project lay primarily
with my editing skills. Unfortunately my skills in this particular area are
lacking. While I enjoy editing and am competent in both skill and speed I find
I don’t particularly have the mind that is required for intense editing
periods.
For example I had over six and a half hours of raw footage that needed to be compressed in to an eight to twelve minute film. This was by no means an easy task for someone with a relatively short attention spans when it comes to staring at a screen.
I feel I edited the footage I had reasonably well to form a cohesive, well-reasoned and compelling argument. Albeit a few loose edits and the, unbeknown to me, game changing situation regarding backgrounds, of which much was made, I think my film was a success.
One potential weakness, but one created by criteria out of my control or agreement, was the lack of relevant cutaways I managed to get. Unfortunately I think this was an unavoidable issue given the discussion of my film. It was always going to be able to gain access to the jails, pharma labs, narco-states that was being discussed in the film. I'm not sure that this is a fair criteria given the limit of archive footage and the topic and content of more ambitious documentaries.
For example I had over six and a half hours of raw footage that needed to be compressed in to an eight to twelve minute film. This was by no means an easy task for someone with a relatively short attention spans when it comes to staring at a screen.
I feel I edited the footage I had reasonably well to form a cohesive, well-reasoned and compelling argument. Albeit a few loose edits and the, unbeknown to me, game changing situation regarding backgrounds, of which much was made, I think my film was a success.
One potential weakness, but one created by criteria out of my control or agreement, was the lack of relevant cutaways I managed to get. Unfortunately I think this was an unavoidable issue given the discussion of my film. It was always going to be able to gain access to the jails, pharma labs, narco-states that was being discussed in the film. I'm not sure that this is a fair criteria given the limit of archive footage and the topic and content of more ambitious documentaries.
I think when I finally had the film finished I realised a
few aspects I could have improved on. One of these was the amount of cutaways I
had procured. There was nowhere near the amount of suitable cutaways I thought I
had. This compromised the quality of the film as some of the interviews had irrelevant
cutaways that I had to work in to the film.
The second would have been some of the positions I used for my interviews. I think if I had thought a little further in to the back drop it would have given the film a more professional air. This is something that I accept as a learning curve and will make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again.
I was extremely happy with the quality of interviews I managed to acquire but I'm not sure I necessarily did them justice.
While my lack of unbiased was a conscious decision I think if I were to do it again I would add a little more negative viewpoints as this would have given the film more credibility. I found it difficult to obtain an interview from someone who was anti-drugs. This is one of the main reasons the film was lacking in a negative stand point. This was somewhat out of my hands and I didn’t particularly want to compromise the integrity of the film by having someone with no knowledge of a the topic as an interviewee. While this would have addressed the bias issue I think it would have lessened the impact of the film. Again this will be a learning curve for next time.
The second would have been some of the positions I used for my interviews. I think if I had thought a little further in to the back drop it would have given the film a more professional air. This is something that I accept as a learning curve and will make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again.
I was extremely happy with the quality of interviews I managed to acquire but I'm not sure I necessarily did them justice.
While my lack of unbiased was a conscious decision I think if I were to do it again I would add a little more negative viewpoints as this would have given the film more credibility. I found it difficult to obtain an interview from someone who was anti-drugs. This is one of the main reasons the film was lacking in a negative stand point. This was somewhat out of my hands and I didn’t particularly want to compromise the integrity of the film by having someone with no knowledge of a the topic as an interviewee. While this would have addressed the bias issue I think it would have lessened the impact of the film. Again this will be a learning curve for next time.
This film was always going to be ambitious and was always
going to be a struggle to create the product I envisioned. However I think my
weakness’s didn’t take a huge amount from the point of the film. Just in terms
of my own personal standards I think this could have been a trifle better if
those weakness’s had been addressed earlier.
To conclude this evaluation I think the film I was able to
make given the criteria constraints was a really good effort. The level of
interviews I was able to achieve were the quality of interviews that the BBC
would be happy to have. Taking in to account the travel involved I'm proud of
my level of commitment to the film given its purpose. I believe this is because
of my passion towards the cause and I wouldn’t have been able to put the same
level of effort in to less ambitious project – despite the fact I would have
likely got a similar grade if I had.
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