Major Project: Evaluation

Major Project: Evaluation

Now that the project is over I can look back and reflect on each part of it from a critical perspective. 

The pre-production phase of the project was mostly done before I came on board, as a result, I had a somewhat m=limited impact on the construction of this. Which although is annoying, it cannot be helped. Due to this, however, I did feel somewhat lost at the start of this project when it came to my role as producer. It was meant to be my job to arrange contributors, locations, etc. But much of this had already been done by Alex.

However, although it took a while, he came to understand my perspective and desire to commit myself fully to the role. As such he helped me to find more things to be involved with in the pre-production stage. We agreed on additional contributors that would be good to speak to, as well as committing to ones we had planned for but hadn't actually contacted yet. So i committed myself to reaching out to each of these individuals to arrange filming interviews with.  I had some success here but it wasn't instantaneous. Some of the contributors we had planned for like Billy Mounger, just didn't have the availability to be in our project, or cancelled last minute like Katie Millner. So undeterred I continued to find and reach out to alternative contributors that we got on board. Such as Abbi Pulling or Bobby Trundley from team Brit (who unfortunately didn't make the cut).

I also was put in charge of arranging locations such as the Diary Room, which i did successfully despite the difficulties we faced such as having to re-shoot or move plans. As well as getting trackside access for the majority of the time we were at bands hatch (although there were some miscommunications at the start).

I was successful in setting up our budget and assisting with the fundraiser. Keeping a regular check on how much money we had coming in and going out of this project. I kept this up throughout the production as well, but did make a few rounding errors which lead to us being slightly over budget. But i learned from this and made sure to account for my mistakes so that it didn;t cause an issue.

I think my scheduling during the pre-production and in the the production was very effective. I allowed for location scouts, test shoots, team meetings, edit days etc. 

All of which was effectively communicated and arranged with the team, even if there were last minute chnages.
During the pre-production I also kept a close eye on Alex's script. Monitoring and giving concise feedback on any changes.

Although Alex was initially apprehensive to implement my suggestions, it often transpired that these were the exact same suggestions Simon was making, thus proving the validity of my opinion and leading to the implementation of chnages that I think really helped the script. 

I also spent a lot of the pre-production phase researching. I looked in to many, many other documentaries as contextual research that informed our documentary. As well as gaining an understanding of the role specific skills I would need in this project. 

Looking back though, I would have liked to have done more research in to pre-established producers and editors so that my roles were even more well informed when it came to decision making.


In to the main production phase was when I really hit my stride. Unusually production was the longest part of our project and there was a lot to do.

Before each and every shoot I would create a call sheet, schedule and risk assessment. As well as collating my director's camera plans, shotlists and any storyboards. Making sure everyone wen tin to every shoot knowing exactly what to do and with all the relevant paperwork.

As producer during the production phase, I certainly struggled early on to find my place, and strike a balance with my crew. Even though I was a "creative producer" I wasn't used to being so passive during a shoot.

Often my desire to help and make an impact during a shoot would becoem a detriment. There were countless times when I got in Cailan's way, or got on his nerves by tring to tell him what I think he should be doing (which was different to the plans he was trying to work from). I was also quite unclear on what my responsibilities were as producer, when Alex was in front of the camera. There were times when Cailan would "call the shots" and times when I would. There were times when Alex would have a heavy influence on what we were filming/how we were filming it, and times when he said he could't give guidance as he was a contributor. So there were occasions when I would have an issue and try to ask him for a solution, but he would not offer assistance as he was not the director at that time, but then question a decision I made in his absense.

It took a while but we did eventually find a healthy balance. I came to repect cailans role as D.O.P, helping him where I could but staying out of the way until I was needed. Only telling him what to do if it was relevant to the plans and shotlsit layed out by Alex. Over time communication between us became more and more effective.

For each shoot i also tried to arrange for the most effective crew to be used. If i felt we needed additional camera operators i would plan this in advance to try and get people to come and help. I managed to arrange this for all our large scale scenes, but this wasn' always possible for other shoots though. 

The main issue I had in the production phase was the amount of role overlapping. There were times when I had to be on camera, or even shoots where I was the main operator due to Cailans absence (fortunately not during any major sequences) which I wasn't entirely comfortable with and certainly produced mixed results. 

I also found myself adopting a considerable amount of the D.O.P's responsibilities. I filled out all the risk assessments.  I drew up lists of all the equipment we would need during a shoot. I arranged every single equipment booking with Ferg. I collected and returned all of the equipment every single time. I transported the majority of the equipment to every shoot and often I was the one setting it up or packing it away. Which unfortunately took time and attention away from my responsibilities as producer/editor at times. 

But overall during the production phase, after working on my role with Alex, Cailan and Simon. I think i did an effective job as producer, briefing everyone on et, obtaining permits and consent forms, arranging locations often at the last minute etc.


The post-production phase was also one that required a lot of time and effort. Looking back I am really greatful for the support I received from Cailan. Without his help the edit would not have been as successful as it was. 

Although Alex did make siginificant effort in places during the edit phase. I certainly did not feel quite the amount of support from my director as i would have liked. I think certain parts of the edit took longer to get right or change, because I did not have enoguh support from Alex at times, both physically and in terms of decision making. 

There were days when I could have really used Alex's instant opinion on something in order to get it right, but I didn't have access to it as he couldn't make it in to edit with me.

So although there were times when I felt i needed a little more support in the edit, these occassions were very limited and I had Alex's hlep for most other days during the post production which was a huge help.  There were times when he would watch my edit he would try to take away my creative control and dismiss any justification I tried to bring for my ideas. But this is only because he felt so passionately about the project and had such a clear vission, that it was tough for him to come round to other perspectives initially. But thankfully the majority of the time we were able to reach an agreed solution.

I ended up with an edit I am proud of and had a lot of impact with. But it still felt like i was somewhat restricted with my creative control over the edit due to Alex's attachments to the source material.

I certainly wasn't perfect either though as i also got attached to the material that I edited which made it very difficult for me to cut anything. At the start of the post production I also got very overwhelmed and behind with eh edit and had to bring Cailan on board to help which was a tough decision to have to make. But I eventually found my stride and pulled out some really nice sequences that eventually came together to form a coherent film.

Looking back although I gave cailan consistent feedback on his edits, i was not as self-critical of my own work as i probably needed to be. But I was able to utilise various editing techniques and practices that I researched at the start of this project which I'm pleased about. 

The final part of the post-production process was the grade. Considering this was something I had never done to this scale before, and something I had struggled with in the past. I am really pleased with how the grading went.  I had a clear vision for the grade and was able to put it in to motion. 

I went for an orange warm tinted grade based on my research, that highlighted the struggle and intensity of this journey. The grade is also effective in dawing the eye to the film to increase audience engagement. 

I feel like I effectively acted on the feedback and advice i received from Nathen Cawes, my group and the peers i got to look at my grade. It wasn't that easy but certainly went a lot smoother than I was expecting. I successfully matched up almost all of my shots, even the more difficult ones now seemed to share a pallet with the rest of the film enhancing the immersion. Some scenes needed less work than others, simply needing more of a filter than anything else and for other sequences, `i had to manually grade each shot, but managed to do this in a prompt and timely fashion.   

I had a limited time to put together the grade so although it's not completely perfect, I am very happy with what I produced in the time I had.

Overall there were many challenges that I faced on this project. I was thrown in to a role I had never done before, the scale of our project was absolutely insane. We filmed so much and went outside our comfort zone a lot. There was significant pressure throughout and a fair bit of role overlapping. But all in all I think it helped to create a really effective documentary (even if it has a different ending that what was first planned, I think it works better).

Communication on this project was good but there were many occasions where it needed to be so much better as it lead to disputes. But we came together in the end to resolve every issue we encountered, even if it often meant compromise. 

It was a tough journey where i ended up doing a lot more than I ever imagined. But I am really grateful for the support of my team, and I think we've produced a documentary to be proud off!

Major Project: Editing-Colour Grading

Major Project: Editing-Colour Grading

For the final part of my edit, I had to grade this documentary. Grading is not something I have done a lot of before, as such I knew it was important to research and plan it out carefully. Through looking at my previous source material, as well as taking inspiration from new content that stood out to me. Then looking in to the deeper connotations of each colour, i was able to piece together a concept for this grade in my head. 

For our documentary I wanted my grade to be primarily constructed of oranges and yellows. Creating warmer tones, that highlighted the struggles Alex would face on his journey and making the film more eye-catching and visually appealing to a viewer with its use of brighter colours throughout (but not to the extent where it becomes overpowering). 

The grade also involved making sure that within my individual scenes, all my shots matched in terms of colour profiling. This was no easy task, but thanks to our session with Nathen Cawes I had a clearer idea of how to go about this process. The difficulty I often ran in to was that i could match some tones of a shot, but at the detriment of some of the other colours. But by using the lumetri colour tool (one of the most versatile correctors in premier), I was ablse to get the manually adjust the temperature in each shot. Allowing me to more easily pair cameras with different colour profiles. From there I delved in to the individual RGB curves and colour wheels to that once some of my tones matched, i could carefully adjust the levels of the other colours such as the red's or greens so that they matched the level found in the previous shot. 

This still was no easy task, and often when I thought i had got it right, I would compare it to a shot further down the line and find it still stood out. The point of this correction is to create seamless emersion within our film dso the audience forgets about how it was filmed and jsut focusses on whats in the film. So often I had to leave shots and revisit them later with a fresh pair of eyes.

Despite requiring little in terms of actual grading, one of the most dificult scenes to colour grade/correct was the diary room. I knew the shot I wanted to base the scene off of (the 2nd shot in the sequence which was the mid shot). But due to the large number of different cameras used in this sequence, it was very tough. The close up shot was much greener than the others, and the tracking shot was very pink. With such wildly different tones in each shot it was no easy task to fix. Just when I got the skin tones to match, you would notice differences in the hair. So after some careful masking I was able to fix this individually.

The majority of the grade actually proved to be slightly easier than i was expecting. I did the majority of the work through adjustment layers, allowing me to put a consistent filter over multiple shots without tampering with the originals. For my grade I raised the temperature of most scenes to bring out the oranges and yellows. Also made sure created stronger differentiation between my darker and lighter tones by decreasing highlights and raising the shadows. 

But for on-track footage, I took some extra steps. I raised the contrast in many of these shots to help whichever car Alex was driving to "pop"and stand out from the track. I also added saturation to the blue's and greens in these shots so that things like the grass and sky were key focal points that added to the mise en scene.

To get each shot looking consistent I made many many cuts in my adjustment layer to allow me to manually adjust the settings of each individual shot if necessary. Since some obviously had different lighting or exposure. Although time-consuming this proved to be a successful endeavour.

The grade was fairly consistent throughout, except for one particular sequence. Namely The South Downs sequence. With this sequence being visually and stylistically different from much of the other parts of the doc. I knew it was important to give it its own grade. Taking inspiration from the Twighlight movies (and the grade they use to enhance its emotive content). In this scene I contrasted it to the rest of the doc by bringing out more of the blue's and greens. The issue i had with this is it took a long time for me to get the sky and grass to match in each shot, especially since the temperature changed throughout the sequence anyway. But after careful work with curves and colour wheels, I was able to get this to look the way Alex envisioned. 

The darker, more mellow tones in this sequence help add to the emotional content that is being conveyed on screen. It brings Alex's character down a few levels, so we see him as a human with relatable thoughts and feelings. 

Overall I am really happy with the grade of this documentary. Considering I did not have a lot of time, considering it was my first real attempt at grading on this scale, and considering I did almost all of the grade on my own, without my director or D.O.P there to offer feedback. I think it turned out really well.

I had to make some minor adjustments along the way as some frames were a bit off or changed sooner than they were supposed to. Then when I showed it to the group they pointed out that some scenes (in the Abbi interview in particular) were over saturated. But after these changes were amended I think we have a successful grade.

If there was more time, or I did have my director/D.O.P with me to help then i may have built upon it further, but I think it does its job well.

Major Project: Budgeting And Scheduling

Major Project: Budgeting And Scheduling

To properly fulfil my role as producer on this project, I knew the importance of creating a schedule and managing a budget. So early on in this project I went through the script and pulled out each of our key sequences and verified the details of each one. I collated what they were, how long they would take, who/what they involved and where the shoots would take place. I then also estimated how long each one would take to edit. 

With this information collated I was able to put together a full production schedule for this project. The best way to do this I found was to create it in a shared space online so that everyone could access it and it could be easily edited if any changes occurred. Overall this process was time-consuming but relatively simple. 

Having a clearly written out plan for the entire production and post-production process really helped our team to stay organised. This somewhat small task I had as a producer, had perhaps some of the biggest impacts. As such, I made sure to regularly update it and inform the team of any changes so we always had plans for shoots ready in advance. 

Budgeting was also one of my biggest responsibilities as a producer on this project. I was in charge of collating, managing and distributing the money throughout the documentary. To successfully handle this aspect, I took multiple steps. Firstly I set up a group bank account that we could all deposit money in to, and arranged for the budget of this project to be paid in three manageable instalments. 

I then helped Alex to set up our groups fundraiser (Kickstarter page) so that friends, family, and external people could contribute money to our project and help make it more manageable. 

The final step I took was to create a digital budget sheet. I sat with Alex and worked out how much everything was going to cost on this project. Collating this information on to a clear online spreadsheet so we could all see the breakdown. 

On this spreadsheet, I also created a table that showed all the withdrawals and spendings made on this project. It detailed how much was spent, by who and on what. And I kept this up to date regularly. Looking back in hindsight though, we still needed a clearer line of communication about when the money could be taken out of the account and what exactly it was spent on (as there were a few small changes to what was purchased). There were occasions where items cost more than anticipated and this wasn't effectively communicated or written down. Leading to rounding errors, some payments being late, and us going a tiny bit over budget. 

This was really my fault for not taking enough control and initiative over this area. But fortunately, we were able to resolve the issue.

Below you can see the full production schedule and budget I created.

Major Project: Interview Transcribes-Dan Rowbottom

Major Project: Interview Transcribes-Dan Rowbottom

As part of my role as editor on this project, I took it upon myself to transcribe our key interviews. This would help us decide what bits of each sequence we should include or cut from our edit to tell the most effective story.

Below is the transcribe for Dan Rowbottom.

Major Project: Interview Transcribes-Jamie Caroline

Major Project: Interview Transcribes-Jamie Caroline

As part of my role as editor on this project, I took it upon myself to transcribe our key interviews. This would help us decide what bits of each sequence we should include or cut from our edit to tell the most effective story.

Bellow is the transcribe for Jamie Caroline.

Major Project: Interview Transcribes-Abbi Pulling

Major Project: Interview Transcribes-Abbi Pulling

As part of my role as editor on this project, I took it upon myself to transcribe our key interviews. This would help us decide what bits of each sequence we should include or cut from our edit to tell the most effective story.

Below is the transcribe for Abbi Pulling.

Major Project: Editing-Dan Rowbottom Interview

Major Project: Editing-Dan Rowbottom Interview

The final interview we have in our documentary is an interview with Dan Rowbottom. This is one of our most effective sequences and is actually one that has changed the least.

The scene originally opened with several long establishing shots,

but after feedback from Alex this changed to include traveling in the car footage, two short establishing shots and one further shot to match up with the V/O we recorded. 

We then jump straight in to the interview which for the most part is a walk and talk discussion. Getting the two mic's to match wasn't too hard although I did have some echo which I was able to mostly eliminate after a lot of fiddling around with keyframes. 

The scene is split in to three distinct halves all of which are covered in one take requiring little use of cut aways or B-roll. I did have to use some at the start to cover a shakey camera moment. Initially, I had a lot of trouble getting this to match. But with some help from Alex and Cailan we got it working. 

Originally also the scenes of this interview felt very sperate and disconnected, but with some quick l-cutting and transition shots while we here SOT, the scene began to flow a lot better. This only got tighter as time went on.

The final part of the scene was a little difficult to edit where the shots where so widley

different in lighting and colour. I tried to add a reduce grain filter, a sharpening mask, lowering the contrast. None of which seemed to really help. Eventually, after running it by Alex several times I managed to boost the shadows, reduce the highlights and adjust the temperature tint of the two shots so they matched more seamlessly. 

Overall this sequence is one of our longer ones, but feels justifiably so, and manages to keep the energy up throughout. It required little cut aways too which made it one of the more simple sequences to edit, but one I am happy with nine the less.

Major Project: Editing-South Downs Sequence

Major Project: Editing-South Downs Sequence

The final sequence I edited (in the chronology of our edit timeline) was the South Downs Sequence. This is definitely one of the sequences I'm most proud of, and it has an interesting development. I did it a certain way, Alex had me make chnages, but Cailan and I found it less effective with these changes, so put it back to be closer to how it was originally. 

This is one of the more emotive scenes in our documentary. And as such music played a key role in it (even though Alex hadn't originally planned for it to). Other than music a big consideration was atmos. I wanted a really effective sound design like I had found in my research of similar documentaries and that acted on what Beth had said to us, so I underlaced the sea and waves as atmos right the way through the sequence. 

The music allowed me to do some rhythmic cuts at the start (upon Cailans suggestion), which helped set the pace for the rest of the scene. For this scene, I had quite a good idea of what music I wanted, I needed something in a bit of a minor key, preferably piano based. This way it would stand to raise the emotional value of what Alex says during this sequence. As well as adding to the cinimatic effect when paired with our establishing drone shots and cut aways. These elements together help bring home the journey metaphor that we've tried to instil throughout. I was indeed able to find a track that fitted these peramitors and I am pleased with my choice.

I made sure to keep my opening shots on screen longer than i normally would in order to build up the suspense and tone that Alex would later bring in his monologue. As soon as Alex started speaking I was careful to gently lower the music and sea to ensure his dialogue was the most prominent sound (but you could still hear the atmosphere and feel as of your there with him). Cutting away on ocasion during his speech but less often than normal, and usually just to an alternative shot of him as he is to be the core focus of this scene. 

I watched back the clips multiple times to find the best take, which was a really hard decision to make, but I'm happy with the version I selected. 

Alex initially wanted to completely re-shape the structure of the scene and remove most of the transitioning shots that break up the scene. But after speaking with Helen we agreed that the audience needs this time to breathe and take in what is being said. So after some discussion, it was agreed to be put back the way it was. 

The one change that did get made though was the addition of a recap monatge on the end of the sequence which helps re-ground our story and leads us more gently in to the race day. Even though i didn't spend as much time on this montage as i did the rest of the sequence i'm still really happy with it. Originally this had its own backing track but we discovered it more effective to continue the one that was playing throughout the rest of the sequence.

I did have quite a hard time looping the soundtrack to extend this far (as it wasn't quite long enough to span the whole sequence), but after some trial and error I found a point subtle enough for it to work and I am really happy with the outcome of this whole sequence.

Major Project: Editing-Racing License

Major Project: Editing-Racing License

The racing licence happened to be the first sequence I edited on this project. As a result, it is one that has seen the most change. It started off in my hands, went to Cailan to be touched and tweaked a bit, then edned up back with me. 

Initially this sequence was very long. It included the entire PTC of Alex in the morning of his race licence. Then cut to driving shots, which held the tension as we cut in to shots of Alex arriving at the circuit and taking his written test. Before finally transitioning into him out on track which took up about 4 minutes by its self. 

I really struggled early on with this sequence, as three wasn't a great deal of usable footage from the day. We couldn't use any from the written test. One of the go-pros in the car cut out midway through the session, and the trackside footage was often unreliable. None the less i managed to cobble together an edit from this. All be it one that felt a bit disjointed (mostly due to sound design).

So the first thing to change was the introduction. We merged the driving and establishing shots with the opening PTC so that that became SOT. And we cut the written test entirely as it felt like unnecessary information at this point. 

I had other issues with the sequence, the rain constantly stopping and starting throughout made it look as though there were continuity errors or that filming took place on separate days (which obviously was not the case). Along with this every camera had different audio levels which was a bit off-putting and difficult to balance.

Even after the above chnages, the sequence was still too long, however, so we spoke to Simon and made the tough decision to heavily condense it. Rather than having separate clips of Alex in the car and then out on the track, I overlapped them to condense the sequence. To do this I had to completely remove or re-arrange some if the instructor's commentary so it made sense with the new running order. 

I also went through with Alex to find some better go-pro shots that looked more effective, but still matched the audio. We had a dispute about whether to cut some commentary but both Cailan and I insisted it added tot eh drama of the scene. 

The final changes made involved cutting down Alex's closing PTC in the car and ensuring that the last thing we hear from the instructor is "congratulations you've passed". With some cutaways and clever L-Cutting, i managed to achieve this. As well as adding further on track footage to break up the end PTC  Before passing the sequence over to Cailan to make some minor adjustments to improve the visuals. 

As well as this we figured out how to fill one of our gaps early on. By setting up the scene in the way Alex wanted, we were left with a few shots where although things were happening on screen, there was little of interest audibly for the audience. I tried to combat this through my use of atmos, and raising the background noise of the circuit but this still felt a bit empty. 

So we came up with the idea to record a small piece of V/O. This would not only fill the gap, but also help provide the audience with some additional information that explains what the test is/how it works, without going in to too much detail.

Those were the final changes made to the sequence which helped it stand on its own but also work within our timeframe. We are now worried that the sequence happens too fast and ruins the sense of challenge and build up. But Simon insists this was the right decision so hopefully our audience feels the same way.

Major Project: Editing-Receiving Equipment

Major Project: Editing-Receiving Equipment

This sequence is mostly actuality, where Alex explains the equipment he's now bought and will be racing with. Originally this sequence followed an interview with racing driver Bruno Spengler, which Alex had filmed and edited before I joined the project. But this ended up being cut since this sequence stands fine on its own. 

The scene was very simple to edit. It was all done in one take, I just had to pick the best one. To make it more interesting I did some cool L-cutting and audio work at the start. Establishing the scene with a drone shot, and having the audience hear a knock at Alex's door. Before seeing him walk in to his room with the equipment. I think this cut works really well. 

To keep some energy in the scene I used cut in's that were filmed after the first take to highlight all of the equipment. Not all of these cuts matched perfectly at first but with a bot of scaling, I got two of them to work and just scrapped the third. It tricks the audience in to thinking there's a second camera which is cool.

The scene then transitions in to Alex reaching his fundraising goal. Originally this was a corssfade but we all agreed it worked better as a dip to black, as it made it look like the filming stops and we are now just a fly on the wall. Upon Simons suggestion, I also put a graphic here to illustrate hitting the fundraiser. 

Major Project: Editing-Jamie Caroline and Kickstarter

Major Project: Editing-Jamie Caroline and Kickstarter

The next interview in our documentary is one with profesional racing driver, Jamie Caroline. 

This sequence was visually different to a lot of our others, but also was set up in a way that I am more familiar with. As such it wasn't too hard to edit. We had 3 different camera angles which I was keen to use to their full extent, cutting to a close up when he makes a very hard-hitting point. Then cutting back to a wide shot so we see his hands when he's explaining something. I think this flowed quite nicely and I had a rough cut put together pretty quickly.

But after showing it to Simon, he said it was far too long and he also wasn't a huge fan of our wide shot. So i ended up re-editing the sequence to be more accommodating to these peramitors. But I was struggling with what to cut out. This is where my transcripts came

in handy and I was able to sit with Alex and work out what the essential information was. We had some disagreements here but eventually, Alex saw the point I was making and we put together another cut with little trouble.

This time Simon was more positive but suggested we add in more cut aways. So as well as the stuff we filmed at his house Alex fov.ound footage of Jamie out on track which I overlayed. Then upon Simons request added in the audio from this. I know how important sound design is but i was a little apprehensive as i didn't want to overpower the interview, fortunately with adjustments to the gain I got this to work smoothly. 

Jamie became more refined with every cut and although he is shorter now, I still think he's effective and im happy with his sequence. My only issue is that I think he cuts out to quickly at the end but Simon insisted we cut here so there's little I can do.

After his sequence we show Alex setting up his kickstarter page. This was originally all VFX but Simon found it too bland. So we followed the same advice he gave us for the interview and overlaced the V/O (which we had to re-record multiple times to get a clear explanation that wouldn't confuse audiences) with on track footage and sound from race cars. With a tiny bit of VFX and actuality. I think this sequence works but could be a little bit tighter.