As a group we felt that in order to make our documentary seem as professional as possible – already having created posters, screen savers, flyers, trailers, websites, business cards etc. – we wanted to extend this to the DVD casing and DVD menu in order to ‘complete the package’.

The DVD menu was created as something very simple yet intuitive i.e. easy to navigate whilst visually striking. The Menu has a simplistic font and colour scheme; as close as possible to that of the posters and flyers to ensure a uniformed look and style.

We also wanted the DVD menu to be somewhat of a showcase for all the production and prep work that had been completed since September of last year. With this in mind we created a few slideshows – one for the promotional materials and achievements of the group, and another from the journey that the documentary took us on.

Much like using Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro, creating the DVD menu allowed for the developing of skills and techniques we would not necessarily get a chance to learn in class and in turn valuable experience for future projects.

• Put generic sound clips from the school in any gaps you have so that they is no gap anywhere in the timeline, so that there is constant sound throughout. (Over Audio 1)
• Use cross disolves on the ‘mum’ interview when she is talking about Laura and Sophie (he said this is a useful trick to make it look professional and unique)
• Put zoom ins on the still images to make it look more interesting, because Sophie is in the middle of every photo, so zooming in will emphasize Sophie
• Quite Bob down and any other audio / sound levels that need sorting
• Maybe add more music if we need it
• Could extend the car clip: Sophie is dancing to High School Musical… make it a little bit longerq
• Use a close of the ‘the best friend’ when Sophie talks about the  best friend

Beginning:

• Karin loves the ending and said we should do something similar to that for the beginning. He said not to give it away about what we are doing: Use close ups of childrens hands playing with bird seed / close ups of jump ahead…
• He said this is the only thing missing to complete the documentary.

Screening:

• 1st on at the screening
• Invite school members if they want to come

Extras:

• Workbook done and printed by Sunday 24th: needs to be bounded both semester one and semester two, but separately
• Supporting Materials: Website / Poster / Business Cards / Screensaver
• Peer Assessments filled out ready for Wednesday 27th
• Documentary burnt onto disc by Wedneday: 1 for the screening (Thursday 28th), 1 for handing in (Wednesday 27th)

What’s it like having Sophie as a sister?

Why’s it fun?

Do you get on well?

What’s your favourite thing to do with Sophie?

What things don’t you like about Sophie?

How do you think your friends react when you tell them you have a sister with Downs Syndrome?

Are they bothered by it?

Have any of your friends got brothers or sisters with disabilities?

Have you been to Sophie’s school before?

Was it a lot different from your school? In what way? What about the subjects they do and the work they do?

Do you think that Sophie is normal?

What do you think normal is? Define normal.

So you don’t think normal has a meaning?
Sophie Interview

How do you get to school in the morning? What do you go on? Is it a good bus?

Who do you go on the bus with?

Do you like school?

What’s your favourite lesson? What do you make in Food Tech?

Do you like going on school trips? Where do you go on trips? How do you get to them?

What’s your teacher called at school? Is she nice?

Who’s your favourite teacher?

Who’s your best friend at school? Do you like the boys? Do you not like girls?

Who’s the best, boys or girls?

What are your friends called?

Have you got a boyfriend?

Are you going to get married to him?

What don’t you like about school?

What do you think is boring at school?

What do you do after school on a Friday?

What do you do in ‘Playball’?

What do you do at weekends when you’re at home?

How many sisters do you have?

Have you got any pets?

How many pets have you got?

What animal is it?

Is bella a cat or a dog? Is she nice?

What’s your favourite toy?

Do you watch Barney on tv?

What else do you watch on tv?

What’s your favourite film?

Do you like High School Musical? Is it your favourite?

Do you like going to the pub? Was it fun?

Who did you go to the pub with?

What did you have to eat at the pub? Was it yummy?
Rhiannon Interview

How did you get into working with disabled children?

What types of disabilities do you work with?

How old are they?

Is there a difference in the levels of autism they have?

What activities do the children do at the Saturday playscheme you work at?

Is there any special requirements you need working with disabled children?

How do you think the playschemes help the parents?

What rewards would you say you gain working with children with disabilities?

What would you say to people in society who think children with disabilities are not normal?

What do you think normal is?

Mum Interview

Was it difficult bringing up a child with a disability?

Did you have to adapt your own lifestyle?

What sort of things did you have to change in your own life?

Have you got any other children? How old are they?

How do they act around Sophie?

Do they bond well with her? Were they always very accepting of Sophie?

What was it like going out in public with her when she was a baby?

What about as she got older? Do you think people started to notice more that there was something not normal about her?

If you could change whether Sophie had a disability or not, would you?

Do you ever imagine what it would be like if she didn’t have a disability?

Are you happy with how she is? Do you think she’s happy within herself?

What about school, does she enjoy that?

What other activities do you get her to participate in?

What sort of things does she do at home?

Do you just class her as a normal child?

Do you think generally, people in society discriminate against those with disabilities?

Do you think people with disabilities are normal?

What do you think the definition of normal is?

Anything else you would like to add about Sophie?

What made you decide to work at a school like this?

What would you say the main similarities and differences between the two schools are? (mainstream and specialist)

What would you say is the most rewarding part about working here?

What would you say that hardest part of this job is?

Obviously members of society discriminate against people with disabilities, especially children. Would you class the children here as normal?

What would you say to members of society who discriminate against children like this?
Lisa Falconer Interview

What exactly is Jump Ahead?

Would you say the children benefit greatly from this school?

What changes have you seen in the pupils since they started here?

Would you say children with leaning disabilities should be put into specialist schools rather than mainstream schools?

What sort of age level would you say the children in this class work at?

This is a special department within the school, so you’ve got a range of ages in the class. What ages are they?

What do the children learn in life skills?

Do you enjoy your job here?

Would you say its nice to know you’re making a difference in their lives?

Members of society discriminate against people with disabilities and leaning disabilities. What would you say if you could say anything to them?

What would you say Sophie is like at school?

Has she progressed greatly since she started here?

What do you think she’ll be able to achieve in the future?

What would you say to those of society who don’t think these children are normal?

SOPHIE & LAURA – Playing animal bingo

SOPHIE & LAURA – drawing together

SOPHIE & LAURA – Homer robot toy

SOPHIE & LAURA – Looking at photo albums

SOPHIE & LAURA – Looking on the internet

SOPHIE & LAURA – Painting Sophie’s nails

SOPHIE & LAURA – Painting Laura’s nails

OUTTAKE – Showing nails

ENDING – Sophie & Laura ‘pop up’

BEGINNING – Packing bag

FILLER – Wall photos

OUTTAKES – Getting in the car

BEGINNING – Getting in the car

SOPHIE & LAURA – Journey home from the Harvester

SOPHIE & LAURA – Playing on swing

SOPHIE & LAURA – Playing basketball

SOPHIE & LAURA – Football

SOPHIE – Swing

SOPHIE & LAURA – Bella in the garden

SOPHIE & LAURA – Wii bowling

SOPHIE & LAURA – Wii baseball

• We planned our 12 weeks with the aid of a weekly timetable and confirmed this in a tutorial with Karin to ensure we were well organised

Week Two: Working on Idea and Rough Cut

• Week two was all about us putting together our ideas and coming up with the final proposal.
• We formed a shooting schedule ready for week three as well as finalising the production schedule.
• We created a rough cut of what we wanted to do for filming in week three.
• Laura Proto sorted out all the paperwork, contacted the school and sent them consent release forms to be given to the parents of the school children to ensure we had consent to film them.

Week Three: Filming in Kingston

• To film we took out two cameras: one to use with a tripod and one be used hand held, to get the feel of going on a journey as well as keeping it in a documentary style. We also took a digital stills camera to take pictures for the website and promotional materials.
• FILMING: We took still images of the road signs and journey to use in the promotional materials and potentially the documentary as a filler to represent the journey we are taking the audience on.
• Before filming, we took Sophie out for a meal so we could all get to know each other, and to help Sophie adapt to us being there and to make us feel more comfortable when filming. The meal was a success as we all got on really well, Sophie was very relaxed and for those of us who didn’t know her it gave us an insight into her personality and was good research for our documentary. It also helped us witness firsthand the relationship between Sophie and Laura.
• First night of shooting: We filmed Sophie in her room showing the audience her room, playing with her favourite toys and given the audience an insight into her interests and personality.
• Second day of shooting: We went to the school and filmed the lessons, fillers for the documentary such as notice boards, the classroom, lessons and the children partaking in various tasks such as reading and writing. We also interviewed class teacher Lisa Falconer, and the acting deputy head of the school Bob Shaw. With the still camera we took pictures of the school children, notice boards and different parts of the school. We made a big effort to interact with the children and teachers to make them feel comfortable with us being there with cameras.
• Second night of shooting: We filmed Sophie at home carrying out her daily routine such as playing with the cat, watching TV, playing on the Wii and eating dinner.
• Third day of shooting: Laura Proto carried on filming on her own to try and get some really unique footage of Sophie. She filmed Sophie doing other daily activities such as reading, talking about DVDs and have a cup of tea and a piece of cake. She also filmed an interview with her Mum, and a playscheme worker called Rhiannon Doyle.

Week Four: Timeline and Capturing

• We wrote our timeline and captured all the tapes we used when filming. While we were capturing, and used the footage to work out how to form our narrative structure and decided what footage to use and where to put it.
• As well as capturing, we set up an email address for our company at dividedproductions@rocketmail.com which we can all access and do business through, rather than using our personal email addresses. We also ordered business cards for our production company through Vista Print. We ordered two sets of business cards, one specifically to promote the documentary, and a general one for our company.
• Company Business Card:

• Documentary Business Card:

Week Five: Editing

• We started on the editing as a group, and began putting together rough sequences and placed them in order on a timeline. We also began to consider the narration, and worked further on the structure and how the narration would endorse the structure.

Week Six: Editing and updating the Workbook

• This week was dedicated to more editing and creating further sequences, editing the interviews and creating sequences to work with the interview audio.
• We also updated the workbook.

Week Seven: Editing and Website

• Further sequences were put together and a beginning sequence for the documentary was constructed.
• Laura Proto updated the website adding our still images from the filming weekend. More information about us and our production company, and about the documentary itself was uploaded. We also changed the style and layout of the website, using one of our own still images as a background to the tool bar, and toned down the colours to make the website look more professional and suitable for our documentary.

Easter Break: Extra Filming

• Over the Easter break Laura P, Lucy and Phil did some extra filming in London. This shoot was intended to capture more footage of the relationship between Laura and Sophie. Sequences of nail painting, playing in the garden, playing on the wii and making a cup of tea were among the images shot.

Week Eight: Editing / Archive Music

• We captured the tapes from the Easter footage and wrote a new timeline encoporating the new images and sequences.
• Laura Day started doing research on what music we might use for the documentary using www.archive.org. After searching through many songs, Laura shortlisted three which we think would be suitable and be in keeping with our documentary which are * Think if you will / changes – Mark DelMedico

* Catch me Jumping – The Dimes

* Thanks Russ – Moose

Week Nine: Add Music and Graphics and Record Narration

• After editing all the sequences together, we began working on the narration. After working out the final narrative story, we put all our sequences into the correct order and did some further editing to make the sequences really tight. We wrote the narration, and Laura Proto wrote a few sentences discussing her relationship with Sophie and giving an insight into having a sister with Down’s Syndrome. She then used recorded the narration over the weekend ready to upload onto the timeline during week 10.
• We also added the opening credits to the start of the documentary and did credits for the end as well, dispersing images between the credits to have a ‘fun’ ending to our documentary. We also added captions when Sophie is speaking, to make sure our audience is able to understand what she is saying. We added music to the beginning and end of our documentary, which fitted really well.

Week Ten: Editing and Promotional Materials.

• Week 10 focussed on the finishing touches of editing for documentary. We had to do some further editing after adding Laura’s narration, as we needed to create some further sequences to accompany some of the narration. Laura’s narration worked really well with the overall structure of the narration. We also editing all the sound levels, as some interviews were very loud, whereas others were quite quiet, so we had to adjust all the levels so they were consistent from one audio to the next. We also had to adjust the sound levels of the music so it didn’t overpower the narration.
• Laura Proto contacted St Philip’s Special School inviting them along to a screening of our documentary on Thursday 28th May.

Week Eleven: Finishing Touches

• This week was focussed on the finishing touches of the documentary. We made a DVD Cover using Photoshop, which can be seen below: We captured a still image from the documentary, as used this as the main cover. Then on the back we took further images from the documentary, and changed the opacity of one of the images in order to make the synopsis on the back easily readable. We also added out company logo, title, and a DVD and Copyright symbol on the cover, along with the names of everyone in our group.

• 

  DVD Cover

• Added effects to the photos to make them more interesting.
• Sorted the remainder of the sound and audio levels out.
• Had a final tutorial with Karin to pick up on any final finishing touches.
• We completed the website, and made a trailer of the documentary using the footage from the final cut. We then created a ‘youtube’ account for our documentary group, uploaded the trailer onto ‘youtube’ and then embedded this onto our website. We chose to use the same music on our trailer, so everything interlinked. Phil created a DVD menu, and on the menu uploaded our Flickr slideshow, images of our promotional materials, and the trailer along with the documentary.
• We also finished off the promotional materials, by changing the poster on Photoshop and putting pictures of children from the school and Sophie on in place of the images which were used before. We went to reprographics, and printed off 2 A3 copies of the poster to put up at the screening, 6 A4 posters to put up at the screening and around the university, and printed off flyers and the DVD cover. The updated version of the poster is shown below:

• 

  Updated version of the poster

Week Twelve: Hand in week.

• Hand in the final documentary on Friday 29th May.
• Attend the screening as a group, along with Laura’s family and a representative from St Philip’s Special School
• Send a copy of the documentary to the school, along with a further letter thanking them for their co-operation.
• Print and bind the workbooks from both Semesters, and hand in along with the documentary and peer assessment sheets.

Work by Lucy Holder, updated 19th May 2009

Our narration will be told mostly by Laura, who also partakes in the film. In this way we are using the ‘subject as narrator’. Sophie can tell her own story without narration through her personality on screen. Because Laura is narrating it means the documentary will be more personal and hopefully a lot more authentic. She will be able to explain her and Sophie’s relationship better than anybody else. I think that documentaries that work this way are a lot more effective than when a narrator who has nothing to do with the story is used.

We have decided that to end the documentary, Laura and Sophie’s Mother will narrate the ending. We thought this would be effective because Laura takes a step back and slips into ‘normal’ life. Laura’s mother is on the outside of their relationship so she can tell us what she sees. It will also be refreshing for the audience to hear a different voice.

We need to think about the questions the audience will be wanting to ask, and then answer them in the narration, but as simply as possible to keep the film moving.

I have also been researching music we can use in the documentary, from www.archive.org. The music is fairly upbeat because we are emphasising the fact that we are NOT to feel sorry for Sophie, she is happy and the relationship between the sisters is good, so the music should reflect this. The songs I have looked at are;

Think If You Will – Mark DelMedico (http://www.archive.org/details/strawbfan-ThinkIfYouWill)
Catch Me Jumping – The Dimes (http://www.archive.org/details/TheDimes-CatchMeJumping)
Thanks Russ – Moose (http://www.archive.org/details/Mooska-ThanksRuss)

Work by Laura Day 04/05/09

• All titles and subtitles need to be in Arial font
• Take the fades out of the ending – Karin just wants cuts
• Mix up the interviews so that we aren’t just listening to one person for 5 minutes
• Karin said we are aiming for about 35 mins, 40 max
• Keep things 35 seconds long or else the audience will get bored watching. Cutting every 35 seconds keep the audience on edge as to whats going to happen next
• Cut the beginning up with some of Laura packing her back then to the school sign then Laura getting in the car then some road signs then Laura at the school then some more of school – as an example. karin said if we chop it up and swap from one thing to another then it looks more interesting and it shows Laura going on the journy

Narration for Laura: – a few pointers

• This is a jounry to…
• My name is Laura
• This is Sophie
• Dont feel soryy for my sister feel sorry for the sociaety
• I do this because i love her not because its hard / have to do it
• Karin said to keep the narration simple, no extra words needed, straight to the point

Our Thoughts:

• Listen to all the clips to see whats going on and whats being said to write Lauras narration
• The ending needs to be shorter
• Karin really likes BOBS ‘killer’ sentence so i thought we could put that at the very end of the sequence Laura did??
• Instead of having some of the interviews so long we thought that Laura could repeat what some of them say as narration and then we can get rid of the clip that says that – i can explain in more detail when i next see you if this doesnt make sence

Next Week – week 9:

• Work on the middle bit of the documentary
• Lauras going to do the photos
• Write the first part of the narration to send to Karin by Thursday 7th
• Karins wants a burnt copy of what we hae done with the changes that he told us to do for next Thursday (7th) – he said dont worry about putting the narration on ut he wants to see progress

(By Leanne Coleman updated on 30.04.09)

SOPHIE – Eating dinner

OUTTAKE – Cake

SOPHIE – Drinking

SOPHIE – Action!

OUTTAKE – Sophie burping

SOPHIE – Action! 2

SOPHIE – Reading her book

FILLER – DVDs

SOPHIE – Talking about DVDs

OUTTAKE – Sophie with headphones

SOPHIE – Playing pinball

SOPHIE – No more filming

INTERVIEW – Rhiannon

INTERVIEW – Mum

SOPHIE – Sliding downstairs

SOPHIE – With duck

Total of 7 minutes of Sophie

All together – nearly 65 minutes of footage containing Sophie