Documentary Assignment

Documentary Assignment

For the first assignment in the second year of this course I have been tasked with creating a documentary. I have decided that I will focus on the story of the monkey hanging in the town I am from, Hartlepool. I will construct a sort of tongue-in-cheek documentary about this subject, showing the facts behind a veil of humour and jokes. I will still show the facts and make it a factual documentary, but due to the humour behind the story it only makes sense to show the facts with a hint of humour. I will use re-enactments of certain scenes from the real world to show what happened in a brighter light, while still showcasing how silly the whole subject is. I will also cover certain other aspects of Hartlepool, such as its rich ship building industry from way back when. I will do this because everyone who lives in Hartlepool, myself included, say there isn’t anything going on here and that it’s a very boring place to be, when in actual fact there are a great many things to do, such as the maritime museum and the many different marine areas to explore.  I will also be looking at the things that arent there, or that have been removed from Hartlepool, and will be looking at how this has had an impact on the way hartlepool looks to the rest of the country. I will be interviewing people to add to the evidence and testimonies about the way hartlepool was or how it has changed.

Was a Monkey Really Hung in Hartlepool?

‘’I dunno, probably, we were pretty weird back then. I mean, we’ve elected the football club’s mascot as town mayor 3 times so….’’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-40801937

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/4122756.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/england/tees/7827332.stm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_hanger

http://www.thisishartlepool.co.uk/history/thehartlepoolmonkey.asp

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Hanging-of-the-Hartlepool-Monkey/


http://www.gyreandgimble.com/productions/the-hartlepool-monkey/

Start: The start of this documentary will first go over the mythology surrounding the story of the monkey hanging in Hartlepool. It will go over when, where and why it supposedly happened, and the details of what apparently went down. It will go over the facts that we know about the story and will use interviews with older people to back this up, although nobody is alive today who will have seen the hanging, getting stories of old Hartlepool from old people seems the smartest idea.

Middle: The middle section of my documentary will focus on the facts surrounding the story of the monkey. This will be things like a song that was written by a traveling entertainer. A song written about a monkey washing ashore in Hartlepool and subsequently being hung after being accused of being a spy. I will go over both the facts for the hanging and those that go against it. I intend to go at this story in a purely unbiased way, as I am actually from Hartlepool so discovering the truth about this is quite exciting to me.

End: The end of my documentary will recap the first 2 parts and will collate all the facts and stories together in a concise way and will give a final verdict on what they all show. The whole of my documentary will have a comedy feel, because it’s a hilariously daft story, but will be based entirely in fact. It will play out sort of how the Horrible Histories shows play out.

Back during the Napoleonic wars, around early 1800’s, there was a lot of tension between England and France. It was around this time that Hartlepool got its ‘monkey hanger’ name from, well, hanging a monkey apparently. The story goes that during the wars, a French ship washed ashore on the old Hartlepool beach, and was surrounded by locals in seconds. They saw that the only survivor was a monkey and, having never actually seen a Frenchman before, assumed he was a French spy, confusing its chittering as French speaking. As you do. They promptly decided they should hang the spy so as not to let the secrets of the old Hartlepool beach fall into French hands, not that there was much going on there.

My documentary will look at whether Hartlepudlians are actually proud of Hartlepool and its heritage about hanging monkeys and whether there is anything else going on in Hartlepool that could be seen as another claim to fame. Shipbuilding industry? Tongue in cheek documentary. Where is the story from? Re-enactments?

Post-Release

After I began filming and editing my documentary I quickly realized that it had changed a fair amount from what the original idea was. This isn't a bad thing by any means, it simply means that in have to explain how and why it changed from the original idea.

One of the main reasons it changed is because I started to realise that there are things that I simply wouldn’t be able to talk about and discuss in my film, such as the dock area and the shipbuilding industry, due to time constraints or a lack of communication with the people I wanted to talk to and about. An example of this happening would be when I was trying to include Gyre & Gimble in my film, discussing the play they were making about the monkey hanging story. I was liaising with the directors and after a few weeks of back and forth they stopped emailing out of the blue, so unfortunately I was unable to include them in my film. The same happened with trying to get an interview with Stuart Drummond, the legendary mascot of Hartlepool’s football team. For some reason, nobody seems to know where he is or what he’s doing, so again, I was unable to get this interview. These are both quite a shame that I couldn’t get them to talk but it opened the door to allow me to talk about other things.

Another way my documentary changed is that it went from being about the monkey hanging and everything to do with that, and turned into a documentary that was about the town as a whole, showing off so much more from the town than just the Headland and the monkey hanging. I was originally planning to talk only about the monkey hanging and discuss the people and places involved in that, both then and now, and discuss the idea and story with people from the town nowadays and see what they had to say about it. This obviously changed, partly because I realized it would end up being a very linear and straightforward film, and partly because of the reasons stated above, among others.

In the end, it seems that my original idea would have made a great documentary, but the film I made was greater.

Producers and Their Audience's

Producers and Their Audiences

This post will be discussing the way in which a specific film was produced and the marketing strategy that was used to help promote the film. I will be discussing the entire film series of ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ rather than just one film, as I think they all play off each other quite well.

Identifying the Audience

Identifying the audience for these films was a hard task as they are irate films, and they are few and far between these days. The first film, ‘Curse of the Black Pearl’, was based on a ride at multiple Disney Land parks. Obviously this is not a good way to judge if an audience would like a film to be based on it just because it was a popular ride. Disney had to look at other films before making this one, to see how much people actually like these kinds of films. One thing to note about the release of the first film is that it will have already had a sort of fan base, in the people that did enjoy the ride, however small that fan base may be. In my opinion, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ was aimed at a wide audience of young children of around 8-13 and young adults of around 15-20, because while it contains humour and childish fun, it also has a lot of action to keep the older people engaged. This can be seen in each of the trailers, which feature both humour and fighting, showing what the film is about. It does well at keeping the violence realistic but also fictional, as is the case for many films aimed at this kind of age group. Instead of cutting of people’s heads, they will be fighting skeletons that can’t be shown to bleed or die, because they are undead, or cut open a monster person and have fish spill out instead of guts. On older person will get that this is what’s implied, but a younger person will just see fish or skeletons, so they won’t see it as being as violent. Another way the producers could identify the audience of future films is by simply looking at the audiences for previous films, by doing this they guarantee themselves an already existing fan base as well as a guaranteed source of income for when the film’s release, it is also easy to look at where they need to market their trailers and posters if they know who will be looking for them.

Details of the Film Series

The film series is centred on Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp, a notorious pirate who is always getting into trouble with dangerous and scary enemies, such as undead pirates, Davy Jones and his monster crew, and the East India Trading Company. On his many adventures he encounters memorable characters and friends who he manages to bring into his service, such as Joshamee Gibbs, played by Kevin McNally, William Turner, played by Orlando Bloom, and Elizabeth Swan, played by Keira Knightly. The films can be seen to follow these characters as much as they follow the villains, as in each film they are as much the main character as the ‘good guys’. Each film in the series sees Jack being harangued by some kind of evil at sea. The first film has Jack and co fighting skeletal undead pirates, the second has him fighting Davy Jones and his crew of monsters and his pet Kraken, the third has the same villain but with the addition of The East India Trading Company, the fourth film has Jack go up against Blackbeard and the fifth film sees him being hunted by a crew of ghost pirate hunters and their captain. All of the films serve the same purpose story wise, they each set up the villain as and evil entity and make the viewer get behind Jack and his friends, when in fact they too are villains, because they are pirates, but the films do a good job of having forget this in favour of being on their side and wanting them to win. This is helped by the way the posters and trailers make the heroes look heroic by having them standing in specific poses or doing specific things, such as swinging from ropes to rescue people or fighting the main villain.

Captain Barbossa, Davy Jones and Captain Salazar

How the Film was Distributed, Marketed and Publicised

Posters from the first film

Posters from the fifth film

The entire ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise has been distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. This section will discuss the second film in the series, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest’. The film had a number of trailers released before the film came out to increase the hype and anticipation for the film. These trailers showed off the dark side of Davy Jones, his Flying Dutchman and crew, while also showing the lighter, funny side of the ‘good-guy’ pirates, Jack, Will and Elizabeth. They worked to showcase the action as well as the monster and enemies the cast would face throughout the film. The trailers ended by saying that ‘Jack is back’, implying to fans that Jack Sparrow would return for another adventure. Upon its initial release, ‘The Guardian´ gave the film a 3/5, stating that the film took too long to get going, but once it did, it was just as good, if not better than the first. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an average score of 6/10, giving it only 54% out of 100, stating that the film lost its originality and humour that it had in the first film. Most of the reviews on IMDb are of high scores, 8 or 9/10. Most of the cast have appeared on talk shows to promote the film. Johnny Depp appeared in one on one interviews to discuss how the film was made and how certain scenes were done, which wold make it into magazines and newspapers, further spreading the word of the film. There were many product tie-ins for the film before it came out that continued afterwards. Things like nail polish and Halloween costumes were sold to help promote the new themes in the film.Producers will often look at websites like the BFI and Pearl and Dean for information about facts and figures surrounding their films, such as which age group are going to see them the most or what class they fall in to and what their gender is. The Pirates of the Caribbean series is a strange one to look at this way, and producers would be able to see this, as it has almost 50/50 split for gender on each film. They also have a generous split for age groups, with each group having an almost equal share in the films viewings, with the highest being 15-24 and 45+. This will have affected the way the fifth film was marketed in that it would have given the producers an eye into who wants to see the film and what class they fall into. Before the fifth film came out the producers will have looked at sites like this to get a better understanding of how to market the film. these sites help to discover what merchandising they should make, such as what toys or games to sell in the wake of the film coming out.

Success of the Marketing Strategy

I would say that the marketing strategy used for these films is quite successful, as all the films have made double their budget, making it the ninth highest grossing film series of all time, and the first to have multiple films make a billion dollars. You can also see the success of the marketing due to the creation of the many different posters for each film. There were 5 made for the first film, featuring Jack, Barbosa, Will and Elizabeth, as well as the main poster used for the main bulk of the marketing. They continue this trend throughout the whole series, making a poster for each main character, the villain and the main poster used on DVD’s and in cinemas. This allows the producers to plaster more advertising in more places because they have more to show, making it a kind of excuse for more people to see the ads. There were also many trailers made for each film. Each trailer that came out added to the last, showing and revealing more and more information each time. There were certain trailers made for certain reasons, some were made short to be shown at the Super Bowl, while some were made to shown on TV before the water shed so will be less violent. This all makes for a very successful use of the marketing and advertising for the series, evidenced by the massive amount of money the series has made. It can also be seen by the fact that the second film won an Academy Award for best Visual Effects, and the whole series has been nominated a number of times for different awards. The marketing strategy can also be seen as a success in terms of merchandising, according to LIMA (Licensing Industry Merchandiser Association), Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Men Tell No Tales is estimated to gross around 65 million dollars from merchandising alone, and some even say that may be too small an estimate.

Daily Production Log

Daily Production Log

20/3/17 - Truth

This was the first day we filmed, and we filmed part of Amy’s film, Truth. We needed to use a specific type of room and the only one that really worked was upstairs in the staff area of the college, so we asked our tutor Mark if we would be able to use a free room. He went about trying to find one and we were able to use an empty room for filming. On the production of Truth, Amy was the director, I was the assistant director, Andrew was the script supervisor and Logan was the DOP, for now at least. We began shooting at about 10 in the morning after the actors had all got their makeup done. We began filming in a small, pre-booked room for the scene in which Harper questions Jake. We got everything done that we needed for this shoot and began getting ready for the next shoot later in the day when the upstairs room was free. During this scene we needed Florence to cry for the scene, but when we needed it she couldn’t quite do it, so she went away for a little while and came back and nailed it. Over all it was quite a successful first day of filming. We filmed from around 10 till 5 for the day.

21/3/17 - Truth

The second day of filming for Truth went just as well as the first, resulting in us filming more than we needed for some scenes. As the assistant director, it was my job to help direct the actors and the DOP to better realise the directors vision. We started filming in the college and later we moved to Amy’s house to film the later scenes. We filmed some of the scene that had Harper talking to Webb about his daughter and introduced new actor Lucy to the film for her brief part. We only had Connor for a brief time this day so we had to try and get his scenes done as fast as possible after he arrived and I think we did this quite well. After this we moved with Sophie and Danny to Amy’s house to film their scenes. All I all it was quite a successful day of filming.

22/3/17 - Hidden in Plain Sight

The third day of filming was dedicated to my film, Hidden in Plain Sight, as it was then called. This entire day was a disaster from start to finish. We had only planned to film the night scenes today so that they were done and out of the way, but even this was difficult to do. We had planned it all so that Logan would go and get his props and take them to the location in Amy’s Grandad's car, and then he would come back and get Andrew to take to his house to get his props and take them to the location while all the actors were getting makeup done. It was planned to all work out in time so that we would be ready at the same time that Andrew and Logan were at location. But it didn’t go to plan at all and we ended up being a half an hour behind from the get go. Once we actually got to location it was raining so we had to rush to be under the bridge, all 18 of us, and had to rush around to get the set ready and all the actors in their places. Eventually people had to go and the whole shoot just sort of came apart at the seams until it was just me and Amy at the bridge. It was at this point that we decided to write the whole day of and not return to the Newport Bridge, and instead look for a new location. It is a shame how this day turned out because it was my first attempt at directing a film, and it was a disaster.

23/3/17 - Truth

This day of filming for Truth didn’t quite go as well as the first two, with delays from the start and a lack of proper organisation. The lack of organisation meant that we were put behind in terms of shots and timings for the next few days as a result of this. We managed to complete one scene and the makeup artists got to do some quality work on Sophie’s hand, creating a cut for the scene. Due to this day of filming the whole schedule had to be rearranged and we had to move the filming of Hidden to a later date. Other than these glaring issues we did manage to get a fair bit done today, so it wasn’t all bad.

24/3/17 - Truth

Once the schedule was figured out, again, we decided to film some of the night scenes for Truth today and get a smaller scene done earlier in the day. We got all but one of the actors ready in makeup and costume and headed down to film the earlier scene with him. Once this was done we waited for it to get darker and got Connor’s makeup done at location while we waited. While we waited Andrew went and got his dog for his small cameo scene, at this point it was dark enough to film so we got the scenes with the dog done first so he could go home. After this we filmed some more shots before it got too dark to film and called it a day. All in all it was a good day of filming, and it was a lot of fun to work with and help direct a dog.

27/3/17

Today we had a discussion with our teacher about Hidden and we came to the conclusion that it would be better if we re-wrote the whole script and began again on the new film.

28/3/17 - Truth

This was the first day of any kind of reshoot as we had to, and they were for Truth. Amy, Flo and Sol weren’t happy with the way they looked and all wanted to reshoot them, so we booked the room out again to get it done so we could move on with the next shoot. We wanted to reshoot more scenes later in the day, due to noise in the background of the shots, but found that the room we needed was already booked out so we couldn’t use it. During the first set of reshoots, we filmed everything that didn’t include crying first then we let Flo go off and get ready to cry again, and we got that sorted too.

30/3/17 - Truth

This was the day we were due to film in the Principals office, originally at 5 in the afternoon, but that got pushed back to 5:30 due to the Principal needing the room. We were planning on using a new piece of equipment that we hadn’t used before, a low down, wheeled tripod. It was difficult to use at first but after we figured it out it was surprisingly easy to use. There were some difficulties during this shoot, from load music coming from the dance studio to a very quiet mic, but all in all I think it went quite well, and it was fun to film in the Principals room.  We had to finish quick, or so we thought, as we only had the room till 7, but by that point everyone had gone home so we could have the room for longer. Unfortunately the next area we wanted to film in had closed for the day by this point so new couldn’t film there.

31/3/17 – Hidden and Truth

Today’s shoot was on Hidden and Truth, and it was going to be a long day. We started early at college filming a scene with Josh Wilson, then moved to the high street with Connor for his scene, then he went home while we all went to Amy’s house to film the rest of the scenes with each cast member helping with their fake Facebook accounts. It was a complicated set up but we got through it. After this the camera was almost dead so we went back to college to wait till we were ready for the next shoot. We decided to go to KFC for a meal before we began shooting, and it was only then that we realised that the camera hadn’t been put on charge so we couldn’t really film anything that we were going to. Once again we had to push things back.

3/4/17 - Hidden

This was another day of filming for Hidden, this time we were filming a small scene in the morning with Charlotte and then went back to college to figure out how we were going to film in the new location for the rest of the film. It was a relatively short day; I think we all needed it.

4/4/17 - Truth and Hidden

Today we had booked out the small meeting room to reshoot a scene with Sol and Josh. It was a quick shoot as we got everything we needed in record time, making sure everything was the way the director wanted it. After this we went to film scenes from Hidden. We set up a makeshift camp at the back of the college and got to filming, however some of the actors weren’t taking things seriously, as they were laughing during shots. As the day got later and darker we had to rush around getting barely any takes for each shot as we had spent so much time earlier in the day. After we got everything we could for the shoot we packed up and were asked to leave the area as the college was closing. After this we filmed some shots for Truth of Sophie’s body being found. This went comparatively well in relation to the shoot for Hidden. It was quite a rollercoaster all day today.

5/4/17 - Truth

Today we had to reshoot some scenes from in the EDGE bar, after they didn’t work out last time. We managed to get more done than we needed to, but unfortunately Josh had to leave early so we couldn’t get everything with him done. After this we went to the riverside to get some scenes their done. We reshot a scene from earlier and got done everything we needed to. It was a relatively successful day today.

6/4/17 - Truth

Today was a bit of a disaster as one of our main actors didn’t come in. we couldn’t really film anything with any of the others, as they all had to go early. While it was a wasted day it put everything in perspective of how little we had to do now.

7/4/17 - Hidden

On this shoot we were only in for a little while, filming with Dan and Lucy for the most part. We filmed around a lot of the college and used lots of equipment. I took over from Andrew on a lot of the shots as his shoes were making too much noise when he was walking with the dolly. All in all a successful day.

12/4/27 - Truth

On this shoot we were going to finish the whole of Truth, what we had left, but one of our actors didn’t show up as he had been filming with the second years till late. Because of this we could only get a few shots before we had to call it a day. As the assistant director I took it upon myself to try and console everyone after the way this film was going at this point. We were trying really hard but things just weren’t going right.

19/4/17 - Truth

On the final day we gathered all the cast we needed and headed to the bar late at night. We didn’t have long to film as we had already begun to feel like we were messing the bar owners around, but once we got there we knuckled down and got to work. We filmed everything we needed and called a final wrap on the production of Truth. We have learned a lot from this film and from Hidden, and will try to have our future films not end up the same.

The Importance of Pre-Production

The Importance of Pre-Production

Pre-production is a very important part of any film production, as it decides how the film will turn out before it has even begun filming. Pre-production is basically all the different things you need to do before you can actually make a film like; casting, risk assessments, location scouting, script readings and re-writes if necessary. All the things that will dictate how and where the film is made and who with. In order to successfully produce a film, you need to have prim and proper pre-production paperwork. This means that everything that needs doing is done days, maybe even weeks, beforehand, making sure that everyone know what they are doing and where to be. If this is done properly then all should be good.

On my short film, Hidden, when I first took over the director’s role on the film not much of the pre-production paperwork had been done so we were already at a disadvantage from the start. I tried to salvage what I could for the film to be made but at that point it was too little too late and the whole filmed suffered and ultimately got cancelled because of a lack of quality pre-production paperwork. Because we lacked even a small amount of the correct paperwork on the shoot day, we couldn’t film what we need to, putting us a day behind, meaning we then had to wait for another day to open so we could film. All because we lacked a few bits of paper, an entire short film went down like a lead balloon.


The production of Truth went much better comparatively, mainly due to better pre-production work. Amy, the director, worked on most of the paperwork long before the film went into production, so the actual production of the film went a lot smoother. All the paperwork was done in advance so that it was ready for when it was needed, I worked on the risk assessments for each location, and filled them with all kinds of crazy scenarios that would never happen, but they needed to be listed just in case. The casting-call sheets where all done the night before so the actors and makeup people knew what was going on the next day. Due to the better use of time and the better management of the pre-production paperwork, the production of the film went better overall. 

Of all the different paperwork used in the pre-production of a film, there isn’t much used on an actual film set, just things like the script, shoot schedule, shot list and makeup and costume paperwork. A great example of a single piece of paperwork not being done dooming a shoot would be the first shoot day for Hidden in Plain Sight. The original director had not properly done any location scouting and this caused people to not know where they were going or what we needed to do or take, so the whole shoot just fell apart. I feel that we have taken this in stride and learned from it, and we will not make these same mistakes again.

All in all it is obvious that pre-production is a very important part of film making, and without it, there would be no film making. As is the case in Hollywood and in all other areas of film making, if even one piece of paperwork is not done, the whole shoot will fall apart. I have seen this first hand and it is not a pretty sight.