Weekly Progress & Plan ⋆⑅˚₊

This is my weekly progress and plan for my documentary project.

Below, is the plan for this project.

Stage	Week	Blogpost No.	Blog Name	Description of Blogpost
Pre-Production	W1	1	Brief	Description of the brief, embed powerpoint
	W2	2	Plan & Weekly Progress	A weekly journal that is updated at the end pf each week. Contains a list of what you do, problems, solutions, and a to-do list
		3	Team	Your team + Links ot their blogs
		4	Research	Research into relevant documentary openings of the same genre (crime)
	W3	5	Statement of Intent	Proposal for the details of your project. Final product, target audience etc
		6	Storyboard & Script/Screenplay	Scene by scene storyboard
	W4	7	Location Scout & Risk Assessment	Possible shooting locations, risk assessment table
		8	Filming Schedule	Schedule of when you will film, what locations, and what you need to prepare
Production	W5	9	Behind the Scenes	Images of the shoot. What problems did you face in the shooting day, how did you overcome them? What was everyones role on the day?
Post-Production	W6	10	Thumbnail (Research & Development)	Research into similar thumbnails. Development of own ideas.
	W7	11	Editing Process	How did you edit? Challenges, solutions
		12	Critical Reflection	Self Reflection Essay
	W8
		13	Final (Submission)	Final doc, thumbnail

Weekly Progress:

Week 1: 

Back in media class again, but this time in grade 12. I’m excited to carry out all the projects and do my best. As I had back-to-school orientation, I didn’t attend that many media classes, so this week served as an introduction and brief to our documentary project. Mr Nick switched our groups, and I’m quite happy with my group. I’m excited to see how this project will turn out. I also did some research into crime documentaries in class.

Week 2:  

This week, we did even more research into crime documentaries and their thumbnails. I think this is useful so we can understand the conventions of this genre. I think i should conduct my own research at home for more crime-specific documentaries. We started our statement of intent today too, where we planned to create a stalking documentary. It seems like I’ll be the main actor again… how did this happen.

Week 3:

This week, we started working on blogs such as storyboard, script, and location scout and risk assessment. I am in charge of the script as last year, I did not really like the dialogue we used for my project. So now, I’m happy to take more creative control over dialogue. This is my first time not storyboarding, as Candra and Maisie are in charge of that, so it’s nice to try something new. So far, we got this blogs done relatively quick. 

Week 4:

This week, my group and I finished up our statement of intent and started brainstorming what ideas we could take from other crime (specifically stalking) documentary openings. This week, my class learnt about power and the media. We learnt about what content is produced, who's its produced by, how it’s distributed and who does it affect. 

Week 5: 

This week, my group and I started looking for actors to act as the stalker in our story. We needed someone who was available and is able to drag away a tall guy, who’s acting as the boyfriend. We looked around and we found someone to both act and voice act as the stalker. We then created a filming schedule, so we can easily plan when we need to set aside time for filming and see who is available on which days. We also started continuing our script and storyboard, as we planned to film on Saturday this week. However, our actor and voice actor for the stalker, Gusde, canceled plans last minute, forcing us to use Sagara as the stalker actor. Thankfully, we saw this coming and asked Sagara to wear dark colored clothing in advanced, making it possible for him o act. Additionally, Candra arrived late due to personal reasons, so we started filming scenes that did not require his involvement first. 

Week 6:

This week, I started writing notes for CR preparation. My teacher created a table with sub-questions that I could answer to create notes for each CR questions. This will help create a guideline of what I am going to include in my CR essay, making it easier for me to create the flow of points. Additionally, since we already started filming, we started brainstorming ideas on what order to put these shots in. While our storyboard serves as a guideline, we still want to change some parts. We plan on filming the next shots such as the main girl’s interviews and reenactments of our first scene this week on Sunday. This was difficult to plan as one of our members had an event to attend to on Saturday, when we originally planned to film. These last minute schedule changes are frustrating, but we have to make sacrifices so we are able to film as a full team.

Week 7: 

This week, it was really difficult to find time to film together as a full team. This week, violent demonstrations and protests have broken out in my country, making it unsafe for me and my team to pass certain areas, film at night and even meet up to film. When we filmed this Sunday, where we bumped into 30-ish police officers when trying to film in a public park at night. We were told we were not allowed to film, so we were forced to find an alternative location. Additionally, we could not film until late at night, as our parents advised us to go home earlier because of the protests. Unfortunately, Candra was unable to attend, so again, we focused on scenes including me, the main actor, and the stalker. We were able to work productively even under stressful circumstances. We also started brainstorming ideas for thumbnails, and decided a pinboard-style thumbnail would be best. However, we can only make it at school due to lack of resources. 

Week 8:

This week, I’m really starting to stress out. We’re getting closer and closer to the deadline, and I haven’t started my CR or finished filming. Thankfully, we plan to film again on the weekends, which will be our final filming session. This time, we brought along more people to help. Since we did not require that many scenes anymore, we were relaxed and instead filmed extra scenes just incase we needed more footage. The thumbnail is finalized, and Candra (the editor) just needs to finish editing the video. I’ve been working on finishing up all my blogs this week, and I’m grateful I do not have to do personal reflections on every post, or else I would get drained very easily. I still need to keep in mind that this is a practice project for the next one. Additionally, the team met up another 2 times this week to chip away at editing and blogs. I was unable to attend the 1st one due to dance practice, but I attended the 2nd one, where we went to a cafe and worked on remaining blogs. 

Week 9: 

One day before submission and I’ve just started the CR. Unfortunately I never learn and I still procrastinate after all this time. Thankfully an essay is much less work than 4 different pieces of media (CCR), so I was able to get some sleep in before I started working on it for hours. I’m a bit nervous, since the video is just freshly done, and other blogs aren’t done yet. However, I’m very motivated to get all this done and I actually like the final product of our documentary.