I've had my heart set on producing a video documentary for my major multimedia project ever since I got to university. I love the way a story can be told through video, and I find it a platform that I can apply my creative tendencies to with the most ease.
Obviously the current pandemic has made this exponentially more difficult. The element of colour, emotion and storytelling a video documentary relies on is all usually drawn from face to face interactions, interviews and everything that comes in between.
For the majority of the time I've been working on this project, not much of that has been possible, or even legal!
I didn't want this to be the final nail in the coffin for my project, so from the start I've viewed the circumstances as an obstacle that can be overcome. As time has progressed it's been more like a stream of obstacles, changing on a daily, that I have to dodge, jump, even cruel under to drag myself to the finish line.
The struggles:
Covid-19 circumstances for football teams - I managed to secure an interview with Yeovil United's head of performance Ewan Greenhill just before the November lockdown was announced. We had planned an interview and I had permission to come and film the first team during a pitch and gym training session.
This had potential for a range of really dynamic and relevant shots. However, someone in the team tested positive, therefore the whole team had to isolate for 2 weeks so I was unable to film any sessions when I went to Yeovil for the interview with Ewan.
This made things a lot more difficult as I had a scarce amount of GV's to use in my documentary to make it more interesting/break up Ewan's interview.
November lockdown announcement and the restrictions - The lockdown restrictions put in place in November were probably the biggest hurdle I had to face throughout this production journey.
Under new guidelines drafted by the university, no face to face interviews were permitted that were not conducted on university campus, and the only locations I was allowed to film in was the university campus and within the walls of my own home. For a video documentary, these kind of limitations are crushing. It was a hard pill to swallow.
This fell amongst the most densely packed month of my project's production, and
forced me to adapt my whole structure. I now had to think outside the box in terms of how I could get the most out of the locations that I could film in, and also in terms of how to make zoom interviews more interesting visually.
My surgery getting postponed - From the get go, I had been planning this documentary around my knee surgery date, which was meant to be in December 2020. Both myself and my mentor Brad had discussed how weaving in my personal experience would be a great addition to the documentary.
Unfortunately due to covid-19 circumstances my surgery got called off, and I am now back on the waiting list. Not only was this hard to deal with on a personal level, but it also took a big chunk out of the project, which I had been so excited to include.
The successes:
I'm a firm believer in the phrase..
"every cloud has a silver lining"
Undoubtedly the production process has been difficult during a pandemic, but it has also lead me to pathways that I'm grateful for.
Securing interviews - The lockdown meant that the 2/3 of my interviews had to be via zoom. This wasn't all zoom and gloom. It meant that I could be way more ambitious with who I interviewed - because I didn't have to worry about the cost and practicality of travelling to different locations.
Had my interviews not been over zoom, I may not have been able to travel to the likes of London to interview Crystal Palace player Ashlee Hinks.
Utilising my opportunities - We're all guilty of procrastination. If this journey has taught me anything, it's that getting ahead of the game early will put you in the best position possible. As students, we had a 3 day warning as to when the new filming restrictions were going to come into place.
This spun a lot of people out, including myself, but I made sure I shook away the doubt and uncertainty and tried to make the most of the last few days of filming freedom.
In this period I managed to go to an outdoor women's football session so that I could try and gather as much filler footage as possible. I also re-arranged my interview with Ewan and rushed down to Yeovil to get it done so that I would definitely have at least one face to face interview.
The stress of trying to cram this in before the restrictions came into place was not enjoyable, but I surprised myself with how much I could get done if I really turned the gas on!