First Draft of Evaluation

For our opening we went out onto the street and asked pedestrians for their opinions on our chosen subject. We put this a the very beginning of our documentary to introduce the idea using people from our target audience - everyday people. Because it was filmed outside, next to a road, there is a lot of ambient noises such as cars, which makes it harder to hear what the people are saying. Although this adds to the naturalistic feel, if we did this part again we would have chosen a quieter surrounding.


After looking at Louis Theroux's style of documentary making, we decided to create ours in the style of taking a journey of discovery. We filmed a few establishing shots such as our time on the tube to illustrate when we went to interview Sharon Ferguson. The shot of Elliott and Alex walking towards the camera introduces the idea of the interviewers being part of the learning experience. An establishing shot of Oxford House is the last of our journey filming which allows for a smooth and simplisitic transition into Sharon's interview.


While the setting of Sharon's interview looks like an office, it is actually the headquarters of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. It contained lots of leaflets and pictures in relation to her cause, which meant we had some relevant cutaways by filming around the room. Its unfortunate that the monitor of her computer is on in the background as it is slightly distracting. We kept to the rule of thirds by placing Sharon slightly to the right of the frame and asked her to answer our questions looking to the left.


To introduce our second interview we used a slow low-angle panning shot to film a church which is obviously relevant to our subject. We had Julie's voice over the shot before seeing her to connect what she was talking about with the church.


During Julie's interview we had a quick succession of cutaways that we researched on the internet to quickly illustrate her points. There is also a screenshot of what she is talking about to support her speech and show that it is a widely talked about issue.


For the interview with Julie we placed her to the left of the frame and asked her to speak looking towards the right again to keep to the rule of thirds.


We had a lot of trouble choosing music for our documentary, but eventually decided to use a neutral melody that is simple and calming - keeping with the mood of our documentary.


We cut between the two interviews because they are answering the same question and so we juxtaposed their answers for contrast. During the interviews we zoomed in on Sharon's face to amplify her emotions towards what she is talking about.


At the end of our documentary we justified our lack of an opposing view. We used an over-the-shoulder shot of Alex and then a zoom into the computer to show our research into churches. The voiceover makes it clear to the audience what we are trying to get across and this is emphasised by Alex crossing out church names and numbers, all being numbers we had previously tried and failed to interview. We used an extreme close-up for this part so that the audience can read what is written on the paper and a cross-dissolve transition to illustrate time passing. The end is in slow motion because it properly portrays our disappointment which is a feature taken from other documentaries that we have looked at. We used a fade out t the very end to give an unfinished 'end of part one' feel.