3 minute wonder production blog

November 1st 2013
The idea
My idea for my 3 minute wonder is to address Asperger syndrome, or "Asperger's." It will be a simple shoot of having someone with Asperger's say what it is like to have it, have an expert give a brief description on what it is, and have someone who has lived with someone who suffers from Asperger syndrome. It will require a lot of editing to cut it down to 3 minutes, but as long as all the interview subject give workable answers then it should be fine. The target audience are those who discover that someone they know (Family, friends) has Asperger's or they have it themselves and just to help them know what that means for whoever has it.

November 10th 2013
A small change
It has been made clear to me that I cannot use the expert in Asperger's and the person who has lived with someone with it as they will likely give too long answers and will not be able to use them at all. What I need to remember is that it is only 3 minutes and I cannot fit 3 interviews into that short a time. The interview with the person who has it will be more than enough.

November 11th 2013
Preparation
Filming will need to take place soon and I still need to make my proposal and pitch for the documentary. The proposal is close to completion and hopefully will be finished by tomorrow.

November 12th 2013
Ready to film
With the pitch/proposal now complete and knowing what I want to do for the documentary I feel that I can now go out and film. For the interview subject I will be giving a statement myself on my views on having Asperer syndrome. This does make it easier for me to film my 3 minute wonder as I know what I am looking for and can answer the main question. I won't be preparing any answers before I film the interview and will improvise an answer when it comes to filming.

November 21st 2013
Getting the equipment
To be perfectly honest, I was procrastinating getting the equipment and filming the documentary. But an opportunity arrised that has allowed me to finally film it. We went out to film another documentary about Paul Burgam, I was trusted with the equipment to take home so I can now film my 3 minute wonder. I will have that finished tomorrow.

November 22nd 2013
Finally filming
The previous night me and 3 others from my class filmed a section for another documentary as a group project separate from the 3 minute wonder. After that was filmed I was trusted with the equipment to take home until Monday. I took the opportunity of having the equipment to film my 3 minute wonder and also made a little short film (Just because I could). In filming the 3 minute wonder I had my the camera set up on the tripod and the clip mic attached to my shirt and answered common questions asked about having Asperger syndrome. This included "What triggers your abnormal behaviour?" "How friends/ family treated you any different since finding out about your Asperger's?" Etc. It took a few takes, I never realised how much I could talk to answer just one question. And after I was happy with what was filmed I watched it back a few seconds. As it turned out I forgot to turn on the microphone. I already had 9 minutes of footage (Which was now worthless) so I thought to myself to either re-record the interview with the microphone on this time, or add some non-diegetic dialogue in to try to sync up what I was saying. I came to the conclusion of just filming again as it was the easier choice. When the interview was finally over I was leaving the house with my equipment to get some cutaways of Redcar. I had planned to get a long panning shot from New Marske woods, shots of a moving train (Internal and external) A shot from the top of the beacon and the rest of the cutaways were filmed inside the house. When getting the external shot of the train I was surprised to see the station was filled with police men. I thought that with the amount of dogs and them looking through the bushes that they were searching for a large stash of drugs or something else illegal. As it turned out the royal train was pulling into Redcar and they were looking for anything that might cause harm to the royals. After getting 5-15 seconds of footage of the train one of the policemen came to me and asked me to leave. I explained what I was doing and he let me off but asked to not film any more on the platform. I knew something like this would happen so that was why I was stood in an area far away enough from them that it took them some time to get to me, and I could still get a good shot of the train. That night I was happy with what I got and received a message from another member of my class Isaak Hest. He needed the equipment so he could film the next day and asked if I could meet him tomorrow to give him it. I agreed and also took the opportunity of having the equipment that one night to make my short horror film.

November 25th 2013
Capturing
Came in ready to capture the footage. The 3 minute wonder footage was fine. The short horror was fine. The longer group documentary tape however was corrupted and all footage was lost. 2 out of 3 ain't bad, but it is still very annoying.

December 10th 2013

Beginning the edit
Admittedly it did take me a while to get around to the edit but that was only due to other assignments deadlines approaching. I knew the first 9 minutes of footage were useless due to the lack of sound, the rest was completely usable. It took a total of around 1 hour and a half to get it cut down and edited to completion of the offline edit. All that was needed then was to add in the cutaways and soundtrack. Unfortunately the day was at an end so I would have to come back the next day to finish it off.

December 16th 2013

Almost finished edit
I know I said I'd do it on the 11th but again other work took priority. Either way by the end of thew day I had the whole thing almost completed. All the cut aways and the voice over were shot and added to the video. All that was required was the soundtrack, which is my weakest point. It may take a while.

January 6th 2014

Finally finished
It took a while but after failing at creating my own soundtrack I decided to hunt for some royalty free music and after several searches and attempts at finding the perfect music I found one that worked very well with what was being said at what time. Here is the link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pSAzEN07Xk. I now feel confident burning it onto a disk.

January 9th 2014

Burned
The video is now burned and handed in.