Space
As research I watched some of the BBC documentary series “space- with Sam Neil” last night.
It was a feast of extremely well shot whit-less rubbish. Beautiful visuals and absolutely no content to speak of. The presenter (who they’d obviously spent a lot of money on) continually repeated the same blindingly obvious statements and tiny pieces of information (which never got explored or justified) over and over again in different expensive looking locations along with repeated CG shots which told you very little.

They talked about the problems with rocket propulsion by racing a dragster against a smart car – pointing out that one went fast for a short distance and one went slow for a long way. Pretty, but frankly a waste of screen time.

I know, I know – “show don’t tell” but really – I think there’s a place for “tell”.

I, on the other hand don’t have the budget for expensive visuals. I can’t arrange a drag race, I can’t send my interviewees up in a balloon for no good reason. I can’t hire a Hollywood actor and put them on a yacht to explain solar sailing.

If I’m to compete with this, I have to do it with content. I have to have strong interviewees, interesting stories, carefully researched perspectives and well written narrative.

Maybe that’s the way you avoid dumming down in TV – take their budgets away. Certainly without a budget, there’s nothing to hide behind if your show isn’t up to scratch.

However, I do have an advantage over these high budget efforts. It’s just me, I’m doing the research, the interviews and the writing as well as the animation and editing. That means I won’t loose the thread of what’s going on. I know the research, so I know (hopefully) what to ask at the interviews. I know the interviews, so I know what I’m looking for in the edit.

Also, when I find that an approach isn’t working, or a new possibility appears, I don’t need to ask anyone. I can just follow it. I can junk the whole programme if I don’t think it’s working and nobody’s going to sue me. I can change the subject and it won’t matter.

I can be flexible. I can also fit in around interviewees – going to wherever they are and fitting in with their schedule. This means I can’t shoot the interviews in hot air balloons, but it also means I can get interviewees I wouldn’t get if I needed them to commit days or weeks of their time to the project. I can be in and out in an hour, and I can do it without any fuss.

Questions
I spend the morning trying to work out sensible questions for tomorrow’s interviews. I’m not an expert in warp bubble mathematics, so I’m hoping I can make some kind of sense and that I haven’t got anything terribly wrong. I think I’ve got a handle on the basics, and as long as I can get the interviewees to explain themselves in fairly plain language, it should work fine.

I print out the questions and copies of the most important documents I have – the location and interviewee release agreements. Without these, my documentary will be useless – un-saleable. Everyone who’s interviewed and everyone who appears needs to sign a form and every location needs to be cleared. I always carry spares.

I also realise I’ve got no business cards, so I quickly hash some up on photoshop.

Shooting Kit
I check and pack my shooting kit for tomorrow. My kit is a little unconventional, and doesn’t make me look very professional, but it seems to work for me and I can set up in minutes:

Camcorder, battery and charger (sony HDR-HC1)
Plenty of tapes and gaffer tape
Tripod (not a proper fluid head one – a lightweight tripod more suited to stills work)
Microphone and spare (both tie-clip mics purchased from Maplins) – I’d really like a decent on-camera directional mic, but don’t have one. I’m using mono mics plugged into a stereo socket – all I need to do is copy the tracks across during editing. Stereo mics and a mixer would be useful, but I’ll have to do without.
Gels –a pack of different colours - never found them particularly useful, but I carry them anyway.
Lights: a standard lighting kit costs about £1000 and fits into a small trunk. My lighting kit consists of 2 x150w work-lights and 1x500w work light – all from B&Q. total cost less than £20. they come with big crocodile clips so you can clip them to doors, furniture, etc. however, I usually just use the big one to raise the light level in the room rather than trying to do anything fancy.
1x reflector – dirt cheap from ebay - this is a new purchase so I’ve never tried it before. I’m going to use the gold side (it has gold, silver, black and white) to try to give my interviewees a slightly warm look. Let’s see how I do.
1x green screen cloth – probably won’t need it, but you never know. If the background is really crap, I can always superimpose a new one. My lighting kit really isn’t up to chromakey , but my software is top of the range, so I’ll be able to wing it if I need to.

Oh- and a map of where I’m going!

And that’s it. all of it fits snugly into a satchel and a convenient suicide-bomber style rucksack.