MY CAREER AS A DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER

When I first began my journey into filmmaking, I was going to be a screenwriter. I'd constantly be sat at my desk trying to think of the next big story I could put down onto paper. Whether it be from a bank heist gone wrong to a love story with all the clichés. I never thought that they would go anywhere, they were just stories for me to read and enjoy the images I created in my head. Not once did I think they would appear on the big screen. When I got my first camera at 14, I was filming anything and everything, trying to get to grips with zoom, the aspect ratio, colouring, whip pans etc.

MY INSPIRATION

Watching Peter Jackson at work making Lord of the Rings furthered my passion to make films. That was when I wanted to become a film director. But, my first film would be a genre I did not think I would even contemplate even attempting, let alone becoming an actual career. Fast forward to June 2017. I was in the summer holidays after my second year as a Theatre student at university. I was wanting to make a drama film, something which could stand out from the rest and really captivate an audience. I wanted something real. A character that was so believable, you'd think it was actually real life. That's when I decided I would write to one of the most notorious serial killers in British history. If I wanted to get into the mind set of someone evil, I had to find someone who truly was.

THE LETTER THAT BEGAN A DOCUMENTARY

In the 1960s, Moors Murderer Ian Brady sent shock waves across the nation with his killing of five children over a period of 2 years. I sent him a letter with some questions and posted it. After a few months I was close to scrapping the project, when I received an envelope with scruffy handwriting. Opening it up, it was from the man himself. I could not believe I actually had a letter from this man. That's when I started thinking, what else could I get from him? There had been a documentary 9 months previously released on Channel 5 and I thought, if I'm getting letters off this man, I could make a documentary that could possibly change the Moors case.

RESEARCH

So began my journey into documentaries. During the course of 6 months, we exchanged letters back and forth and I began interviewing people close to him. May 2018, Ian Brady died. I not only had letters from him before the end, but I was the last filmmaker to have written contact with him. From what I had in the letters, I had to make the film. But, I'll take a step back. How do you go about creating a documentary?

HOW TO MAKE YOUR DOCUMENTARY

First thing's first is you need a subject. What is out there that hasn't been done before which can attract an audience and create a wider scope of the topic you want to pursue? Granted, Ian Brady has been covered ad nauseam on television and printed press, but what about the motivation for his crimes? That hadn't come up and I jumped at the opportunity to look further into it. Once you have your subject, what I tend to do is research into professionals who can talk about that subject, whether it be from medical professionals, authors, journalists, someone with some knowledge on your subject which in the later run can prove to be beneficial to your project.

finding your INTERVIEWees

You don't want to go overboard with the amount of people you interview, I mean, you can interview as many as you want, but at the end of the day only some will provide you with relevant information and others will just repeat what other interviewees have said, so try to hone down on who you want to talk to. Once you have the interviews completed, I create a transcript of every interview and look at what answer I want to use in my film. Highlight it, time code it and keep that for the edit. It sounds quite time consuming but it is worth while if you want to get the exact message across for your audience. This is where the script comes in.

CREATING YOUR SCRIPT

Usually, a script is done beforehand to get the basic skeleton for your film. But, for my documentaries, if I have highlighted answers I want to use in my film, I can move them around and create a basic structure for where I want my story to go and it appears right in front of your eyes. Another great thing about the highlighted answers is the research into them. For example, if someone has said something about Brady's visit to the Moors in the 1980s, search the video libraries for archive footage to accentuate the point the interviewee is making and to give more flavour to the film. No one wants to sit and watch people on a chair for 45 minutes, if you have actual footage from the time to go alongside it, I consider that a bonus. It gives more weight to your film and adds to the validity of your sources so they can't be discredited later.

CRAFTING YOUR FILM

When I had all of this material together, I then began the edit. With a solid structure in place, it made my life easier later when I was piecing together all the material and seeing the story come to life. This is where you either make or break your film. The edit is the most important aspect of the whole job. If you can't get across what you want to to your audience, then they'll switch off.

EDITING

You need to pace everything correctly, not jumping from interview to archive, interview to archive – find that niche which makes your documentary stand out. For me, I do a mixture of aerial footage, cutaways, archive, interviews and present to camera shots to give more for the audience to absorb and keep the film looking more fresh. When the film was completed, it had a one-off broadcast on Channel 4 and that was the end of it. What do I do now? I was so caught up in the process of making the film, it got me wanting to make more documentaries. I had created a formula which I liked and could work to efficiently.

IT CAN LEAD TO BIGGER THINGS

December 2018 – I was asked to a meeting to create a documentary film about an upcoming archaeological excavation of a former housing estate where 300 Jewish children from the Holocaust had lived after the Second World War. I was always interested in the Holocaust at school and I could put some of that knowledge to use. I already had my interviewees, the archaeologists. But, it wasn't going to be like my previous documentary. This was an event which was everyday for 2 weeks. To get prepared for the film, I started watching Time Team as I was told the structure of the film would follow very closely to that. I watched the edits and pacing to try and get a skeleton for what my film would look like. In February 2019, I travelled to Poland and filmed at Auschwitz-Birkenau for the documentary to give the film not only more weight, but to add onto what the survivors would say in later interviews. As this was a film shot completely out of order, I shot as much as I could and whatever I could to have more clips in the edit. The raw files topped nearly 3,000. There was a lot of work to do ahead of the release, which will be in January 2020.

CONCLUSION- POST PRODUCTION AND REFLECTION

Whilst that film is currently in post-production, I have been hired to create 2 more documentary films, a cinema advert and to create 3 short films over the course of 2 years. As well as other projects as they come to me. From sitting at my desk fumbling about a drama story and the one-off chance of writing to Ian Brady, I have become a successful documentary filmmaker with more work lined up than I thought I would have. Doing press work and promotions on radio and television is very daunting, but in the end, it gets your name out there and pushes your work to newer heights. If you think something isn't working, find something new. That's what I did.