Documentary Proposal

For the film element of the production we will be creating a 10-minute documentary on the life of Michael George Pope. On the 1st of October 1980 Michael had an unfortunate accident working on his arable farm. While attending to a stone caught up in the workings of his combine harvester he lost his balance and caught his leg in the machinery; severing his right leg just above the knee. Clasping the arteries in his leg he crawled back to the farmhouse through barbed wire fences to call an ambulance.

Now using a prosthetic replacement for the lower part of his leg he cycles for charity, to raise thousands of pounds. Along with various trips to other countries he was also the first amputee on the North Pole and whilst gaining these achievements he has also continued to run multiple farms.

Michael has been kind enough to lend his life diary to us which gives first had accounts of a multitude of events including that of the accident itself. This is useful to us in many ways but mostly for its historical references, supplying a vast depth of information allowing us to explore an archive route. After going to meet Michael at his farm we took the opportunity to assess the location for its suitability for filming. There are two lounges each one ideal to for a interview with Michael in an environment he will feel comfortable in, hopefully allowing us to capture the human emotion behind the stories. The landscape is typical of rural Somerset complete with rolling fields allowing shots with a great depth of field, this environment would be good for cut away sequences and would contrast with the enclosed interview environment. These could include Michael cycling on his bike/working around the farm, or purely a picturesque image related to the dialogue.

Within the interview we would like to focus on the accident itself and the effect it has had on his life. As he may have told the story many times in his lifetime so there is a danger that it has become more scripted over the years and become sparse in raw emotion. However for the documentary to be successful we would need to capture this underlying emotion, this can be done through carefully written interview questions which ask Michael to elaborate on his feelings and thoughts on the effect of his accident. We believe that this will supply us with more meaningful, yet still honest content for the documentary.

There is also the chance of acquiring an interview with Michael’s wife, this would be extremely useful as it could supply a second opinion or view point on parts of Michael’s stories, again helping us to uncover the human emotion behind the practiced stories of an ideal man.

Introductions

I am a student at university studying media practice, currently in my second year. This blog is more intended as a learning journal; a means to document my research and production processes.
I am currently working in a production team of 7 on a cross platform documentary piece. The finished piece will include a 10min film based documentary, a 6min sound based documentary, and a website to host both audio and video, whilst also supplying a third interactive element to the documentary. Each of the three productions will differ in content whilst adding toward the collective theme.
We are currently in the research stage of the production and are chasing various leads to find a compelling story that we may document. so .. onward with the working game.