Pitch | Development

• We decided that the title of our documentary will be 'Nurturing Nature'. 
• We all liked this title as it fitted in with our subject and we liked the alliteration within in. 
• Sammi went first and introduced us and the basics of the subject. 
• Nisserin then went next and went on to explain the problems that we want to solve. 
• Then it was my turn. I discussed the expected outcome of the problems, how we're planning our documentary to look like, and theme & premise of the film. 
• Nisserin then finished with why we are doing this, and Sammi answered any questions that were asked by Simon and Helen.

• The outcome of our pitch was good and Helen and Simon were very pleased with what we presented to them. They liked our idea and thought the outcome would be terrific.

Writing the Pitch and Treatment | Development

To prepare for our pitch on our chosen idea, we decided to meet up as a group and write the pitch together. While we were together, we also decided it would be a good idea to write our treatment as that was something we had to get done as well.

• To start the pitch, we looked through our notes on our previous lectures and came up with a list of points that we needed to include, while also making a list of points that we wanted to include to make our pitch sound interesting and informative. 
• We found a guideline online to help us with both the pitch and the treatment, and it give us some direction on how to start each slide and each paragraph.

• We all decided what we should include in each slide and how we wanted to explain our idea.
• We added a few images to help sell the idea and we decided that we would say more during the pitch, rather than adding it all on the slides.

• Once the pitch was done, we decided what slides everyone would present. 
• We all had roughly 3 slides each to keep it equal, and we made sure to look through the presentation a few times to get used to what we were presenting.

Countryside Stewardship Scheme | Research

As part of our documentary, we are talking about something called the 'Countryside Stewardship Scheme'. Before going any further with the development of our documentary I decided to do some research on the scheme.

The Scheme

• When talking to John in our first encounter, he mentioned the scheme and told us what there aim is and how they help his farm, while also giving us some negatives on it to create an argument which will help us when writing the script for the documentary.

• On 'GOV.UK' it has a whole section on the countryside stewardship scheme and what it basically is -

The Country Stewardship [CS] provides financial incentives for land managers to look after their environment through activities such as:

• conserving and restoring wildlife habitats
• flood risk management
• woodland creation and management
• reducing widespread water pollution from agriculture
• keeping the character of the countryside
• preserving features important to the history of the rural landscape
• encouraging educational access

The scheme is:

• open to all eligible farmers, woodland owners, foresters and other land managers
• suitable or many types of land use (eg conventional and organic farmland, coastal areas, uplands and woodlands)
• competitive
• scored against local priority targets to maximise environmental benefit

• The CS was put in place in June 2015 and the organisations who were involved were Natural England, Forestry Commission, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and others. The scheme was last updated, recently, on March 14th 2016.

Idea Choice | Development

Neither me or Nisserin got any replies from our emails, which is quite disappointing, but Sammi did get a reply, which is really good.

The Chosen Idea

• She had previously contacted Broadditch Farm in Southfleet in Kent, and she managed to get a reply from one of the two farmers, who's name is John Harris. 
• She had asked him if we could come and talk to him about his job, in order to get some information on the farm and the way the climate is changing too rapidly. We arranged to meet up with him and put together some questions that we wanted to ask him.

• After speaking to John, we learnt a lot about the farm history and how it's all run. Through this we learnt about a scheme that they are apart of which is called 'The Countryside Stewardship Scheme'. 
• John told us about the scheme and what effects, both positive and negative, it has on the farmers and we were very interested in the scheme, as we hadn't known about it before. 
• Throughout the talk, he mentioned the fact that the scheme changes quite a lot and they have quite a lot of random inspections, similar to Ofsted in the education career. 
• We were quite shocked by this and the different restrictions that John mentioned, and we wanted to find out some more on the scheme.

• We then decided as a group, that we should base the video on the farm but also base it around the scheme and whether it's a good thing to have or not. 
• We were possibly thinking of having the meaning and/or the thesis of the documentary as 'What is the point of the scheme?'. 
• Through this we can pin point the positives of the scheme, explore those within the documentary, and then pin point and explore the negative points of the scheme.

Eden | Research

The documentary film that we will be producing is being made to suit the UKTV wildlife and science channel 'Eden'. I decided to do some research on the channel to help when deciding on a story and deciding how we are going to present the documentary.

What I Found

• The first thing I noticed about this channel is that it's aimed at a very niche audience, meaning that not many people have heard of the channel or watch it. 
• This suggests that our documentary can have quite a unique and original style while also making sure the content and information in it are up to the standards of the channel.
• The programmes featured on the channel range from "10 Things you didn't know..." to "Forecasting the End". To me, this means that the channel is quite experimental and they like having a big variety of documentaries that focus on a whole bunch of different topics. 
• The time slot our documentary will hypothetically cover is 8pm. I had a look to see what sort of programmes are on at 8pm, to give me a sort of idea on what our documentary should be based on, and how it should look in terms of style.

Saturday - Human Planet [Artic - Life in the Deep Freeze] (1hr)
Sunday - Human Planet [Rivers - Friend and Foe] (1hr)
Monday - World's Wildest City [Monkey City] (30m)
Tuesday - World's Wildest City [River Icons] (30m)
Wednesday - World's Wildest City [Urban Vultures] (30m)
Thursday - World's Wildest City [City of Giants] (30m)
Friday - World's Wildest City [Reptile Central] (30m)

• This told me that there is a variety of themes and subjects that they usually talk about at 8pm. This means that we can either focus on talking about animals and wildlife or nature, or even both. All of our ideas that we have come up with would suit this time slot very well.

Ideas | Development

The First Thought

• When I first heard the brief, my thought process went straight to my favourite type of animal which are Giraffes. I have recently started watching 'The Secret Life of the Zoo' on Channel 4 and on the programme you not only see the development of the animals but you also see the development of the zoo keepers.
•  The programme shows how the animals are looked after and what the zoo keepers have to go through to keep the animals safe. The keepers go through a lot with the animals - from seeing births and deaths - and the programme shows their emotions realistically.

• This programme gave me the inspiration for my idea but I want to focus mainly on the Giraffes and how they are looked after. 
• After discussing this with Helen she suggested that I contact Howlett's Zoo and ask them if there was a possibility that we could potentially film a documentary on their Giraffes.

Research

• Before I contacted them I decided to do some research on the zoo itself and see what kind of experiences they provide to the public. 
• I found out that they have a overnight stay where the public are treated to dinner and then the next day they can go on a safari and experience the animals up close. 
• I talked to my group and we discussed that we could possibly be able to do this experience if they let us film. We placed a 'Booking Inquiry' for the three of us to get the price of the overnight stay, but the result we were given was fairly high. 
• We discussed as a group and decided that we would directly contact them and see if they could gives us some sort of discount if we were to film there.

I emailed the zoo's media contact:

Other Ideas

Within our group we had two other ideas:

• Nisserin thought about doing our documentary on the Peacocks at Leeds Castle and how they get looked after. This was a good idea as it's something that not many people think about and it would be quite interesting to find out what the staff at the Castle do with them. She also contacted the Castle about the possibility of filming there about that specific subject. 

• Sammi thought about doing our documentary on how the climate change is happening faster than it naturally should. This was also a good idea as it's something that, again, not many people think about and it would be a large subject which means we would have several Segway's that we could venture into. She also contacted a local farm shop about talking to one of the farmers and filming our documentary there.

Documentary | New Unit

Following on from our second unit, directions, we have started our third unit of the year, which is documentary. In this unit we have been given the task to create a documentary.

Documentary

We are working in a group of 3 - Me, Nisserin and Sammi - and we will need to produce a 10 minute documentary on wildlife and nature. The documentary will be part of a strand with the working title of 'Doorstep Wilderness'. It must be suitable for viewing at 8pm on UKTV wildlife and science channel 'Eden'.
The series aim is to engage and inspire a diverse audience with science and wildlife stories. We must be surprising and we should look beyond what we imagine wildlife and nature to be like. Consider contemporary, relevant stories and try to think beyond the obvious.

The 5 main things we should consider are:

1. Consider the information given carefully
2. The duration of the video, transmission time, the channel and the intended audience
3. What format, style and mechanisms we will decide to go for
4. All films must include appropriate planning for shooting sequences, set ups, GVs and actuality.
5. The film is delivered within the specified time frame.