Plan B Idea

Even though our group really liked the idea of using the New Directions Mentoring Programme for our documentary, we still wasn't sure if they would let us/be interested in us doing a documentary about them.

The other idea we came up with was to look into how ex-prisoners teach younger people to not get into trouble.

Here is an article I found on ex-prisoners teaching.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2011/sep/19/youth-justice-ex-prisoners-teaching

Even though this article isn't recent we thought it was still a good Plan B to go with, as I haven't seen a documentary made on something like this before.

I found a charity called, 'Refocus' that are trying to prevent crime in Kent and the South East in London by having talks from ex offenders.

"Refocus is a charity that operates as a community crime prevention service in counties of Kent and the South East of London. Refocus is a service that recruits ex-offenders who have been there and done it and now want to put something back into the community as a restorative justice approach. Refocus mentors, coaches, counsels, rehabilitates, trains and supports ex-offenders to allow them to reach their full potential. Our training incorporates both youth work and teaching so that our workers are always engaging with young people in a professional manner."

Services provided:

- Interventions
- Life skill packages
- Prison visits
- Training programmes for professionals
- Targeted intensive programmes
- Support and provide education to parents and carers
- Mentoring
- Coach training and employment

They also work with schools as well as youth clubs, faith groups, community centres, prisons and children homes.

Outcomes:

In 2011-2012 partner services stated that out of the 1500 young people who experienced Refocus talks, mentoring and/or prison visits:

- 40% of these young people have rethought their actions
- 8% move away from their old environments
- At least 6 % go back into college or school
- 15% never go back to smoking cannabis
- 2% stop drinking and are referred for help with anger issues
- 10% asked for help and are referred by Refocus or partner agencies to other services addressing a wide variety of issues that may have arisen such as sexual abuse, drugs, alcohol, domestic violence, knife crime, gang crime and other family problems

Website - www.refocusproject.org.uk

Contacting the Charity

Our group finally decided we wanted to use the New Directions Mentoring Programme for our documentary. First we had to get into contact with someone, to see if we was able to talk about their foundation.

I went back onto the Medway Council website where the programme was advertised to see if there was any information on there to see if there was anyone we could contact.

There was a number under the New Directions Programme section, I tried calling the number but it always ended up cutting off, so I decided to email the person.

After a couple of days and with no reply from the first email I sent I decided to see if there was anyone else on that page that we could call/email. At the top of the page was the Youth Lives Foundation I decided to call them to see if they could pass me onto someone under the New Directions Programme. I was able to get through to someone and discovered that the New directions programme is actually under the YLF.

The lady on the phone was kind enough to give me Stephens (CEO of the foundation) email address, so that I could email him the information.

Here is the email I sent to Stephen.

Luckily after sending out the email to Stephen, he was able to re-direct the message to another person. I got a reply from Janine Batt, who is the marketing and fundraising coordinator of YLF and she will be helping us with finding case studies for the documentary as well as information about the programme.

Documentary Day and Time

"The New Directions Mentoring Programme - the programme provides volunteer mentors to support young people at risk of offending or social exclusion to make a positive difference to their lives."

After looking into what type of documentary we were doing we decided to look into what day and time our programme would be shown on BBC Three.

We decided that our programme would be shown on a Monday at 7:00pm.

We chose Monday as there similar programmes around 7pm such as; 'Hotel of Mum and Dad' and 'Junior Paramedics.' We found that Monday's was the most serious day of the week for programmes as later on in the week more entertainment shows such as; 'Snog, Marry, Avoid' and 'Don't Tell The Bride' are on as well as repeats.

BBC Three channel doesn't officially come on until 7:00pm. This is a good time to show our documentary as families are most likely to sit down and watch TV together after dinner.

BBC3 Commissions

Our group is focusing on the 'My Hero' story, where we have to create a documentary for BBC Three. We went onto the BBC Three website and looked at their commissions page to look into the type of target audience, tone of the film, etc, we would need our documentary to fit.

Audience

BBC Three focus more towards young audiences between the ages of 16-34 years old. It is also a mixed genre channel which makes appeal to a wide range of people.

Key priorities

"- The channel needs to be disciplined about focusing on the young - its centre of gravity will be 16-34 year olds: people who are young in spirit and mindset.

- BBC Three is 'Never Afraid to Try New Things' and thats why we will continue to innovate with breakthrough comedy, stand-out entertainment, brave documentary and intelligent factual formats. Our content needs to have potential to innovate across platforms.

- BBC Three should provide an environment for the development of new ideas and talent and for existing talent to take risks, becoming a genuine laboratory for BBC One and BBC Two."

As we are going to film a documentary for BBC Three, we wanted to make sure that our documentary fit their criteria.

"We are looking for ideas for single documentaries like the hard-hitting India:A Dangerous Place To Be A Woman and Petrol Bombs and Peace: Welcome to Belfast, as well as series that can shine a light on domestic and international issues such as Stacey Dooley's three part investigation into drug trafficking."

Tone

"BBC Three content is modern, distinctive and relevant - though not exclusively - to our core 16-34 year old target audience. The tone of the channel is warm, personal and surprising with real take-out value."

Overall we are now able to get an idea on what type of documentary to create for the BBC Three.

Directions Unit - Ideas

I came up with an idea on what our group could use for the 'Hero' story.

Here is my main idea:

My Idea

Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance Trust -

"The Kent, Surrey and Sussex air ambulance trust operate two MD902 explorers out of our bases at Marden in Kent and Redhill in Surrey to provide our Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) across the region."

Our group decided not to go with this idea as there are similar programmes on BBC3 such as Junior paramedics and we wanted to create a documentary on something that hasn't been mentioned much before.

Group Idea 1

New Directions Mentoring Programme -

"The programme provides volunteer mentors to support young people at risk of offending or social exclusion to make a positive difference to their lives."

This was our first idea we looked into, we saw an advert while looking into volunteering charities online and they were advertising for more volunteers. While looking into the programme more we discovered it was part of the medway council and that there was an office for this charity in Maidstone.

Group Idea 2

Refocus -

"Refocus is a charity that operates as a community crime prevention service in counties of Kent and the South East of London. Our aims are to help young people turn their negative behaviour into positive behaviour through cognitive and behavioural techniques, neuro linguistics re-programming and various other approaches."

This charity really interested me as it shows that a criminal can change and in this case warn younger people to not make the same mistakes and use different approaches to help them be more positive about their lives. However we really liked our first idea and have decided to keep this as our 'Plan B.'

Overall we have decided to look into the New Directions Mentoring Programme more and see if we can use it as our main idea.

Documentary Unit - Intro

For our new unit we are producing and filming a 10 minute documentary.

Here is the brief for this project:

"Within your groups, you are challenged to conceive, develop, script, shoot and edit an original 10 min documentary which fits the following brief:

– BBC3 –  ‘My Hero’ – stories of heroism.

Or

– Canterbury Cathedral – film for their YouTube channel about the artists and artisans work to keep the beauty of the cathedral alive."

      There was a choice to work in groups of two or three. I wanted to be in a group of three as I thought it would be better for when it comes to filming, but also because I wanted to work with different people from the class. I teamed up with Charlie and Sophie.

    We started to discuss on what idea to do out of the two options. We've come up with more ideas towards the BBC3 hero story than the Canterbury cathedral, so I think we might end up doing that option.

Directions Unit - Finished Video

Here is my finished Short Film, 'A Journey Through Loneliness'.

Overall i'm really pleased with how my short film turned out. I was able to get actors to play my characters, which was a step up from my last film. I'm glad I added layers such as the dog barking, a car going past and wind on top as it gave it more of a realistic feel to it.

I feel that next time I need to look into more locations, as the beginning bedroom scenes didn't look as interesting as the exterior scenes. This is because I used my own room. I also want to make sure that I have a stable crew, as when it came to re-shooting scenes I ended up having to film myself.

Directions Unit - Title

Each group had to produce a title and credits for our videos.

In my group, Andy, Ren, Lex and Sei-Kai discussed on what type of title to have that would represent 'Loneliness'.

I came up with an idea of someone writing loneliness on the window and then wiping it away.

I thought that it was quite simple and would be easy to do.

Everyone liked the idea, so I decided to go and film it myself.

Here is the finished title.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. I filmed it when it was dark so that the lights would light up the writing from behind.

To achieve this, I boiled a kettle and used the steam to steam up the window, I then quickly wrote 'Loneliness' before the steam went out. I had to do this a couple of times due to framing and the steam going out quickly, but I think it was worth it.

Another person in our group, Lex, had already created a title, so our group had two to choose from. I really liked his title as it gave the same mysterious effect as mine.

There was a debate on which title we should use, but after a while we decided to go with Lex's intro. I didn't mind not using mine as I liked his title, but because it was coming close to the deadline I just wanted to choose one so that I had my video complete.