Research Reflection

In my research, I set out to find a particular way in which to make my film whether that was shot types, styles and general inspiration and learning to best prepare me for what is to come next in my project. I wanted to also learn about the equipment that I'll be using and making sure that I was prepared and know about how to use it and what to do with it in the style of my film. I knew I needed to find Caterham stats for my film for things to say about them in my film.

I also needed to contact Caterham to make sure that filming on their April 2nd open Day was allowed and this was the response I got from them:

This showed me that it was okay and that I would be able to film at the event so I wanted to try my luck in whether I could get an interview and get up close with the cars at the event for footage in my film to elevate the history and evolution scenes. Not only will this be great and talked about in my voice overs but it will prove that my project hasn't relied on other peoples footage that I will use for myself. This shows that I have gone to the extent and gone and got the footage myself. The purpose of this is to keep the audience engaged at all times so making interesting facts which is what was asked for in my survey is what the audience want and therefore what I will give them. 

When I wanted to find Caterham statistics to say in the voice-overs so I found R500 statistics which will just about apply to that car that will be featured a lot in my film. This also led me to find the history of where Caterham came from which is all useful content. Not a lot of people know about these cars so making this film and telling them the history will make them relatively knowledgeable about them. The content includes what Caterham was before they were made into a community, they originally came from Lotus who first made the car through Colin Chapman. A former air force pilot who designed the 'Lotus 7' so when he did this Lotus sold quite a few and people started hearing about it until one day when The Steel brothers from New Zealand who owned a small company called 'Caterham Cars Ltd' and bought the 'Lotus 7' off Lotus. So Colin is key because he started everything so without him Caterham would never have existed.

I think that research-wise, it went well. I learned that I needed to be prepared for anything coming my way in shooting and so, I will make the best efforts to see my film through and get the shooting done the way I want it. Also, I find that there is a lot of stats that I can say in my film that has been gathered that I will most definitely use. I have also found out what I wanted in terms of the history and that has really helped me learn about my own project and about the brand in general. I was inspired to get as much information as I felt I could that remained within relevancy of my project and the direction my project was taken and learning shooting techniques from a director of Top Gear and The Grand Tour called Gavin Whitehead. I learnt about filters and the effect that has on where the audience is guided to look, you are supposed to make the filter highlight the main colours of the scene and adjust the saturation according to what the thing you are trying to make your audience look at is. This is clever because it shows the camera telling the story as it's the main reason for the what people are looking at and not my commentary or whatever you can hear including when using J and L cuts. I find it funny how even though it is a documentary I will film it artistically but no one ever does this, perhaps I can turn a corner in filmmaking. I hope that I can keep all this in mind while shooting and not fall into the age-old pressure of just wanting to get it done and being too excited to stop and think. That comes with experience and I have a bit of that having made films for college over the course of the past few years. I'd like to make a plan and stick to it on the shooting days so that I'm not overwhelmed. 

I am much more confident moving forward having gathered all this information, it is very helpful to know all this information for my film as well. It saves me having to do it later in pre-production and wasting time when I could have done it now like I have. I think that the editing techniques research helped me a lot, I would never have known that if it weren't for that research as it helps me keep my main objective of focusing the film on Caterham. I have also developed my understanding of Caterham it's self, I know so much more about what I'm doing with this project and the direction the final cut is going to take thanks to the history and stats that I found. It was great to know all about how it came to be and why. The stats were useful to know because I think the viewers will appreciate the research gone into getting that into the film and just generally knowing the stats and being surprised by them is the key and reason for this whole film. I want to surprise people and raise the odd eyebrow because again, this is a car that hasn't been appreciated as much as it should since it has been known to be quite a niche thing. I want to express this as it could help my point. 

However, my opinion has changed from being a point making film about what Caterham is to be about what it was and what it is capable of including how it came to be where it is today through the likes of F1, Karting, The Academy, the factory, the Community and more developments in the outcome that make it so especially fast. I will include a wide variety of the spectrum which many haven't a clue about which is my main selling point to those who don't know a great deal about Caterham on the whole. I think it's important for people to know about these things because this is what made Caterham and it's what got it here today. Perhaps this is the best way to go because it showcases what is special about Caterham not just showing what it is. It is an evasive manoeuvre but it is with the best intentions of the project. I'd like to keep the same outlook overall about the previous assumption as well as the history because it is important but at the same time I won't dwell on it but it will be given notice and highlighted upon. I have invested a lot of time into finding these stats because I handpicked them according to relevancy which meant that I can have a better-directed route forward and a better state of mind. It is something I've always taught myself to do because otherwise, I will end up with hundreds upon hundreds of unneeded stats that are irrelevant anyway.