Westminster Mile Evaluation

For this project we were assigned to go out and film for the Bupa Westminster Mile. Before that we looked at different types of documentaries such as expository, observational, interactive, reflexive, and performative to help us identify what our documentary on the Bupa Westminster Mile would be about. I also did research into the difference between documentary's and factual programme.

After that I began my secondary research into the Bupa Westminster Mile Run, where I looked at the history of the mile and what it stands for, during my research I found out that Olyimpic athlete's would be in attendance such as Mo farah and David Weir and that Sir Roger Bannister would be attendance who is the official patron for the westminster mile run and he was marking his 60th year. He also holds the record for running a sub four mile, and David weir would try to beat that on the day by attempting the first ever sub 3 mintue mile run. During my secondary research I also looked into different documentaries that were based on either olympic athletes or regular on their sports, having looked at these documentaries it gave me an understanding of how I could possibly film when I went to the Westminster mile, what kind of shots & angles I could use to capture the best footage. More things that I looked into my secondary research was how to get there, what transport was needed, where it was located and the racing schedule. For my primary research we had the clients for the Westminter Mile run come in and have a talk us, I came up with several questions to ask them as to what would be required from us and the things they would like us to do and not do. They gave us specific detailes such as 5,000 or more would be attending which would make it the biggest mile run thus far, they wanted us to focus on particular races like female races, men's elite race/women, under 11's boys & girls, 15 & 17's, wheel chair users, we found out about 30 races would be taken place and that time it would start was 9:30am till 3pm and we had to set up by 8:30am. They also said they would like the duration to be from 2-3 mintues and that no presenter was needed and this was all useful information as this would help us to prepare.

We then had to get into groups or pairs.to begin preparation. I was in a pair with another peer in my class, we created a call sheet and decided on what time we would meet as we were assigned to get footage of the middle of the race. After that we collected equipment we used a DSLR Canon Camera.
On the 24th May 2014 was the day of the Westminster Mile Run, me and my peer schedule to get there for 10:30  to get the races that the clients for. Once we got there we began shooting straight away we filmed the starting all the way to the finish line to get every footage. We were selective with our shots as we wanted to not only get the runners in action but to capture their facial expressions as they enjoyed the westminster mile run.

The week after we began editing our video we also wanted to selective as to what scenes we would put for the clients to have a look. We also added background music and slowed down parts of the documentary to allow it to have a climax and we tried to include different races that we captured on the day.

Overall I enjoyed the experience of having the opportunity to film at the Westminster mile run and be apart of something important to the Westminster Council.
I think what me and my peer could of improved on is allowing ourselves time to get more variety of shots and I think we should of also got some interviews.