The experience of putting so much trust and faith in my partner to make a project in language which I have little to no understanding of has unquestionably been the most rewarding and beneficial of any stage of the process.  Through doing this I have forced myself to be more flexible and not as adverse to change and regimented planning and I have in the past I have also enjoyed the challenge of taking a step outside my comfort zone in the filming and also help with the editing of the project. While during the editing stage ultimately Tommy had the vast majority of the input I felt this was most beneficially to the finished project.  As for example when Tommy was translating the subtitles as this was so challenging he needed total silence there was no benefit to my badgering him in the edit suite.  An area of input which I really enjoyed and greatly appreciated during an early stage, being allowed to bring in was the structure and order of the questions.  As discussed in the pre-production stage the questions for the teachers was an area I put a lot of planning and thought into and I was then allowed an input into the layout and order which they appear in the finished documentary.  Overall I’m immensely proud of the completed documentary its a million miles away from the scribbles in Tommy’s note about Independence and this is project I’ve honestly really enjoyed working on and looked forward each and every day of working on it despite a lot of it being in a foreign language (A native Language foreign to most).    It has given me so much more self believe and confidence that this is the industry I not only want to work in but ultimately feel I can.

While by this stage we had gathered together all the required footage and placed the questions in the correct order the feedback we received from our lecturer Kate was pivotal to the finish of the documentary to see if she enjoys the style and structure of the documentary. Much of the feedback we received from Kate was positive particularly as no major changes to the structure. This gave me a lot of confidence that the time spent planning was worthwhile.   Kate felt an important alteration was to cut down on the interview with Mr Rodgers in the latter stages and bring in a more diverse range of interviews we gathered with the school pupils. As this would show a greater number of contributors in the documentary.  One of Kate’s other alterations suggested was the title of the documentary however the title card had been pre-recorded while on location.  This is where we had a board being pulled down to reveal the title on the screen so this was much more difficult to alter.  However the feedback received justified the hard work put in by both myself and Tommy throughout the process and filled me with a lot of confidence and when working on future projects I’ll certainly be a lot more self-assured and confident in my own ability as I ultimately feel I played an integral role in the making of the documentary which is of the highest standard possible and much higher than anything I’ve made in the past. 

While some of the desired cutaways could be gathered by researching achieve footage. A shot of Glasgow University had to be recoded as it would again fit nicely over Mr MacKay’s interview at the start of the documentary.  However as we hadn’t filmed in this location previously we travelled out to the University via the Subway to gather the shots.  While Tommy was recording the footage on his personal DSLR I was still fortunately able to assist him in suggesting various angles of the University building and surrounding park which he could record.  As the weather was horrible I was also able to hold the umbrella to keep the camera dry and Tommy too.  On traveling back to the Subway station we got completely soaked by a bus and a mucky puddle so we certainly hoped the shots were worth the effort of getting drenched.  When we arrived back at the collage I felt during the location filming we didn’t get various subject’s exam papers like Geography which as its taught at National 5 level through Gaelic has its own induvial paper in Gaelic with specific ordnance and survey maps in Gaelic so we added them in. In the collage we also simulated our students walking through the corridors shot.     This was a valuable experience as it remained me of the importance of planning and organising can only go so far and it’s also important to be flexible and willing to gather more shots as the editing progresses. 

After watching through the interviews on the timeline with cutaways filmed on location it became apparent that we had gaps in cutaways some of which in the time remaining we would be able to pick up using a DSLR around Glasgow and in the collage, however this wasn’t the case for all.  During the filming it proved very difficult to film students walking through the corridors and sitting in classrooms as prior permission had to achieved from each induvial student.  Also at an early stage of the timeline Mr Mackay mentions his inspiration for becoming a Gaelic teacher is that his parents are both teachers on the isle of Harris.  On filming it proved impossible to gain coverage of the North Lanarkshire Council sign outside the school due to it being positioned adjacent to a Motorway.  I was then given the task of sourcing a shot of the North Lanarkshire council and Tommy the shot of rural Harris.  To aid our search we travelled with the rest of the class to the Moving Image Archive at the National Library of Scotland in Glasgow. During our visit we learned about the ‘Scotland on Screen’ website, where for assessment purposes footage is allowed to be used copyright free by logging in via ‘Shibboleth’.  Tommy was able to find suitable footage on Harris however I wasn’t able to find footage relation to the North Lanarkshire Council sign and we collectively agreed it would be easier to simply forge shots of students walking down school corridors by simulating that in the collage environment.  I simply took the Tour Guides word that it would be easy to log in via my collage information and download the footage however as I wasn’t aware of Shibboleth I should have enquired about getting further support and assistance for logging in.  As back at the collage despite creating an account with the National Library of Scotland I was unable to log into the Shibboleth section of the ‘Scotland on Screen’ website, however after consultation with our lecturer it was agreed Tommy could simply screen record the footage on his DSLR and she would get into contact with the National Library of Scotland staff to help find a resolution.  This was an important lesson if there is anything in any environment I’m unsure about I should always simply speak up as they will find a better resolution to the issue than simply trying to figure out the solution myself as I didn’t want to speak up in front of a whole class of my peers who at the time I wrongly assumed know how to sign into Shibboleth.  In the future I will be less hesitant and simply speak up.

After the conclusion of filming yesterday it was imperative to get the footage backed up onto multiple storage locations as it was only stored on Tommy’s personal hard drive.  The opening stage of the edit was Tommy inputting the Meta data I had taken down on the PA notes and the information gathered was largely accurate.  Personally I would have been more than willing to do the stage of the editing process as it’s not overly challenging and something I’ve done before on previous edits.  However my pace of typing or rather lack of pace would have simply driven Tommy mad, as he is very fast and efficient when typing.  However personally I would have liked to do this stage as the editing is an area where I feel my contribution will not be overly high as it not an area of strength.  This shows that at stages of the process I should be more assertive at what tasks I feel I should contribute too, however following Tommy putting in the meta data, he then placed the interviews roughly onto the time line in the sequence he felt best.  The prospect of making a Gaelic film had been briefly discussed for our project prior to this but when listing to Mr MacKay’s interviews he was much clearly and more confident in his Gaelic answers in comparison to his English.  This lead to the decision being taken to make the documentary in Gaelic.  This was a major step change for me as it was a totally new experience for originally interview the teachers in Gaelic and spending my week in an environment where Gaelic is the common language used to converse. I was now agreeing to have the full documentary in Gaelic.  Had I been in another partnership I may not have been as easily persuaded to put so much faith in my partner but with Tommy I had full trust and faith in him to make the project just as excellently in Gaelic as in English with more of my input throughout the process.  This I found was a noticeable step change in myself from the start of the process with the Pre-Production paperwork were I micro managed the documents; I was now relaxed and confident enough to allow Tommy to edit our documentary in Gaelic.  

In conclusion the Production stage of the process was originally the most daunting of any as the environment is something which was unsettling as instantly upon arrival on the Monday morning Tommy would often communicate and plan things with the teachers in Gaelic and I would constantly have to then ask Tommy about what he has planned next or what was being discussed over the course of the week and had to a conscious effort to be kept in the loop.  This through the course of the week a massive challenge for me, however over the course of the week I managed to because more accustomed to them conversing in Gaelic and not as unsettled by having to ask what was being discussed.  Interviewing school pupils was another new experience for me as it’s not something I’ve ever done before,  this is probably the area of the process I’m most proud of is how relaxed particularly the first two students during their interviews were.  Another major challenge was remaining engaged when interviewing the teachers when they answered in Gaelic as I had absolutely no idea what they were saying or if it was relevant to the question I had asked or even if the answer was close to the end so I didn’t cut over the audio of them speaking.    The experience of working on a project in a school and also interviewing in multiple languages has been fantastic for me and I’ve learned so much and have become a lot more confident throughout this stage of the process. I will however still remember all the mistakes I’ve made during this stage and I’ll seek to learn and improve in the future to prevent them happening again. 

The main aim for the final day of filming was to gain various cutaways of wall displays around the classroom and also gather few more shots of the teachers interacting with students. All of these shots were easily successfully achieved in the morning and this allowed us more time to then film another interview with a star student in the Gaelic department.  She was nervous prior to starting the interview and this was evident when answering questions however it was still useful information to gather moving forward and potentially the interview could still if a small section fits in well.  As the interviewer I hold myself partiality responsible for not making the interview environment comfortable and natural and this is something I need to try and improve on in the future and avoid getting complacent after a few successful interviews.   

Following the conclusion of filming we went to the Head Teacher to ask her to sign the Location Agreement, the emails Tommy had from her showed she was more than happy for us to make the documentary on Greenfaulds but that she would seek further confirmation from the council.  However she never responded that she had gained that confirmation from the council, we originally planned to go on the Monday and seek permission from Mrs Parks however on the week we have filmed at Greenfaulds High School it suffered an infestation of Fruit Fly’s which made national headlines so the start of the week was very busy for Mrs Parks so we felt the best solution was  wait until the end of week and ask for permission then, although we were both very worried about the outcome Mrs Parks could not have been nicer and is looking forward to seeing the finished documentary.   This is perhaps a lesson that I should always be upfront and open with what I’m going to film and not let the worry build up as the week progresses. I was still pleased with how both of us handled this situation and we ultimately achieved the desired outcome.

Looking at the teacher’s timetable for the remainder of the week the third day of filming was by far the most crucial remaining, as we had to gather all of Mr Rodgers interviews and the remainder of Mr MacKay interviews. The pressure was really on to ensure this day went as smoothly as possible as the teacher’s timetables for Thursday and Friday didn’t have any room for error.  Fortunately to help with this alongside myself and Tommy both Scott and Callum came along to filming.   Upon arrival we mirrored the positional set-up we had for Mr MacKay’s interview yesterday. With Callum monitoring the sound, I was taking the PA notes and asking the questions, Tommy operating the main Cannon camera and Scott using his DSLR, we very efficiently got through all of Mr MacKay’s remaining questions. With Callum’s help we then recoded Room Tone.  Straight after this we moved on to setting up for Mr Rodgers interview and Callum attempted to fix the SQN mixer to allow us to use this to record and monitor sound on Mr Rodgers interviews however he was unable to do.  This made me feel less guilty about not recording high quality sound on Monday’s filming as Callum who is a highly knowledgeable in using the SQN mixer was unable to fix the issue prior to the interview with Mr Rodgers.  I decided therefor that we should maintain the same roles as the earlier interview with Mr MacKay with only small changes being made when Tommy felt fatigued he would swap with Callum.  The interview with Mr Rodgers went very successfully and he gave highly detailed answers to all the questions and also allowed me to ask him to touch on specific areas in his answers which I felt was really relevant but also that matched with the cutaway shots we have already gathered.  Personally this week was the first time I’d interviewed people who I hadn’t known on a personal level prior to the filming.  I was proud of how I handled this throughout the week and with I felt I grow in confidence enormously as the week progressed and on Monday morning I would never have had the confidence to prompt for more detailed answers from the teachers.  I felt this was helped hugely by the bond I build up with them as the week progressed and also through the interviewing techniques and skills picked up from my research. 

After the interview with Mr Rodgers concluded the classroom still empty so we simulated a few shots of a student working at their desk by getting Tommy to write in a notebook and pretending he was a school pupil.  After the lunch break we filmed the final footage critical the documentary interviews with two students who were in 5^th and 6^th year. I briefed them on what the questions where going to be and asked if they felt comfortable in answering them and both consented.   Also given the time they had given up and to prevent an unsettling situation I felt it only fair to ask for answers in English only.  I felt both would give the best answers possible under the least amount of pressure possible.  This was effective as both students gave excellent informative answers.  We concluded our filming on day three by getting a few shots of the students working at their desks and interacting with Mr Rodgers.  I had learned today the benefits of being kind and showing respect towards all the contributors really pays off and I was delighted with the answers all the people I interviewed gave.  This has taught me that if leading into a production and I have an area which I’m feeling concerned about I can research it and cope brilliantly on the filming days. 

The second day of filming started on a much more positive note than the first day concluded, as the weather was nice and bright we gathered the school establishing shots from outside as well as a few other cutaways.  When we arrived into the classroom Mr MacKay told us he was available in the same timeslot as yesterday for some more interview questions. However as we didn’t have to travel from the collage and test the equipment in the morning we were much earlier in arriving at Greenfaulds.  We then as Mr Rodgers classroom weren’t busy filmed a lot of the cutaways shots, as no sound was being recorded I was able to simply record the PA notes.  Following yesterday I took the decision to stop the filming of cutaways much earlier and allow for more time to set up for the interview. The decision was then taken to simply connect the tie clip microphone directly into the camera and record the sound for interview without the SQN mixer.  When Mr MacKay arrived the lighting had already been set up and I was able to talk through the questions with him and combine a few of them together to make the process less time consuming for all. This is something I didn’t have time for yesterday due to poor management.  Time was taken to perform numerous sound test recordings and all members of the crew listened to them to ensure the sound was of the correct standard.  Mr MacKay was sitting at his desk and Tommy was sitting across from him holding the camera, however for the first few questions I was standing asking the questions and this posed a few issues with Mr MacKay looking up towards me, his looking room in the interview then appeared unnatural this was simply fixed by me sitting in the same position I was standing in.  Due to the condensing of the questions this interview worked well and we covered about half of Mr MacKay’s. Personally this was a massively relief after the issues I caused to our schedule previously by making errors and to have been able to play an important role in successfully catching up was a major boost of confidence.  Over the next few hours Mr Rodgers had a class which returned their consent forms, this enabled us to film Mr Rodgers naturally teaching his class and interacting with the students.  This was another major step forward as we gathered in excess of twenty different shots on the main Cannon camera and Scott helpfully gathered yet more with his DSLR.  After the lunch break however both teachers had classes which hadn’t fully returned their consent forms.  As we weren’t allowed to film we simply used this time to review the footage we gathered in the morning and prepare for filming the Drama afterschool class.  However upon arriving in the Drama class Mr MacKay informed us we couldn’t film the class as not every student had brought back in their consent form. 

 However we filmed outside the classroom in corridors and signs which wasn’t allowed during school hours this salvaged the afternoon and made the waiting around worthwhile.   I should have communicated to Mr Mackay about the desire to film the afterschool drama club sooner as this may have allowed him to indicate if it would be suitable to film the drama club and prevented the time waiting. 

My main roles during the opening day of filming were both Producer and PA.  I was also given the task of monitoring the sound on the interviews we recorded today.  The first stage of the process collecting the equipment from the collage, although a kit booking form had previously been handed in to the Kit Room this had unfortunately been lost.  This meant the shoulder mount we had requested for filming had already been handed out to another group.  Fortunately following on from   testing the equipment on the 10^th floor and experiencing issues with the shoulder mount, Tommy had arranged to borrow Scott’s own personal shoulder mount foe the week.  This prevented a major issue which could have put the entire style of documentary in jeopardy. Fortunately all our equipment was still able to be borrowed for the week.  Upon the collection of the equipment I checked to ensure all the correct equipment had been handed out and it matched the kit booking form.  My responsibility was then to test the sound equipment and with the aid of printed sound instructions I briefly tested the equipment and encountered no issues.  However no test recording was taken of the sound that could have been listened back to.  This was a mistake from my perspective as I could have identified issues while still in the college with the support and assistance of both the technicians and lecturers.  In hindsight I should have taken further precautions when testing the sound equipment and spent more time testing it all thoroughly instead of being transfixed on trying to maintain pace with a pre-set schedule which lead me to rushing.  

Following on from helping testing the equipment I travelled over via the bus to Greenfaulds High School. Despite not being quite on the schedule no major issues where encountered during travel. However being behind the original schedule lead to issues after arriving at the school as we only had time for a quick introduction with Kevin Rodgers was teaching a class which we disturbed.  If we arrived on time with the call sheet we would have arrived during a break in teaching however he very understanding about the situation. Later when we an empty class we began filming cutaways. As we began setting up to film the first of the cutaways Mr MacKay came into the classroom and discussed with Tommy and Mr Rodgers the possibility using the documentary for Film G, both agreed to give their answers in English and Gaelic to allow Tommy to use the Gaelic answers for Film G and use the same cutaways as he gathered for this documentary over the top.  At this stage of the process for our documentary we still plan to use the English answers for the submitted documentary as it will be easier for me to understand and assist.    Mr MacKay also mentioned that he had a limited window of opportunity of free periods during the week and he had one coming up soon if we wanted to film the interview then.  This seemed to be logical as my biggest concern before the start of the week, having looked at the teachers timetable was their availability for interview filming.  Mr MacKay told us he would return after his break to give us his time for some interview questions.  Regretfully we decided to continue trying to the gather cutaway shot when Mr Mackay left for his break, thus using up valuable time which could have been used to set up for his interview.  This in hindsight was poor management from me as I should have prioritised the time critical aspect of our filming which was the interview.   Ultimately we never managed to achieve a successful cutaway shot during this time before eventually stopping to set up for the interview.  When Mr MacKay then arrived for his interview after his break we were then still trying to set up the lighting, camera position and sound equipment as he was standing around waiting.  This broke one of our main rules of interview etiquette from our lectures and made particularly me look unprofessional as I should have had a better handle on timekeeping. During the interview I was responsible for monitoring the sound, recording the PA notes and asking the questions and Tommy was filming with the camera.  Scott was using this time to gather other angles of the interview with his personal DSLR camera however in hindsight it may have been more useful to ask Scott to assist me with my roles during the interview.  I had used the SQN mixer beforehand so had experience I also attended Kevin’s lesson. Due to the rushed nature of events prior to recording the interview I didn’t perform a test recording of the sound.  A fundamental issue with the sound was then only discovered after four or five questions, when Tommy asked to listen back to the interview on playback.  The sound quality when the recoding was played back after recording was not at a good enough standard to be used during the final showing of the documentary.  The SQN mixer was unable to be fixed therefore the decision was taken to conclude filming for the day.  This incident where I let Tommy down is something I was very upset about and through filming any project so far I’ve never been as embarrassed as I was at that moment especially in front of Mr MacKay who’s only free period of the day I had effectively wasted.    I learned a very harsh lesson that it’s always absolutely vital to spend slightly longer testing something and insuring it’s correct than rushing and then encountering issues when filming as this will only lead to further delays.