Problem solving is a crucial part of making a Documentary, especially as you progress your story as when real-life stories are told they don't always follow a planned narrative so a producer may have to fill in gaps where essential content is missing but you can also come across unpredicted challenges such as technical failures. When creating a media product, much of our content is heavily reliant on technology such as cameras and editing softwares and they can sometimes have their own problems which can't be prevented but it is important to outline the ways we can work around such issues to ensure the safety/integrity/development of our product remains in tact. 

Throughout my project, I came across various different problems which I spent time to ensure I could logistically solve in a level-headed way or work around. 

USB-Hard Drive

At the beginning of this project I purchased a new USB stick which was 128GB, this was double the storage of my FMP USB so I didn't predict I'd come across any issues. Despite this, after my first filming day at the fire station, I found I could not transfer all of my footage onto my USB stick as my POV Body Camera footage were nearly an hour long each therefore the file sizes were too big. Fortunately, due to have a very tech-based home, I asked my father for some help and he was able to find me a hard drive we have which had 1T on it so it was able to store everything from my project. On the downside, because of the age of the hard drive, it did cause my project to freeze multiple times a day, so towards to end to ensure everything is working properly, we made the decision to buy extra storage on my laptop and purchased a new hard drive for future use. 

First Day of Filming at Marsden Moor

For this filming date, it was soon after we had first purchased the drone so we decided to go to my main filming location for nature B-roll and piece to cameras and experiment with different modes on the drone and different camera angles and movements. One error we came across was when we zoomed in for one shot, it didn't zoom back out for any of the others, and one downfall with my DJI equipment that I have noticed is that the visuals are stunning and crisp until you zoom in and the quality and resolution decreases. We noticed this when back home in the evening reviewing the footage. This effectively made the footage unusable as I didn't want a stark difference in quality of B-roll jumping out part way through my product. Luckily, I had already planned a back-up in case the drone footage didn't work or turn out right. We had planned to do 3 filming days at Marsden Moor so we could familiarise ourselves with the location and how the location developed overtime, get comfortable with equipment and if there's any developments to my script. This meant that we could analyse the footage we got despite the visual problem and decided which shots types would be best to redo to fit with my product.

Second Filming Day at Marsden Moor

When filming at Marsden Moor, me and my dad were experimenting with different shots we could get which would have a good atmosphere for my project. We were in an out of fields, and walking amongst the overgrown wild burnt grass. Me and my dad had the idea to get a shot of me sat on the grass with the burnt areas surrounding me and have the drone zooming out to show the size comparison. I decided to walk down to the area through the grass whilst my dad set up the drone but unfortunately I didn’t see one of the pot holes in the overgrown grass and rolled over on my ankle landing on my knees over. Luckily having only just recovered from a fractured ankle on my other foot a couple of weeks prior, I could tell I hadn’t broke it but I was in a lot of pain and the shock my body went through made me sick and hyperventilate which in turn made me dizzy. To protect myself, I decided to take a deep breath and lie down in the field so I could rest my stomach, watch the clouds to reduce my dizziness and let my foot rest with my knee bent and my foot flat on the ground to ensure any swelling wouldn't damage my ligaments in my foot. Whilst I was resting, to ensure we didn’t lose daylight for filming, I instructed my dad on some shots he could get with the drone. After resting for a while I decided to try and walk as I didn’t want my foot to further damage from not trying to mobilise it and I took incredibly cautious steps back through the grass over the fence to get back to my dad and camera equipment. For the rest of the filming day we mainly used the drone as it meant I could stand in one point but still get a wide variety of camera angles and movements and we did the rest of my piece to cameras stationary in one spot. Overall, this allowed me to still use the filming day to my best advantage and not be delayed in my production schedule as I was aware my availability to have someone drive me out to the moors was slim. 

I think me keeping a calm mindset despite my body's panic helped me assess the situation and to best handle it which meant I could work around the newly formatted problem. 

Dave Ramsey Interview

For my project, I had gotten an interview with a volunteer fireman in Australia through my cousin Olivia. We had originally planned to do the interview over teams so that I could record it with a transcript as his Australian accent was very thick. When initially setting up the email link, none of my emails would get through to my cousin without an error message. To overcome this I decided to send her the link through Instagram where we frequently message, so that she could get the link on her laptop. After joining the call at 10am (GMT)/ 5pm (AWST) the record button was not available. Having done a teams meeting recording on my laptop prior, I knew it wasn't an issue on my end and after some discussion with Olivia, I figured out it must be a security measure put in place by her work company to prevent recordings taking place. I decided it would be best to cancel on the Teams meeting but swap to a phone call instead - as Apple iPhone had recently updated to have a call recording button emplaced - this would be the best option. After all the issues were subsided the interview went really well and thanks to my mother having gone to Perth Australia to visit my cousin 2 weeks prior (and me showing her how to film B-roll on her phone) I was able to use some footage she got from her holiday over the top of the phone call.

Cancellation at the Fire Station

After having spent my first week at Spen Valley Fire Station, I was due to return the following Saturday for my last filming day. For this I had purchased a personalised cake that read "Thank-you to our Global Guardians" and booked a days holiday from work but unfortunately on Friday evening, I got a text from the Crew Commander Tom Bryan informing me that the team had been called into an emergency meeting in the morning so where I was due to be there at 9:30am if I could arrive by 11:30am and then they had some essential training they have to do in the evening so leave at 2pm. This would have been okay if I had a lift to and from the fire station like I did in the first week, but unfortunately my family were all working so I had planned to get a taxi which would have been £30 either way and I wasn't prepared to pay £60 for a couple of hours of filming. 

I completely understood why this happened, it is the nature of being a first-responder that time schedules are unreliable. But thanks to my preparation, I had planned for if this was to happen and ensured I got a bit of everything I could in my first week of filming with them so that I didn't lose out on any footage.