Since it’s now confirmed, I can finally share some good news with you all! Three of our crew members are also going to Israel, as our Director has secured an interview with the member of the Yad Vashem, the man who recognised Badini as one
Today was our cake sale and tombola fundraiser,
Only 1 day to go! 1 day! Just got a few bits left to pack then we’re all done. We’re all super excited, especially because the majority of us have never been to Italy before, let alone Venice, so we can’t wait to see it (and taste lots of good food!) Our schedule is going to be jam packed with filming, but hopefully we can squeeze some sightseeing in along the way. This week we’ve been testing all our equipment, which has also been a great way of getting used to working with each other. Let’s just say we’re a great team, and I can’t wait to start filming the real deal with these fab people.
on some of the shoots, which is a relatively new role to me and I loved it. For those interested in cameras,
Anya, Giulia and Jordan returned to London yesterday, and now all the crew is now reunited! We definitely have lots of work ahead of us, but I'm looking forward to getting started. In today's
I’m sure you’re all eager to know what Unknown Hero is about, so let me unveil the mystery. The narrative revolves around one protagonist, Gustavo Badini, who was executed by fascist military troops after being caught providing safe shelter for Jewish families and a number of English and American Allies during the Second World War. We will uncover Badini’s heroic journey with the help of his own family, as well as relatives of the people he saved who are here today because of his valiance. Filming will take place in Northern Italy where Badini lived - hopefully the whole crew will be able to go to Italy for this amazing experience!
Wednesday 4th October 2017
I’ll be keeping you updated on what we get up to through this Blog, but also via our Facebook page, so Like and Follow us at ‘Unknown Hero: a 3rd year documentary’ to be in the know! Watch out for plenty of photos and videos (and emojis, I’m a fan of emojis) coming your way. Hopefully you’ll get a feel for what it’s like to produce a TV documentary
Keep checking in over the next few weeks for updates!
Here’s a brief introduction to our crew! Giulia is our Director, we have Izzy as Producer, Jordan the Director of Photography (DOP), Anya on Sound and Stephen as Editor. I’m Jess, the Digital Producer. I create all our online content and marketing, so you’ll mainly be hearing from me throughout this Blog, although the others may drop in to write a few words along the way. I’m also in charge of fundraising, so keep your eyes peeled for the events we have in store! If you’d like to see our faces and find out more about the team, head to the ‘Meet the Crew’ page.
Click on the photos to enlarge them
We are 6 third year students from the University of Westminster studying Television Production. Our final year documentary project has now commenced and we couldn’t be more excited to get the ball rolling and start production! In exactly 10 weeks from today, we will be sitting in the final screening, having planned, produced and edited a documentary programme.
Welcome
Aaand Relax
Next Stop Edit
Welcome to our Blog, where you’ll be able to read about what we’ve been up to in the production of our television documentary, which is currently under the working title...
Wednesday 4th October 2017
Busy Busy Busy
We made some good progress this week! We’ve been busy developing our narrative, corresponding with...
Thursday 12th October 2017
Friday 3rd November 2017
Izzy and I arrived back in London yesterday, and we can say that filming in Italy definitely...
Giulia, Jordan and Anya returned to London yesterday, and now all the crew is now reunited! We definitely have lots of work ahead of us, but I'm...
Thursday 9th November 2017
It's Confirmed!
Since it’s now confirmed, I can finally share...
Monday 16th October 2017
Day To Go
Only 1 day to go! 1 day! Just got a few
Friday 27th October 2017
We made some good progress this week! We’ve been busy developing our narrative, corresponding with potential contributors, discussing dates to go to Italy, planning fundraising
All the plane tickets are now booked! Our Editor Stephen is staying in London to brush up on his editing skills, continue to advertise our Crowdfunder so we can reach our target so he'll be cheering us all on from the sidelines! We have almost two weeks to get everything sorted, as well as continue to raise money so we have some form of budget to spend on travel and expenses while we're in Italy. Our next fundraiser is a Cake Sale and Tombola at Harrow Campus this Thursday, so if you're around, come along for some fun, yummy treats and the chance to win some great prizes!
Mmm, Cake...
Thursday 19th October 2017
Today was our cake sale and tombola fundraiser, where we had lots of yummy treats and prizes up for grabs! It went so well - we were at the stall from...
Thursday 12th October 2017
WEEK 1
events, and organising our online content for our Facebook page. It’s all very exciting, especially since we’ve already confirmed the majority of our contributors, so some of the hard work is done!
We’re meeting today for another production meeting, where we’ll continue to do all this planning and make
and get an insight into what we would all like to be involved with in our future careers. Maybe it will even inspire you to get creative and produce your own content!
our final decision on which members of the crew will be going to Italy for the filming process. Hopefully
this means we can start booking plane tickets too! We also need to start budgeting
Monday 16th October 2017
WEEK 2
WEEK 3
WEEK 4
WEEK 5
of the Righteous Among the Nations in 2011. This will be a fantastic asset to include in our documentary, as this contributor will be able to explain how he came across this heroic story and why he felt Badini deserved to be honoured with this title. Brava Giulia! Next on the agenda is to sort accommodation for the crew going to Israel, then test all the equipment and make sure it will actually fit in our luggage - wish us luck!
Thursday 19th October 2017
Friday 27th October 2017
Coming up, we have archive filming, a tour of Zenson led by a close relative of Badini, as well as several interviews with contributors who know Badini’s story well. As a reminder, Jordan will be on camera and Anya on sound, so we have no doubt that the footage will be great quality! No pressure guys! Giulia will be directing, and also doing a little bit of producing as she'll be asking the questions in our interviews (because of course Izzy is an amazing Producer but isn't fluent in Italian!) Izzy will still be very busy throughout the filming process - she'll be organising all our travel and other expenses, logging shots and writing call sheets. My job will be to document our time spent in Italy through photos and videos and show you all what we're getting up to through our Facebook page! I'll also get some behind the scenes footage of the crew working hard.
Friday 3rd November 2017
WEEK 3
Izzy and I arrived back in London yesterday, and we can say that filming in Italy definitely lived up to
expectations. I’m pleased to say my Italian vocabulary now stretches a little wider than ‘bonjourno’ and
‘brava’! The crew worked incredibly hard - I'm proud of what we achieved in such a short space of time.
Go team!
Our schedule was indeed very busy, but we had a great time filming the sights of Padua, Venice and
Zenson, meeting our contributors and hearing what they had to say about Badini’s story (after Giuls
had translated it for us of course) and drinking lots of sparkling red wine! I even got to be second camera
I used the Canon C100, which is a great piece of kit to use and it's lightweight so is good for handheld shots.
Jordan was using the Sony FS5, which is his preference as it films in 4K, so the footage looks that extra bit
amazing. In the words of Jordan himself: "This camera is a godsend. If you're interested in cinematography,
My favourite part of the trip was the tour of Zenson - seeing the town and getting a better feel for its history was fascinating, and we successfully
Thursday 9th November 2017
Next Thursday, Izzy and I will return to London with Italy footage, and the others will head to Israel to film another interview. Keep updated through our Facebook page and check in again next week for another Blog to find out how we got on in Italia!
definitely look into using the FS5." Both cameras also have interchangeable lenses, so there's a wide variety of
options for shots depending on what you're filming. The FS5 is particularly good for cinematic imagery, but both
cameras are great for filming documentaries too - it's no wonder we chose these cameras to take with us on our travels!
Prato Della Valle, Padua
Venezia
Zenson di Piave
managed to film in a moving car packed with the crew and our equipment, focusing on our contributor as well as capturing the views out the
window, while keeping the camera as steady as possible. Although this was a challenging job, seeing the footage we captured afterwards made it such a rewarding experience!
We’ve come home with plenty of footage - it’s hard to believe the others now have even more to film in Jerusalem! It will definitely take a while to cut down, but luckily we have a hard-working, Italian-speaking Director who will translate and transcribe when she returns to London so Stephen can crack on with the edit! (Although there’s lots for Stephen to edit now, so the next job is to get a good dent in the footage we have so far).
I’m looking forward to a little relax this weekend before we get the momentum going for next week - we definitely deserve a few days off!
meeting, we made a rough post-production schedule and reviewed some of the footage. Over the last week, Izzy and I have been backing up the footage to several hard drives, different laptops and the uni's server, making sure to store these in different places. This is super important because if one of the hard drives is corrupted or missing, we still have the same footage saved in multiple locations so we're unlikely to lose it.
Giulia has already started transcribing today and will continue over the weekend and next week - it seems like an endless task at the moment but it won’t be long now until it’s all done! We’re meeting again soon to review more of the footage and continue with the edit.
We also received the money back from the Crowdfunder so can finally start reimbursing everyone on expenditure. The cash from the cake sale and tombola fundraiser was transferred to euros for us all to spend in Italy on food and travel, and we will also receive a small amount from uni so luckily we've got enough to cover all our spendings!
To everyone who donated and supported us...
Welcome to our Blog, where you'll be able to read about what we've been up to in the production of our television documentary, which is currently under the working title Unknown Hero.
for this trip so we can work out how much more money we need to raise, which
means there will be lots of treats and prizes up for grabs very soon!
where we had lots of yummy treats and prizes up for grabs! It went so well - we were at the stall from 10am til 6pm and made a good dent in our fundraising target. We finished with only 2 slices of cake remaining! Thank you to everyone who supported us and well done to the prize-winners. Keep your eyes peeled for more of our fundraising events, which will be happening very soon!
We also reached 100 likes on our Facebook page, which means our content is getting viewed by lots of people - we hope you like what you see! Feel free to leave comments either on this Blog or through Facebook with your views and feedback and let us know how we're doing and if there's anything else you'd like to know about Unknown Hero or the production process.
WEEK 6
This week has been so productive for us! The majority of us have been meeting every day and getting on with the transcripts, edit, our promo video and teaser trailers. Giulia powered through all the transcripts and finished them earlier in the week, so she and Stephen have been cracking on with the edit over the past couple of days. Jordan also completed all shot lists, which consists of several documents where all the footage we captured is logged shot by shot.
Friday 17th November 2017
Wednesday 22nd November 2017
It's officially one week to go until our final screening!
There's exactly 2 weeks to go until the rough cut viewing, where we will get feedback from the rest of the class and other tutors before our final viewing on 13th December, meaning we have 10 days to make alterations and finish the edit according to the comments we receive. We're so close now, so just need to make sure we keep up the good work until the very end!
Today, we met with our Executive Producer and course tutor, Rob Benfield, to show him the footage and the edit so far - feedback was great so we're excited to see what the final outcome will look like!
WEEK 7
If you're wondering what we've all been doing, here's a little update! Izzy as Producer has been working on production paperwork, and going back and forth from the library to the edit suite checking we're all getting on okay and making sure we're all on schedule. Anya's role of Sound Operator came in during the production stage, so during the production stage, so during post-prod she's been helping Izzy out with production and giving feedback on the edit,
The first screening is the end of next week - only 9 days to go! We've made good progress over the past week. The credits are already done thanks to Jordan and his great editing skills (they look amazing!), the majority of our interviews are edited and most subtitles are written up.
Hope you like it! I've designed a new logo which you'll now be able to see on our home page and Facebook cover photo.
especially with the dialogue and music. Stephen, Giulia and Jordan have been getting on with the edit, which has meant we can work quickly and, when one of them hasn't been available for a few hours or a day, another can step in and continue with the edit. As well as doing some of the editing, Giuls had been making sure it makes sense overall and
Helping each other out on each role has been immensely valuable to the efficiency of production, and has contributed towards us getting a lot of work done in such a short amount of time. Good work guys!
We can now also reveal the final title for this documentary, which is...
follows a clear narrative. I’ve been busy blogging, working on teaser trailers, and managing our social media and online marketing. I've also stepped in to work on the subtitles, making sure the font is easy to read and the text flows well.
WEEK 8
Thursday 6th December 2017
Along with our 15 minute documentary, each group on the course is also required to submit a production folder, which includes all
We had our rough cut viewing on the 1st (and when I say rough cut, it was pretty much a final draft because each one of us are all such perfectionists!). I'm really pleased with the feedback we received - there were some great comments, as well as suggestions for minor changes and improvements. This means we have some aspects of the documentary to work on over the next 10 days, and we can also get on with editing the teasers and trailers, which will be published on our Facebook site in the near future, so be on the look out!
the paperwork we've completed across production, correspondence with contributors, inspirational material, research, links to
social media, transcripts, shot lists, and much more! Since Izzy is Producer, it is her job to keep on top of this and keep it all
This is due at the same time as the documentary submission, so we'll also be working on this in the next week - fingers
organised, but all of us have done and will continue to chip in and help out with this, since it's a huge job for just one person!
crossed we can submit early and have a little relax before the final viewing.
Each person on the course also needs to write a log, production analysis and a critical analysis, where we note our activity each day we've been working, analyse our individual contribution to the project and the group performance, and evaluate A Righteous Legacy critically, as though we're analysing a professional programme. All this written work is due on 18th December, meaning we have a little more time once we've handed in our docs to complete this, and then that'll be us finished for the Christmas holiday!
Check in soon to find out how the final viewing goes. Not long now until you all can see A Righteous Legacy as a finished product - eek!
WEEK 10
bits left to pack then we’re all done. We’re all super excited, especially because...
This week has been so productive for us! The majority of us have been meeting every day and getting on with the transcripts, edit, our promo video and teaser trailers. Giulia powered through all the...