Wonder Woman Reflection & Edit Process
The Editing stage of this documentary project was rather tasking given a number of personal and project related issues that set us behind and made it hard to achieve what we planned. One of the major problems for me over the period of the project was figuring out the hypothesis of our documentary. What big question where we answering / agreeing to / disagreeing with? It was hard for me because we hadn't really established what we wanted to tackle with our documentary. We just found someone with a story and worked the entire documentary based off of that. So when we looked back at our footage we also realised it didn't match up with the topics we were addressing in the program. Looking back now there are a number of things I would have done differently in the research stage that would make a positive difference, like researching more into our target audience and determining whether the program we had in mind would have an impact on their demographic. In addition, I also felt we were lacking information from other sources. All the information offered came from one source which was our main character Zoey Chambers. As researchers we could have done a better job with researching into our topic and finding workers or related bodies that could shed light on the issues addressed in the documentary.The editing stage was a little stressful as time was drawing close towards the deadline so we were extremely pressed for time when we realised we had a lot to change. In the end we had to make do with our individual edits and piece them together. I edited the parts that consisted of the domestic violence and her adoption. I also edited the outro because I had some good ideas for it.
For the domestic violence segment I really wanted to evoke the pain and frustration in her voice so I did a lot of colour correcting and visual edits to help the audience feel the emotion in her story. I feel I did a good job interpreting her story into visuals based on the director's (Colleen) references. Below are clips and images of my personal edits done for the documentary.
Wonder Woman Interview Script
Wonder Woman - Paper work Update
Before filming we had to ensure permission from the parents to allow us obtain footage of the support session, seeing as they and their children would be involved. We managed to get a majority of the group with the exception of two or three members. We filmed successfully and managed to keep those unlisted out of the shots. Behind is our scheduling sheet for our production period. On it are important dates and events we intend to film as they are relevant to our documentary, and then we have a concrete plan for our reconstructed scenes which are in orange and will be shot within a week.
Finding Cast for Wonder woman
Having scrapped the idea of three main characters and cutting it down to one, we began looking for people we felt would best give us a story to tell. Given that we were still sticking to the idea of a single mother, we looked up charity organisations that catered for such people. After a couple of searches, we came across gingerbread and read the Story of Yvonne - a single mother whose, partner (then boyfriend) didn't take on his responsibilities as a father and emotionally abused her. Two kids later, Yvonne decides she's had enough and sets out to be the best mother for her kids.
We liked the story and decided she would be ideal for our main character as we felt there was room to capture her psychological journey from one point to another. Upon calling gingerbread and getting into contact with the media representative Faith Dawes we found they do not release case studies for Student projects so we had to scrap that idea also. We looked up another website called only mums and came across another interesting lady who wrote this blog call not super mummy. The blog gave personal accounts of life as a single mother and gives useful links to information that could be helpful for other single mothers out there. Unfortunately she also didn't feel comfortable with being interviewed and sharing personal information with students who are still far from professional.
Wonder Woman Pitch - a group presentation by - Sei-kai Leung, Colleen Anderson, Shannelle Laniyan:
Wonderwoman - A documentary by Sei-Kai Leung, Colleen Anderson and Shannelle Laniyan
Previous Synopsis
Wonderwoman isn an inspiring documentary focused on the work of a UK charity called Gingerbread and the single parent families they provide services for, in sharing the grit of their stories we hope to put an end to domestic violence and poverty in single family homes within the UK.
Synopsis (Updated)
Given a change in character and plot - Wonder-woman is a documentary focused on the test of motherhood in trying circumstances and how women all over the UK have persevered despite facing extremely tough financial and living situations. In addition, this documentary will briefly touch up on organisations like the salvation army and come to understand closely the services they offer their clients.
Yvonnes Story (excerpt from gingerbread.co.uk) -
Yvonne is 25 and lives in Enfield, North London, with her daughter, Jaeda, who is six and her son, Kaylan, who is five. Becoming a parent at a young age meant big life changes for Yvonne, but she’s determined not to be stereotyped and is working to build up a business and give her kids the best possible start in life.
Life changes
I got pregnant at 17, but didn’t realise until my children’s dad said to me that I looked like I was getting bigger! When a friend said the same thing, I decided to take a pregnancy test. It was positive. I knew then that either way, whether I decided to keep the child or not, my life was going to change.
My children’s dad and I had been arguing all the time and at that point we weren’t together. I booked an abortion – I didn’t want to be a young mum and I didn’t want to be a single parent. However, after going for my consultation at the abortion clinic I decided not to terminate the pregnancy.
My children’s dad and I got back to together and tried to make it work. I carried on at college until I was nine months pregnant, and then I had my daughter, Jaeda. Things were going ok. And then when my daughter was seven months old I got pregnant again unexpectedly.
The realities of being a young mum
I felt like I’d messed up my life completely at that point. My relationship was struggling and again, I considered having an abortion. I just thought, ‘I’m 19, I’m only just getting to know one child, how am I ever going to be able to love another one as well?’ But an older friend at the time told me, ‘You will. It just comes naturally.’
Being a young mum – well, I won’t ever promote it. A lot of young girls seem to think that a baby will bring them love. They just don’t realise how much it costs to have a child. And if you’re not mentally ready for parenthood, it can mess you up. I think I went through a kind of depression when I was pregnant for the second time. I didn’t care about my appearance at one point. It was like, where’s my life going?
Hard words
When the doctor told me I was having a boy things started to change. I felt more positive and looked forward to my son arriving, and to teaching him to be a good man who respects women. Things still weren’t great with the children’s dad though. We were off again, on again, he would walk out on me during arguments, would do spiteful things and emotionally abuse me.
At this point my mum, who raised us on her own after my dad left when I was five, said to me, “you’re going to be a single mum.” as she could see I was in an unstable relationship. But I didn’t want to accept that as the truth.
Wanting more
Things came to a head when he smashed up my house. After that I couldn’t love him anymore. I was just staying with him because I felt like I needed him to be there for me and the children. Eventually, I realised I wanted more from my life and broke up with him, trying to keep things calm and friendly so we could both continue to be good parents to our kids – no fights, no courts.
However, he couldn’t take it and broke into my home. At that point I got an injunction against him. I refuse to say bad things about him to my kids’ though – I want them to have good memories of their father. They can make up their own minds about him in time.
Tough choices
Last year was when I had my big lightbulb moment and realised what I wanted to do with my life. I was studying at university studying criminology at the time, when I had a vision of myself standing in an arena speaking to thousands of people. It dawned on me that what I wanted to be was a motivational speaker.
I realised I was doing the wrong course at university. I had two choices: I could either keep going, get the degree and the pride of having finished university as a single parent, or I could stop and follow my heart and make my dreams come true. So I decided to stop the course.
Changing the world
Since then I’ve been doing everything I can to get my life coaching business, LoveLifeInspire, off the ground. I told my mum, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to do it.’ At an event I met a woman who told me I should start making motivational Youtube videos. She told me to just go for it, be authentic and try and do one a day for 30 days. The next day I thought, what have I got to lose? If I can empower someone else, it’s worth it. So I made 44 videos over 44 days. This then enabled me to create a documentary with youth project Fixers, which was shown on ITV news in January.I’m always busy, always learning. I don’t think I could be a good coach if I wasn’t. I have a daily timetable to help me and the kids manage our schedule. There have been stressful moments, times when I’ve felt inadequate, when I’ve wondered if I should have stayed on at university and got a degree. But we all have our own path and I chose the entrepreneur path where I get to create my dream job.
At the moment I’m trying to arrange opportunities to speak at schools to young girls about sex, relationships and their identity – it’s so important for them to know the truth about themselves and society. I recently met my local MP who said to me, “If I could put you in a bottle and sell you, I would. You’re going to change the world!”
Surprising people
I’m a professional life coach, but my most important clients are my children. I want them to have choices and to build a strong relationship with me where they know they can tell me anything. It makes me so proud when I’m told how well they’re doing at school, for example. I always want to surprise people about what a young mum and her kids can achieve.
Becoming a mum as a teenager changes everything – your friends change, your daily life changes, your body changes. You have to learn to embrace who you are and to accept that yes, you’re a young mum, and you’re going to move forward. For me, though, it’s not about how I started. It’s about how I finish.
Program Information
Wonder-woman is an inspiring documentary focused on the work of a UK charity called Gingerbread who provide services for single parents.
Running time - 10mins
Target audience
Having done some research about the BBC3 channel we concluded our target audience would be 16-34 as theirs came up to about the same thing. A majority of their viewers found this space of time to be adequate for a little lie in or just some private time alone at home while the kids are sleeping or mum is out. In demographic terms our category is recognised as C2DE. This demographic includes young teenage viewers who have the capacity to understand much more serious topics, mothers with children, upmarket career women, university students and others. This demographic of viewers contains the most female viewings across all of the existing ones within the UK.
Transmission - BBC3
Having looked closely at the program schedule and reading through program blurbs, we decided on Monday at 9pm because we felt more serious programs came on at the time such as Life on death row, a three part series - about criminals subjected to the death penalty and how they were coping with their final days - and we would be able to catch our target audience and appeal to them. In addition, 9pm is a peak viewing time and majority of viewers across the UK are watching TV at this time.
As this is a documentary that would be shown on BBC3, our target audience would be for youths at the age of 16-34 as it is a youth channel and mainly for females as it is about women as heroes. In regards to audience profiling it would be targeted at those in the category C2DE this is the largest demographic of women across the age spectrum, this will also target those 'from young mums to retirees' which could relate to the issues in the documentary.
International women's day was started in 1911, March 8th. Since it's inception, the united nations have found new areas to credit and celebrate women's achievements. Some of those areas Include Domestic violence against women, ending hunger and poverty, human rights, gender equality, equal pay, rights , opportunities etc.
Research notes on subject matter: [taken from www.independent.co.uk]
Women are still subject to/vulnerable to sexual abuse and domestic violence from as early as 15.
at least 30% have reported this
38% of female deaths/murders are caused by their partners
International women's day was started in 1911, March 8th. Since it's inception, the united nations have found new areas to credit and celebrate women's achievements. Some of those areas Include Domestic violence against women, ending hunger and poverty, human rights, gender equality, equal pay, rights , opportunities etc.
1908
Women are tired of inequality in society and become more vocal and active. 15,000 women marched through new york claiming shorter hours, better pay, and working rights.
1911
Following the decision to adopt IWD in several countries in Europe, more than one million men and women attended IWD rallies to campaign for women's right to vote, work, be trained, hold public office, and end discrimination against them. A week later 140 women lost their lives to the Triangle Fire on march 25th most of them being Jewish and italian immigrants. This tragic event led political leaders and global citizens alike to consider the importance of IWD and it's ability to make the world a Fair place for females alike.
1917
Women are given the right to vote under said met requirements i.e. they were over the age of 30, and met property qualifications.
NOW
IWD is a public/official holiday in many countries all over the world.
Personal note/ reflection: The concept of using three characters was cut off in the end as we realised that the idea of wonder woman being anyone and not someone specific would make finding the perfect story hard. So instead we chose the idea of the single mother and worked into it by looking for issues to address. In one of our tutorials Sei-Kai mentioned the idea of attending a support group session and meeting the prospective cast in person as opposed to communicating through mail and telephone.
Project Brief - We are now at the start of a new unit that requires us to make a ten minute documentary that can fit with one of the following:
a) BBC3 My hero (Stories of heroism)
b) Canterbury Cathedral - Promotional and informative video for their YouTube page.
For this project I've decided to work with CK and Colleen. I chose to work with them because we get along well and they both have outstanding qualities that I believe will be forthcoming on this project. Having said that, I expressed my eagerness for option A as I feel it gives us a lot more room to task our ability and exercise our creativity. With a brief like this the possibilities are endless as we have all in some way been affected positively by someone we can identify as a hero. So, the first question I asked myself was 'Who is a hero?' and this is what I came up with:
Almost straight away, I knew I wanted to create a documentary that people could relate to and derive a sense of moral support from. Having spread out my options clearly, I started to think about the kind of things I would want to know or be informed about, what kind of things I found entertaining and at the same time informative. After about an hour under my thinking cap I developed my first Idea and made a sample pitch which is as follows: 
(Please excuse the typo above).
Seeing as the unit has just begun, this is only a rough idea. I'm hoping to find enough research to make it doable as I feel it could be an outstanding piece. I also took the time to watch a couple of documentaries as well that pertain to this subject matter and I got a lot of useful pointers and Ideas. The Guardian made a mini web series called Breadline Britain that shows the front-line of poverty in England that most of us probably aren't aware of. Because it's a subject that has been assessed and discussed time and time again I visually want to stimulate the audience as most of the content we produce won't be new to them. However, if we can captivate them visually,the audio content will become more relevant to our audience.
Info - Breadline Britain: The life and tragic death of Telan Stone aged 11 months
SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/WHumqY
For more from the Breadline Britain series: http://bit.ly/V5VkD5
This film follows the Stone family as they struggle to cope with life in the overcrowded and damp council flat where they lived until the tragic death of their youngest child Telan on 6 October. They have since been rehoused by York Council.
• This is one of six short observational documentaries from the frontline of poverty in Britain funded by the Rowntree Foundation
