Pre-Production/Research Dossier Work For Football Documentary

For our production, our idea was going to be using the topic of football and the issues surrounding becoming pro. Our initial idea was that we would show the struggles and important factors that could influence someones success in becoming a professional footballer. We would interview some more successful footballers who we know and talk about the struggles which they are facing. 

For our primary research we have planned to interview one of my friends "Megan Bartlett" as she is currently suffering from an injury which is stopping her from playing professionally for Norwich FC ladies.We will also use some of the F2 Freestylers footage to show that it is very difficult to go pro, especially when they cannot go pro with how talented they are in football. We will start off the documentary with some slow motion skills and shots in a montage to draw people in and show an interest in the documentary. We have decided that we will be using Flegg High Schools 3G Football Pitch for our venue. We will not need a storyboard as it is a documentary. Injuries will be a huge part of this however, we will be showing the strain on people and the age they should go into professional football. We may include the hardships which people have been through to become a professional footballer; Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi. The photo below is an example of production research. https://www.youtube.com/user/F2Freestylers

Interviewees:
-Peter Macnaughton
-Billy Randell

Possible Interviewees:
-Billy Cousin

Approximate areas covered by level 8 of the League System. The Red shades cover the Northern Premier League; the Blue shades cover the Southern League; Green and Yellow cover the Isthmian League.

I went onto google to find out how many clubs were in English football, and it gave me a Wikipedia page listing every semi-professional and professional clubs in England, ranging from the Premier League (level 1) and all the way down to Southern Counties East League Division One (level 10). This would be secondary research. Wikipedia is also a data gathering agency. 

For footballers at the top of the professional game, the early weeks of a new season are a time of giddy excitement.

For some, the summer may have brought a dream move to a big club, or the expectation of one imminently as the final days of the transfer window loom. For others, promotion might have brought greater financial rewards and the chance to challenge for some of the game's biggest prizes.

These are the dreams young footballers nurture, but the reality - for the majority of professional footballers - is very different.

The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) estimates that each summer, about 700 players are released by their clubs, causing upset and uncertainty.

"The biggest attrition rate is undoubtedly among young players," says Oshor Williams of the PFA's education department, which offers support and training to prepare them for a life outside professional football.

"Of those entering the game aged 16, two years down the line, 50% will be outside professional football. If we look at the same cohort at 21, the attrition rate is 75% or above.

"Most of these kids don't have a Plan B. It can be very unnerving to find yourself having to move into a completely different world."

A player must be at least nine years old to join an Academy, but many clubs - such as Arsenal - have development groups which cater for even younger players.

Yes. Strict new rules have been brought in to prevent clubs signing young players who live outside their catchment area.

Under 12's must live within an hour's travelling distance from the club, or 90 minutes for players aged 13-16.

At the Crystal Palace Academy, youngsters train three times a week - one and a half hours on Tuesday evenings and Thursday evenings and an hour on Saturday mornings. On Sundays, they play matches against other Academy teams. That could mean up to 28 games a season.

The average attendance for a premier league game is around 35,000 people, ranging all the way from 24,521-55,124. These statistics were all taken from http://www.worldfootball.net/attendance/eng-premier-league-2015-2016/3/.

For location recces we did our whole film in the college sports hall so didn't need to take photos, we also used another room in the college which is W16 to film our interviews. We spoke to the caretakers and sport teachers about using the areas and they said we could so didn't have any pieces of paper proving this. 

For our documentary, we needed: Camera, tripod, shoulder mount, football and SD card. We didn't have a schedule we were going by, we just aimed to get everything done before the date and this is what we did. 

If you want to film on public land you will need permission from the appropriate local authority or council. They are responsible for public land, public buildings, roads and parking. You will need the full co-operation of the local police force if you plan to film on a public highway or use special effects, explosives or fire arms (including replicas). You will also need permission to portray uniformed police officers or marked police vehicles on film. Before filming on a public road you must contact the local police and the Highways Department of the local authority. Both will need to make sure that your plans are safe and pose no threat to road users. If you plan to stage stunts, a stunt coordinator should be involved in any planning discussions. Also if you film an actor inside a store or restaurant, you need written permission to use the location and also to show the chain’s name or trademark. 

Production research and paperwork

Qualitative: This is the gathering of information in a non numerical form. This is usually descriptive data and is harder to study because of this. Diary accounts and questionnaires which you can't answer with simple yes's or no's are all examples of this. Qualitative research is also primary research, and is used to help understand underlying reasons, opinions and motivations. 

Quantitative: This is where you use numbers to gain data, which then be changed into statistics. It is usually used to record: opinions, attitudes and behaviors, and helps create an easier way to see how a larger group of people feel about it. Questionnaires are usually used, e.g. you could be doing a documentary like we were doing and ask people what they would think of a documentary about football, and ask them what they think about football as a whole. Another example would be if you asked someone what they think of a game and ask them to tare it out of 10. This would be quantitative, and asking them about what their favourite thing about the game is, this would be qualitative, however, after everything has been collected, it would  become quantitative.

Audience research: This would link into what I said about asking people what they thought about a game. You could ask people in a city and get them to fill out physical copies of questionnaires, or could send them out to people online to get them to fill them out. By gaining information from the public, would allow you to see what they like the most, and the sort of things they would be interested in. Audiences can be categorised demographically, through categories like age, class, gender etc, or psychographically, through their interests and opinions.

Market Research: This is where you talk about other products, within the market that you are looking at going into. Because we did a football documentary, it would only be fair to talk about the best footballer in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo. Cristiano has had a documentary about him, following his life, how he got to where he got, and his humble upbringing. From rags to riches. The Ronaldo documentary was released in a cinema in London a day early, where he attended the event, and a lot of YouTubers, particularly FIFA YouTubers where invited to go and see the movie early.  The documentary was filmed between January 2014,  and February 2015 and shows a ballon d'or win within the documentary.