Isabella's Evaluation

After our first few initial meetings Poppy presented an idea that we create some sort of football fan based mocumentary – this was just the starting point. As a group we all had slightly different plans on how to go about this and we all started reading up on Leeds united and doing research. One Monday afternoon Poppy and I thought we’d throw ourselves in at the deep end. The Merchant was the first pub we visited, after a quick conversation with the bar maid we realised there was only one option – to go to Beeston, that’s where the fans were!. Stepping off that bus I felt a sense of unease; it was an atmosphere I was not used to. Walking into The White Heart – a pub known for hosting notorious Leeds fans, I must say was quite a daunting moment. Eyes glared at us in disbelief as two young southern girls entered an unfamiliar territory. After a second of awkwardness we went straight in an announced that we were creating a documentary on Leeds fans; and the intimidating characters suddenly turned into some of the nicest and most passionate people ive ever met. This is where the project really started.

 finding such characters inspired us to continue the quest for crazy Leeds fan stories. The most important process of this documentary was talking. Whether it be talking to people we already knew or starting up some conversations with an old northern lads at the pub (considering I know nothing about football I had to do a lot of acting). I realised where ever I went and whoever I met id ask the question “do you support Leeds united?”. I picked up a few potential contacts for interviews from this but sadly we never got round to it as we had other contributors who already fit the category and limited time to conduct interviews.

The recording process showed the dedication our group had to the film – of course Poppy was the driving force. As this was an experimental module none of the group members really had specific roles; this left us to help where help was needed and get involved in everything. I did a lot of boom holding – something I’ve never done before and probably wont again; I felt like I had done a day in the gym afterwards. We had two cameras at most of the shoots – a steady cam and Rich’s camera. Rich would film all the B role and cut aways. The shoot I remember most is following Tom (a contributor) around Pudsey for about an hour as he got lost on the way to his own fathers football club. During this hour wandering session there was sun, rain, hail and snow. However the footage we got that day was very beneficial and added a comedic element we needed for our doc.

Time was closing in on us and we had to make the decision to stop recording and start editing – it was going to be a long one. With over three hours of interviews Poppy and I had to start cutting out all the rambling – turns out old men can talk for hours and about nothing. Poppy and I could probably recite the interviews after the repeated amount of times we went through them looking for stand out moments. At first there was a lack of organization in the edit and a lot of audio and sound was out of sync. I re synced all the interviews, cut out our voices and ordered them all into a neat time line where we could then work from. Electric press became our home Poppy and I edited through the weekend hunting high and low for the perfect clips and cutaways. At first editing did run smoothly Poppy and I understood what each other wanted and how we wanted the film to turn out.

It was not till the end where we encountered severe technical difficulties. After two weeks of editing day in day out it was very difficult to see major problems present themselves in the final hours. However this showed how strong we were as a group as we all stayed into the late hours of the morning to try and solve the issues. Liam only started colour grading after midnight and we had problems editing the sound on pro tools. So as editors and not soundies, Liam and I had to adjust the audio on Premier.

In reflection, the group have created a very different film to what we set out to do. I still feel that the film worked really well and has a great sense of community and shows Leeds for the city it is. We definitely worked hard on this film; well some more than others. I admit that without Poppy the film wouldn’t have been made; she was the passion and driving force we all needed to push through and produce the best film possible. I would like to do documentary again I found meeting all these new whacky characters very entertaining. And building a 4/5 minute narrative out of three hours worth of footage was a fun but challenging task. Although the film is very different from its original plan, I still look at it and think “YES, LEEDS!”