Rich's Evaluation

Our initial idea of making a mocumentary about football hooligans quickly developed into wanting to tell the real stories of Leeds United’s wide array of fans and characters in a documentary format. Poppy and Izzi bravely went to the ‘notorious’ White Hart in Beeston and this started the snowball of funny stories and wacky characters which grew to be at the heart of ‘Yes, Leeds’.  We wanted to convey those ‘stories you hear down the pub’ into documentary format, with our key aim being to find out what it means to be a Leeds fan and whether the club’s notorious disorderly nature is an accurate representation of this West Yorkshire Club. 

My prime role on this experimental film was cinematographer and researcher. In terms of cinematography I provided much of the interview footage in the film. My favourite interview was with the Norwegian fans in their hotel. They were all fantastic characters and really embodied the true spirit of Leeds United; through thick and thin they will follow their club and March On Together. My mission for B role also took me to Elland Road to watch Leeds U23s play Ipswich, a fantastic experience which I talk about in length in a previous blog post. I also helped conduct interviews in the discovery hotel, Holbeck Bowls club and Stanley Albion Youth Football Club. I am also very happy with how we all worked as a team, we all chipped in and I enjoy seeing aspects of everyone’s work in the final edit.

However we also encountered many issues during the making of this film. We struggled to get a full picture of all the many demographics and ethnicities that support leeds. Although trying our hardest, everything from following leads and mutual acquaintances to posting often on Leeds fan pages and forums, the majority of fans featured in our final film were caucasian males, over fifty. However I feel this does not truly represent what we came across in the process of making the film. For example we were unfortunate not to get an interview with a lovely lady named Julie who had supported Leeds all her life and went to every U23’s game, however we were unable to conduct an interview as her husband fell ill. If I were to make this documentary again, I would make sure that from the start, we were actively looking for fans from all walks of life, to paint a picture of the real Leeds United. Another problem we had particularly when editing the film was the syncing the audio to video. Due to most of our B role shots being quite off the cuff sometimes we didn’t clap our hands as to time sync the footage and audio in the edit. During this film I have learned how essential a clapper board is and will definitely use one in all my future projects as this would have saved hours in the edit. 

Furthermore another issue we often encountered was our quality of sound and picture. Due to not having a cinematography student in the group I had to take the reins in this regard, even though I know very little about the specialism. However I am very glad I did as I have learnt so much about this side of filmmaking, such as how to light an interview subject and capturing the key moments in frame. This culminated in managing to get into contact with ex Leeds United footballer Kevin Sharp, arranging an interview, lighting filming, organising all the sound recording myself, preparing questions and conducting the interview on my own. This is certainly something I wouldn’t have had the confidence or ability to do before this experimental film module and I think this shows how far I have come since starting it. I was very proud to see my interview in the final film and was very happy with how it looked and sounded.

To conclude I am happy with how the final film turned out. Granted it is not the film we may have set out to make all those months ago when we first started talking about a ‘football film’ but I think what makes this film unique is how we adapted to the problems we faced and came out the there side with a better film because of it.