Week 4! Let’s get to it. This week we are starting to dig deeper into this production. This is the week that we officially start our pre-production process. For the pre-production process we would normally gather our shot sheets, script breakdown, talent sheets, discover location shoots, and put together a detailed production schedule. However, because our project is a different case, most of our pre-production sheets are already done and locked down, or they have already been shot. We will, however, have to put together a production schedule for our part of the production and the things that we are responsible for, a finalized shooting date schedule, and an image system, or a “storyboard.” The image board will allow us to convey the ideas of how the documentary will look. It will give us the opportunity to show certain shot compositions of the footage that we have already procured, as well as the idea that we are going for for the remaining shoots that we have. Olivia and I are meeting with John this Wednesday to finalize travel and shoot dates, as well as discuss more in depth about how this 22-minute preview of Aigen: One Man’s War is going to look, and what he wants going into it. There has been a slight change to our travel schedule already. We were scheduled to go to Columbus, GA over February 21-22, but we are instead taking a day trip down to Mt. Dora on those dates to shoot footage of the truck that we were supposed to go down earlier in January for. While we are there, we will also be getting footage of a re-enactment that will be taking place at this event.

Week 3! This week was another week dedicated to pre-production aspects of the documentary, or as much as it can be based on the nature of the project and how far along we are with this project. For the sake of this class, Olivia and I are “starting from the beginning.” This week was focused on pitching our project to our class and the professor to get it approved to move forward with it for the semester. For our pitch, we pulled together information regarding the project and what our specific project for this documentary will be. The documentary will be a 4-part mini-doc series. There will be 4 episodes, each at about 30 minutes in length. Each episode will focus on a specific part of George’s journey throughout WWII. Within our pitch, we discussed the beginnings of this documentary and how it came to be, what we have so far, and what is next to come. So far, we have over 100 hours of total footage which includes archival footage, interviews that John has conducted, as well as B-Roll footage that John and previous are members have collected over the past 2 years. Still to come for this documentary, there are multiple trips that we still have planned in order to gather more B-Roll and interviews. For this documentary, Olivia and I will be piecing together a 22-minute preview piece that John will be able to show to potential investors as well as interested audiences.

Welcome to Week 2! This week, our team was scheduled to drive down to Palatka, FL to shoot some footage of WWII vehicles and artifacts for the documentary. However, the specific vehicles that we were going down there for will not be there this weekend. The owner of the vehicle contacted John earlier in the week to let him know that he will be out of town, and that because of that, the vehicle will not be present at the showing. Because of this, we will not be shooting this weekend. However, we are in the process of rescheduling this date to another one. This week, we are instead focusing on putting together our look book/mood board for this project in an attempt to establish the feel and the look for the production. We are meeting with John to sit down and discuss what this will look like, as we are already further along in this project than just the pre-production phase. Once we establish this, Olivia and I will begin the process of scrubbing footage and tagging and archiving the current footage that we have.

Hello all! I’m just going to jump right on in. My name is Mikayla Mummaw and I am a senior Mass Media major at Valdosta State University. This semester, I was presented with an incredible opportunity to come on board and work on this documentary with John Brown along with another student, Olivia Rosener. This week was our first week of classes. Being that it was week one, we focused mainly on discussing what our positions would be for this production, as well as what the future of this documentary looks like. Myself and Olivia are coming on as student assistants. Our role will include assisting with filming such as helping compose and frame shots, running audio, and editing together final pieces. As stated in the about page of this blog page, this documentary has been two years in the making. Where this documentary last left off was with a 55-minute rough cut of the footage that they had collected. We discussed the idea of turning this documentary into a docu-series of four episodes of about 30-minutes each. With these, Olivia and I may contribute to editing together one of these episodes. In addition to discussing our roles in this project and the future of it, we also planned to take a trip down to Palatka, FL this weekend to film some footage at a car show that will feature vehicles and artifacts from WWII.