Making a Documentary

krazyklown

Hi, this is probably gonna sound a bit ambitious but hey god loves a trier.....
My local hurling club are celebrating our 50th anniversary next year and we are hoping to mark the occasion by producing our own documentary charting the growth and development of the local area. As you can imagine we dont have much of a budget (if any!) to play around with. We hope to gather as much footage and film as we can about the local area and the club and shoot our own interviews. We're not too sure about what happens then though! Is it unreasonable to think we can edit it all to produce a quality production? The last thing we want to do is spend hours on something and end up with a pathetic dvd. One of the lads is a video enthusiastic and has shot loads of video of matches and stuff and has pretty good equipment. I amnt sure about our video editing skills though! We talked about trying to get a consultant in an advisory role to guide us, but dont know if it anybody would be willing to do it. We also talked about getting all the relevant footage, sift through it, eliminate what we dont want and get a professional to put it together. Obviously cost is a major implication. Anyways, any advice, suggestions or comments would be hugely appreciative!

lodgepole

Where are you based? When I was in college (Ballyfermot in Dublin) one of our assignments was to take on a proper job which the college had been commissioned to do. You could potentially contact a college near you which offers a video course and ask them to do it. It will cut the budget to almost nothing. Of course the gamble is that you may get some bottom of the rung student working on it. All of the ones we did turned out pretty good.

Alternatively of course you could bite the bullet and jump in. How long do you need the film to be? I'd say it could be worthwhile trying to put together something yourselves and even if you don't like it, at least you'll know more about the process and be in a better position to tell somebody else what you want from it.

krazyklown

ah we're out in the sticks.....east Mayo to be exact. aye it might worth a try. its a gamble alright though because we are keen to try and do as good as job as possible, but obviously being constrained by money means we might have to sacrifice.... are there many studios around? surely it wouldnt cost an awful huge amount to get someone to do the final version if we came up with the rough draft.... i dunno its hard when ya dont have experience to know whats the best way to go about it!