Filming in Liverpool

Our documentary, Walk On, is based around the Hillsborough disaster and the story of one man whose brother died in the incident. Originally, Walk On was intended to be a more poetic piece showing scenery from around Hillsborough and the memorials dedicated to the incident, though this slowly developed into the project that we have created. While our original intention was to avoid interviews, we decided to make contact with various people who were related to Hillsborough such as support groups and people who had spoken about the event. Each member of the group attempted to make contact with someone, though most of us were unable to make contact for various reasons. In the end, the only contact that we were able to make was Steve Kelley, who works for the Hillsborough Justice Campaign and whose brother had died in the incident. From this we decided to base the documentary around his story so as to create a different sort of documentary from what people would be used to seeing; a personal story would be more effective than a documentary about the general topic of the Hillsborough disaster. The filming session in Liverpool went, in my opinion, fairly well. We were able to arrive at our scheduled interview in a timely fashion, giving us enough chance to set up equipment and the like upon arrival. After trying to set up lighting equipment, we discovered that the environment we were in was unsuitable for such equipment as there were a lot of reflective surfaces, leaving glare in certain areas that was impossible to avoid due to the small space. However, I feel that this means we learnt something from the experience, and we were quick in resolving the issue as best we could. However, I personally made a mistake while operating the camera, framing the interview so that a piece of the lighting equipment could be seen. This is something that I feel I have learnt from, which will help in future projects. While filming on location at a Hillsborough memorial in Anfield we were approached by a member of the public who interrupted our filming. I feel that this gave us a clearer idea about what it is like to film on location, as it is a problem that we have not encountered on other projects set during the year. While it meant that we were unable to get all the footage that we wanted, it does mean that we know how to react to the situation if ever we were to film on location in such a manner again.