NYID | management | marketing | production

Production issues

Artistic brief

Production Model

Products components

Concept to product (survey of production findings

Production stages

Budget

Production credits

The UnMaking Of is satirical made-for-television documentary about the process of translating live performance to the moving image. It is a documentary about a documentary about a theatrical production. The UnMaking Of is about making a television documentary around NYID's controversial theatrical production, The Austral/Asian Post-Cartoon: Sports Edition. Believing that live performance does not translate well to film, NYID created the 52-minute docudrama as a stand-alone work filmed specifically for television. It was shot on 8 formats from 16 mm and DVC-pro to Hi-8 and VHS-C. It features excerpts from the unfinished documentary, performance footage of sports edition, company meetings, interviews with theatre critics and spectators and public TV reportage.

Artistic brief

The UnMaking Of documentary follows the award-winning experimental theatre company NYID, through the making of a television documentary about a controversial theatrical production. The project was not a documentary recording of the live performance, as the company maintains that such recordings do little to represent the virtues of live performance. The company elected instead to create a stand-alone 52-minute television documentary satire. The artists are the "protagonists" in a documentary of the process of documenting the making of the show.

The drama of this documentary centres around guerilla documentary shot by one of the company members, in which all the members, including the director and the company's management committee, are exposed in the most vulnerable of circumstances.

The UnMaking Of dismantles the products of theatre within the process of television, making it darkly humorous, polemical and unsettling theatrical television. The UnMaking Of simultaneously investigates the documentary form using highly mediated imagery and content. It conducts an incisive and contemporary deconstruction of Australia's national identity in the microcosm of a cultural producer, the theatre company.

Production model

NYID is the name given to a group of mixed-media artists who produce public performance events through the Not Yet It's Difficult Performance Series. The philosophy behind the series is to make work cumulatively and over a long period of time. The company works across art forms incorporating theatre, film, dance and video.

The ensemble approach to making work and the pre-existing video and production skills within the company helped determine a production management model where artistic control would stay with the company. A few key production specialists such as a first assistant director, sound recordist and editor were outsourced to assist the company in producing a broadcast quality documentary and provide an opportunity for the company to further develop production skills.

The Cinemedia Executive Producer worked closely with the company to enable the project to run more efficiently and to optimise the outcome.

The following chart indicates the NYID model of management for the production.

Products components

Originally NYID was scheduled to tour its award-winning production The Austral/Asian Post Cartoon: Sports Edition, which would be recorded and combined with existing footage to create a documentary. A delay of the tour caused the company to rethink the proposal. The company devised a docudrama script which contextualised the existing footage of the live production and other existing support material in an interesting way.

Components included in the NYID documentary The Unmaking Of
Recording of the scripted documentary
Existing footage of Australia/Asia Post-Cartoon: Sports Edition
Interviews with academics
Existing footage of company training
Existing footage of Vox Pop interviews
Interviews with critics

Concept to product - (summary of production findings)

NYID produced The Unmaking Of a 52-minute docudrama over an eight-month production period. The documentary incorporated a range of shooting formats, partly as an artistic concept but also as a way of blending the pre-existing footage of the live production the documentary is based on. NYID selected a few key production crew to enable the company to produce a broadcast quality documentary while at the same time allowing the artistic control to stay with the company. The following section provides a summary of the production findings.

The company operates as a collaborative ensemble company so the choice to employ key production roles was appropriate. This allowed artistic control to stay with the company and at the same time allowed the company to develop more formal film production skills.
The company selected these crew roles carefully to ensure the personnel were sympathetic to the NYID working style.
The docudrama format gave an interesting artistic and dramatic context for the pre- existing footage.
NYID made the artistic choice to shoot on various cameras from DVC-PRO to 16 mm, which gave the documentary a distinct "look". The changes of stock were also woven into the story line, providing a practical device for bridging the various stocks used for the pre-existing footage.
The company developed a documentary script prior to pre-production, which assisted the planning of the production process.
Although the company had a developed script to base its shoot on it also scheduled time within the shoot to capture some improvised material. This material was important in post-production, allowing the director the opportunity to explore the story line further at the editing stage.
Given the company was not experienced at producing film it had scheduled a long shoot with plenty of rehearsal time. This allowed time for directing performances for camera and exploring shot selection. This rehearsal period was also important when the company was shooting the 16 mm as it resulted in quality shots and performances that ultimately reduced the shooting ratio.
As the theme of the documentary was "the making of the making", the company devised interesting multiple camera views exposing the making of the show and giving the feeling of observation.
The director and editor decided to digitise all footage to provide as many options as possible in the post-production process. This was a good decision as it allowed for further development of the documentary in post-production. The decision did come at a price, however, because a great deal of editing time was spent digitising and viewing the material.
Offline editing was done on a Lightworks system, which caused some problems when it came to the online, which was done on an AVID system. The two systems were incompatible and caused a number of problems. The range of stocks also created some problems for the online system.

Production stages - summary

NYID produced a documentary which took three weeks to shoot and drew on pre-existing footage the company had shot of the Austral/Asian Post -Cartoon:Sports Edition in the 1997 theatrical season. The following chart outlines the production stages of the documentary shoot.

Production stages	Description	Timeline
Documentary		5 July - 11 September
Research and Scripting	Familiarisation of existing performance and rehearsal footage, communicating anecdotes of the making of the show and writing the first draft of the script.	August, 1 month
Crew Selection	First Assistant Director, editor, sound operator	August, 1 month
Research Copyright	Obtain permission for licensing and releases for selected material identified in the script	August - October, 3 months
Script Development	Second and third drafts of the script	September - October, 2 months
Shooting Schedule	Scheduling of all shoots	September - October, 2 months
Production Schedule	Resulted from consultation between key creatives and occurred in partnership with the development of the storyboard.	October
Production		26 October - 4 December
Rehearsal Shoot	At Melbourne University Studio	October, 2 days
Show Shoot	At the production headquarters of Port Melbourne SS Gymnasium	November, 4 weeks
Rehearsal Shoot (16 mm)	Rehearsal for camera and performance	November, 1 day
Show Shoot (16 mm)	At the production headquarters of Port Melbourne SS Gymnasium	December, 1 week
Post Production		7 December - 9 March
Digitisation	Digitising all formats and installing them in the Lightworks Editing System	1 week of editing period
Content Review	Review of all source material recorded across all shoots	2 weeks with material digitised
Take Selection	Print takes selected and second assembly of 80 minutes viewed	1 week
Script Revision	Assess script viability	1 week
Offline Edit	Edit to 60 minutes	3 weeks
Screenings	Series of screenings to obtained feedback form a variety of audiences	2 days
Online Edit	Edit of 55 minutes as suggested by SBS. At AAV Digital using the AVID online system.	1 day
Sound Mix	Sound timecoded to offline draft and transferred to online	1.5 days
Master Recording	Master recording of audio and visuals	1 day

Budget - summary

NYID was awarded $130,000 from the PAML Pilot Project: the following budget provides summary of the production.

INCOME	Budget	Actual
Cinemedia	130000	130000
Chunky Move /Drome	0	0
TOTAL	130000	130000

EXPENSES	Budget	Actual
Stage One
Research and Scripting		11000
Accounting & Administration		8107
Stage Two
Pre-production & pre-edit existing footage		15304
Production		18487
Cast and crew wages		35000
Stage Three
Post-production wages		15480
16 mm process and telecine		1660
Offline facilities (excluding editor)		9100
Online facilities		4520
Sound post-production		6000
Dubbing and Packaging		1470
Mpeg1 compression		2000
Copyright licence fees		1000
Contingency		824
TOTALS	130000	129952

FINAL RESULT	Budget	Actual
Total Income	130000	130000
Total Expenditure	130000	129952
Surplus/(Deficit)	0	48

Production Credits

Cinemedia Executive Producer	Cheryl Houben
Director	David Pledger
Production Manager	Paul Jackson
Director of Photography	Paul Hosking
First Assistant Director	Michael Madigan
Sound	Andy Butt
Placement	Christine Stone Martine Dartnell
Paymaster	Theatreworks
Actors	Kha tran Viet Paul Bongiovanni Danielle Long Greg Ulfan Katia Molino Adam Broinowski Jillian Pearce Louise Taube Mark Hennessy