310MC Research & Development

Eamonn Matthews – 8th October 2009

Eamonn Matthews runs the production company, Quicksilver Media and i sthe Executive producer of Channel 4′s foreign affairs series Unreported World. As well as Unreported world, his most recent projects include, Channel 4′s recent documentary, Terror in Mumbai (2009), The Death Squads (Made in Iraq,2007) which won the 2007 Royal Television Society award for International Affairs, and Beslan (2006) which won the 2006 BAFTA for Current Affairs. 

The opportunity to hear a man of such great television experience and a successful documentary maker was to good to miss.

During his talk he described the world of documentary and revealed the general set up and crew that is required to make programs such as Unreported World. Crews for Unreported World are usually made up by one reporter and a cameraman armed with a Z1 camera. This is so they can “make films others cannot”, due to the small and light weight kit, the reporters are able to avoid unnecessary attention that large production crews bring and capture real life with ease by making ”the camera disappear”. The size of the crew was quite surprising to me, as i have always thought that production crews consist of 5 people minimum. However it did show me that anyone can make these films as long as you have a good story! The result of Unreported World is hard hitting documentaries which is achievable by anyone with the right story. With all the equipment available from the university loan shop there is nothing to stop me from making films like this! This was certainly an encouraging and motivational part of the talk, as it showed that anything is possible. 

Matthews main tip for success in documentary was, to have a good story. It is imperative to have a story about real people and not what is being talked about. Have hard evidence and try and avoid a fact based piece, depicting reality is key.

With the two man crew, the documentaries allow you to be more involved with the story, as you are discovering things at the same time as the reporter. On the spot reporting and visuals really make the reality of a situation hit home and bring real peoples lives and stories to the for-front of the piece, labeled as “as it happens television”.  Showing visual evidence of the story is far better than talking about it, “without the evidence you have no story”. Matthews said the main point of creating these reports, is to “give a voice to the people who have no voice”. 

Here is an short clip of an Unreported World program, and illustrates the points Matthews made.

Unreported World – Christmas Day Massacre

A typical Unreported World episode takes 9 weeks from pre-production to the finished piece; 3 weeks – Research, 3 weeks – Production and 2 and a half weeks – Editing. It is key that the documentaries stick to this tough turn around to ensure that they released as soon as possible. 

Throughout the talk Eamonn Matthews gave us some valuable advice for making a successful documentary, i have created a list of some of the most important things he said;

1. Documentaries need a powerful narrative, no narrative, your dead and will produce rubbish.
2. Check your story.
3. Always have a game plan and prepare for what might go wrong.
4. Don’t be frightened about telling the truth. 
5. Report on what’s really happening and not what people are saying! 

This is a great outline into making a successful documentary and a layout that i will definitely use in creating my own documentary and productions. 

I found Eamonn Matthews talk extremely interesting and informative and have learnt some valuable information that i can take on into my filmmaking career. His final tip that i feel is the best advice he gave was, “Be inquisitive, and don’t take things on face value”.

Here is a link to the Podcast of the lecture.

http://coventryuniversity.podbean.com/2009/10/08/documentaries-from-tough-places-eamon-matthews/