Pre-production
The problem of watercourse pollution from combined sewage overflows (CSOs) is hardly ever out of the news these days. When the Oakwood Film Academy (OFA) learned that two ‘citizen science’ projects were ongoing in our area, monitoring the pollution levels of watercourses that feed into the Roundhay Park and Gledhow Valley lakes, we decided to produce a short documentary film following their progress.
This is not intended to be a campaigning film, but an objective, ‘fly on the wall’, look at the process and findings of the ‘citizen scientists’. The two projects are being carried out by the Roundhay Freshwater Watch Group (linked to the Roundhay Environmental Action Project (REAP)) and the Friends of Gledhow Valley Woods (FGVW). The latter project started almost a year earlier.
In order to set the context, the documentary starts with a historical overview, showing how public sewers and overflow reliefs were first introduced in Leeds and how they are regulated.
The agreement of both project groups to the making of the documentary (target length, 12-15 mins) was obtained and some preliminary discussion about the aims took place.
Production
Filming commenced at Roundhay Park on 7th March 2024, whilst four members of the Roundhay Freshwater Watch Group carried out sampling and described their ambitions for the project. The four were asked to sign permission forms, allowing the material to be used in the documentary. Four members of the OFA took part in this initial shooting: David Sellers (interviewing); David Donaldson (using a Sony HXR-NX70E 2K News Gathering Camera (NGC)); David Barnard (using an NGC); and Tony O’Reilly (using an NGC, acting as a general mentor to the crew, and managing the wireless microphones).
Filming took place at Roundhay Park on subsequent days to capture wildfowl (DB) and torrential rain (DS). Footage was also captured at the location of Yorkshire Water’s recently installed bio-retention strips nearby.
A brief piece of UHD mobile phone video, showing leisure use of Waterloo Lake, was also incorporated. Towards the end of the production period there was an unfortunate outbreak of blue-green algae at this lake, which was filmed using a Nikon mirrorless camera in 4K.
The filming of sampling activity at Gledhow Valley commenced on 30th May 2024 (by DS, using a mirrorless camera, a wireless microphone, a shotgun microphone, and a Zoom F3 field recorder). Subsequent filming took place during the Gledhow Valley Green Fair on 13th July 2025, where the Gledhow Group had a stall, at which their interim report was unveiled.
Post production
Editing was carried out (by DS) using Da Vinci Resolve v.20 desktop software (free version). Some voice-over narration was added (by DS), using an Olympus Linear PCM recorder (a bed quilt over the head being used to suppress echos!). Royalty-free incidental music for the soundtrack was obtained from Pixabay and Scott Holmes Music and some still images from the Wellcome Collection.
The final length (16m 23s) slightly exceeded the original target.
One of the lessons learned during the editing process was that far more B-roll film would have been handy and that more planning should have gone into the first day’s filming, in order to provide a greater variety of points of view. Planning shots for a documentary, however, is obviously constrained when we are not in charge of managing the activity that is being filmed.
Some obvious B-roll opportunities were regrettably missed, such as the chance to film the aquatic invertebrates being displayed by the FGVW group at their stall during the Green Fair.
As the editing progressed, several versions of the film were shown at meetings of the OFA. In this way very valuable comments, feedback, criticisms, etc were obtained that enabled gradual improvements and changes to the film structure. All members at the OFA meetings provided useful comments. Guidance on editorial matters, script, and sound, by OFA mentors Johnny Edmonds, Paul Harker and Tony O’Reilly, respectively, was always on hand and very gratefully received.
Before final release, ‘Pollution in the Park’ was made available to the two groups of ‘citizen scientists’ for comment and received 100% positive feedback.