CLIENT PROJECT:

I've already started the filiming for my live client project.

The brief is to create a short documentary (between 7-10 minutes) that reports the progress of The Nottinghamsire Diploma. There are some 500 young people and 17 organisations that are involved in the Nottinghamsire Diploma. The diploma offers a range of students the oppurtunity to develop more vocational skills as part of the qualifications they will earn at school. Each site across Nottingham offers different courses or subjects the students can take, and because it is a relatively new sheme the council wish to view its a progress with out reading a report.This is the aim of my film. I have been attending a number of different schools from all around Nottingham, Interviewing children who attend the diploma, Interviewing the teachers and executives of the scheme and also a general overview of what is taking place at the schools.

So far its been great, although a bit mind numbing at times. Going back to school for days in a row is not as fun as it seems after a while. I have learnt a great deal and can definately draw alot more positives out of the project so far. Aswell as being a great project to present as a live client brief, I have been payed for the work and also had a unique insight into the efforts being done to reach children in education. It has been very encouraging to see that those in-charge of education have now recognised it needs to adapt changes in the world!

I've been working as director and editor on the film in a team of three. The filming has almost finished and I have already done alot of editting so i'm well on track with keeping it my university time frame

STONE SOUP STUDIO:

As I mention before I have been at The Stone Soup Studios, the main part is teaching youngsters the basics in photoshop and short film making. The other side is film production with the main studio. Since September 07 I have been filming my Client project as a commisioned film from the council. Its been really good to work in a different environment and also very educational, not just techincally but also by experiencing a real working environment.

SINE MAY:
Its been along time since my last post and I have been very busy.
After the educational success of the documentary "Music my Language" I was offered a tutoring position at the studio/school that we filmed at - Stone Soup Studios.
Since July 2007 I have been working at the studio as a tutor to young people with problematic backgrounds. As part of a tutoring team we have to mentor the young people and try to give them a new direction in their education, I hold lessons in photoshop and film making. This has been an invaluable experience and also opened alot of doors for me personally.
As part of the establishment, Stone Soup is also a production studio getting commisioned work in all forms of media from music production to animation and film production. I am lucky enough to get the oppurunity to work on a commisioned film for nottingham city council. This is perfect timing as university has just started and the film is a perfect project for my course.

As well as working through most of the summer I maanged to squeeze a holdiay in. In August I travelled to Budapest and attented a music and art festival called Sziget. The festival is fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone, from heavy musiv lovers of all genres to people who just want to go away and experience a mass of different cultures from europe and behond, sziget truly offers more than something for everyone. Here are some photos:

DIRECTION: HOLDING PATTERN.

I've just finished filming and editing my 4min film titled "Holding Pattern".
It was a great succes and the end result was exactly what i was looking for. I had changed the format alot since its original status and i like to leave things open to grow organically. This film was a great example of this as right up untill the day of filming it was changing shape and style.
The main change came about due to the lack equipment i was able to get for filming. I did not have access to a VX camera so was not fully confident that i would get the desired result. With this in mind and the fact that I only had a standard DV camera I radically changed the format of my film. Instead of shooting the film from a 3rd person perspective I now wanted to give the film a private and intimate feel by making the film appear as if it was a home-made tape made by my main character. This combined with my adaption of the script perfectly and I ended up with a more realistic piece than i could have imagined. The film see's a camera seemingly dropped on a bench, then found by a foreign asylum seeker be-friends the camera in his lonely life. I feel that I have made great use of what I have in terms of ability and resources to produce something that is not lavishly trying to be more than it is but something that feels querky and real! make your mind up when you see it ey...

A.V
stills for 90second film

A.V EVALUATION OF DOCUMENTERY:

I have recently finished production of a documentary titled "Music....My Language". From the start this project was not going to be easy, after the fall of our original idea to document the history of crime in Nottingham, a new plan had to be spawned quickly. I had a contact who ran a Multimedia Studio that delt with all aspects of teaching and producing the media arts. The part of the studio that interested me the most was where 15-16yr old children who have had troubled educational history's were being taught to make music. After initialising a meeting with the tutors of the studio (Stone Soup) we developed a message or concept that the film would portray. It was nerve racking time in these development stages, partly because we were alreay behind due to the collapse of our initial idea and mainly because we were relying on the surrounding government agencies and the childrens parents to accept our intention and allow filming. it was only after our proposal and even up to the day of filiming that we recieved the go ahead to make the film. Because of the sensitivity nature of the documentery it was suggest that we spent some time to get to know the kids without roling cameras. This was probably the best idea we had for the whole project as it gave me the oppurtunity to get a grasp of the type of film we were making....finally! I was the lucky one sent into the lions den and it was quite nerve racking. I found it an invaluable experience and really helped to put my focus in the frame of mind as a documentery maker. I was in a real place of responsibility, as the children responded positively to me and enjoyed the fact of having a new outlet to channel their skills. For me it gave me the chance to incorporate the ethical skills we had been learning in the module. My focus was in allowing them to have their voice and not lead their thoughts and this became the bed-rock for the film.

After the first week i had built up enough of a rapour with the kids to start filming so two other member sof the group (Blaise and Hugo) joined me to film. This proved to be difficult in the days where we had not scheduled interviews as there were alot of people in close proximity with cameras all around. The kids did not react negatively to the camera but i had noticed a change in their behaviour. My short worries were dashed when we interviewed them as we got some golden footage and speech from them which excited us because we finally had something conclusive to cement the films message. I found the whole filming experience a real eye-opener not just due to the subject matter but the consideration of the ethical factors surrounding the filming. We had shot ALOT of footage and we had to be really precise on what we deemed as appropriate to show in the film. At times it was hard not think we were being contradictory, as a film maker you want to show the truth, but we had to consider the fact that children sometimes need guiding on their concepts and actions, or things they say, should not be contextualised with fact or adult understanding.

This was important when it came to editing but we found it easily dictated to by the content of our footage. It was reallty interesting to edit this film as the more we edited the more we learnt about our topic and ultimately the more we liked the idea and its results, there's something rewarding about making a film your not totally in control of but you learn as it grows - almost like an audience involded the production process. We did encounter some group dynamic and hardware problems but when hurdles were over-come a good team repour was built and everyone still involved really worked well to bring it together.

In all I think the main factor that i would consider when doing another project is time. It is quite obvious but i feel that the time planning really let us down and the fact that we did not have enough back-up incase of emergency which did happen! my over-all feeling for this film is one pride, this is because it was the first documentery i had made and although some technical elements were under-par i managed to uncover a real story with emotion and factual narratives. The film, i feel, represents the subject and the children in the subject with grace and ethical correctness.
SHOUT OUT TO STONE SOUP. ALEX, RICH, SIMON, MITCHEL. ALL MY BREAD-BINS BLAZER, STEFAN, EMANUELLE, LEVI

A.V: my 90sec Narrative.

I have now written my idea for the 90sec narrative to be entered in the DEPICT FILM COMPETITION.

TITLE: Fair Enough?

The story of my narrative will follow the days of a seemingly young succesfull professional living the "american dream" stlye life. The character has it all, flash car, nice clothes and is a valid member of his work team. it all seems smiles and sunshine for this character but there are flashes of interuption to disturb this rich mirage.
i want to portray the commercialism of todays society and the emphasis on material possesions and ask the question does it matter? The film will incorporate the down elements of modern life to show the gap between some social classes and ideals. In a fine twist that will conclude my film the audience will be left to ponder on how easy it is to fall from the top OR how getting to the top for some people is even beyond a distant dream.

A.V:

We have been asked to review a short film in Audio Visual Production. This is to gather some inspiration for our very own 90sec movie, which will be enter to the Depict film festival, and also gives us an indicator of the standard of work that is out there in the "real" world!

I watched a number of films, mainly from the depict website (www.depict.org) and have chosen one to review. Before i do i would also like to recommend these other films from the depict site,
BIG ON LOVE (2006),
DERMO SUCHAESTA shit happens (2006).

The film i enjoyed the most was a 2003 entry " How to tell when a relationships over" directed by Tony roche: http://www.depict.org/content/films/2003/index.html

The film depicts the breakdown of a couple's relationship in a comedic way. It does not remove the audience from the starting scene, in the kitchen, so you immediately get the feeling of days passing. I like this element because the film is only 90s it made me feel like i had watched a film not a clip. In this aspect i think the film really utilises the 90s margin as you would not expect to see the film any longer than 90s, or any shorter, it perfectly fits!
The writing of the film also impressed, it has some really well constructed comedy moments and the flash of french film style at the end not only gives a bit of tongue-on-cheek but shows off the film makers ability to create atmosphere and environments. This film would definately be a candidate to be aired on t.v and is a nice break from relationship/coupling comedies of recent times.

DIRECTION

This morning in our seminar we watched the photgraphed films. Some of them really caught my eye in different ways:
I really enjoyed Tod's piece about death {http://toddimusprime.blogspot.com/} i thought the humour in the film was well placed and timed, especially the bell dong when death arrived, i jumped slightly. The images werent so much photography based more the image of an animation but still worked well.
i found Henry's piece quite hard to understand the narrative and the sompositions of the shots were quite bland, however when hearing it a second time with the audio it did inject a bit of life to it, does not stand alone as imagery.
My favourite pice was FRIDAY2SUNDAY {author unkown}. i thought the time speech and imagery was excellent and the narrative was completely believable, its on the same line as THE ACID TRIP but captures the mood of its genre more accuratly.
Some others to mention, ATIF: had some weakly composed shots (although could be due to quality on site) but i think the pace change in the film made me feel the narrative more, some good humour too.
i also liked james woolley's film, with the dream about a sandwich. Again good humour and a believable narrative. i thought the night shot's composition's were really well executed. http://jimmyprw.blogspot.com/

In other areas i am working on my scripted piece for directing for camera. Ive gained a real sense of the story the more i read the script and have started my story board. Ive started forming my locations for filming my scenes and i have some good ideas to incorporate into the film to mkae it come to life in the way i want it to.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN!!??

o.k i havn't added much to my journal lately but i have been busy.
Taking up most of my time is my documentary "MUSIC....MY LANGUAGE".
Filming has now finished and we have just completed a first draft edit with some encouraging feedback from our tutor. The film is about a multimedia studio that teaches 15-16 children music and film production. The kids that attend studio are not in mainstream education for many reasons but mainly behavioural issues. Its been a real eye-opener of a film to make as I really got to interact with the kids on a personal level and find the meaning of our documentary by realising what i had seen. Im really excited about the final edit of the film because i think we've really tapped into the truth of mis-heard youth.
"Music....My Language"
Stone Soup Project