Individual Project - Conclusion

Upon finishing my project, there were things i was happy with, and also things that i could have done better. I learnt from the experience, which was a good thing. I learnt that sometimes its best to fully take into account, how a location can be a big variable to the film's outcome. Choosing the woods, made it hard to get equipment around safely, and the cover of the trees, along with the ever changing sunlight, dramatically effected the lighting within my film. In the future, i will scout the location and take notes on any possible dis-advantages of the area, and prepare ways in which to resolve them.

I think, that getting more people to help out with filming, due to our small group size, would have made the filming day a lot more efficient, and less problematic. however, due to the problems of lighting, equipment being in shot, and bad acting, this tested my editing skills. I found myself working with video filters, four point matte's, colour corrector and various other editing options. Through using these i was able to change the footage in positive way. I tested a lot of the video filters, through process of trial and error, to see what each one did. Now i have a better and more practical knowledge on these filters, and will benefit me, when editing in the future.

I thought that the music i chose to use in the film, worked very well, and spent some while editing the music into the film. The music was an important factor, because it can really add mood to the film. it wasn't just the music i edited however, i edited a lot of the sound caught directly to tape. In one scene, there was a deafening airplane in the background, but i really wanted to use the shot, so managed to use sound editing to almost erase the noise, but still have the speech clear and concise. Another point in the film, i used the sound of the rain on the videotape, and looped it over a music track to add even more emotion to the film, as it was a dramatic part. I am mostly, but not perfectly happy with the final result, but i can use the experience as a learning curve, and enjoyed it very much.

Individual Project - Editing

The editing process of my film had some difficult task to overcome. After i had captured the video to Final cut pro, on video playback i noticed alot of lighting problems. Many shots, and unfortunately some of the most important shots, were very dark. So this was going to prove a problem in the near future, but my first task was to create the film, in its narrative order.

some of the opening scenes, which involved the two characters having a conversation on the log, was quite difficult to edit. I took a list of different angles for these shots, but through bad acting, and the boom mic entering almost all the shots, it proved a problem. why didn't i notice the boom in the shot? well because we had such a small group, two of us were acting, and one was on the boom mic, leaving the camera un-manned. in the end i actually included shots that had the boom mic in, but using an editing feature, called the four-point matte; i was able to layer one shot over another, cutting out the boom mic in one of them, and filling in the gap with a shot that had no boom in shot.

Another example where i used the four-point matte technique, was a scene where i had two of me, on the same screen, at the same time. i took a static shot of the landscape, then keeping the camera in the same position, i took a shot of me with the mask on. Then i took a second shot of me, on the other side of the shot, looking in despair. when using the matte, to cut both shots in half, and layering them over each-other, it gave the desired effect.

now, for the shots that were too dark, i spent a long time using different filters. unfortunatley each shot that had come out dark, had to be edited with different filters individually. There were many 3 way colour corrections, gamma level and brightness alterations, along with a few over variables i had to tweak among the video filters. Also, i decided that i wanted the film to look grim, and pale, so i desaturated all the shots to my liking, which certainly added to the mood of the film.

i edited the music into my film to also enhance the mood, and flow of the visuals on screen. I edited the music in hope that the audience would connect more emotionally to the narrative. All in all i was quite happy with the outcome of the film, but thought that i should have collected more material on the filming day. Also i think having more people when filming, would have resulted in a much easier editing process.

Individual Project - Filming day

So finally the filming day has come. The locations i will be using are; the Weston woods, and also, for a very small scene, the outside of my own home. I made sure i was well prepared with DV tapes, and also made sure the battery was fully charged the night before. Dan, Monish and I were all going to be the characters in my film. Having only three of us to use the equipment, and also star in the film, meant that things could be a little tricky at times. We asked for a fourth member, Oliver Foulds, to help out, but couldn't make it at the last minute.

One of the big problems with the filming day, was actually the location. The woodland i chose had no paths, muddy and slippery terrain, and for the most part, involved steep, uphill treks. i brought my old army bergen bag, which was big enough to fit in all the equipment apart from the boom. climbing the slippery slopes we had to work as a team to progress, taking turns with the bag, and passing equipment to the highest man. little did we know that coming down would be a lot worse.

The filming went very well, although on reflection, getting some drama students to take part may have been a better option - we cant act to save our lives. It was difficult in the fact that we were underneath the trees, with the sun coming in and out, it constantly changed the lighting. Due to this we had to take more takes than usual, to ensure continuity. i also had to remember i got some cut-away shots ready for the editing process, and certain other shots were needed, in order to be prepared for editing also.

We worked really well as a team and enjoyed the whole day, we all did well on the equipment, and despite being a group of bad actors, i think we brought the best out of us. Monish helped out as long as he possibly could, as he had work in the evening, i may have taken a few more shots of him if he stayed. Luckily the filming i needed to do after he left, did not involve him, and was completed to a good standard. I appreciate Dan and Monish's massive effort in making my individual film - cheers guys!

Individual Project - The idea

For my individual project, i was quite well prepared, as i knew a day would come where i was able to make one. I had been creating an idea for an individual film, in my own mind, for some time . But of course every idea has its inspiration, and this time i had two sources that inspired me.

A film which inspired me, is a British film called "Shrooms" This filmed is based on a few americans coming to Britain to meet their friend. Their British friend offered them the best "shrooms" that nature had to offer. obviously shrooms is a term used to describe the mushrooms that contain illegal substances. Anyway, when they are all "high" they all start being attacked by a strange masked figure. The only survivor, at the end of the film, realises she is the one responsible for killing all her friends. The delirious visions of the figure had all been an effect of taking the shrooms.



So i based my idea around the film, and knew that it would be difficult, and tricky to portray the narrative on-screen. after acquiring recent knowledge from an editor who came to our course, i learnt a way in which a character could appear; as two on-screen people. I knew this technique would visually benefit the audiences understanding of the characters self-realisation; where he learns he is responsible for killing his friends, not the drugged-up mirage, which he had been seeing.

Something else that inspired me was a piece of audio, and not even a whole song, a segment of a song, by a band called Bring me the horizon, typically a loud heavy metal band, but at the start of one track, called "The sadness will never end", starts with an instrumental, that i have to say is the most sad piece of music i have heard, and as it played i pictured images of my film visually.

I found the idea very difficult to explain and pitch to my class-mates, as i was reluctant to let them in on the twist at the end. I wanted it to be a surprise when the film was finally finished. Rather than just make some form of horror film, i tried to make it a horror/drama, with an anti-drug message with a clever twist, that hopefully the audiences can't see coming.

News Blog - Ferguson Crash

Fergie's family crash, as his team soar!

Sir Alex Ferguson's daughter-in-law and her 10-year-old son remain in a critical state in hospital after a car crash.

On Tuesday night Sir Alex Ferguson watched his team defeat Arsenal 3-1 in the second leg of the champions League. The 67 year old Manchester united manager however, was managing one of the biggest games of his career, having to bear the weight of bad news on his shoulders through the game, only receiving details that his family were caught in a car crash just a few hours before.

Sir Alex Ferguson

Sir Alex Ferguson's daughter in law: Nadine ferguson, and her two children, Charlie, ten, and daughter Grace, 6, had to be cut free after the collision in Maccesfield, Cheshire, the operation took around and hour and a half to get them safely out of the wrecked vehicle.

Nadine Ferguson.

Charlie has undergone surgery at Alder Hey Hospital, where his condition is "very serious, but stable" according to the staff nursing the Ferguson family. Mrs Ferguson, who is separated from Sir Alex's son Darren, is "serious, but comfortable" in Wythenshawe Hospital. Grace suffered minor injuries and is expected to be released from Leighton Hospital in Crewe.

Alder Hey Hospital

Wythenshawe Hospital

Leighton Hospital

Cheshire Police would not say what injuries were suffered by the family. A police spokeswoman said:

"A 30-year-old woman was airlifted to Wythenshawe Hospital, where she remains in a stable condition after suffering serious injuries.

"The two children were taken by road ambulance to Leighton Hospital. The girl had suffered minor injuries and was detained for observation.

"The boy suffered more serious injuries; his condition this morning is stable."

Mrs Ferguson's black Vauxhall Corsa was in collision with a Ford Fiesta in Trap Street, Lower Withington, on Tuesday morning. The Fiesta driver, who was a 17 year old boy, who was taken to hospital with leg injuries, is believed to be responsible for the crash.

Darren Ferguson

Mrs Ferguson was separated from Peterborough United boss Darren, Sir Alex Ferguson's son, in 2007 after four years of marriage. Charlie is her son from a previous relationship. However, Sir Alex seemed un-phased by the family trouble he was informed of on the day, despite rumours he would not attend the game to visit his grandchildren, taking away a 3-1 win over Arsenal. According to Sky Sports news; "The defending champions had a comfortable evening". Manchester united now return to the champions league final to face Barcelona.

Group Project - Conclusion

I have learnt a lot throughout the Documentary group project, I think having to go out into the world, and deal with people and situations you wouldn’t normally put yourself in, is a real eye opener. Learning to contact people (contributors) and having to go to location, and to talk through the interviewing process to people, and make them feel comfortable, is a new thing to me.



Through interviewing people I haven’t met before, has improved my confidence and my social ability to work with people I am not used to. I am usually a very shy person, but the project has brought a side of me out which I wasn’t aware that I possessed.

While I managed to interview a lot of people, one thing I could have done better; was to ask the questions again; If I thought the answer they were giving, wasn’t what we we’re looking for.



There is a lot to learn about being prepared, as I learnt through this project. The first instance was the pitch; the interactive board in the classroom wasn’t working for the pitch. It is very un-professional to have equipment malfunction for an important pitched, we should have taken precautions, and checked all equipment in good time before we delivered out pitch.



The next incident where we were not prepared, was during the hour before our first big film day at the Somerset legion house. Although the camera broke that morning, we should always have a back up camera ready to be used. We relied on Dan’s dad to be in the house to give us the other camera. In reality, we should have informed him, that if any problems were to arise, would he be available to give us the equipment we needed. As for the tapes, we did have enough to last the interview, but purchased more tapes to make sure – this was a good decision, but the tapes should have been purchased the day before.



I think we gained some good interview for our project, and some very good answers. The answers we got were all different, as each contributor had a different background and experience. However, we asked them same questions to each interviewee, I think if we asked some different questions, or had 3 sets of different questions, we would have more material that was unique and useful to the project.



When working on this project it also made me realise just how important everyone’s roles were during the shoot. Even if a person is the boom operator, without that person, it leaves the job to be done by another individual. In this case it was very difficult, with a small group of three; some of us had to fill two roles during the interviews.



Equipment is also an issue, having the correct equipment and amount is an important factor. Due to the camera braking, all shots had to be done with one camera, making the editing process harder than it needed to be. With two cameras, we could film one interview at two different angles or distances. We also know that some areas of the buildings, it would have been helpful to have a floodlight. Unfortunately one wasn’t available to us. The reflectors weren’t effective where there was no light for it to bounce off.



Having a structure for the way you want your documentary to look, before you film, is always important. As a group we decided on a specific structure, and were able to get the correct footage for this. Without doing this, we knew it would make the editing process even harder. Although; our structure planning wasn’t completely flawless, we had to wait till we had decided on the interviews we were going to use, for the final product, before we could decide how to use the voiceover.

I enjoyed doing the group project and picked up a lot of things about the business on the way. Gaining a few “what to do, what not to do” guidelines along the way was helpful, learning from hands-on experience is always better than reading from a book. I also found out things about myself which I wasn’t aware, and put myself in situations that I would usually be afraid of.

Group Project - Editing

So the planning of the editing process begins. We have been looking through the clips and deciding which interviewees off the best answers for the contributors, which was a harder process than we though it would be in the first place. We had to overcome many problems and issues throughout the editing process, which lead to productive group debates and ideas.



One particular case was involving a man who was almost deaf, and seemed to slur his words when answering our questions; however, he gave very good answers. We also thought that this made him stand out more on tape, compared to the average interviewee, but the main concern was the way her slurred his words. So we though one option would be to subtitle his words during the interview.



One thing we all noticed during the editing process, was that only having one camera available, meant that all different shots had to be taken during the interview. We included long shots, mid shots and close up’s – depending on what the contributor was talking about e.g. a close up if they are speaking about something emotional. This meant that there are a lot of zoom in and out during the interviews. This meant we had to insert cut-away shots for each time this happened.



We had to make sure the structure was correct, and we were going to use a voiceover to introduce the film in general at the start, along with introducing each interviewee, and the conclusion at the end of the film. So we had to plan how we were going to use the voice over, and what cut-away shots would work well to accompany the voiceover. Bearing in mind the voice over had to be short and sweet to allow the most interviews included in the final product, at there is a time band of 4-8 minutes. All the editing will be done using Final Cut Pro.

Group Project - Film Day 2 - Flowerdown House

For the second big day of filming, the location was Flowerdown house, Weston – super – Mare. Today was a better today, in that we had no equipment problems, or lack of tapes, and we had our third member; Dan. So we hoped today would be a much easier day, while still gaining good material for the project. This was also shot in the Easter holidays.



We went through the same routine as we did at the Somerset legion house, by setting up the interview locations, testing equipment and making sure the contributors knew exactly what was going on. To our delight there were even more people interested in taking part than there was at the Legion house.



With Dan being the extra member today, we each had to cope with one role each, which made the whole process a lot easier. For today my role was being the camera operator, Dan was the soundman on the boom, and Monish became the interviewer this time round.



We had some very interesting interviews, ones that we will definitely use in the finished product. Through these locations we were happy to gain a wide variety of backgrounds from the people we interviewed, and this again will be a good addition to our documentary.



Through both locations we filmed, we gained the cut-away shots we had planned on obtaining. Flowerdown house however, had a lot more useful cut-away shots within the building, boasting a horde of paintings, photos, medals and engraved plates that we will hopefully make good use of. The staff were very pleasant and we each received a cake and a cup of tea.

Group Project - Film day - Somerset Legion House

So we're on to filming, the first location we went to film was the Somerset legion house, in the Weston-Super-Mare. The filming for this location was carried out during the Easter holidays. This first part of any filming day is making sure that you arrive at your location well prepared, as things don’t always go to plan.



So on the film day, Monish and I had to carry out all the filming duties, as Dan was unable to get the day off work, and we were unable to arrange a different date with the staff. From the start this made the ordeal twice as hard, as one of us would have to do two things at once.



So Monish and I planned to meet an hour before our expected arrival (we arranged to be there for 2pm) so in the morning I eagerly awaited for Monish to arrive and pick me, and the equipment up from my house. Then we packed the equipment in the car, and just before we drove off, I decided to check the camera. From the word go, things were off to a bad start, due to age ware of the camera, the eject button fell off, therefore making it unusable. Monish and I we’re in a state of panic.



The only option was had was to get the second camera from Dan’s house, and as we was at work, we had a 50/50 chance of his dad being at home to let us in and give us the equipment. Luckily he was there to give us the equipment, and took a little bit of weight off our shoulders.

With time running out, we still had to correct some issues, we had spare DV tapes to use for the interviews, but unsure if we had enough tape to film on, we decided to pick up three more DV tapes from the local Tesco super-store. Fortunately it was only a two minute drive from Dan’s house. However the parking proved a problem, we were left waiting for a space for some while. In the end we managed to purchase the tapes and get to the Somerset legion house bang on 2pm.



So we were introduced the people staying at the legion house, we were then made aware of the people who were interested in being interviewed. We were quite happy to have a good handful of people happy to take part. Today I had two roles; to be the camera operator, as well as being the interviewer.

I spoke to each interviewee making sure they knew what was going to happen, giving them an overlook of the questions we were going to ask. I also made it clear to them that if they are any questions they feel uncomfortable to answer; they are to inform us and will respect their decision. While I was talking them through, Monish was setting up the interview locations ready to start.



The interviews went well, but of course, there were some good and bad ones, but that’s always going to happen. The positive was that we gained interviews, which we knew would be usable to the documentary. All in all, a good day’s work in the field. Although without Dan, it was slightly difficulty controlling the camera while interviewing.

Group Project - 1st Interview - Ruby West

Today I did a little addition to the documentary by myself, with a little help from my mother. Out of my two relatives and neighbour I had hoped would participate in the documentary, only my Nan, Ruby west, agreed to take part. The others were interested but very camera-shy.



So this was my first chance to practice, ahead of the big filming days at the Somerset legion house and Flowerdown house, which were coming up shortly. The questions I asked my Nan would be the same as I will be asking in the upcoming locations.



For the interview, I was the interviewer and the camera-operator at the same time, which proved a little tricky, but was able to deal with it. After testing the camera and boom microphone, I was ready to begin the interview, with aid from my mother holding the boom in place throughout the interview.



The interview went well and I gained the answers that I was looking for by the time I had finished. I think the interview would be a good addition to the documentary, but we have a lot of interviews to film in the near future, so we will see which ones are the best for the finished product.

Group Project - The Pitch

Now it was time to execute the pitch, gathering all our research and ideas, and churning out a good presentation containing all the right facts and figures. So what would we need for the pitch? Well in the previous term, where we did a pitch for our radio programme, we acquired vital knowledge of what makes a good pitch, and what makes a bad one. So hopefully we can put the knowledge to use in this next pitch.



For the pitch we made all necessary information available to our “Acting panel” who would allow us to make our documentary if we display a good pitch. So what things did we tell them? Obviously we made clear the project was a documentary; based on the memories of World War II, from civilians and those in the services. We pitched them the approximate budget cost of the project, what roles each of us had during the project e.g. I was producer, researcher and editor. Most roles within the group were shared roles, specifically the research and editing.



Other things we explained was who the contributors were for our project, ensuring we gave them a sheet of contacts, and details on the phone calls and visits to both Flowerdown house and the Somerset legion house. We also explained why these locations were suitable for our project.



We also put forward ideas of the structure and things that we will include within the documentary:
• The main theme of the documentary
• An opening montage that will display the title of the program and will develop the mood of the film towards our audience.
• The film will have a narrator that will introduce the film, the interviewees, and conclude end the film.
• We are planning to gather many interviews and choose the best 3-5 interviews in the final edit.
• In between interviews we will include montage (cut away) images . These images will also be useful as an overlay during the long interviews.
• A possible ending to the documentary will involve cut away shots of the war memorials in Grove Park, in W-S-M. Over the top of this sequence we may include the song "We'll meet again" (sung by Vera Lynn) to make it very sentimental.



We accompanied the Pitch with handouts including all the necessary details in brief, to read, and use for reflection after the pitch has ended. Initially we planned to use a PowerPoint presentation, but due to technical problems this was not possible, but we finished the pitch and got the “go ahead” we needed to start making our documentary.