Hand In Day!

So we have come to the end, and I have to say I'm a little bit sad! I have loved working on this project, especially being with Jo, and have found that factual programming, is something I really enjoy, and feel I could do well in this area in the future. 


Over the past 15 weeks, I have learnt a great deal, and we have both worked hard to make this project as professional as possible. This has included dealing with a Doctor in criminology, and travelling to the University of Kent to interview him. He was very welcoming to both of us, and even prepared an overview of his opinion he wanted to share with us before we filmed the rest of his questions. I believe he was the best professional person we could of hoped to find, because he was such a warm character, was relatively young in age, and so appealed to our audience, and most importantly gave us lots of fantastic material to include. Since seeing the film, he has praised us on our efforts, and was very pleased to be part of such an accomplished piece of work!

The report we built with both our characters Lauren Sharp and Hattie Mulville, showed through in our interviews, they opened up to us, and gave us some great opinions! 


I really enjoyed the days we went out on location as well, such as Chatham High Street, Tovil council estate, the youth group and Valley Park shops. We were able to get some nice shots and sequences that helped our documentary be more visual and poetic. 


We also learnt how to deal with the public and found out first hand how important it is to get permission from shopping centres, as we tried to do some undercover filming in Chatham's "Chaviest" centre, "The In and Out Shops". We did manage to get a few minutes, before the manager quickly reminded us that we should not be in there... oooppps! But we did get some GREAT shots out side, and of the Highstreet of young mums, and groups of "Hoodies"

I feel that our archive footage was well researched, and glued our whole documentary together. We had a wide range of material we discovered, that was simply impossible for us to film or have in our own archives, such as the Tony Blair speech regarding Bluewater, as well as shots inside the shopping centre that we were denied access to get our selves. We also included a lot of popular music, and music videos such as, Golide Locking Chain, Lady Soveriegn, Lilly Allen, Jessie J, and one piece of original music "Moon Chav", aagin this appealed to our target audience, and gave a greater appeal to a wider viewership. 


Although the subject matter was quite serious, as well as the emotions behind it on both sides of the fence, we included some light humour and made it quite quirky, to help lift the tone, and make it more user friendly.

My technical skills I feel have improved, especially with sound, as I have always found this the hardest. I have also practised my filming technique, and spent time changing settings and lenses to get the crisp picture we wanted. I believe even more after this project that script writing and editing are my strongest points. 


I still feel I need to work on sound, and for next term I hope to read a few more books, to really get my head round the subject. I also must push myself to be more organised when it comes to sorting out clips, as I still haven't fully got into the habit of logging each clip, and recording in an out points, which I know will help be in the long run. 

The only thing I regret about this project, is that we have so much amazing footage of the interviews and sequences that we just haven't been able to include, but I think me a Jo will without doubt make a longer version in the future :) 






All in all I am extremely proud of Jo and myself, and believe "Don't Call Me Chav" will be a strong contender for our professional showreels in the future :) 

Work Experience

Last month I was very lucky to have two days work experience on Take Me Out and two days paid work on Frank Skinner's Opinionated!

Take Me Out, was a very large production, with a crew of well over 100, and about the same total number of contestants. During my time on the show, I helped make teas and coffee's for the girl contestants and shadowed members of the crew. It was really fun watching the rehearsals and standing in for the contestants, especially with Paddy McGuiness! When it came to the record, I spent my time shadowing Paul, one of the sound guys. It was a real buzz, running around and watching him mic up all the contestant, and the whole experience really reminded exactly why I wanted to be in this industry in the first place!

Opinionated was brilliant! I had worked on the last series on the show back in April, and it was so lovely that the production staff remembered me, and were very welcoming. I got to spend more time with Chris, the line producer this time. She is such a lovely person, and kind of took me under her wing. On both record days we went to the nearest Tescos, and stocked up two trolleys to the brim with snacks and water for the cast and crew. I was also put in charge of organising the hospitality room, making sure the wine, drinks and food was presented nicely for the after show parties. 

I made sure that on the last record day I spent a much time as possible on the studio floor, where I met a nice camera man, who had started at as a runner at the studios. He gave me invaluable advice, and even let me have my go on the huge studio cameras, which was great! During the record, I was watching the show in the production office, when Frank Skinner, was arguing with one of his guests as to wether a tomato was a fruit or not. It ended with Frank Skinner being told that if he was to eat a bowl of tomatoes and custard, she would admit it was a fruit. This was not scripted, so they just carried on, however I thought I would use my initiative, and go to the kitchen and find some custard and tomatoes, and I knew where everything was! I brought the dish to the production office, and they were thrilled! They took it down to the gallery, and soon enough it was on set, and Frank kept to his word, and ate the whole thing!! Everyone was really pleased I had managed to get hold of some, and I'm pretty pleased that is my claim to fame so far... the tomato and custard girl!! I hope they all come back for the next series!!

Black Mirror

Have you heard what everyone has been talking about this week? 



Black Mirror is a new three part series by the Journalist and Satirical writer Charlie Brooker. I watched it for the first time last night, and I have to say it was possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever seen! 
The first episode, A National Anthem, is basically a black satirical comedy, commenting on Royalists, politicians and the effect the internet has had on our lives. It really explores the problems with Youtube, text messaging, Facebook and Twitter, as well as an in depth look at how newsrooms work. 
However, it was all told with an utterly absurd storyline, that had your laughing, feeling sick, worried, disturbed and completely  gripped! 
I really don't want to ruin it for anyone, but I'm sure you've heard the main points anyway, so I'll go over them! 
It begins with the Princess being kidnapped, (Representing Kate Middleton) and the Prime Minster ( You guessed it, a lot like David Cameron) watching the ransom video. It details that in order for the Princess to be released, the Prime Minster must preform a sexual act on an animal on live televison. Yes I know this sounds horriable and silly, but the drama is pretty intense, especially when you realise the video has been posted on Youtube, and the WHOLE world knows, so what will the people expect the Prime Minister to do? 
I do recommend watching it, because first of all I don't know how they got away with putting it on at 9pm on a Sunday evening, and secondly because it is so bold and brave, you've got to kind of admire it! But be warned it's not for the faint hearted.


The next episode is all about reality TV, it looks like a cross between The X Factor and The Hunger Games, so remember to watch that one too!!

Commission

THURSDAY, 1 DECEMBER 2011

Finishing Touches

The edit is going great, and I think me and Jo are an amazing team!! We are working hard together to get the finishing touches right now. Our sync is all in order, and our structure is working nicely. So we are currently working on sound, colour correction, music, transitions and titles etc. I think we have created a good pace throughout our documentary, due to the change in subjects, archive footage and soundtrack.
We have chosen to use two female songs for our soundtrack, which we feel reflect the story and female charcters perfectly, they are:





I am happy with the sequences we have chosen, and have now made sure there is a sound bed for all of them. We have also rearranged the Bluewater section, so that the narrative flows more smoothly. We are going to have trouble mix the sound I think, so that Hattie's voice is more like the others, but we will start working on that now. I am pretty confident that we will meet the deadline, and feel that we have done the best we could possibly do! :)