Progress Report

Week beginning 26th Feb

Well, on Thursday we were given the timetable and the laptop to begin our editing. We did no editing on Friday because myself, Rav and Pav weren't in so Ramone felt that it'd be better to begin editing as a group from the following Monday.

Monday 5th March...

During this week, myself, Rav and Ramone have been coming in at 8:00 and working after school to capture all of our shots. But there's been problems; Capturing shots on the laptop is very difficult because the camera decides to stop functioning after capturing 2-3 shots which means we have to turn the camera on/ off until it decides to work again. Then, i requested to work on a computer to finish off the rest of the capturing, and once we captured all the shots Mr Baboo decides to tell us that the computer crashed down and all out shots got deleted!!

So, on Friday, me Rav and Ramone came in at 8 again, worked though our 4 free periods and then after school again to capture those shots that got deleted and make sure that we can fully start editing on Monday again.

Now that all the capturing is done, this week we aim to:
* Get the opening done
* Start on the montage sequence for how the media portrays graffiti.

So far, the technical difficulties have really slowed our work down but now we as a group are more determined that ever not to let this hold us down...!

THE GROUP

What's been happening over the holidays...?

Over the holidays we didn't get any more footage recorded becuase Ramone was working full time during the hols so we couldn't get any more footage of graffiti in action. But we're just going to film the remaining little bit of stuff later on... in the next week or so

Evaluation..

Firstly we would like to say thank you to everyone who took their time out to write us comments! - Your thoughts are extremely important and we appreciate them :o) Ok, from reading all the comments, the following issues were raised and below each issue is what we plan to do about it..

IMPROVEMENTS

1) The lighting and sound was a concern
Where the lighting is concerned we've especially gone for the dark 'grimy' appearance because it adds suspense and mystery to the documentary. Its also important to ensure that the identity of our artists is kept concealed. However, lighting is only like this for the filming done at night. Most of the documentary will be in normal lighting.

The sound isn't going to be necessary when we show the illegal graffiti being done at night. All the other scenes feature clear sound.

2) Sneak Peaks
Most of you wanted to see clips of our footage and we shall be posting it up as soon as we return to school!

3) Some of you recommend interviews with artists...
Well I'm pleased to say that we've already got footage for both illegal and legal artists that we can use..

4) Montage opening sequence (Illegal vs Legal)
Well, we've got something extremely similar to this planned, but with this idea Rav (who's taken the initiative to sort out the opening of the documentary) will be posting up soon.

5) Music!
Many of you gave us lots of ideas on the type of music to use and we're glad to say that your ideas match ours - we are aiming to have sections of rap music whilst at other times possibly having tracks that our target audience listen to so that it appeals to them too.

6) Featuring Ramone as a character in our documentary
Well this was our initial idea but Ramone pointed out that its better to focus on a group of writers who will tell the story through their eyes - this means we also get more than one strong viewpoint.

THE GOOD BITS...!

Everyone said our blog is very detailed and liked our progress reports. And then the list goes on...! (hehe!)

The Group

Test Screening Feedback

We showed the group some of the footage we had recorded in class but because we were running out of class time they feedback we received was very brief but it still helps us:

Positive Feedback:

- The 'shaky' hand - held camera gives the footage a sense of speed and urgency which is reflective of the genre of the documentary.

- The dim lighting works in our favour because it enhances the authenticity of our documentary... whilst it makes the documentary all that more mysterious to watch.

Constructive Criticism:

- We've got a lot of good footage but actually make sure that the parts we include are relevant to the documentary.

- Sometimes have the camera on the tripod to create professionalism

- And most importantly, try and limit the amount of illegal graffiti shown.

The Group

Blog Comments

1. What do you think of our blog?

What do you particularly like about it? What's especially impressive?

What could be improved? What's missing or could be added?

2. Based on what you've read on the blog (and maybe seen in test screenings in class) what suggestions do you have regarding what we could do to make our Practical Production really successful?

What other things could we include in the production?

How should we go about filming any remaining scenes or editing the footage during post-production (+ suggestions for music, etc.)?

Street art exhibition..
Today me and Rav went to the exhibition in Central London. - I got permission from Mr Jones and Mr Munro so it was ok for us to 'miss' school. The day was well worth it...!

We, the group, decided to meet outside school at 9:30 but Ramone rang me in the morning to tell me that the camera's gone a little bit funny looking so he went early to school to give the camera to Mr Baboo and just in case that one couldn't get fixed, I rang my uncle to ask if i could use his.

So, it must'v been about 10... and the groups outside school but i'm still waiting for the 120 - its been 30 mins in the freezing cold and i didn't have credit so i'm getting very angry... and then the bus finally comes... perfect. So, we finally meet up at school and realise that we've got two camera's so to save time, we decided to split the group; me and Rav would go to the exhibition... whilst Ramone and Pav would take my uncle's camera and video some legal walls... - then we'd meet up again at Greenford Station to talk about what we got. Finally, we were getting somewhere...!

So me and Rav caught the central line to Tottenham Court Road- but when we got out it took us aages to find the road! No-one in the area had heard of the road and it started to rain and my hair was getting frizzy and i was going on a nervous breakdown (we'd been searching the place for literally an hour)

Then, i realised that i saved the number of the place in my phone so i rang them from a pay phone box and the nice woman gave me nice, simple directions! :o)

So, we got to the place and it was a PRIVATE exhibition - lucky for us I had already rang to tell them we were coming so they were expecting us... but they had a buzzer thing at the door - when you press it and they're supposed to speak... except the woman didn't speak when we pressed it so i thought we were doing it wrong and i pressed the buzzer thingy about 5 times...! woopsy! - Because when the woman came she said "oh... you two are very excited about this aren't you?" and i was like "..... h-o-w e-m-b-a-r-r-a-s-s-i-n-g!"

So we went in and looked at the work - it was quite a small exhibition but it had two floors... i've got to say the work was pretty impressive, - and Rav who had reservations about the type of work we were seeing also agreed.

So we waited for a little while and the organiser came. Now, i thought the organiser was just some ordinary guy... but it turns out he works with and manages so many graffiti artists... one of which is 'futura 2000'....!! that's the equivalent of Justin Timberlake! - and by chance so it happened that he could actually spend 10 mins of his time.... god he must be a big guy!

The interview's went well ... except i forgot to put the mike in at the start and sometimes i zoomed in too quickly or panned too fast... but i hope we can hide that when it comes to editing.

I got a badge from there and the guy wants us to email him the documentary when it's finished... but he said he'd see it before its due in to give us comments - and since its there till the 24th I'm hoping if the shots aren't good then we can do a quick re-take.

Overall, today went so good for our documentary - he's a person who's more difficult to get hold of than the artists so meeting him was a pleasure. Everything he said was relevant to our documentary - I just can;t wait to see the final piece!

Rav and Vishna

Reflections...

Well, the blog looks a little bit messy since everyone's been posting up research, so this is to provide you with a brief insight on what everyone been doing and to update you on our progress:

Watching documentaries
Each member of the group has now watched 3 documentaries each. By doing so, not only has it widened our knowledge on documentary conventions, but it has also allowed us to consider different avenues for illustrating certain issues (such as quantitative research) on screen. Below are the list of documentaries with the conventions they used that could also be used in our documentary at the editing stage.

"Kings and Toys"

Conventions used:
*Archive footage showing graffiti being actively done
*Interview narration
*Interviews

What conventions we could use:
*The narrative is told through interviews themselves. This is something we definately want to do since we believe that if the documentary is told through the actual artists themselves then its all the more authentic... a more realistic insight into their lives (less artificial).

*The way that the documentary conceals the identity of the artists is interesting to look at. -They use many more techniques than simply silhouetting their faces. An example of a creative way they did was to simply focus on certain body parts which speak for themselves. For example, focusing on fiddling hands indicates worrying.

"The office"

Conventions used:
* Authoritative narrator who features in the documentary as a character.
* Brief interviews, stating the names of the people below on screen.
* Music plays throughout the documentary, however barely audible.

What conventions we could use:
* Brief interviews with many artists to give a range of views. But this is also to make sure that there isn't one single person that the audience are able to identify with since we think its better for the audience to identify either with all the artists or none because all artists share similar experiences.

"Painting with permission"

Conventions used:
* Voice overs - news report at the beginning.
* Use of factual information
* Archive footage
* Strong, biased interviews
* Montage sequences

What conventions we could use:
* Voice over... this could be the interview with Simon from BTP
* Factual information, also in the form of newspaper cuttings
* Archive footage
* We could also go to an exhibition as did in this documentary.

All the documentaries incorporate still images - something that we will definitely be doing. - Cuts are definitely the most apparent feature at the very opening of the documentaries in order to gain the audiences attention... which is also a technique we shall be using. At the end of our documentary we aim to feature a death caused through documentary as did in 'Bowling for Columbine' and 'Style Wars' - this creates a strong emotional impact that stays memorable in the minds of the audience long after the documentary is over.

So far, I have researched a graffiti exhibition on that is taking place in London... on the blog Ive posted up some research on the artists we'll be interviewing - but also to show you how they relate to our documentary. - Since these are legal artists, it'll ensure that our documentary investigates both the legal and illegal sides of graffiti, thus providing our target audience with a well informed view on graffiti.

Ive organised for the group to go to this documentary on Friday 9th Feb and i shall post up more info once we get back from it...!

The phone call interview was supposed to take place today (Thursday) with Simon form the BTP but because only Ramone and myself are present we've decided to re-arrange this for Monday now instead... and I've emailed Esther Addeley asking him whats happening because he was supposed to get back to me - But if he doesn't reply ill phone him myself tomorrow.

Vishna