Project Reflection

As Director for this project I feel the project has only been acomplished due to the hardwork of my team-mates.

As much as I had been wanting to Direct a piece I found it didn't suit my outlook, telling people what I wanted all the time and how they should do it. It felt very confusing.

Although, I have learnt a lot from this project, and consider it to be more of a learning experience more than a piece I am particularly proud of, I will definately go away looking to improve my direction instead of avoiding it as it is something I am avid about doing (as well as sound) on a professional level.

Editing Reflection

Due to some cock-ups, Rob and Brendan have taken it upon themselves to edit the piece together, with myseslf overseeing what goes on in each sequence.

I was getting worried for a bit, I feel like the project got stale inbetween the filming and editing process, people stopped texting me ideas and everyone got distracted by other works. However with the help of Rob and Brendan the project has been editing into what I feel is a moderate sucess, the takes are long and the music is relaxing. Whilst some features could have used a finer tuning, there isn't much we can do with our obvious time restraints and having no particular person editing.

In the future I believe I won't leave it so late as to edit the piece and will devote a wider range of my time towards it.

Editing and interviewing

Due to Amy being hospitalized ( don't worry, she's okay ), our edit plan has been slightly set back. I plan to construct the piece into three definable parts. begining with the footage of Another place, setting the tone and leading the viewer into a false sense of security in order to give contrast to the second part, the city centre; which will come storming in through a speeded up timelapse of the centre, panning to the Banksy Rat. The constant sound of traffic within this section will quietly merge with the traffic around the Strawberry Fields gates. This then merges back into the peaceful abandoned tunnels underneath the forest, eventually fading to black, serving as a contrast between the opening fade in from white. This is my edit plan, whether my storyboards like it or not. Rob has also been busy conducting interviews with members or the 'Urbex' movement, which I am anxious to hear.

Filming reflection

For our shoot in Liverpool we intending to spend the first day scouting out the area and finding the easiest (and cheapest, I have lost my debit card and only had £25 for the entire trip) bus routes to the planned locations, testing equipment and recording some atmos tracks. For the second day we planned to go to each location sequentially (we had initially planned to split into two units and do two locations each, but were put off by our peers who had stated that they had tried this method in the path and it didn't work out so well in smaller groups) and get a list of shots from each location depending on the weather, how we were feeling and what we thought worked well in comparison to other shots. What actually happened on both days was an amalgamation of this, we weren't as organized as I had planned and as such didn't gain such a variety of shots, as well as the time restrictions we also struggled with the difference in weather, Another Place in particular showed us it's full range of weather, rain, lots of wind (which I fear interferred with our interviews), clouds and as much sun as we wanted whenever we weren't shooting. Overall, I am pretty happy with what we filmed on the day and i'm more than pleased regarding the sound we recorded. Particularly I enjoyed the Tunnels despite their diminuitive size, I was expecting them to be a lot bigger, they gave us quite good, albeit dark footage.

Sound

Whilst it isn't my specific area for this project, it clearly still concerns me greatly as I firmly believe that sound makes up a good 50% of any film, if done correctly that is. I want a particular mixture between diegetic sound and slow slow slow ambient music, whilst remaining different from the last experimental project. The diegetic sound should be considered, as should all sound, but specifially placed in order to justify itself or make an impression upon the audience, such as the inclusion of traffic sounds or that of people walking speeded up. This is to convey a sense of urgency and business in order to contrast it later on with the quiet tranquility of Another Place and the Tunnels in the forest. I have already said that I wanted to record all sound in stereo where ever possible as I have found that stereo sound can make all the difference when trying to convey a sense of space. Various Atmos tracks in each location we will be visiting, including the Abandoned 'Lower Lees' school, the Strawberry fields gates, anywhere else we happen to visit and of course the Banksy rat. As for the Non-diegetic sound I wanted something that would portray the relaxed mood I am trying to get across without boring viewers and making a decent contribution as to the final atmostphere. Some slow, minimal, drifting notes with as much reverb as possible might suffice, i've also become a fan of having a theme for projects, so i'm sure I find a few notes.

Liverpool Locations - Another Place

Antony Gormley's Another Place

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Place

As far as I can see this is the perfect location, Rob, who is currently acting producer showed me the location yesterday and we're pretty excited to see what kind of footage we can produce in wonderful locations such as this. The beach itself is situated in Crosby, a small town situated just north of Liverpool, a short train ride away, perfect.

Documentary atmosphere

Speaking to friends and peers regarding the subject matter of their documentaries, it is clear to me that most people intend to document a particular place or event. this has led me to give extra thought as to the mood or atmosphere of the piece, especially if this was the main focus of the piece, to convey or document a particular mood or feeling. I recently saw the snowboarding documentary 'The Art of Flight' , which I felt was as much about documenting the mood of snowboarding and extreme sports as it was about actually doing them.

The film spends much more time talking about snowboarding and the ideas and philosphies behind it rather than other docs I have seen on the subject; which is admittedly few. However this idea struck me as an interesting subversion upon the conventional Doc format and is something I will specifically be trying to replicate.

Initial Documentary Treatment Our initial treatment, thanks to Rob, who took it upon himself to type it up in full due to our Producer being away.

Liverpool Stories

Banksy Rat mural to survive when derelict Liverpool pub is refurbished

When Rob showed me the story and explained his idea to me we immediately started thinking about ways to convey a juxtaposition between nature and the city and the contradictions inherent; such as the fact that the whilst the city is busier, nature is ironically dirtier. We also talked about other types of art in the city, mainly the differences between public art spaces and graffiti.

The differences between the two subjects to me seemed somehow intrinsically linked, public art such as Banksy's now infamous pieces, started off as illegal graffiti. Everything has to start someplace.