June and the final days....

I was off (working) most days of June but I managed to come back and do my NAB for Gavin and passed!!

My work here is done........

Alloa Tower

Alloa Tower :

To begin my documentary I had to do some research. I didn’t do much, just went on the internet and googled Alloa Tower. It was mainly for a bit of background information to get me started, and to give myself a rough idea on the camera shots I would try.

3 useful links on documentary makers –

http://www.superflex.net/floodedmcdonalds/

http://www.downanddirtydv.com/home.html

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

Digital video can be stored in 3 different ways

1) Encoding ; This is compressing files so that it can be displayed in specific situations ie the internet

2) Tapes ; Although now mostly obsolete, vhs or smaller tapes are sometimes recorded onto for storage of DV

3) Discs ; The most widely used method of storage used today.

Digital Video can be displayed in several different ways. Here are 3 of them

1) Cinema ; Through a projector on the big screen

2) T.V ; Where we see most of the documentaries that are made

3) Internet ; With the internet vastly growing, a lot of up and coming documentary makers try and be seen using the internet.

Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He is the director and producer of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story, four of the top eight highest-grossing documentaries of all time.[3] In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, documenting his personal crusade to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections.[4] He has also written and starred in the TV shows TV Nation and The Awful Truth.

Moore is a self-described liberal[5] who has criticized globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, the Iraq War, U.S. President George W. Bush and the American health care system in his written and cinematic works.

Phil Grabsky is a British documentary film-maker based in Brighton, East Sussex. His company Seventh Art Productions has produced award-winning documentaries for television and cinema.

Grabsky’s work such as I, Caesar, Spain - In the Shadow on the Sun, The Great Commanders and the Tim Marlow on... series, has been broadcast on various U.K. channels such as BBC, Channel 4, Five and Sky Arts, and internationally around the world.

His film The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan was released in cinemas in 2003 and tells the story of 8-year-old Mir and his family living in post-Taliban Afghanistan. The film has been shown across the globe and won 13 awards including the Gold Hugo in Chicago for Best Film and first prize at the Valladolid International Film Festival. Phil is continuing to film Mir and his family in Afghanistan.[1]

John Paskievich is a Ukrainian-Canadian documentary filmmaker and photographer from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Paskievich's 2006 National Film Board of Canada documentary Unspeakable explores stuttering. Paskievich himself stutters and he narrates and participates in the film, which won a special jury prize at the 2006 Whistler Film Festival.

His other directorial credits include My Mother’s Village, in which Paskievich delves into the experience of other Ukrainian-Canadians, The Gypsies of Svinia, If Only I Were an Indian and the Genie Award-winning short film Ted Baryluk's Grocery.

Born in Austria, Paskievich emigrated to Canada at the age of five. He studied at the University of Winnipeg and Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto. An accomplished stills photographer as well as filmmaker, his photographs have been exhibited at prestigious galleries and museums across Canada.

His photographs have also been published in four books: A Place Not Our Own, Waiting for the Ice Cream Man... A Prison Journal, Urban Indians and A Voiceless Song.

In October 2007, Paskievich's first book, The North End: Photographs by John Paskievich, was published.

The process that we followed to produce our film was as follows :

1) Research on Alloa Tower and watching various documentaries to give us a rough idea about hot to go about it

2) Storyboarding and scripting so we knew what to do when we got to filming

3) Getting permission to, and doing the actual filming

4) Editing, which includes adding music and titles

5) Putting the final piece onto a DVD

Adam Easdon

18th - 28th of May

18th & 19th - I was off ill

21st - Friday! - So close to the end we are all basically touching up and editing any remaining work we have, mainly our Alloa Tower DVD. We also did a numeracy task today.

25th - Off ill again. Damn hay-fever!!!

26th - We done our revision for the N.A.B next week, which included watching documentaries and writing about them. I also finished the intro and credits for our show we did.

28th - Today we are finishing any remaining paperwork, including doing our evaluation. So close to the end of this course I cant help feel proud of the efforts I have put in.

The first 2 weeks of May

1st week of May - It was a holiday on the Tuesday so our week started on Wednesday with Gavin , where I had a lot of fun filming "The Adam Eased-In Show" which is our Jeremy Kyle-esc show. This was my only day this week as I was off ill on Friday.

2nd week of May - On Tuesday we visited Alloa Tower to do our filming which took us up to the afternoon and to Angies class where I did some stitching!!

On Wednesday we all got into our groups to do some editing of our show. I did the introductions for the show and weather, as well as the end credits.

O Friday with Brian I helped edit the video footage from Alloa Tower.

Project 4

This week we officially started project 4. With John on tuesday we watched a documentary he done to give us an idea of what ours should look like. He also went over camera angles, lighting etc. 

On wednesday with Gavin we scripted and storyboarded our tabloid talkshow (in which I am the host). It is a Jeremy Kyle-esc show. We scoped out our set and established where the cameras would be set up.

On friday with Brian we are creating slideshows in both iMovie and Windows Movie Maker to see what is the best for our documentary we are making.

Week back after the Easter holidays -

We were all struggling on the first day back with John in the morning. The network was a nightmare as it kept crashing so we just looked through the clips we took of the college and storyboarded the Forth Valley College advert. With Angie in the afternoon I continued with the monoprints. 

On wednesday we thought Gavin was stuck abroad due to the ash cloud from Iceland. However he wasn't but there was so little people in the class we sacked it and went to Alloa Tower to take photographs for Fridays lesson with Angie (for monoprinting)

Friday with Brian we done some maths(!!) and the people who didn't do the evaluation did that. An early lunch then to Angies class with just 3 folk attending to do our monoprints of our Alloa Tower pictures.

Week - 16th March

With Big John on Tuesday I made a start on my podcast, basically recording me reading out my article on Manchester. All I have to do now is add pictures and video. With Gavlaaa on Wednesday I tweaked my radio show a bit then helped other people finish theirs. On Friday with Bri-Bri, he got me to do some video editing from our recorded class meeting. Mon the weekend!!