Working with the primary schools

For the last two weeks, we have been to St John Angell Town primary school to work with a year 3 class as part of our documentary research.

The first week, we wanted to engage with the students and have them start to feel comfortable with having us there with the cameras. We were given two rooms and 12 students so divided up. Our girls showed the year 3 students how to use the cameras and they filmed each other talking about their favourite toys. This gave us some footage that might help us as we can see whether there were any obvious gender trends.

The second week we went, we started with some statements about gender that we wanted them to consider then decide if they were true or false. We filmed them talking about their answers. The major problem with this, was that we did this as 'circle time' and I believe the students were strongly influenced by what other students thought. After hearing what others said, they would often change their minds and not be able to recall what originally influenced their decision. Some also became rather shy or went off on tangents that didn't relate to the original question, and because we wanted them to feel comfortable and be honest, it was a little tricky keeping them to the point.

I personally was rather dismayed that most of them thought women couldn't do dirty jobs as they would be unhappy about getting their clothes dirty. One also stated that a woman couldn't possibly know how to fix a car, even if she was a mechanic. This was despite us providing pictures of a happy woman in very dirty clothes sat on the open bonnet of a car with a wrench in her hand! Most in the group I was with found it inconceivable that a boy might want to play with a doll. They insisted he would throw it in the bin, even when we asked if there was a boy that wanted to play with a doll, would that be ok?

Finally, the girls read them stories that challenge gender stereotypes and they seemed to respond fairly positively to that. In one, Princess Smartypants, the princess does not want to get married and scares off potential suitors. They didn't think it was a problem that she didn't get married in the end but did think it was wrong for her to disobey her parents wishes.

Tues 2nd Nov

Today, we had hoped to carry on interviewing, but were not able to get anyone in, so we carried on planning for the future interviews.

Firstly, we looked again at the previous interviews we did to see how they went and reflect on whether we could change the questions to get more out of the interviewees.

We have booked to go and work with a year 3 class at St John the Divine School the next two weeks, so planned what we would do. We have bought some dolls to use as visual stimulus to represent males and females.

We are also planning on interviewing a trans man, so planned how to question him also.

Finally, we watched the film Crash, which explores issues of stereotyping and prejudice surrounding race. (Students: you should write what you learned from this film?)

Starting to Film Properly

Today we were able to begin filming properly. We got various sixth formers and some that had recently left to give us their thoughts on stereotypes.

We came up with a proper list of questions first thing and printed the pictures ready.

We used the studio to film three interviews. After the first one, we watched it back and analysed how we could improve it.

More documentary planning

Don was in again this morning so we split up into the two groups. Don's group are focusing on those that challenge stereotypes and mine are looking at what the stereotypes are to begin with.

We came up with some ideas for what to film:

1. A montage of key words associated with those stereotypes to begin the documentary, such as 'black, asian, white' for the basics and then groups such as 'chavs, goths, geeks' and derogatory words for some such as 'hoodrat' and 'bimbo'.
2. We discussed doing vox pops but having people grouped with their friends in an environment they are comfortable in so they are more likely to be relaxed and honest and bounce off each other's comments. We thought it would be good to have boys together, then girls separately. Also in different racial or religious groups.
3. We came up with a plan to print off pictures of different types of people and ask the groups to comment on them. For example, have pictures of black boys in hoodies or a girl with skimpy clothes or another who dresses like a boy.

We watched some other documentaries made by amateurs on YouTube for more ideas. One we saw that was quite effective was made by primary school children including a boy who liked to wear pink and a girl who liked to dress like a boy and play sport. This we thought was interesting, to show how gender stereotyping starts very early on. Another one we saw included toys targeted at girls and boys, such as dolls and cooking things. It also featured young children being interviewed about gender roles which was very interesting. We have decided to try and approach a primary school to see if we can film the children.

We noticed that those that included presenters often had them trying to read a script which looked awkward. We have decided a voice-over would be better, as we will have different people filming each segment anyway, so can't have one presenter throughout.

Othert things that were achieved included producing the storyboard, devising questions for interviews, finding the pictures of different types of people and emailing people to see if they will be willing to be filmed.

Don's First Day

Today Don came in to help us start the planning for our documentary.

We discussed what we had learned so far about stereotypes, particularly in relation to race. We also talked about our role models, which were noticably all women for the students present.

Then we started to research different areas - statistics about race in the country, black, female and gay icons, contacts at magazines to ask them about their model policies, positive discrimination policies etc.

Starting to use the cameras

At the start of the day students finished writing about the documentaries we saw last week.

Then, the class learned about vox pops. These represent the 'voice of the people' and are short clips of members of the public, where they are required to give their opinion about an issue. They are often shown on the news to help gauge public opinion about a particular matter.

We looked at clips online to see examples. Then, students had to devise their own questions about stereotypes to ask people, before going off to ask around school and out of school during break time.

When students returned, they learned how to edit the footage on imovie on the Mac laptops. Some will now know how to import the footage from the camera, put it on the timeline, edit clips, adjust the volume and add text etc.

Starting Documentary

Today we began preparation work for our documentary. We started with an exercise designed to expose our own assumptions. Students were asked to draw a doctor and a nurse, without showing each other. They were then asked how many of them drew a male doctor and a female nurse. As expected, most drew a male doctor and a female nurse. After this, we moved onto defining what a documentary is, starting by listing key words we associate with the genre, such as truth, facts, statistics and educational.

We learned a little about different types of documentaries by looking at four different types. They were Mad Hot Ballroom, Africa's Last Taboo, Bowling for Columbine and Peckham Finishing School for Girls. We divided into groups of three and different members of the groups made notes on the documentary techniques, film language, and sound in each one. We learned to identify things such as ambient and non-diegetic sound, amateur and archive footage.

As well as discussing the different techniques used by the documentary makers, we talked about how the subjects of the different shows have been represented. This was particularly interesting with the last one, as students had real life experience of the location and people to contextualise what they saw. Most felt that the worst side of Peckham was being shown, but that they also included positive elements such as young business people, the church and the martial arts community. This has given us great food for thought with our documentary, and we intend to represent an even broader range of people in this part of South London.

Girls in the Peckham Finishing School were Sarah & Cat, Alisha & Serena, Kerri & Steph and Lashan & Claire, plus Peaches who was co-ordinating the events. We will be writing this analysis up in more detail next week, and the instructions for this are on the shared area, 'Creative and Media Diploma', 'Stereotypes and documentary' folder.

Good Hair

Today we went to the Ritzy to watch Good Hair. The film is a documentary made by Chris Rock in response to a statement made by his young daughter about how she didn't have 'good hair'.

The main narrative arc for the film surrounded a Black Hair show in Atlanta, Georgia, where millions is spent every year by mainly black women on products such as relaxer and weaves. The pinnacle of the show is the highly elaborate hair cutting competition where hair dressers compete to win a $20,000 prize. Intersecting this narrative were interviews with black stars such as Nia Long, Ice T and Reverend Al Sharpton. Rock also travelled to meet the owners of some of the hair product companies and to India to investigate precisely where 'human hair' weaves come from.

Points I think need considering:

• There was little exploration of why women feel the need to go through all this pain and pay all this money to look this way? Is it a form of internalised racism? Is it patriarchal issue?
• What about women in general being victims of the beauty industry? Aren't wearing heels, make-up, having cosmetic surgery all part of the same problem - women self harming in effect, mainly to appeal to men and compete with other women. Why do men not need to compete in the same way?
• The men were portrayed sympathetically as victims of this culture - having to pay for it, wait for women to have it done, not able to touch the weave etc. Why were the men not asked if they would be willing to date women with more natural hair? Are most of these women not doing it for their benefit in the first place?
• Also, no mention was made of what the people in India working to package the human hair were being paid. Are they victims or benefactors of the industry?

8th June - Starting to Film

Today we began to film a rough version of the films to practice using the cameras and so students could learn how to edit.

Firstly, students were reminded how to use the cameras properly and safely. They learned about opening the tripod legs and making it level and how to attach the camera so it doesn't fall off. Also they learned about how to move it from one location to the next safely so it doesn't get damaged or hit anything on its way.

They learned about how to film so that there is enough room at the start and end of a shot to edit.

When filming, they practised the acting and how to light people effectively using natural light, such as how to create a silhouette effect to disguise the person's identity.

They then began to learn how to edit using Final Cut Express on the Apple Mac computers. They learned about how to connect the camera using a fire wire cable and how to capture the footage ready for editing. They then learned about putting in and out points on a section and dragging it to the timeline. Some used a razor tool to make cuts in the footage, separate the image from the soundtrack and put a new image in, leaving the sound there so it acts as a voice over.

Last lesson before half term

Todays lesson was all about finishing up the research and planning before we make our videos after half term.

Students learned about how to produce a storyboard to help with filming. They learned about how to put arrows inside the box to show the subject moving, and outside the box to show camera movement. They also needed to add the shot type, dialogue, sound effetcs and transitions.

They then got into their two groups to make their storyboards and scripts ready for filming after half term. Some finished off research on the topic and mood boards as well.

4th May Video prep

Today we started by getting into two groups - (Group A) Queen, Bisola and Roche in one and (Group B) Betsy, Yasmin and Jamilea in the other. They started to come up with ideas for their Human Rights films and drew spider diagrams. Group A would like to do child labour and group B would like to do the rights of young women in this country.

Next we finished looking at the films made by previous students on being Muslim and having HIV and suffering prejudice.

We learned about the different shot types, camera movements, mise en scene, sound and editing techniques and watched a short film by students to see them in action.

27th April Human Rights Video Analysis

Today we worked on writing up analyses of human rights videos made by young people. We looked at some on the Adobe Youth Voices website that were music videos about identity, respect and being a good role model. They were made in the USA and New Zealand.

We wrote down what they were about, things that worked well and what was less successful about them. We also wrote which articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights they relate to.

We then began to watch some of the adverts made by previous year 10 students.

Starting Human Rights before Easter

Firstly we all met in 915 to introduce the Human Rights Media element. We looked at photos, found out more about human rights and the tasks set, such as comparing our lives to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights list. We then divided up students into photography and film.

The film students came downstairs with me to look at some human rights films on these websites:
http://www.hrw.org/en/iff/youth-producing-change-2009
http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/stories/video.aspx

We discussed which ones we liked and why and had a think about films we could make.

Youth Producing Change Festival 23.03.10

Today we went to this festival, which is part of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival at the Ritzy in Brixton. We watched 10 films made by young people around the world, about various human rights issues such as AIDS orphans, child labour, the right to water, immigration, sexual violence etc.

The one that moved me the most was about orphans in Mozambique. It made me cry realising how little these children and teenagers have, and it definitely humbled me and made me want to do something to help.

I thought that the one made by an American girl about water was very well made. She used lots of different techniques to get her point across - interviewing experts, filming vox pops with people about their water consumption habits and she had clearly done a lot of research. She also carefully filmed lots of cutaway footage of water in stores, coming out of taps, in vending machines, and in reservoirs and lakes to make the voice over parts interesting visually.

The one about stop and search was also well made, with a creative use of the resources to recall and illustrate individuals' experiences.

Editing and Completing paperwork

Media students have been taking the opportunity these last couple of weeks to update and type up all their paperwork for their portfolios.

Half of the class have had to use this time to edit the 'making of' documentary. Last week we also recorded interviews with Dom and Ms Williams, asking them to reflect on how the project has gone so far, what have been the best things about it and what they have learned.

Today they recorded an introduction and added music. They also continued to edit together the same answers to each question and added text. We are waiting for some of the footage from the actual film to use as out-takes on the end.

We have discovered that because of timetabling, we have a great deal of footage from the Dance lessons, but not much from Art. This has made editing quite difficult as we don't have exactly what we would like. If we were to do this again, we would have tried to build more art filming into the schedule, especially when they filmed the puppet show.

Tue 2nd March

Today documentary students took a camera into their art lesson to film some of the work they have been doing. They filmed the puppet sets and the theatre that was built.

After break, they started to capture some of this footage. At the same time, they filmed an interview with themselves where they spoke about their work so far, what they have learned and what they enjoyed most. They opted to use the studio as they are the Media group and wanted a back drop that would reflect that.

They then looked at some of the footage and started laying some clips down on the timeline.

Feb 23rd

Today the documentary team worked on interviews with various cast members. Six were interviwed in total.

Firstly, we devised open ended questions to try and elicit detailed responses from the interviewees and get them to reflect on what they have learned throughout the project. They were asked such things as 'what did you enjoy most about the project' and 'what new skills have you developed'.

It took a little while to set up the equipment as we wanted to have good sound quality so opted to use a small clip mic. We had to test it first to make sure it was working and some of the first ones we used didn't work.

When we were interviewing, sometimes we had to stop and start again as people laughed or didn't know what to say at times. Also, sometimes there were noises such as things being dropped or the bell going in the background.

We also spoke about the need to get some footage of the puppet show as that has not been filmed yet. We hoped to do some today, but it was not possible.

Tues 2nd February

Today the animators carried on with their title sequence. Last week all Diploma students voted on the title of the film, after Media students came up with a list of potential ones. The title they choose was An Unarranged Marrriage.

The documentary team started to review the footage and log all the shots, ready for editing. This is a time consuming process, so needs to be kept on top of to save time in the edit. Some of the scenes were filmed in the park involving Jack. There was also some filming in the house at lower school.

All the Media team tried on tops to see which would fit for the dance scene they are going to be in too.

REMINDER: Homework must be completed by next week.

HOMEWORK - Documentary and Animation Due Tues 2nd Feb

Bollywood Media Homework

You need to create a fact sheet about either ANIMATION or DOCUMENTARY. This must be done for homework and should be at least two sides of A4, with lots of information and pictures and very little white space.

You must include the following:

• A definition of the genre.
• How the genre started out, early examples.
• Famous examples.
• Explanations and pictures of the different techniques used.

You could include:

• Who the audiences are for different types of animation/documentary.
• The purposes of different types within the genre.
• How developing technologies have changed the nature of the genre.

DUE IN: TUES 2^nd FEBRUARY 2010

Animation Links

A short history or animation:

http://www.fi.edu/fellows/fellow5/may99/History/history.html

Animation history timeline:

http://joshuamosley.com/UPenn/courses/Ani/AnimationHistory.html

http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/articles/animation-history.htm

Documentary Links

http://www.mediaknowall.com/Documentary/definitions.html

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/education/id/1271387/index.html

http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=documentary

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/docexhibit/docuchron.htm

http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_22/section_1/artc1A.html

Tues 26th Jan

Today we filmed a little dance and some of the animation. We started to interview people about what they are doing and also recorded a short piece to camera about the auditions that were taking place for the male actors. Some people found it hard trying to figure out what to say on camera about what is happening. It is often hard to sound natural when put on the spot, so some people froze and needed to rehearse what they were saying.

After break, some went to film in the park, some carried on animating and some did blogging.

Tues 19th

Today, most students carried on with animation, dance, drama and art work in their small groups. With the documentary crew, we looked at the Making of Son of Rambow and made notes on the content such as camera shots and editing techniques. We then devised a storyboard for the documentary and came up with questions to ask interviewees.

Period five, some filmed in the park and the rest either rehearsed in the drama studio or blogged with me in room 203.

18th Jan - Flexible Day

This morning we all met in the hall briefly before separating into Dance and Media. The Media students did a textual analysis of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (Never Say Goodbye) which is a dramatic romance.

Students learned the different shot types such as wide shot, close up, over the shoulder and point of view. They also learned movements such as tracking, tilting and panning, as well as the 180 degree rule.

They looked at different types of scenes to see how the filming techniques varied according to the location, action and mood. For example, they learned that for tense action packed scenes, lots of shots, fast edits and the use of slow motion creates suspense. For conversations, they learned about using close ups to show emotion, and the 180 degree rule so the characters look like they are looking at each other.

Dance is mainly wide shots to allow for the movement within a frame, but they often use crane shots to sweep across the room and higher angles to fit everyone in.

Period three we all went to the hall to learn the wedding scene dance.

Period four we began storyboarding scenes 1-4 of the film.

Period five we did some more storyboarding and then went to the park to recce the location and try out the wedding dance scene in there.

Starting the animation/documentary

Please write about working with Don, Wendy from the CLC, Mr Dubasiya and Mr Le Marechal from here. What did you look at first for inspiration?

Evaluate what you did so far?

Questions for evaluating footage filmed so far:

1. Was it steady enough?
2. Were the shots framed well? (Not too much ceiling or floor etc)
3. Was the movement steady for pans and tilts?
4. Were the interviewees lit well?
5. Could you hear them?
6. Was the background interesting?
7. Were the questions appropriate?

What do you need to do before next lesson to make it even better?

Starting Bollywood

Today we started the new project - Bollywood. We are going to be making a short 20 minute film in which some people will be acting and singing, and others will be making and performing a puppet flash back sequence. There will also be an stop-motion animation title sequence and a 'making of' documentary. Students have already created the music for the titles and a dance sequence on the flexible day (write this up as a separate post).

Period 1 we were joined by Don, a professional film maker and Phillip, a scriptwriter. Don is going to be workign with us throughout the project, and he gave us all an intro to film making and wanted to find out a little bit all the class. Students then found out which groups they are in - Art/Media or Drama/Dance. We had a look at clips from ...................... film which is a modern Bollywood film set in New York. We watched a musical dance sequence which was very fast paced and bangra in style. There were a large number of female dancers dancing in unison in colourful costumes such as saris and more western short dresses. There were two males in red and black dancing at the centre. The mood was very light hearted.

For the remaining 15 minutes we split into Dance or Media. We looked at a clip on Youtube which was a 'making of' documentary for a stop motion animated advert. We talked briefly about the techniques used to make the animation and documentary.

We are also given HOMEWORK - to find out about animation and documentary genres and create fact sheets. DUE TUES 2nd FEB.