Herbert Media Video Bursary

Herbert Media are currently working with 2 local film makers on their new bursary scheme. The scheme will enable the film makers to enhance their current skills, working on real life projects in our Final Cut Pro, Premiere and Avid editing suites.

John Simpson's Blog

Week commencing the 12th June 2006
Met with Matthew Dawn and Sarah this week, Matthew is from the Herbert art Gallery. Dawn is from the local BBC and Sarah is my cohort on this project who will be doing the Filming and interviews (which I hope to attend and assist with) where as I will be doing the editing. Find it a bit nerve racking at the moment, the brief asks for a story about being inspired by Lady Godiva and I must confess to not having a vast amount of knowledge about Godiva and her associated topics. Sarah seems to be on the ball with the subject matter more than I, she definitely grasps the concept of protest and what Godiva was all about.

It does seem a lot of work at the minute, finding the right story conducting all the interviews. The filming of the Godiva festival and then the editing of it all down into three different formats. An eight to ten minute piece for the community channel. A two to three minute piece for the BBC and I must confess to not knowing how long the piece for the Herbet needs to be but they require a loopable piece of footage for there exhibition. The opportunity seems fantastic, great facilities learning from experienced persons who are working in the industry. The chance of getting a broadcast credit with the BBC is good on its own but I think the work for the community will prove to be an eye opener. I’m looking forward to getting my teeth into the editing but think we are a long way off finding the right story. I feel were going to have to do a lot of interviews before one really shines out as a good piece to follow up. We did do some research at the end of the meeting to see what kind of resources came up on line. We found a story about some disabled persons who protested as Godiva in Coventry in 2001. we are trying to find a contact for those persons so we can interview them and see where the story goes.

Week commencing the 19th June 2006
Had a meeting with Dane at the BBC this week, which went quite well, few hand outs about filming technique and some motivational tips on what were looking for in a story for our film. Mentioned the Disabled persons action network protest in 2001 which seems like a really good story. After the meeting did some more research and found a contact for Robin Surgeons (of Dan) and sent him an email asking if its ok to interview and get his story. Received a reply (on Friday, which was the next time I got online) which confirmed that Robin was not only happy to help but offered assistance with some music as well seeing as he is a working musician.

Overall the project seems to be coming together, feels a bit panicky without a concrete story to follow so everything felt up in the air until we got word back from Robin. We have given Matthew Taylor all the information needed to get a press release from the Herbert which should hopefully get us more interviews/stories to follow up and give us more options when it comes down to the edit as to what stories best suit the community nature and subject matter of the project. We contacted the council house for some resources/names and numbers for local community groups that we can contact as well as the press release to get more interviews and stories.

Log for Monday 26th June 2006
Today was my editing tutorial with Matthew Taylor I found the amount of technical detail amazing, before when editing I used to cut and paste and not know why I would have to use certain settings or how to get my footage to the right standard required for broadcast. I have used Avid before and am familiar with batch capture and the timeline, logging and even the application of effects. The real interesting thing was the input controls saturation and contrast control all in real time as you capture/digitise the footage. Really amazing stuff all at your finger tips and now I know more of why we do things like terminating loops on input/output devices and calibrating monitors and the use of wave form monitors. Quite a lot to take in but I am definitely more confident now for being given the chance to explore the hardware and use avid at a broadcast standard.

Log for Wednesday 28th June 2006
This afternoon we are interviewing/filming Pru Porretta in St Mary’s Guildhall. Not being responsible for the camera work (which makes a change for me) it was interesting to help out with this shoot. Pru proved to be a very interesting subject, the Lady Godiva costume and the empathy that she feels for her role in Coventry is outstanding. Aside from some audio issues (near by air conditioning and the general public talking and walking in the rooms upstairs) I think we got some brilliant footage that is definitely useable for both the Herbert presentation and Community channel project. My Main concern was the lighting in such a dark wooden room, the Window backdrop was always changing as the sun was covered and uncovered by Clouds. We used one light which was softened so as not to cast harsh shadows on shot. I really enjoyed the experience today, having done interviews before and used three point lighting techniques it was interesting watching Sarah at work and seeing the interview and listening to the material has helped me see how this footage will work in the edit. Hopefully all out interviews will go as well as today.

Wednesday 5th July

Today I was intending to capture/digitise some of the interviews that have been done so far. Unfortunately the incredible heat made it impossible for me to sit in the edit suite for more than an hour.
I did however manage to pickup key framing within Avid and tweaking lighting levels to compensate for fluctuations in light on footage. It gave me a chance to look at some of the footage that Sarah has shot whilst I have been working (have to pay the rent somehow).I really liked what I saw and the content of the interviews is really in depth stuff showing quite a variety of opinions around the Godiva. Although in the downside the people that have been interviewed are experienced speakers or performers or council members and I am looking forward to what we get from the public and our main story interest from Robin.

Wednesday 12th July

Today was the interview with Robin, The guy who protested against charges levied against Disabled people who required home help.
I think the material itself was very good, robin clearly feels for his subject matter and the story ties itself in nicely with what we want to show in our project. The downside was the location we decided to film in. Outside the council house was too noisy, we tried fro a short while but too many interruptions from traffic drove us to distraction and ate up a lot of our time. We decided to move to a quieter location but because of pressing time requirements, Robin had other obligations, we rushed the composition of the shot slightly and it looked no where near as nice as the first location. We even had some sound issues with the second location. So not a winner today really.
We reviewed the footage and decided to try and get robin back and do the interview somewhere controlled and quiet and then get the more artistic dynamic shots without any dialogue as these would need to be in a fairly noisy area outside the council house.

Friday 14th July

We checked out the root for the procession today. It seems we have at least two good locations for the start and middle of the procession that should give us enough time to get ahead every time and set up. The root for the end of the procession is a little unclear we don’t know which gate the procession is going to enter the park by but there are some nice hills we can use to get a high shot of the procession as it goes by or into the park.
I predict a lot of walking ahead.

Saturday 15th July

Procession day. We met up with Mathew at the gallery I dropped of the equipment and then headed out to find places to park along the root so we could drive ahead. Whilst on this search I realised that all the roads I could park on would be blocked off for the procession so decided to bite the bullet and park at the memorial park. I walked back to outside the council house where I met Sarah and Mathew. (A lot of walking today) I was to walk alongside the procession with a wireless microphone so we could get a balanced sound. I also took the opportunity to take some photos of Sarah at the helm of the camera.
I found today to be a lot of heavy foot work but enjoyable none the less. Matthew’s enthusiasm for the event and his encouragement about the footage we were getting was very positive and I’m looking forward to tomorrows filming.

Sunday 16th July

Interviews today, we needed to try and get as many interviews as possible. With Simon and Sarah managing the filming side of things my job was the hunter. I had to find the subjects. The heat definitely played against us today. People did not want to stand around for five minutes being asked questions although the general feel of the crowd was good I could tell people were easily irritable in the heat. We tried to find places were we could stand the camera in the shade as Sarah and Simon would have to be with it for some time while I bought victims, interviewees to the location.
It soon became apparent how much hard work it was to not only suffer rejection as people simply did not want to be interviewed but to stay out in the sun and heat hunting down people who would be asked a few questions in front of the camera. In the end I think we have twelve to thirteen subjects on film of various walks of life. By four o’clock we called it quits on the day as it was too hot. The actual interviewing taught me a fair bit about how to position myself when asking questions so the person who is being interviewed would look in the right direction. It also taught me about positioning the camera so we got the most from natural light. And also a bit about getting the subjects, no guts no glory I think is the phrase. Ask everybody and anybody because you simply do not know who is going to say what. I did find it amazingly hard to get people at first but realised that I was walking around with just a clip board. And people obviously thought I was going to sell them something. I then started walking around with the microphone clearly on display and the clipboard. Making sure the first thing I said, aside from excuse me, was that we were working with the art gallery and the council. The clipboard came in handy to prove this as I could show people the release forms that had the council and art gallery logos on them.
This gave me some form of validation or legitimisation and people were more likely to listen to me then just turn straight away. If it wasn’t for the heat I would have really enjoyed today a lot more and probably of got a lot more interviewees. Although this was an important day for us and a crucial place to get more stories I think the weather and location worked against us a little bit. Now I’m really looking forward to getting in the edit suites and looking at all the footage from the weekend.

Tuesday 18th July

I was meant to be capturing footage today. Unfortunately the Avid edit suite has suffered some technical problems I believe due to the heat. So today was a wash out. I am unfortunately busy Wednesday and Thursday so my next attempt at getting some work done is Friday. Hope it is all sorted by then.


Friday 21st July

Today I captured all the Godiva festival footage.
Because we hadn’t logged our shots Sarah sat with me and we decided on what to capture as we went through the footage. I would like to say it was reassuring but I am now feeling daunted by the approaching deadline and the lack of usable footage for our main story. Robin has agreed to come back and redo his interview so we can get better audio and artistic shots although when he can get back to us is still to be confirmed.
We are now working on the Mac systems using Final Cut due to the technical problems with Avid which appear to be related to the incredible heat. This heat also means I can only spend a limited amount of time in the suites due to health and safety. Whilst capturing this works out fine as I can log half a tape and leave it batch capturing whilst I go for some air and a drink to cool down.

Monday 24th July

Capturing again today, we also have a meeting with Dawn from the BBC at four this afternoon. I’m writing this whilst the first tape of the day is batch capturing. I’m hoping to have all the interviews except Robins captured today then it is just a case of assembling our story on the time line once we have shot Robins interview again.
Will update this blog later once the meeting with dawn has happened and I have finished capturing.

John Simpson
Blog
Catch up for August

The second interview with Robin went really well; although once the footage was captured we noticed a slight composition error but nothing that we couldn’t deal with.
Unfortunately the last month or so have been so busy that I find myself writing this blog in retrospect. (Really should have been doing it daily as before).
We interviewed Robin again but this time in an audio safe location (the studio control room at the Herbert) as a token gesture of relevance to the story we planted an image of Godiva in the background. Once again Robin was very well spoken and enthusiastic about the subject and left us with more than enough material for our film.
The only problem we had now was to find relevant images for cutaways as a seven minute or even two minute film of someone talking straight to camera is not very interesting.
We hunted down a few disabled people who didn’t mind us filming them going about everyday occurrences (many thanks to Al Davison, Russell Smith and Ed Lowe). This gave us plenty of cutaway footage that directly related to the subject matter of Robins Protest what we lacked was footage of the protest itself or even any still images. The Local Newspaper who covered the story seemed unable to help us with anything and nobody who was around at the time of the protest had any personal images they could provide. We did what any self respecting film maker would do, we got someone to sit nearly naked in a wheelchair and re-enacted the scene for ourselves.
Once the dilemma of having enough footage or relevant footage to the protest was resolved we had to find images that related to the Godiva side of the project, for this we enquired at the archives for any digitised images of Godiva, portraits and previous processions etc. Sarah also filmed the painting of Godiva that hangs in the Herbert.

The editing process had to be spread over odd days during August; this was mostly because of my responsibilities looking after my children during the summer holidays and work. But I got at least one day a week in at the edit suites through out August. I think the hardest part was watching the piece over and over again deciding what works and in which order to place the dialogue. We even resorted to just listening to the dialogue and putting that in order before contemplating the visuals, we then assessed which pieces of interview footage with Robin were best to leave and which needed visual backup or cutaways.
To be honest I think I watched the film way too many times, by the end of it I knew more or less the entire dialogue word for word.
Simon and Matthew were immensely helpful in pointing out what works and what doesn’t during the edit. And Sarah was always able to spot details I had overlooked or timings that could be clipped a bit better. Over all I think the editing went quite smoothly, a few little panics about having the right footage or not using some footage instead. But by the time the two minute version was finished the seven minute versions just needed tweaking. Things like adding sepia to certain scenes to imply that they were historical or in recollection and adding ambient audio to gaps in the dialogue to avoid pops and silences, tweaking fades and text movement so that the timing of the piece worked better.
All in all the editing was an excellent opportunity to develop my attention to detail and grading skills. Although I am now very glad its over I enjoyed every minute of it.
The finished piece in both its short and long versions seems to work very well and just shows what you can do if you’re working to an industry standard with equivalent resources and support. I would love to have the opportunity again maybe with a bit more free reign over the subject matter but in the working world of media you very rarely get to decided what you’re going to film so I guess that was the whole point of having the brief.
I big thank you to all at Herbert Media for the opportunity to make this film and expand my experience and knowledge of working in the media. And a very big thank you to my partner in crime Sarah who had to put up with me babbling in the edit suites while waiting for things to render.



Sarah Zujans's Blog

Wednesday 14th June

1st Meeting

I arrived a little late, John had already arrived. We chatted while we waited for the others to get themselves ready.
John would be doing the editing. He is also a writer, so I get the impression that that’s how he might edit, like a storyteller.
He seems to prefer to have too much footage rather than too little, which is good, because that how I like to work as well.

When everyone, Matthew Taylor (Herbert Media) and Dawn Gerber (BBC Local) had arrived, we went through what the Bursary would entail, set training dates and deadlines.

It was suggested that we think about the Brief and try to find one person or one story to focus on, rather than using vox pops to cover all areas. At this point, Dawn and Matthew left John and myself to brainstorm.

It’s a very strange thing, brainstorming with someone you have only just meet, but it was great way to get to know each other.

We both seemed liked the idea that ‘something small makes a big difference.’
Stories of protest seem to interest us both.

Once we had chatted, found that we were in a similar mindset, we hit the internet.

We found a story that we both loved – “Disabled people stage Godiva protest”
Matthew suggested that we put together a request for stories as part of the press release, but our hearts were set on these guys.

After the brainstorming and internet, John and myself headed to Browns, where we chatted some more, before I headed back to the Herbert to work the evening shift.

“DISABLED PEOPLE STAGE GODIVA PROTEST”

It’s embarrassing to be naked in public, so why would anyone go naked as a protest? That’s what I want to know. Yes, there are naturists, Who are comfortable with their bodies and comfortable in public without clothes.
I’m a quiet person and so the idea of everyone staring at you, watching you, but maybe that’s the point?

Public nudity of any sort is, in English society, frowned upon, so you must have a good reason for choosing this sort of protest.

The way I see what they did, their reasons for using nakedness, in a sense they are saying, ‘Look at me; I’m the same as you, treat me the same way as you’. They’re not just saying this, they’re shouting “LOOK AT ME” – I will not sit quietly in the shadows waiting to be handed things. You will listen, you will take notice.


Monday 26th June

Interview No1. Penny Walker

So much I need to be doing.
So much I need to remember.
I can’t work out what to do next, I’m so tired.

Matthew talked again about, what was it, softness? – to do with the lights I think.
“You can’t put details back”. I’m so lost right now, and tired always tired, don’t want to go to work tonight, don’t think I like my job too much.

I think I might look for books on B/W photography. I must have something like that, that will help.
So tired, I’m sure this coffee’s decaff.

I have so much to learn. I’m out of practice. It’s a long time since I was really on cameras. I think it was “Paranoia”, in 2004 (with Call the Shots). Since then, I’ve done camera assistant, and AD. No, wait, there was “In the Mix” and a wedding video.
Anyway, the point is, I need more practice.
I didn’t use the monitor to work out how the viewfinder worked, and we didn’t have headphones which made the sound more difficult to monitor – it shouldn’t peak too much.

Penny Walker is from the Peace House, they seem to do a lot of community work, not really sure what, will have to find out more about that later.

Penny seemed somewhat uncomfortable around the cameras, well, more in front of them, but then who doesn’t. I wanted her to relax, and felt that if I were to ask Simon lots of question whilst we were setting up, it would make her more tense and that was the last thing i would want.

I'm not great at asking question, I think learn by watching and by doing, and yet I'm doing this thing, and have all these people standing here waiting and willing to answer my questions. I really should use them.

Tuesday 27th June

Interview No 2. Roger Bailey

Day 2, another early morning, of what looks like it's going to be a very long week. Thankfully I had a quiet night at work, manage to persuade the last customer to have a can instead of a pint. Kick him out along with his pint and was home for half eleven. (Didn't sleep till 1:00 am)

Roger was different from Penny. I have since found out that Penny wasn’t keen on being filmed, which you can see and hear. She was uncomfortable around or like I said, in front of the camera.

I think Roger knows Huw and Simon reasonably well, as they all work for the Council, so Roger was able to joke around while we were setting up.

We were using a projection screen as a reflector – every now and then he would ask if Huw was still there. The jokes seemed to put him at ease.

A lot of what he was saying about his thoughts on Godiva, and why she did what she did, made a lot of sense to me. He put into words what I have been trying to say, the idea of a voice, voice for those who could not, or would not, speak, to those who would not listen.

She shouted to those who would not listen.

He said it so perfectly, without knowing what our story was, which told me that the Godiva protester story we had found, was right.

Roger thought he was in a minority in his thoughts.

We had had too much light when filming Penny on Monday, today I felt happier with the lighting.
It wasn't 100% perfect, but sins lighting the area I feel most uncomfortable with, 2nd only to sound, I came away feeling much happier

Interview No 3. Mehru S. Fitter

Mehru was another person who seemed to feel ill at ease around the cameras, which wasn't helped by the sound problems.

We were filming outside for the first time, because while the Priory Visitors Centre is a wonderful building, it is very echoey.

So we chose to film in the garden outside, where Godiva was supposed to have a church built and was, I think, buried.

There were the sounds of cars on cobbled streets, breaking plant pots! and the building site – I swear they were watching us, ‘cause every time Huw finished his question, the drill would start up. Huw would ask the question, quite as a mouse.

I could see a guy about half way up the tower block, he was watching us, I’m sure he had binoculars!

Mehru was more than happy to rearrange the whole thing, which I feel might have only been party to with the noise. I'm shall she mention that she had never done this before and that she hadn't expected all this, meaning the big camera and the crew (Huw, Simon and myself). It's a little daunting having so many people watching and listening to your every word. Which is a shame because she was great, it was everything around her that was going wrong.

Wednesday 28th June

Interview No 4. Pru Porretta

I’ve met Pru a few times in the past and know that she takes the whole thing very seriously.

She knows the story of Godiva very well. She does a storyteller session for children as well as for adults so she’s well practiced at talking about a subject of which she knows a huge amount.

Because she knows the story so well and she does a lot of storytelling for children and adults alike, we could just let her go with it.

We were able to have fun, we found a wonderful room earlier in the week but it was far too dark. We brought along lights and with Pru dressed in full Godiva clothes things just seemed to feel right.

Matthew and Simon work very differently. It was great to see how they work with the interviewees and put them at their ease. OK, so Matthew’s was different because Pru’s done it so many times before but we had similar sound problems.

OK so it was different working with Pru, who has been filmed many times in the past, I’ve filmed her before.

She’s always fun, she takes Godiva seriously and the work she does, but she also enjoys what she does. Matthew got her to do several takes and you could see the differences..

She said she couldn’t remember what she’d said, or what she was doing, but with each take, she got more and more relaxed and less formal. She smiled more and more.

There’s only so many times you can listen to people going on about how wonderful Lady Godiva is.

Thursday 29th June

Interview No 5. Consolata Zvirkuzke

Consolata was great. She didn’t stop smiling. We kept stopping and starting and just seemed to enjoy the silliness of the whole experience. I wasn’t sure about the location to start with, but once Consolata stood next to the statue in St Mary’s Guildhall Courtyard everything just came together.

This is the one I’m happiest with. I felt more comfortable with the camera and with my ability to interact with the interviewees.

When it came to doing sound check, I was happy to chat with Consolata. I hope we put each other at ease.

Godiva Festival Weekend

Friday 14th July

We spent the morning doing a recce of the route of the Godiva procession and my feet are feeling it, but I think we know what we’re doing.

I’m writing this on Coventry station. I’m about to head over to Birmingham to buy grey card as the 3 camera shops in Coventry city centre can’t help me and I need some new shoes as all of mine have chosen the same week to give up. I’m not a typical girl. I have 3 pairs of shoes, 3 broken pairs of shoes and yes, they smell.

I’m starting to feel the pressure now that a lot of the work is down to me, and there’s a lot more than I expected as people are trying to move us away from Godiva; it is turning into two projects, one for the Herbert gallery, 1 for Herbert Media and BBC Local. On top of that I’m trying to find time to research 2tone for a documentary with a friend, read a script for a short film I will camera assist on, in between earning a bit of cash by pulling pints till the early hours.

I am trying so hard to focus on the job in hand, but all these other deadlines keep sneaking up on me and I can’t get my head round doing the blogs. I’ve never done one before and being dyslexic, having my writing out there for all the world and his dog to read is well scary.

So you might think this trip over to Birmingham is a waste of time but it’s the only way I will write, trains, coffee shops, parks, anywhere like that, but not at a desk, and if there is a computer with internet, I’m doomed, that’s a whole world of distraction.

Monday 17th July
Godiva Festival 1

It’s been a long hot weekend and I think I loved every minute of it, at least every minute I spent in the shade.
Try to remember everything I learnt over the past few weeks, and perform them at a fast pace. It was scary but in a good way.
I was not looking forward to watching the footage back, I’m scared I will have got everything wrong and that all this training will have been for nothing. The phrase ‘so no pressure then’ keeps cropping up, especially in the build-up to this weekend. “It’s got to be broadcast quality” – are they trying to scare me?

I’m pushing myself to get things right, and forgetting things in the process.

Godiva Festival 2

Watching the footage back I can see that it has problems but I like the interview footage. I can see that I was improving over the weekend.
First thing Saturday morning, I’m out of focus and tentative.
By the end of the day I’m doing one shot while thinking about the next one.

It was good to have the chance to stick around at the Festival and have a beer, or two watched Nizlopi – it’s always good to see them live.

Next day (no hangover!!) I went back to being nervous with the camera and the whole vox pops thing. I hadn’t been happy with the previous interview footage and that was at the back of my mind – “broadcast quality”.
As the day went on I got to be comfortable again.

John was great (although he may not believe it) at getting people to talk to us, so I left him to it. I did feel bad about that, but it meant that I could focus on the camera.

Godiva Festival 3

There was a lot of waiting, so me and Simon watched John trying desperately to find people who would talk. Sorry, John, but it was great to watch you getting people to talk!
I wanted to help but felt also that my energy should be aimed at the camera and that I should use John as he was there and make Simon crawl around on his knees (holding the reflector) even I didn’t need him too, but because I could.

(I’m sure he’ll get me back at some point. Thanks for lending me Bubba Ho-Tep, it’s great. I’ll be nice when you get back from holiday.

Monday 17th – cutaways

As John pointed the other day, I get all the best hecklers and it happened again on Monday just gone. This was different to most of my hecklers. I had guys talking about ‘flying pigs’ (I’m never going to get that one) but this guy was your typical builder. It wasn’t about the camera, it was about the woman with the camera.
It just makes me understand, as much as I’ve had that kind of remark or comment before, that the whole ‘can I carry that for you, love?’ will never stop. To the guy in the street I will never be a camera operator, I will be a woman playing with a camera, a woman working in a man’s world.

I’ve always known that’s how I would be seen but it doesn’t stop feeling strange.

Tuesday 25th July

Second interview with Robin Surgeoner

Sleepy! Worked last night. It was a last minute thing. Was supposed to finish at 11pm but I got home around 2am. I just didn’t feel prepared. I hadn’t rewatched the original interview, turned up late and felt exhausted. I had felt like I was improving but after today I feel like I have taken 5 steps back.