TREATMENT - COUNCILLOR JAKE MORRISON

This is our treatment for our first idea of Councillor Jake Morrison.

A personal profile of Liverpool’s youngest ever elected councillor Jake Morrison. Elected to office at 18 years old, we find him over half way through a 4 year term. A term mired in controversy. We discuss Councillor Morrison’s aspirations, his successes and his failures during his time in office. 

We will ask what makes an 18 year old enter the political world, and what are the challenges that a young man faces when attempting to do so. Does Councillor Morrison consider himself a victim of his early success? What are Councillor Morrison’s hopes for the future? We will discuss his plans to become an MP, who he is as a person and what shaped his early years. In addition we will focus on what Councillor Morrison considers to be the biggest challenges facing local government today. Does he feel his youth and relative inexperience have caused difficulties? Has his use of social media helped or harmed him?

The film will aim to not simply focus on Councillor Morrison as a political figure,but as a person, to drill down to the man beneath. The man behind the headlines. We will follow Councillor Morrison through the course of his day as he attends to his constituents and see the challenges faced by those who have the task of representing the people. 

The mood will be reflective, introspective, insightful. We will take a more stylised approach in terms of the filming of the Documentary. Rather than to take a traditional approach such as a direct Interview like set-up, they suggested using the idea of the documentary “Pockets” which is not directly shot of the interviewee but rather objects they are carrying and the story which each of the pockets unfold. We would apply this to our Documentary idea so that Councillor Morrison’s responses and story will be shown in a series of shots about his life, the area in which he grew up and his ‘rise to power’. This will strongly express and strengthen his story, in a way which is engaging to the audience, with the intention to create a response from our peers about Councillor Morrison and his life. Specifically drawing upon what he has achieved, the controversy around his persona as a political figure and his life in the on-line spotlight (twitter). We will use point of view shots to compared both subject matter to visual, so that the audience can identify and understand what Councillor Morrison is identifying within the interview. 

We imagine the film will be of interest to academic institutions hoping to raise aspiration in young people, the film could also appeal to those interested in politics / local authority issues. 

GROUP MEETING

From the previous group meeting we had, we have been communicating about our ideas through facebook. On the facebook page we were showing each other our ideas and seeing weather they will work. Our first idea was about Jake Morrison. Everyone liked the idea and our producer started drafting out the treatment. Additional research was done on some of the other ideas we thought of during our first group meeting.

For our second idea, we ended up choosing the Bluecoat. There were a lot stories behind the Bluecoat and it sounded more interesting. We now had our two ideas and I mostly liked the one of the Bluecoat because of its arts and craft. The other one about Jake Morrison which is good but I'm a bit worried about the political aspect it might bring about.

Our producer started drafting the treatment for the Bluecoat and when he needed help, we talked about it through facebook. 

Overall I'm pleased with the communication in our group. Having the facebook group has allowed us to communicate efficiently and we are ready to pitch our ideas to our lecturers. I just hope they like them. 

SKATEISTAN

http://vimeo.com/15841377

Skateistan is a short documentary film about the lives of a group of young skateboarders in Afghanistan. As my role as a sound editor, I like the atmos sounds in this film and how it creates mood with background music. I hope to combine similar sounds like this in our documentary film. 

GROUP MEETING + ROLES

I managed to get a group for this project and I'm so excited to work with them. In our group we have Chris Berry (director), Paul Brannan (producer), Megan Crawford (camera person), Louise Bailey (sound recordist), Joe Waterworth (editor) and me (sound editor). We had our first meeting and discussed what our ideas were for the project. A lot of interesting ideas came forward such as:

• Pub idea which involves filming in a pub and interviewing people. 
• Liverpool University - interviewing the students and the lecturers about the university. 
• Councillor Jake Morrison - this one has a political approach and and will be looking into his personal life and what inspired him to get involved into politics at a young age.
• To look into the closures of libraries because of government cuts and the impact this has on local communities. 
• Look at the increasing number of people forced to use food banks in Liverpool because of debt problems etc.
• Skeptic society and ghost stories

We all liked these diverse ideas but each idea came with its pros and cons. we agreed to go research more on each idea and see which ones would work best and meet up again and discuss about them.

SEMESTER 2 - TASK 1 DOCUMENTARY

This is my first project for my second semester. The task is to create a 5 minute documentary film on the theme of Liverpool stories. We are to work in groups of 6 and we each have different roles (director/ producer/ camera person/ sound-recordist/ sound editor/ editor). In our groups we are to work with other students we haven't worked with during the start of the course and I find this to be good because it allows me to meet other students and see their skills. 

Firstly I'm excited about this project. I look forward in going to Liverpool and film something different. In this project I want to be the sound editor because I feel my skills in sound editing are not strong as it came across in my previous projects. This role will allow me to polish up my skills in sound editing. 

Overall I cant wait for Liverpool and am looking forward to working with other students.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - PRODUCTION AFTER FEEDBACK

After receiving the feedback from our peers and tutor, we sat down and discussed what needed to be changed. For filming, we decided to add in two more locations which would be the library in the adsetts building and the theatre which is outside the winter garden. To bring a bit more meaning to it, we would have one of the characters look at the other one, which would signify that they a different and we would have them meet each other at the end of the film. 

In terms of editing, we removed the tilted shots and made the long shots shorter. Using the 3 way colour correcter, we enhanced the colours of some of the shots. We also changed the colour of the last shot, where we have one screen in purple and the other in green. We did this to signify that these were two different characters.  

This image shows the changes in colour correction of the film, starting with the image from the right going to the left. 

We also recorded more sounds for the film and managed to sync the sounds to the images. Using the EQ band effect, we used it to change the mood of the sound, especially in the church scene. 

After making these changes, I was pleased with the film. If I had more, I would have made more changes to it. As we removed some of the shots, it became aware to us that the film was too short. This has taught me to shoot more footage because you can never have enough footage, especially if your doing the split screen technique.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - FEEDBACK FROM PEERS

We got a chance to show our film to our peers. They enjoy watching the short film and they all different opinions about. Not mentioning names, I mostly liked the feedback from 6 of my peers.

Peer 1

Made us aware of the sounds of the film. Some of the sounds were not in sync with the images in parts of the film, especially the high heels and it would be better if some shots didn't have any sounds. He also said constantly hearing the high heels all the way through might seem repetitive.

Peer 2

Liked one shot of the church and night scene. He liked the colour of the shots and encouraged us to experiment with similar shots like that. 

Peer 3

Thought that some of the shots were a bit too long and needed to be reduced.

Peer 4

Found it unnecessary to include the shots which were tilted or at a different angle. He seemed to enjoy the static shots better. 

Peer 5

Within the film and we included the split screen and some shots were in full screen. Peer 5 found it confusing at times and advised us to either use the split screen or use the full screen.

Peer 6

From all the feedback, I mostly found this one to be influential. Peer 6 did not get the meaning of the film and thought that it was just one character wondering around Sheffield, where as it was two different characters. This made me aware that we had not clearly established that these were two different characters and we needed a way to convey this. 

Overall I found the feedback very constructive. And watching the films made by the other groups was very interesting, seeing how they had approached the project at a different angle. The feedback motivated me to try and improve my film.