The Lindow Man

This is a project that I am involved with for the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland called Vanishing Boundaries. A piece of music has been composed about this fellow you see here. He is approximately 2000 years old and was discovered in 1984 in Lindow Moss bog in Cheshire.

Similar remains have been found throughout northern Europe, and several more have been found at this particular location. The Lindow remains are widely regarded as the best examples of peat bog remains found in Britain and at the time cause such a big stir and level of excitement among archaeologists and the general public.

I am still awaiting to hear the piece of music but already I am thinking about some visual styles that can be used. As these ideas and research develops I will post more on here. Picture courtesy of The British Museum

Connect 4

We were set a small task today which proved useful but sounds a bit silly! We were tasked to film a game of Connect 4 in order to think about sequences.

Whilst planning a shoot, we have discussed planning specific shots that we wish to see in the edit. This of course helps to make the shoot more efficient, ensuring that you don't forget to get footage but also that you don't get too much footage.

However we started to talk about piecing these shots together and building stories in individual scenes. Each scene needs to act as a micro film, introducing characters, narrative and any conflict. This is what we were essentially trying to do with Connect 4, bring in the scene, establish tension and or conflict and then the conclusion of a win or defeat. I am going to hopefully edit the piece together this week and should be posting it on here soon.

Afghanistan's Child Drug Addicts

Following on from the lecture we had from Sophie Chalk and One World Media, I made an attempt to look at some more examples of documentaries concerned with developing countries. One series of documentaries available on 4OD is Unreported World. From 2010 I watched the episode entitled, Afghanistan's Child Drug Addicts, as I had recently watched a similar doc concerning the abuse of children in the war torn country.

As you can probably guess from the title, the content was pretty heavy indeed, with reporter Ramita Naval exploring the effects of heroin and opium on youths and children throughout the country, from Kabul to the rural opium rich areas of the North.

Drugs in Afghanistan appears to be a massive problem and kudos to Naval and director Matt Haan for the access and harrowing examples they captured. Images of young boys under a bridge in the capital smoking Heroin discussing how they are forced to sell themselves to men for money are truly shocking accounts. So too are the toddlers in rural areas who are given opium by their parents because it is cheaper than food and prevents hunger.

Sadly, I feel the problem is much bigger and requires much more insight than a half hour documentary. Naturally, visions of war and the death of family members are a main catalyst for such young people finding an escape in drugs such as these. In such a poor and troubled country the effects of war will have so many deeper and damaging effects for so many generations. Full credit to the makers of this film, but I cannot help but think that so much more is needed to inform people of the problems that exist in Afghanistan.

The Yorkshire Clamper

I watched this last night on 4OD and thought it was a great example of a a half hour film with relatively easy access, similar to the films that I will be making over the coming twelve months.

Leon Dean Directs and shoots the film and takes a interactive approach with his subjects asking questions from behind the camera. The film follows the controversy surrounding the issue of private parking regulations and Ted Evans who owns a car park in Howarth, North Yorkshire.

Dean has casted a great character in Evans, whose own drive and desire for publicity even if negative is at times worrying. Conflict is built in not only with local people and traders who are at times furious with Evans and his staff but also with two MPs who are also outraged at his aggressive clamping tactics. (Knowing what we know now, any MP referring to someone as a shark is somewhat amusing.)

Unfortunately however the films does not seem to be able to tie in a conclusion. Evans is clearly not willing to change his methods, and parliamentary reform of any kind is a long way away. This does affect the film in that in someways it simply trails off towards the end. Nevertheless it is an interesting insight and one that I shall look at again to examine what similar processes I will be taking.

Newsquest

I saw this interesting little piece on the way home the other day on Roy Greenslade's Guardian blog. It is basically Gracia Martore who is Newsquest Media's chief financial officer claiming that Newsquest has "constantly made money throughout the years." Mortore claims that even in 2008 when things where going down to the wire in terms of advertising revenue, Newsquest was never as bad as people believed.

During the tough times of 2008, Newsquest imposed a company wide pay freeze for all employees that was supposed to be 12 month only, however as we sit here and hear Mr Mortore gloat about the fine state of the Newsquest books the pay freeze is still in place... Not surprising then that today Press Gazette reports as follows, Newsquest Hampshire Journalist Vote for Strike. ( http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=46172&c=1 )

Obviously this subject goes a touch off my blog content but I just thought it was interesting to see how little the company was reinvesting in personnel who have worked extremely hard over a very difficult few years. In a wider context it begs the question as to weather the private sector can adequately fill the gap left by the massive cuts to the public sector when the emphasis on people is, in this case anyway, clearly so low.

Job Advice

We had a fascinating lecture today with Sophie Chalk from One World Media who was encouraging us to get involved with making documentary films in developing countries. This was an incredible insight into the sheer amount of planing and production management that it takes to go into somewhere like Afghanistan with a camera. Also Sophie gave us some advise on job hunting and networking which I thought would be interesting to post here so in a years time I can look back and remember a less stressful time!

• Research broadcasters and independent companies and watch the films they have made.
• Produce a taster tape with contact details and skills on the cover of the disc.
• Work experience, production companies, post production houses, facilities companies, anywhere!
• Build relationships in the industry, also look out for a mentor
• Be persistent, send letters (not emails) every week and pester with phone calls!

Lets see how it goes!

Parks

I discussed ideas for a short documentary concentrating on the role of the park within local communities and today I have been looking at some information about a couple of local parks, council websites and also news articles from archives about various news stories relating to specific parks, (notably Towneley park in Burnley and Corporation Park in Blackburn.)

I also found this short documentary about called "Our Park" (Emil Langballe & Maria Samoto le Dous) about a park in Tokyo which has been bought by Nike, who are currently trying to evict a homeless community that has built up in order to develop the park into a skate park. Obviously tents and filthy people aren't good for Nike's image.

Should a park be available to be bought and sold to corporate entities? I Nike sponsored skate park within Miyashita park is one thing but to buy the whole space.? I think a public space such as this should remain just that, public.