Commission Unit- Filming The NoToMob and collecting actuality footage.

Today was a great day in terms of collecting footage for our documentary film piece. I awoke early to get the camera equipment ready for the shoot and make sure that all the required batteries were charged and that all the pieces of paper with information relating to the NoToMob were ready to be taken out.
I arrived at the meeting point at 9am, and contacted Sam Creamer (who would be assisting me on this shoot by operating the camera) to make sure that he was still able to join me, and I also made sure to get in contact with Bald Eagle of the NoToMob so that I could ask him when the members of the mob would be meeting me and what they looked like and how many of them their were so that I knew who I would be speaking to for the film.
The meet began with me explaining who Sam and I were, and what the purpose of our documentary film piece would be about and what kind of material we would be after for our film. After this, I began to create a discussion amongst the group to generate some conversation and get some answers to some questions. While this was happening, I directed Sam to record the group and to also make sure to collect lots of footage of the traffic etc to use when we are editing. This way we have lots of transitional shots.

An example of one of the transitional shots that we hope to use in our documentary. 

Whilst we we interviewing the NoToMob members, we managed to also capture some fantastic actuality footage. A member of the public was issued with an automatic ticket, and one of the members of the NoToMob (Monkey Girl)  rushed over to provide them with one of their cards, which contains a link to their online forum, which in turn contains advice on how to act against an unfair parking ticket issue.

Monkey Girl providing a member of the public with a card from the NoToMob

Obviously during the editing process it will be necessary to use a blur censor to cover the member of the public's identity and also the registration number of their car to protect their identity.

All in all, I believe that today has been a great day for collecting the material we needed to continue creating our documentary film piece, and we managed to collect answers for each of the questions that me and Andy had wanted to pitch to the mob. I am very much looking forward to overseeing the editing process, and I am also excited about seeing the final product.

I am sure it will not disappoint.

The NoToMob members that I met today.

Commission Unit- Meeting with Andy and preparing for tomorrows film shoot.

Today myself and Andy met at the student halls where I live so that we could discuss what is happening with the film shoot with the NoToMob Medway group. Since Andy will not be available to film since he has other obligations, we have employed the help of a fellow student to operate the camera equipment.
During the meeting with myself and Andy, we managed to record several voice-overs for our documentary film piece. I voiced these, and after a few takes, I was very happy with the final result. These voice overs will be inserted into the documentary film piece and probably dubbed over some transitional footage once we are ready to begin the editing process.
We also had an in-depth discussion about the question areas that I want to pitch to the NoToMob tomorrow which we made notes of. The notes are here:

Commission Unit- Phone discussion with Steve

Today I had a discussion with Steve on the phone about what will be occuring this Saturday. As we spoke, I made some notes, which can be seen here:

As you can see, I made sure to make important notes such as the times we will be meeting the NoToMob members, as well as where.

Commission Unit- Scripting a disclaimer.

Today I have spent some time scripting a short disclaimer section for our documentary film which will be shown at the very start of our documentary film piece. In it, I will be simply stating that although the statistics, facts and figures that we discuss in the documentary film piece are true at the time that we are filming it, these facts change over time, and might not be true anymore at the time that a viewer watches the documentary.

Here is an excerpt from the script:

Commission Unit- Update from the NoToMob (And contingency plan)

Just a quick update from the NoToMob. This coming Saturday, I have been informed an event is happening in London which the NoToMob will be a big part of.  Below is a screenshot of a text message I received from Steve.

I have been receiving many updates from Steve, which judging by the (Sent to many) sentence suggests that I am not the only person receiving these messages. It is great that Steve has added myself and Andy to this group which is constantly updated, as it allows us to know exactly what dates and locations we can go to for filming.

Speaking of filming, this coming week is the final week we have our camera equipment, and so me and Andy have decided to focus all our energy on filming for that particular week. By doing this and hopefully finishing before the weeks end, we can still edit our footage and create the documentary before the project deadline.






Contingency Plan-
Myself and Andy also briefly discussed a potential contingency plan over the phone if we have trouble getting to London or if for some reason we cannot film the NoToMob directly. A written statement or recorded telephone call may suffice for our documentary depending on how we film it.

Commission Unit- The Problem With Batteries...

Today has been one massive learning curve for myself and Andy. We began the day by collecting our camera equipment from the Student Halls where I live, and afterwards proceeded to go to the filming location where we planned to collect some footage of parking meters and traffic for our documentary film piece.
Things were going great, and we had just set up one particularly interesting shot when we decided to put the camera battery in to begin recording. As a last minute check however, I decided to check how much charge the battery had left, only to find that it was completely dead. Since we didn't have any back-up batteries either, we could not record any footage whatsoever, and our journey to the filming location was a waste, the realization of which led to this moment:

Luckilly, our filming location was quite close to the UCA Rochester, meaning we could take our equipment there and recharge the battery without having to return home. We managed to collect the transitional shots we wanted for our documentary.

Although the occurrence wasn't directly my fault, I do somewhat feel responsible, since the equipment was booked out in my name, and therefore the upkeep and maintenance of the camera's battery should be my responsibility. In the future, I will be sure to make sure the batteries and equipment is fully prepared the night before a shoot to avoid something like this happening again.
If we had traveled to somewhere like London to shoot and then realized the battery wasn't charged, we could have faced disaster.

Commission Unit- Organizing a shoot with the Bald Eagle

Unfortunately, the shoot we were supposed to attend this past Saturday was cancelled, but I managed to get in touch with Steve (Bald Eagle of the NoToMob) again, and he was kind enough to inform myself and Andy via voicemail that there would possibly be something occurring with the NoToMob on this coming Wednesday (16th of april) and we would be more than welcome to attend this and collect footage. I have yet to contact Steve and let him know whether or not we will be attending this shoot offer, as I still need to discuss the change in plans with Andy. However, I am quite sure we will be attending this shoot, and collecting as much of the footage as possible so that we still have plenty of time to edit our film piece next week.
Something myself and Andy could do in preparation for this shoot is create some "question areas" which we will talk to Steve and the NoToMob members about on Wednesday. The reason we will choose question areas as opposed to actual questions, is that we believe we may discover some information that we will find useful, which we would not have previously got on camera if we limited ourselves to straightforward yes or no questions.
We want to ask questions that require extensive answers with a lot of detail, so that we have a lot more to work with when we begin editing our film and actually piecing together the documentary film piece.

Commission Unit- Organizing a schedule with the NoToMob

Today I received a phone call from Steve (AKA Bald Eagle) of the NoToMob who was ringing to provide us with some information as well as confirm with us what our documentary film piece was going to be about.
This was the first time I had actually spoken to Steve (we have previously communicated through email and voice mail) and I felt that I learnt a lot more about the organization he is a part of, as well as his attitude towards his work.
Luckily, Andy had stayed round where I live since the night before- we had been discussing the NoToMob heavily and also reading through the emails and details we had already been provided with- so it was very convenient that Steve had called me when he had as Andy was around to confirm whether or not he would be available to film on certain days.
The purpose of Steve ringing was to ask myself and Andy whether or not we would be available to meet with him and the rest of the NoToMob this Saturday. This caught me off guard, but luckily I have a free-day this Saturday, and we receive the camera equipment for this shoot on the coming Friday, meaning we can begin collecting footage for our documentary.

Steve also informed us that he would be more than willing to provide us with some crash helmets, and allow us to ride on the back of their bikes, meaning we would be able to collect some great dynamic footage of the streets and roads, and possibly even the CCTV cars the group will be targeting. Another great thing about this is that it eliminates the need to collect archive footage of the groups work on the streets, as we can simply film our own. (This means no tracking down copyright holders and asking for the rights to use their footage in our documentaries.)

Steve also gave us some information about their other work in the community, including targeting unfair bayliffs. Although this isn't the subject our documentary will be about, it may be worth bringing up or briefly mentioning in the documentary so that the viewers get an idea of the other kind of areas the mob are involved in.

Commission Unit: Finding Royalty Free Music for our Documentary

Today I have spent a while researching what kind of music we should use in our documentary film piece- if any. Since we do not have any footage captured yet, we are not sure exactly what genre of music we want to use in our documentary, and we are hoping that the kind of music we want to use will become apparent once we actually have some footage and have begun editing it together.
in the meantime I have begun searching for free music alternatives online using such sites as Royaltyfreemusic.com, a site where royalty free music is uploaded by independent artists looking for exposure.
The benefits of using a site such as this is that all the music and sounds we take from it are completely free, meaning we will avoid any copyright claims and will not have to have any budget for music or a soundtrack at all.
The only downside I can think of right now is that some of the music we use could potentially have been used by other people in other projects and films, meaning we could have similar or exactly the same music as somebody else. A way in which we could avoid this situation would be to simply enquire about having a soundtrack especially made for us by a composer, using a site such as Starnow.com and tell them that we will credit them heavily for it's use.
Of this, this is all just prep for when we have actually recorded our footage and are beginning to edit it together for the final cut. There is a possibility that our film may not even need a soundtrack, but it is always an idea to prepare when we have some spare time- just in case.

Commission Unit- Negotiating a Meeting Date with the NoToMob (And discussion with Andrei)

Today I received a voicemail on my mobile from Steve AKA Bald Eagle of the NoToMob. In the message, he informed me that he has spoken with the other members of the NoToMob and they had come up with several dates that were suitable for the members of the group to meet with us. These dates all occur on saturdays and are on the 19th and 26th of april.
I immediately emailed Steve and told him that we would be more than happy to visit the group on the 19th of april. The reason we chose for this date rather than the 26th is that the 26th is dangerously close to the date of the deadline of our film, and we would like some extra time after meeting the NoToMob to check our footage and make sure that everything is going smoothly and that we have collected all the material we need from the mob for our documentary.

At University today, myself and Andy also had a very interesting discussion with Andrei whilst I emailed Steve back. Andrei informed us of several areas around Medway that would be perfect filming locations for capturing footage of the CCTV Camera Cars, and also areas of the city where illegal parking usually happens. Since I am not originally from Rochester or Maidstone, I think it was very useful to speak to Andrei about this subject and I feel that I learnt a lot from talking to him.

One location he informed me of is near the Staples store in Chatham:

The Staples Store in Chatham

Since the Staples store is relatively close to where I live in University Halls, I think it would be a great idea for this area to be one of our potential filming locations, either as a piece of film to crop in showing traffic or to film some shots with the presenter (Me) explaining what is going on in the documentary or introducing a new scene.
Staples is also right next to a rather attractive pier which depending on the time of day may be suitable to use in our documentary.