Commission Unit- Potential Filming Locations

This project will be the first project where I have had people from the outside of the project working with me to create a piece of film. As such, it is important that I am organized and have a professional approach towards my work and one of the things I have to consider for myself and Andy is locations where we can film for our project.

It is important that I research the laws on photography and videography carefully and take care in abiding by said laws, otherwise there is a possibility our documentary may be removed from YouTube, or potentially even a chance we may be sued for capturing the image of someone or somewhere we are not allowed to. It is also paramount that we provide our cast and crew to our documentary film pieces safe, un-hazardous environments to work in, so it is very important that I research these film spots and perhaps even visit them ahead of time so that I can be sure there are no potential dangers and health and safety risks.

When it comes to actually thinking up ideas of where to film, it can be quite difficult, especially when a restricted to filming in and around Medway. A lot of our transitional shots (such as shots of the presenter talking alone or providing a commentary on what is coming up) will probably take place outdoors in areas such as a street or park. I did a quick Google search for places in Medway that specifically allow film crews to work there, and one place I found was Medway Port.
Medway Port allows filming as long as it does not interfere with the everyday running of the port, but unfortunately charges a service fee for filming there. The fee is dependent on the type of filming, the size of the crew and the duration of the shoot, and so unfortunately it might not be feasible for us to film there.

If it comes to it, we can possibly seek permission from Maidstone Studios for us to film some interview scenes inside one of their studios, but this will require any interviewees to travel from outside of Medway to
Maidstone (around an hour by bus), which may be a deal-breaker for some interviewees.

Filming locations is something we will seriously have to consider and confirm before we plan to begin shooting, otherwise our film will look rushed and unplanned, which is never a good thing. We also have to make sure our entire shoot is thoroughly planned so that we can appear to be professional to our interviewees, in case we need to return to them at some point for more material or to work with them again in the future.

Chatham High Street. Potential Film Location?

Commission Unit- Preparing a TV Listing description.

Today I have spent my time awaiting a response to my email to Medway Council and a response from the member of the NoTo Mob calling himself "Bald Eagle."
I have also spent some time creating a short TV Listing description, similar to that which would be seen in a television guide, or description on such services as Sky and Virgin Media. It is basically a brief run-down of what happens in the program, and I believe I have created one that not only clearly states what our documentary film piece will be about, but also uses key "buzz-words" to get the readers attention and perk their interest when it comes to them choosing whether or not to watch our program.
The statement is:

“An investigative look into the world of corrupt parking-law enforcement, and the vigilante group that battle against them on the streets of urban Medway.”

I chose to use words such as "Corrupt", "Vigilante" and "Battle", as these are words and subjects that seem to interest viewers such as myself quite a bit. At the moment, there is a massive uproar about the possibility of our government being corrupt, and movements such as "Anonymous" (mentioned in a previous blog) are a popular subject when it comes to the discussions of fighting back against said government.

I think if this were inserted into a TV listing to represent our documentary film-piece, it would do very well and attract moderate attention due to the popular key-words I used.

Commission Unit- Contacting Medway Council

Today, as well as doing a lot of blog work and emailing the NoTo Mob with information about our shooting schedule and the time-frame we have to create our documentary film piece, I have also spent time using the contact details I previously found for Medway Council and have emailed them requesting their viewpoint on the NoTo Mob.
Below is a screenshot of the email I sent.

Obviously the council offices are very busy with operations across the whole of Medway, and so I may have to try contacting them through other means as well as email. I may potentially write a letter using pen and paper or even see about calling the council offices or visiting them in person so that I can really get their attention.

Commission Unit- Creating a schedule for the Project.

I feel it would be very important for myself and Andy to know exactly what kind of work we should do an any particular day. That was we know whether or not we are on track with our work, or whether or not we need to pick up the pace. This should allow us to stay on track and avoid missing any deadlines.
I have begun the process of creating some calendar schedules for us, which I found online after running a simple google search.
One I found the calendars I wanted to use, I simply screenshotted them and opened them up in Adobe Photoshop. Once there, I went through the Production Timetable we had previously been given by our unit leader Helen, and inputted the tasks into the calendar.

We will be working on this project over March, April and May, and here are the schedules I have created for myself and Andy so that we stay on track over that period of time:

I have told our contact from the NoTo Mob that we are free to film anytime between the 7th of April and the 28th of April.
The next step in my project will be to make more potential contacts (people that may have been negatively affected by recent parking laws) and also to begin the scripting process.

Commission Unit- Research into the NoTo Mob and their work.

As I previously mentioned in one of my blogs, a member of the NoTo Mob actually replied to our request for an interview, and even provided us with a couple of links to youtube videos that the NoTo Mob have appeared in for the BBC.
I wasn't previously aware of these videos, and so the email in which we received that contained links to these videos will come in very useful. The videos in question tackle some of the issues the NoTo Mob face, and as a result, we gained a better understanding of exactly what they do.
The videos in question are:
)and

) These videos are quite large in their duration, and contain a wealth of information that we didn't previously know about. Our next step in this project will be to develop some questions of our own to ask whichever members of the NoToMob we speak to, and also to arrange a production time-frame so that we can email the NoToMob back and let them know exactly what kind of time we are dealing with.

Commission Unit- Sound Workshop

Yesterday I attended a sound workshop at the Maidstone Studios with my project partner Andy. I thought this would be a very good idea, and an excellent addition to my skills-set, as one thing I learnt from my previous project "Directions" was that a lot of the time, the sounds that were used in my videos was often poor quality or lacking in some way.
The workshop was taught by our tech-guy Fergus, who has an excellent understanding of the equipment we are provided with. I felt that I learnt a lot about where to position certain kinds of microphone, such as clip and boom mics, and also how to alter the sound settings on the larger Sony Cameras so that the sound I recorded was the best quality it could possibly be.
Some of the equipment we were shown how to use is shown here in this photograph:

We tested the new skills we learnt from this workshop the same day, by creating a basic one minute piece in which two "characters", Andy and Chris were talking about what they enjoyed and disliked about our course.
My job during this small filming phase was to wear a pair of headphones that were attached to the recording camera, and I would alter the sound levels on the camera so that the voices of both Chris and Andy both sounded as though they were the same quality and volume.
The test we wanted to do was to find out how we would set up the clip and Boom Mics appropriately so that the sound we recorded was of a great quality. I am very excited to take the skills I have learnt from this workshop and put them to use in our documentary film piece.

Commission Unit- Response to Interview Request.

This morning myself and Andy received a response to the email we sent to the NoTo Mob yesterday requesting an interview with them for our documentary film piece. The email we received is as follows:

Obviously myself and Andy are very happy about Steve accepting our invitation for an interview, and the fact that he has expressed further interest in our project by asking us more questions about the time-frame we want to film our documentary film piece in and even sent us some youtube videos of some of the previous documentaries that the NoTo Mob has appeared in says to me that he is interested in the documentary we are making, which is of course always a desirable trait when choosing an interviewee.

Our next step in this project will be for us to finalise our shooting schedule, editing schedule and make sure that we reply to Steve quickly so that they do not begin to feel like we are messing them around and such.
It will also be important for us to prepare some questions to ask the NoTo Mob.