Work Experience - Editing Animated Back Projection for Theatre Production

Tonight I have been editing the backdrop animation for the show Hedgehog's House which is going up at the Tabernacle, Notting Hill this weekend.

I work for Honey Tongued Theatre Productions occasionally as photographer, cameraman and sometimes Assistant Director.

Tonight I am editing an animation that has been created especially for the show to get the timings right so that the 2'46" animation fits with the show with a running time of 45 minutes!

I have the timings of the action from the rehearsals of the show and I am editing, looping and rearranging the animation to fit the running order.

The brief is really clear so it hasn't been as daunting a job as it seemed it might be from the initial meeting.  It makes so much difference when you receive clear instructions with accurate timings.  Previous jobs that I've worked on have had briefs that were too vague and led to misunderstandings later.

Work Experience - All Staff Faculty Event / Student Experience Film

Recently I received a message from Dean Summers asking if I would be able to assemble a crew to film the ACES staff celebrations for outstanding support to students being held in the Howard View on Monday 9th December, and to interview staff regarding student support to make a short film to be shown at the All Staff Faculty Event  in January and to be included on the university website as promotional material to attract new students.  I agreed to do this as it involved practising my production, filming and editing skills, and I have been asked to do a few university films recently and I think they are good experience and good networking opportunities.

For this film I was liaising with Dr Hilary Cunliffe-Charlesworth who supplied the brief.  I assembled a crew which consisted of three of us; myself, Luke Parker and Charlie Poyser.  This equated to two manned cameras (Luke filming the awards ceremony in Hallam View and Charlie filming the interviews in Chef Hallam).  I worked between the two making sure that the cameras were set up correctly, that they had spare batteries and running through the shots to make sure that they were comfortable getting the footage that was required.

I assisted in organising the interviewees to be positioned correctly for the framing of the camera and talking through some of the questions with them.  Once each interview started I recorded the sound using a Marantz as a back up in case the camera sound wasn't quite close enough.

The filming went really well.  We used the new XF305 cameras which was only the second time that I had set those cameras up but we did really well in setting them up for the two different surroundings (Hallam View being mood lit for the occasion and Chef Hallam being bright for the interviews.)

We got good answers from the interview and the clips are editing together well.  I'm really pleased with how it went, and I am pleased that I keep getting asked to do these university films.  I know I am being referred to when people and departments are wanting films making.  I'm good at organising shoots and I must be thought well of and someone who can be trusted to produce their films.  (I have been asked to film another university event on Friday!)

Below is the brief of the All Staff Faculty Event film which shows what was required and what I had to organise:  

Dear Hannah, Paul, Bex, Hannah, Luke and Charlie

Thank you for 'volunteering' to film a staff event on Monday week - for which you will recieve a £20 High Street Voucher.

The Brief:

The Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences are celebrating courses where there has been outstanding support for students. Your role is to interview  staff for around 2 to 3 minuites (Hannah plus one) on the topic of 'how does your course ensure the students have an excellent experience?'  (Hannah you can of course ask additional questions to elicit the information or examples required using your  journalism skills.  Hannah can you also sort out release forms to bring on the day for the interviewees to sign?)

These interviews will be filmed and then edited down to short soundbites (the Media Arts team).  The final edit should be around 15mins in length including establishing and closing shots. The Media Arts students are responsible for booking the equipment tripods, cameras, lights and undertakening the editing and add titles(eg name of person and the course they are associated with.)

Purpose of material - to be screened at an all staff faculty event in January that will be on the Student Experience  and also to be put up on Course sites - so you need to be aware that the material may be seen by the general public as clips that relate to each course - and thus the edit will also need to be saved in a form of a series of clips for this purpose.

Who:  There are around 15 interviews to be undertaken.  Hilary will go and hunt out the staff for interview and bring them to you to keep things rolling.

What: As well as interviews you will need to take establishing shots of the event and also film the Dean (Roger Eccleston) who is to give a speach  in Hallam View

Where:  Hallam View is on the 6th Floor of Owen - we are trying to book a quiet room nearby where you can undertaken the interviews. Each course will have a banner which needs to be positioned suitably for the interview.

How long will this take?  The event is planned to go on till 7.00pm.  You might want to form 2 groups for filming . Hopefully this should be wrapped up by 6.30

Thank you very much for taking this on.  There will be food and drink at this event so I will make sure you get some.  If you are unable to make this time can you please let myself and Dean know?  Also Hannah have you got another name plaese?   Many thanks Hilary

Dr. Hilary Cunliffe-Charlesworth

Stoney Middleton Film Development Meeting - 06 December 2013

Collaborative Recall Film for Department of Psychology

Research - Archieve Footage and Licensing

A large part of creating sports documentary will include the use of archieve footage.

To get archieve from NRL Rugby League:

Paid work: SHU Induction Films, Open Day talks and Freshers Week films

Cutlers Hall

FMP Level 4 Induction Activities

Esther Johnson Symposium

In May I was approached and asked if I would be interested in filming Esther Johnson's Symposium being held at SHU in June 2013.  I gladly accepted the role, not only because it would be further practice for me in using a different camera, but because it was the first time that I would be filming a panel discussion coupled with big screen presentations.

This was good practice for me in capturing wide shots and close ups, and moving to the big screen where necessary.  It was good that I got this practice as the day after this session was when I filmed the Producers panel discussion at the Town Hall as part of DocFest which had a very similar set up.

Open Day Talks:

Concert VT Vision Mixing - Diamond Velocity - 22 November 2013

SHU Rugby - photoshoots

Film Adaptation of Play: Bummer by Anthony Bull

Research - Theatre Adaptations: Frankenstein

Claremont Media - New role as Director of MillersTV

 

Research - Sports Documentaries: Lions Raw

Graduation Awards Photography

Rugby Helps Our Heroes Photoshoots

Live on-air interview with Radio Sheffield

I had an interesting experience on the morning of the shoot of our drama film.   

I was at the Peace Gardens waiting for Jordan, our director, so we could go and collect the pig's head that we had ordered from the butcher for our film, when I was approached by reporter, Jenny Eells, from BBC Radio Sheffield.  She asked if I was free to answer a few questions and I said yes.

The topic under discussion was things for kids to do rather than staying in and playing computer games. We had a discussion where we shared experiences of things that we did as kids, and I said that kids should read adventure books and should definitley read To Kill a Mockingbird.  The reporter said that was a good answer and started counting us into Toby Foster's live breakfast show. 

This threw me quite a bit as I thought she was going to pre-record the answers vox pops style, but instead I found myself live on air!!

I thought I handled the situation very well.  I was articulate and clear with my answers and the reporter was very good at interviewing and I found this to be quite a valuable experience in how to ask open questions and get interviewees to explain their answers.

In last year's documentary we had to learn how to get Tango Man to give full answers and not just yes or no answers.  This year for the Refuge film we are better at structuring and asking the questions to get good, useable responses but I really learned a lesson from the BBC journalist about talking through topics for which we want responses first, and then using prompters like "Tell me more about that..." or "Why do you feel that way?" as open questions.

The journalist was very bubbly and personable and made you feel at ease and this helped considerably in getting good, full answers out of me without me really realising it at the time.

Instead of being nervous, I actually really enjoyed the experience and saw how the outside broadcast segment fitted into a live show.  That's very useful for me as I am pursuing a career in sports documentary and live broadcasts which includes lots of inserts and feeds from different areas.

It was a lucky encounter, and a very interesting live media experience

Industry Experience - US Film Maker Edgar Arceneaux

During the summer holidays I was asked by a tutor, on behalf of the Site Gallery, Sheffield if I would be willing to form a team to help an internationally renown artist who was flying in from the US to exhibit a film installation piece at Art Sheffield 2013.  This was to be paid work and involved working alongside the artist, Edgar Arceneaux, as editing assistants.  

The team consisted of myself, Fraser Harrison and Rhys Holland.  I met Natasha from Site and Edgar when he arrived in Sheffield and went through the footage that he had compiled so far.  The film 'A Time to Brek Silence' was to be an hour long, the same length of time as a catholic mass, and was filmed in an abandoned church in Detroit.  The film itself was based on a speech by Martin Luther King and the set up of the film included religious iconography and included references to Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey.

This is the link to Edgar's exhibit information on the Art Sheffield website.  The film and artist's talk was hosted at CADs on Shalesmoor.

 For our part we cut sections of the film, decided on best shots to use, applied effects such as slow motion and colourisation and spent a lot time rendering the work and passing out versions to the Site Gallery for press previews and tech rehearsals.

As the main organiser of the team I also took on the role of production runner.  This involved getting Edgar to the right place at the right time, gaining late night access to the university edit suites, making sure that he had refreshments and sometimes acting as liaison between Edgar and the Site Gallery.  I also filmed the exhibition for the gallery.

The work for Edgar was really interesting.  The film came to us in a rough cut state and it was interesting to sit and work with the artist as we worked on finishing the editing of his film, as he made his last minute changes, rearranged sequences and tidied up his cut.

It was very good experience to see how a professional film maker approaches his work and how a film exhibit is arranged through the gallery committee and how an artist is treated.

As a producer I gained valuable experience about a production runner's role and it started to flesh out the profiles and job descriptions that I had read for runners on sites such as Creative Skillset, BBC and Prospects, and I was able to put into practice a lot of the duties and responsibilities that the job entails.