Saturday 26 November 2011

What has been keeping me busy?

Things have been pretty busy here at Steph base, it’s pretty much nonstop work and very little play!
I did find time to take the day off yesterday, although I pretty much had to, I think my neck injury was my bodies way of telling me to take a break – I wouldn’t have minded an email or something though, it was absolute agony. Thankfully it seems to be feeling much better today so it obviously got the rest it needed! I thought I’d give you guys a run down of the things I’ve been doing recently, I like to keep you all up to date! Although I’m pretty sure most of you would rather I blogged about pet peeves and such but oh well!

So basically it’s all mainly been university assignments! I really thought that when they told us second year would be a step up in work load that it could never be that bad, but it’s really hiked up a fair amount! In all fairness, I don’t make it easy for myself! I like to think of projects that are a bit out there or take a lot of planning, last year we did the Army film which required a lot of research and a lot of post-production and this year I’ve/my team have chosen to do a film on the London Underground Buskers! Sounds simple right? But not at all! I’m the producer/director for our projects which means I organise everything, from the casting, to the travel, to the filming permits, to the shots we want to use and the camera we shoot them on. Before anyone says anything, I’m not complaining! I absolutely love my role/job more than I could ever explain! But shooting in London, and a city a little shy of a hundred miles away has its issues! First of all it’s very difficult and costly for us just to pop and meet our contributors, which is something I pride myself in doing! I went and met with my last contributor three times before the actual shoot and that was just for a two-minute documentary! But London is much further away and to get there cheaply you have to travel by coach and to travel by coach takes a lot of time! So it’s been a lot of phone calls and emails! A lot of buskers, not all of them – but a lot of them, are hard to keep track of! Many don’t spend a lot of time on their computers and many detest spending time on their computers – not that I blame them! So forming contributor profiles can be a pain to say the least!

So the last few weeks has been all about this eight minute documentary, finding the contributors, pitching our ideas and making travel arrangements! To film on the London Underground you need a permit, so I had to apply for a permit and wait for it to be approved! Luckily the TFL are great with students and actually have a student permit which you can purchase, £40 gets you five members of crew and a MONTHS worth of filming time. Which is pretty incredible on all accounts.

All that’s left to do now, ironically, is plan, plan and plan. So the call sheets are written up and we just need to gather and finalise our scripts, storyboards and interview questions – thankfully the creative stuff which the whole team enjoys! Two filming days are planned and we’re really excited for them! I’m sure I’ll be on here with tons of information telling you all about them!
The group also had a presentation this week for our module on Contemporary British Television, in which we looked at national identity in reality television! I really enjoyed this but I won’t lie and say that I’m glad to see the back of it! Too much hard work went into that presentation, but thankfully it paid off and went really well!

So other than University work not much has been going on! I mentioned a few times that I lost my granddad a week ago. He’s not a granddad I’ve had all my life, but he’s my step-mums dad who I’ve known for about five years now and he was truly an amazing man! He was a Royal Marine as a youngster which means he’s allowed a Royal Marine funeral which sounds beautiful, it’s going to be an amazing send off – the one he truly deserves. I’ve been stuck in Southampton with not much I can do, but I’ve been thankful for the stuff I can help with, Mum and Dad have been struggling to find the right music – luckily I managed to find it on Itunes and download a copy. It had to be at least two minutes long for the procession though, and I was lucky enough for the Marines to give me permission to lengthen the track so it could be used! 

This weekend Chris’ parents are coming to visit us, it was Jackie’s birthday on Wednesday so it’s kind of our official celebration of her day. So we made one of our famous chocolate cakes which she will hopefully really love – (pictures later!)

Of course this weekend also marks the end of the Formula One season, absolutely gutted seeing as the news has been released that BBC will not be hosting the first race of the season! But a Jenson Button win for the finale would be beautiful!

That’s all from me for now folks!
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