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02/12/2019

Considering how quickly we had to make the documentary, Which we submitted as “Cineholic”, it was well done. Me and my group all had issues namely our opening montage which seemed good in theory once watched with an audience immediately felt out of place. It was too energetic for the tone the rest of the documentary went in. It would have been great if we could have also emphasised his love of film more then we do, as we use a lot of film clips to illustrate his life in the beginning but fall by the way side once the film goes along. more clips or filmic references would have helped showcase his cinematic interests more. 

One of our lecturers was a tad disappointed that we did not include more about his audio description past and it would have been better if we either incorporated more of or removed the audio description thing from the story entirely and giving the film a more streamlined life story.

Without the audio description we could have had film throughout with snippets of film descriptions and showcasing DVD collections, him in the cinema, him buying DVD’s and showcasing film posters. I think had we had more time we could have gotten more scenes like that but as it stands there is a clear lack of of these elements that could emphasis his character more.

The film also runs too quick and needs breathing room either of James just going about his day or focusing on some B roll. It runs so fast you don’t have anytime to take in whats said as we quickly go to the next subject.

If I could go back and redo the technical issues of the film I would ask more pointed questions and get more eye contact with James, so that you truly feel his presence and feel more intimate with his story. I would also re-edit the film to a less linear but more impactful film that focuses on his alcoholism and a feeling of redemption. I plan to re-shoot a lot of elements and attempt to film with him again and recreate something more powerful then what I have. I also plan to ask new questions that can get into more personal details.

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30/11/19

After one last look over with the crew we had completed sound for the Doc and had it added to to avid with the rough cut and put together into our final project.

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23/11/19

Looking over the new export of the film I was seeing it all come together. I was liking what we had done though it was feeling sloppy. I suspected this was because of a disconnect from the jumpiness of the cut up audio interview mixed with a jumpiness in the picture edits. Each clip appeared to go by very fast and it didn’t give us enough time to sit and appreciate them.

I returned to Glasgow and filmed with James doing audio descriptions for film clips me and Claire thought would work best for the project based on recognisability to general audiences and importance to James himself. This was a long process and we recorded up to six takes for each short film clip, this took up most of the day.

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18/11/19

I brought in the James’s photo album to class and had Andrew film the photos to add in to the film. Me and Claire talked about how the film was going and We discussed film clips I could provide her with that could help to illustrate the film better. I looked out clips from Wake in Fright and Under Milk Wood and promised to provide her with these and others that i felt illustrated the films themes whilst she provided her own. 

I also went over with Claire who all the photos were of and made sure she was using them to refer to the right people within the story, as adding more details and narration had made it a bit muddled. Our lecturer was disappointed with the rough cut. It had become clear during the interview it had become clear that James was not interested in talking about writing reviews and doing audio descriptions for blind people. He was far more keen on discussing AA and his general cinephilia. Our lecturer suggested getting James to do audio descriptions for actual film scenes and not just do a bit of narration on this one. We did not use that footage or the footage of him writing the review as we felt those sections were too long and could not be compacted for the edit or we couldn’t see where the felt in the general story. I booked out equipment to take to Glasgow to have James do audio description of select film scenes.

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16/11/19

I gave Claire complete freedom for the rough cut asking only that some of the more graphic elements involving family be avoided, they could be mentioned but not in detail. Whilst she was editing the rough cut though I had been checking in to see how it was going and went out to get extra footage from the cinema I worked at to emphasis the cinema mentioned in James’s stories and to return to Glasgow and get photographs to use as B roll. I went to James where I picked up a photo album I took back to Edinburgh to have Andrew Shoot but I did film family photos belonging to my gran which I thought would work, but which I felt uncomfortable taking away from my relatives even with permission. I got all the material I needed and sent them along to Claire. I also watched the first rough cut and put in my personal complaints about pacing and keeping audience interest but I am still confident in the project. 

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10/11/19

Today didn’t start off the best. Andrew slept in and I was weighting at the train station an extra hour and a-half. We eventually got on to a train with our DSLR’S, Clapper Board and MixPre3 audio equipment in tow. James picked us up on the way to Springburn from the bus and we immediately headed to my grandparents house. Me and Andrew set up and filmed them having lunch and were even given food ourselves.  

We set up cameras and filmed the whole dinner asking questions throughout about James’s childhood, what he was like as a kid and how he got into film. After an hour we walked to James’s and did the main interview. Gradually we got away from talking about him working for the blind and moved into the more general topic of film and how it has impacted his life. We also went in depth on his time in AA and alcoholism. I asked all the questions but asked follow ups and new ones depending on where the conversation was going. Doing this I learnt a lot about James and my other family members that shook me to my core. once we were done we filmed James showing us how to write a review for the blind and had him do a fake review of the film he was currently in that we thought would make a great opening to the doc. Throughout this I operated the sound equipment whilst Andrew handled both of the set up cameras.

Throughout this Andrew was constantly getting secondary footage of James going about his day that we could use. I focused on more questions to ask James and where to go next for the story. We got James to take us into Glasgow city centre and to his AA building. here we got into more details with how AA works and its history as well as how much it has helped him. By the time we were done it was dark outside and we were all tired and sick from the cold. Me and Andrew headed home and I gave him all the SD cards to give to our editor Claire and begin putting together our final film.

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2/11/19

I had a phone call with James in which we went over the various aspects of his life and how we would do the documentary. He is a very honest person and said he would be fine with us talking about his depressions and alcoholism in the film. He has also said he wants to take me to the AA building he meets at. We organised coming down and filming on the 10th. Based on our conversation I began preparing a longer list of questions. He said he no longer has movie posters but he could not provide us with any audio descriptions he had previously recorded as they company had digitised and their was no longer any analog copies of his reviews. He also revealed that where I thought he had not been a professional reviewer for about 5 year it was actually nearly 20. This changes are documentary somewhat but we think we could show him in the process of writing a review for the blind and going over what you have to consider when describing a visual medium to someone who does not have those senses.

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31/10/19

We organised a quick meeting to discuss what we could do for the film. We laid out a few questions including them telling them all I knew about James and his interests. I suggested using old photographs of James as well as shots of his dvd’s and movie posters as B roll for the final film.

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29/11/19

Claire had exported the film on the 25th with a rough cut me and Andrew were both happy with but I was unable to begin work on fixing the sound until now. This was a race against the clock as I worked on replacing the audio in all the film clips used, (due to a buzzing on the current clips) and smoothing out the cuts with fades. I also began adding in EQ bands and RX noise reducers to et rid of all the unwanted background noise over James’s interview. 

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28/10/19

After a meeting with our lecturer to further discuss the film and revealing how we could not get anyone who would appear in our film, we were asked if there were another subjects we had in mind. I mentioned my uncle James who worked doing audio descriptions and reviews for the blind and is highly involved in AA. We discussed how we could visualise the idea of describing cinema to those who can’t see it and look at how writing reviews helped him creatively and worked as an outlet without alcohol in his life. I called him and immediately got a confirmation we could interview him.

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25/10/19

Our progress on the project has been slow. For nearly two weeks we have been chased up multiple people including and Edinburgh lecturer and a member of Andrew’s family who was into beekeeping. All have declined the offer to appear in the film. Kathy Friend and her organisation “Beedookit” who seemed the most likely to join, stopped replying too our messages after asking for shooting days and became annoyed at us for wanting to clarify if she was still involved. It feels increasingly like we will be unable to make the documentary we set out to do.

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14/10/2019

We re-presented our film to our other lecturer and had a large feeling of disappointment. She liked the idea but it felt bad not making any progress in finding a subject or in getting back messages from people who had previously shown interest. As the subject and their individual eccentricities is what will drive the film. We also discussed more of the questions we would be asking such as “What got you into beekeeping?”, “Why do you continue doing it?” And “How does it impact your day today life?”. All questions designed to focus less on the bees and more on the person handling them.

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09/11/19

After being on a separate shoot the previous day me and Andrew relax by going through our equipment, remembering what to take with us and scheduling out our shooting for the day. Claire sent over more questions that me and Andrew can ask James. I added them to the already written ones and have prepared everything to head off to Glasgow.

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07/10/19

Presented our pitch to the class and have received great feedback. Its been agreed that until we have a great idea but until we find a suitable subject to be our focal point then we can’t really progress with the more ambitious stuff visually and in how we tell the story. We have received interest mostly from the meadow share Facebook group but have been struggling to organise filming with them. Luckily one of our lecturers gave us the details of a fellow filmmaker Kathy Friend, who he knows works with bees. Now we will begin getting in contact with them. He also suggested that as we are now worried about them hibernating over winter that we could interview the beekeepers and use the stillness and lack of bees to our artistic advantage.

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04/11/19

Meeting with lecturers we were unable to show them any footage due to not beginning production yet though we laid out are plan to go down and interview James at his flat, then show him writing a film review step by step. We would then go to for a walk around Glasgow to any locations like cinema or AA he wanted to take us too. Our lecturer suggested including an interview with James’s parents (My grandparents) to help round out James’s character and show him in a more natural setting. I promised my group that they could go home with the footage we had and I would stay behind in Glasgow an extra day to film with my grandparents and grab any material we were unable to get on the first day.

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03/10/19

We have had short group conversations in the hat regarding questions and visualisation but today was our first major meeting. We met in the library and discussed subjects such as the visual style and what are goals with the documentary are. Namely we would want to interview the beekeepers and then have them talking over observational footage of them going about the job. Hopefully including stylish and beautiful shots of the bees themselves. We also discussed our pitch (presentation to class). We took notes on each others Ideas and then decided I would speak first on style, Claire on how we would know begin achieving it and Andrew would present a moodpboard to show off the visual look of the film. Once done I began working on my slides for the presentation in a shared google power point, to hand over to the others to fill with their slides. Claire has began asking major beekeeping organisations in Edinburgh and has expanded it to people on meadow share as well.

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26/09/19

Sorted into groups for documentary. My idea was not a popular one so I decided to join a group who had an interesting concept that I imagined we could visualise in an interesting way. Clair decided to be Producer and Editor, Andrew is the cinematographer and I am the director. Our film is about urban beekeeping here in Edinburgh. I set up a Facebook group for us to message and make plans as well as discuss ideas for the film. Claire is making contact with local beekeeping groups