Digital New Research: Knitting for charity story

We have made a decision as a group to contact the Museum Trust and the Knitting for charity stories as these are the two stories we would like to use for our digital news project.

I have contacted the people from each story, so that we can have a meeting with them to find out more information about each story.

Tim was the one in our group that found the knitting for charity group.

Here is the link to the website where Tim found the charity event.

here it is: http://www.visitmedway.org/events/knitting-charity-group-coffee-morning-walderslade-village-library

On there I was able to find a phone number and an email.

I emailed the library and was able to get a reply back from them a couple of days later. I was able to get hold of Carole (the event organiser and member of the knitting for charity group) to speak to her about the event.

Carole was very helpful and said that her and the charity group meet up every wednesday and that we were more than welcome to come along to their next meeting, the following week.

We now have a confirmed meeting with them and I am excited to find out more about this charity.

Meeting Preparation for News Stories

As we have our meeting with our two stories next week I wanted to make sure I had all the information that I wanted to find ask already done.

Knitting for Charity questions

• What happens in the weekly meetings?
• What is the charity?
• What are they doing to help raise money for the charity?
• How will this help the charity?

Who's knitting and why?
Is knitting more popular?
What do people get out of the weekly meetings?
Do people need to be experienced knitters to go?
What inspired them to do this?

Museum Trust questions

• Who are the museum trust?
• What are they doing to raise the money for the building?
• History of the building?
• What is happening to the building?

How long has the building been lying dormant?
How important is the museum to the community?
What purpose will it have?
What was it's last use? (When last open)

Notes:

- Ask about christmas opening on 5-7th December
- Where to get archived photos of the Court Hall from

These aren't the exact questions i'm going the people when we have our meetings, they are just an outline of what I would like to find out for each story.

I wanted to go through my questions with my tutor, as I wasn't 100% sure what to ask. She said that my questions I had are fine, however I needed to ask more in depth questions, i.e. for the knitting for charity, find out more about knitting, is it more popular, do people need to be experienced to join, etc. The questions in italics are the ones my tutor helped me add. I feel that I have a good round of questions to ask each news story and feel that after having the meetings with them, that our group will have a much better idea on creating a script, storyboard, etc.

I also found some more information about the Milton Regis Court House, on their website they put an announcement saying that they will have a christmas opening on the 5th-7th December. I thought this would be a great conclusion to our museum trust story, as we would have followed them through the transformation of this building. However as this date is near our deadline for our news story, my tutor said that as long as we have all of our other footage filmed and edited, we could just drop this event on at the end.

Overall, I feel much more prepared for the meetings this week. I would have preferred to have had these meetings a couple of weeks, however at least we have them now and can move on to our next part of the project very soon.

Fiction Adaptation: Research 2

After looking into animation I wanted to research into stop motion.

Stop motion is an animation technique. The technique is commonly used in claymation and puppet-based animation. It is used to bring objects to life by filming the objects movement per frame. Once all the frames come together it will create an animation and will look like the object is moving.

Clash of the Titans (1981) - Film

One film that used stop motion was 'Clash of the Titans' film, directed by Desmond Davis. Stop motion wasn't used throughout the whole of this film, only for certain mythological characters. They may have used claymation back then as it may have looked more realistic than someone dressed up in a costume. When I was younger, the one character in this film that really scared me was 'Medusa'. Something about the way she moved and looked around really freaked me out. I didn't realise until I researched into stop motion that this character was created through stop motion. I think stop motion helped make these mythological characters more frightening, especially with the detail, i.e. with Medusa, being half serpent and half mortal, the detail of her snake hair and her tail, were done really well.

   

Wallace and gromit (1989) - TV series and films

The classic 'Wallace and Gromit' a very known animation. Stop motion has been used to create the TV series and many films with these two characters.

I found a video on youtube that showed how to make one of the rabbits from Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. She goes through the process of what materials she uses to make sure the models stay stuck together. It was interesting to see how clay characters were made.

Director Tim Burton

Tim Burton is a well known directer, artist, producer and writer, in the film industry. Not only is he one of my favourite director's, he also makes some of my favourite films. Tim is known for his gothic, horror and fantasy elements in his films. For most of his films, he has used stop motion. Here are a couple of his films that he has directed where stop motion has been used.

Corpse Bride (2005) - Film

Frankenweenie (2012) - Film

Director Henry Selick 

Henry Selick, is a well known stop motion director, some of his films include 'The Nightmare Before Christmas', 'James and the Giant Peach' and 'Coraline'.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - Film

James and the Giant Peach (1996) - Film

 

Coraline (2009) - Film

I found a video about an artist who was in charge of creating the hairstyles for the characters of 'Coraline'. It was different to see a video focusing on the hairstyle aspect of a model.

I found a website online that specifies in stop motion and on the introduction page it shows a little sequence step by step of how stop motion is used.

http://www.dragonframe.com/intro_to_stop_motion.php

Overall stop motion animation is something that I want to do, however as i don't have a lot of time in this project and also don't have enough money to purchase the equipment and software. Hopefully there may be an easier and simpler way of creating a stop motion piece, without it taking a long time to complete.

I don't have a lot of time on this project so I may have to look into a different technique within stop motion.

Fiction Adaptation - Inspiration

While driving the other day, I came across a field that had a slight mist still over it. I didn't have a professional camera with me, so I decided to film it with my phone camera.

I remember Fergus telling us in one of our workshops that when you see something that looks really good and just use your phone to take a photo or film it. This note has been stuck in my head, just incase I came across inspiration for any films, etc.

I filmed for about 10 seconds and then went through the video frame by frame to see if there was a still that was really interesting. Then I came across a still that really caught my eye.

Here is the shot:

I don't know what it is but there was something about this shot that really intrigued me. My main focus when straight to the area where you see the section of the mist in the field.

The shot looks creepy because of the mist and the silhouette of the tree, but gentle at the same time because of the sun beaming down on that area. 

As i've been struggling to have an idea on what i'm going to film for my fiction adaptation, something like this snap shot, has helped me think of some ideas. From now on, i'm definitely going to keep my eye out to see if there are other landscapes or places that could inspire me.

Fiction Adaptation: Research 1

After reading 'The Death Bed' by Siegfried Sassoon I had an idea of creating a paranormal look to the video, as the poem was about death. And one way of creating an eery atmosphere was stop motion or animation. I wasn't sure which technique I was going to use to create my short film, so I decided to research into both techniques to see which one I would prefer to do.

Animation is a simulation of movement created by a showing a series of pictures/frames, i.e. cartoons. Some examples of cartoons are Adventure Time, The Powerpuff Girls, Ben 10 etc.

The Tale of the Three Brothers, from the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This animation tells a simple story about three brothers who cheat death, however death finds a way to catch after them. Death in this film is seen as a character, like the grim reaper.

I liked how silhouettes was used to show the characters. If there was a lot of detail to the characters this may have been distraction to the story. I noticed that there were only two main colours used, cream, as the sky/background and black for the characters silhouettes and buildings. The colours used worked very well with the story, the colours weren't harsh against each other, unlike if they used white and black together.

This animation was quite short and only lasted 3 minutes. I found it easy to watch and I didn't get bored at all. No dialogue was used, except for the narration, which helped me concentrate on hearing the story and watching the animation show this. There were very few sound effects used, i.e. walking on gravel, the slitting of the throat, etc. It really helped bring certain parts of the story to life.

The music was quite low throughout the film, as the narration was talking on top.

Prologue animation, from the film Hellboy II: The Golden Army

I couldn't think of other animations that were similar to the Harry Potter one, so I decided to speak to Sei-Kai and she said there was an animated part at the beginning of Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

This animation was much longer than the Harry potter one and lasted nearly 7 minutes. I don't know if it was because it was longer, or if it didn't catch my attention as much, but I ended up getting bored halfway through it.

It was different how this animation was much slower and showed stills of each scene. The beginning of this film it shows Hellboy when he was younger and his father reading a story to him. When you see Hellboy and his father the music reminds me of a music box, however once Hellboy's father starts reading the story about the great war, the music becomes much louder. When the story returns the Hellboy and his father the music returns to the music box music.

The father is the narrator of the story and imitates the difference characters he talks about from the books, like how a parent would when reading a story to their child.

The scenes shown were very colourful, but I noticed that the colour red was used more, especially in the war scenes. Maybe this was to represent violence and bloodlust in wars.

Overall both of these animations have inspired me, especially the Harry Potter animation, as it had a darkness to the story which I want to re-create in my fiction adaptation. Even though animation is something that I have always been interested in I think I will start to research into stop motion as it may be an easier to use, especially for beginners like me.

Workshop: News Story on Maidstone

We were given a task in our workshop to get into our digital news groups and create a short package story on maidstone.

            Script                                                                                                             Shooting List

On the workshops I missed when I was ill, our group had to write a script and shot list for a news package.

When I returned back to university we were given the task that week to film our news piece. Luckily I was around to help out with filming.

Here is the rough cut of what the other had filmed before I came back to university.

Last week we was able to go to Maidstone and film our piece to camera's (PTC) and any extra shots we could get around Maidstone. We only had that morning to film as in the afternoon we had to attend a lecture so that we could show our class our news piece we had filmed.

We was able to film our shots on time, however after trying different ways of exporting the footage onto Sei-Kai's laptop in town, it wouldn't work. After eating lunch we went to the studios and ended up getting there in time for our lecture.

Helen understood that we had exporting problems, so we couldn't complete our news piece in time to show the class.

We showed Helen our rough cut of what we had so far and she said that a couple of our shots were shaky, as we didn't use a tripod, also that there were a lot of shots that didn't last long on screen and went very quickly, it would have been better to have the shots stretched out longer so that it gave the viewer time to see what is on the screen.

Luckily with the help of Chris, Sei-Kai was able to finish our edit, apparently we didn't film our footage on the right file. Chris was able to change the setting so that the files could export from the camera. Now we know how to avoid this problem in the future, once we take the camera out we have to reset it to make sure that we have the correct file format.

Here is our finished video:

Meetings for News Story: Knitting for Charity and Museum Trust

After a couple of weeks of contacting the stories we wanted to use for our news channel, we finally have official meetings with both the knitting for charity and museum trust.

Knitting meeting

This wednesday we have a meeting with the knitting for charity. We will be attending one of their meetings they have weekly, to discuss more about what they do and the event they have set up to raise money for the breast cancer unit in Medway.

Carole, the woman who created this event, was very helpful and was more than happy to have us come along to one of their meetings.

We was originally going to film on the day of meeting the group, but as Carole had to ask for permission from everyone, we decided that we would actually film a couple of weeks later.
We will also have the opportunity to go around Carole's house so that we can get some footage of the finished knitted items the group has made.

I have also booked out the camera for the meeting this week, so that we can take test shots and sound tests at the knitting for charity meeting. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some test shots while we are there as we will be filming in the same location a few weeks later.

Museum meeting

We also have a meeting this friday with Mike Whiting the Councillor of Swale, Mike McGann from the press office and also Dr Michael Baldwin and Paul David from the museum trust.
I'm quite happy that we have a bunch of people attending this meeting, as it will be easier to get all the answer we need from each person.

After we had these meeting dates confirmed we decided to have a update meeting with Helen.
We told her about our upcoming meetings and she was very happy. We also discussed about what story to film as a live and as a package.

She said that we could do a live, that has a package within the story. She explained that it would be like a 'sandwich', that you would start off with going into the live and being on location, then the reporter would introduce the package within it and then it would go back to the reporter on location to close off the story. I think we will probably do our live story like a 'sandwich' as I feel this will be a better way of telling our story.

At the moment we have decided to have the knitting for charity as a live and the museum trust story as a package. However this may change once we have gathered more information about each story.

We have decided to meet with Helen next Thursday as we will then have already had the meeting with the knitting for charity people.

I'm quid happy with our progress so far, we started off a bit slow, hopefully now we have our stories we will be able to start writing a script and film in the next couple of weeks.

'The Death Bed' by Siegfried Sassoon - Background Information

While researching into Siegfried Sassoon I came across a book that included all of Sassoon's poems. 

The book was called 'Siegfried Sassoon: The War Poems, arranged and introduced by Rupert Hart-Davies.'

The first page I went to was 'The Death Bed' poem as that was the one I was focusing on for my Fiction Adaption project.

At the end of the poem I noticed a small note that said:
"Weirliegh, August 1916. A memory of hospital at Amiens and a canoe on the Cherwell."

I'm guessing the note was the time of when and where the poem was written as well as what the poem was roughly inspired by.

I decided to look through the book again and came across a couple of pages on 'biographical table' that that included detailed bullet points on where Sassoon was during the First World War (1914-1918).

I looked on the year 1916 and found a couple of bullet points on the month August. Here are the bullet points:

- Invalided home with trench fever

- In hospital at Somerville College, Oxford

- Convalescent at Warleigh

The word 'convalescent' caught my eye, so I decided to research the meaning and the definition said, '(of a person) recovering from an illness or medical treatment.'

Knowing that Sassoon was in hospital around the time of writing 'The Death Bed' poem, explains why the poem is based on a soldier dying, maybe it was something Sassoon saw happen while he was in hospital.

After reading this book I decided to research online to see if I could find out more information on the background of the poem.

I found a website, that had a couple of paragraphs about the background of the poem.

http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-death-bed/

Here is what it mentioned:

"'The Death bed' offers a harrowing account of a dying soldier who moves in and out of consciousness. Though he is in hospital, there are frequent reminders of his ordeals in the trenches from the relentless weather conditions to the 'thudding of the guns.' Siegfried Sassoon uses the extended metaphor of water and waves along the shoreline to symbolise how the soldier is on the border between life and death; his existence gradually 'washed away'.

Sassoon compares the soldier's pain to a 'prowling beast' that grips and tears at his energy and demising dreams. This is all before the 'death' looms and takes the soldiers life. Sassoon makes this scene particularly poignant by hinting at the soldiers youth and the horrors he has witnessed. His rhetorical questions serves to challenge the injustice of the conflict and the stubbornness of those who have the power to end it."

I definitely have a much better understanding of 'The Death Bed'. I'm glad I researched into this poem as I feel it has inspired me with some ideas I would like to include in my film. This poem has a darkness to it as it is about someone dying and I would really like to show that in my short film.

Digital News Workshop: Writing a News Story

In class we was given a workshop task to get into pairs and create a news story with a press release that was given to us. I paired up with Helen and the press release we was given was about a 'Small-decrease in Tuberculosis.'

Here is the press release we was given: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/small-decrease-but-tb-rates-remain-unacceptably-high

We started highlighting key facts throughout the article.

  

The press release was mainly about how there has been a slight decrease in TB, however it still remains unacceptably high. It then went on to say that the non-UK born population have higher rates of TB than the UK born population.

Me and Helen felt a bit uncomfortable talking about immigrants and how they have a higher percentage of having the disease, as it came across quite racist. We decided to think of other ways of telling a story on TB, so we researched more about the disease online.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Tuberculosis/Pages/Introduction.aspx

After getting a better idea on the disease we then started to look for a case study of someone who have/had TB.

We found a website on TB that contained many case studies with people who had suffered with the disease. One case study that caught our attention was about a man named Allen who thought he had man flu, so he went to the doctor's and they gave him antibiotics. After a couple of days Allen became worse, and noticed the antibiotics weren't working, so he went back to the doctor's and they sent him to the hospital to have a variety of tests, including a biopsy, which finally diagnosed him with TB.

Here is Allen's case study: http://www.thetruthabouttb.org/stories/allen

After reading this case study we noticed that many people don't really have a high knowledge of TB symptoms, including doctor's. So we decided to do a story on what TB is, what the symptom's are as well as using this case study to show how easy this disease is to over look, due to having similar symptoms to many other illnesses.

After completing our first draft, we showed Helen and she mentioned that we needed to look more at the history of TB, i.e. how they used to treat it, as well as why it isn't as common today.

We found a website that gave us an idea of how TB was treated is the past. On the website we found an interview with a patient who was there in the 1940's that describes how TB was treated. The preferred method for the disease was Fresh Air Therapy, apparently fresh air was thought to have been a cure for TB, so patients were put into wards that had windows constantly open, even if it was the winter so that the air could circulate the room.

Here is the website and the interview with a patient:

http://crossley.daniel-clark.co.uk

http://crossley.daniel-clark.co.uk/interview.html

We then discussed that TB isn't as common today because we now have vaccinations for the disease, that we get when were younger. Also that the reason immigrants have higher percentages of bringing over the disease is because their countries may be be not so fortunate with vaccinations.

After adding in the extra information, we had finished our final draft.

Here is our final draft:

 

By doing this workshop, I feel much more confident, especially when it comes to writing our scripts for our news channel. It was definitely harder then I expected to complete this script, but in the end me and Helen were able to finish it on time.

Fiction Adaption: Siegfried Sassoon

I decided to look into the poet of the poem I chose to see if it would help with inspiration for my film.
Here are some key points that I found out about him:

- Siegfried Sassoon was one of the leading poets of WW1

- He was born in Kent on 6th September 1886

- Sassoon was in the First World War and was brought to the front line many times

- Sassoon was known for his reckless bravery and was given the nickname 'Mad Jack' for his near-suicidal exploits

- He was friends with fellow leading poets Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen, whom he greatly influenced

- After the war he continued to write both prose and poetry

- He wrote 146 poems

- His best known poem is 'Suicide in the Trenches'

- He died on 1st September 1967

- In his lifetime he was a soldier, poet, diarist, memoirist and a journalist.

After learning more about Sassoon, I understood why he wrote so many poems about WW1. It must have been a horrifying to be put on the front line many times. It was if his way to cope with his experience in war was to write poems about it.

My next step is to research into the background of the poem.

Digital News Research: Museum Trust Story

After finding my news story I decided that I would speak to Helen to see if it would work for our channel. She said that it would be a great story for our news channel as it was about the community of Swale getting together to try and raise money to re-open an old building as a museum.

After speaking to Helen, I decided to contact Councillor Mike Whiting, to find out who is in charge of the museum trust fund so that we could find out more information about what they are doing, etc, to raise money for the museum.

I phoned him a couple of times over a course of a few days, but after having no reply I decided to research into other ways to contact him. I went onto the swale borough council page and was able to find a page of Mike on there. I already had tried the phone number that was on the web page so I decided that I would email him.

I decided to look back onto the article to see who else I could contact. At the bottom of the article there was a website address which included more information about the building and the trust that had been created for the building.

Here is the website: www.friendsofmiltonregiscourthall.co.uk

I went on the web page and found a section where you could fill out a form to the museum trust people. I filled out the form and also emailed Mike as I thought I would have more of a chance of getting a reply.

A couple of days later I got a reply from Mike, saying that the museum trust and the council would be delighted to help out.

After getting a reply, I decided that I would talk to Sei-Kai, Illy and Tim to see what they thought.
They said to contact the other stories we had, so that we could find more information about each of them before committing to a story.

I have now emailed Mike to arrange a meeting with him, the museum trust and the press office so that we can gather more information about the building and the trust fund.

I'm quite happy that we have at least had one possible story for our news channel.

Digital News: Story Ideas

So far me, Illy, Tim and Sei-Kai have found three possible stories that we could use towards our news channel, that involve the community in some way.

1. Museum Trust

Helen gave our group a little booklet that contained events and local stories around Swale. While looking through the booklet I found a story under the 'Embracing Localism' section, the article was called, 'Appeal launched for new museum'.

The article is about an old building known as the Milton Regis Court Hall and how a group of people have created a trust fund so that they could raise money to transform this building into a museum.

2. Medway Regeneration

Medway are regenerating their area so that they can advance in learning, culture, tourism and enterprise.

The main focuses of the regeneration are the town centres, transport, and continued development for the further and higher education.

As there are so many areas in Medway having the regeneration, we decided that if we had to focus on an area it would be the Pentagon Centre in Chatham as it has been invested a £160 million.


3. Knitting for Charity



Tim found a story online of an event on 22 November 2014, in Waterslade, Chatham where people are getting together for a coffee morning where they can knit and raise money for charity.

The charity has been created for the Medway Hospital, so that they can buy new machinery for the breast cancer unit.


Even though we have three stories we are still keeping an eye out for other stories, just incase these ones don't work out.

Fiction adaption: Introduction

Another unit we are doing this term is Fiction Adaption.
In this unit we have to produce a short film that is adapted from one of the WW1 poems, from the 6 that have been selected by our tutor.

"You are not allowed to change any of the words, however it can take any form and style you want and use any effects. Music, time-lapse, acting, drama, horror, news report, dance, comedy, thriller, colours, action, stills, etc. The idea is to be as creative, as original and as experimental as possible."

Out of the 6 poems, I chose 'The Death Bed' by Siegfried Sassoon (1916)

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped

Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;

Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,

Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.

Silence and safety; and his mortal shore

Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Someone was holding water to his mouth.

He swallowed, un resisting; moaning and dropped

Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot

The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.

Water-calm, sliding green above the weir.

Water-a-sky-lit alley for his boat,

Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers

And shaken hues of summer; drifting down,

He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust if wind, was in the ward,

Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.

Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars

Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;

Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,

Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain-he could hear it rustling through the dark;

Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;

Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but trickling peace,
Gently and slowly washing life away.
He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But someone was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.
Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated
War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?
But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of guns.

After reading this poem I really wanted to create a short story through stop motion or animation.
I have always been interested in stop motion and animation, and found this was the right time to challenge myself, by using one of these techniques.

Digital News Meeting 2

From our previous meeting we were each given small tasks to contact different cultural places, such as museums, theatres, etc, around Kent.

Unfortunately we didn't have much luck with these places, as there was not many events that were coming up that met our channel tone or didn't have a story to go with it. We decided to take a step back and research more into other areas of Kent.

Helen knew that we were looking for some stories to do on communities and brought in a small booklet on Medway that had news and different events that were going on around autumn time.

There were a couple of events that interested us all, they were; christmas lights turn on, winter wildlife and volunteering. When we found these events we went straight to Helen to discuss whether these would work for our channel.

However when we spoke to her she said they would work for a community channel, but the events we were looking at didn't really have a story that you could tell along side the events.

As we all liked the idea of the christmas lights turn on, Helen gave us an example of a story about christmas lights last year.

The example was about a city who brought some lights from another country to put up for christmas around their town, but because there was a delay in shipping, the community didn't know whether they would arrive on time. Everyday there was an update on where the lights were in the world. In the end the lights arrived a day or two before the day they were planned to go up and the community got together and put them up around town.

In the end we had a big discussion saying that we kept doing to same thing, which was pick events that didn't have a clear story to them. We have now decided that we will look more thoroughly when we find an event before deciding to do them and be let down because there is no story that goes along with it.

Digital News Introduction

One of our new projects this term is Digital News.
For this project we have to get into groups and create our own digital online news channel.
Within this online channel we have to include 1 news package and 1 live report.

A news package is a pre-recorded story that is shown after a live introduction from the news anchor. We have 2 - 2:30 minutes for this package story.
The live report is where we will have a reporter and film him/her live for a duration of 2 mins on location.

I grouped up with Sei-Kai, Tim and Illy. I haven't worked with any of these students before and am quite excited to learn what their strengths are and what ideas they will bring to this project. We all have a different out look on stories which I think will make this news channel very interesting.

We all sat down for our first meeting and discussed what type of news channel we should have, i.e. is it going to be a nature, community or student channel, etc.

Sei-Kai wrote up our meeting minutes. Here is the document of the meeting.