Essay for Information Society April 21, 2009

As part of the Digital Britain report Lord Carter proposes a Digital Rights Agency to resolve copyright issues faced by the creative industries. Is this the right approach?

 

Copyright industries as soft power in a nation and play an important role in economic development and foreign trade. In recent years, the activities of international media and information industry mergers around copyright and other intellectual property rights have becoming frequently. The copyright industries have become important economic sectors in many western countries, formed many mature methods of operation in the copyright trade and accumulated rich experience.

 

In this essay, I will discuss what the present situation about British copyright industry is, and why we need copyright agency. Furthermore, I will present how to expand the scale of copyright agent. Moreover, I will state dissenting voices, before giving a brief conclusion.

 

Copyright industry refers to the copyright in the works or the adjacent right to the products as the basis of production and management, and legal systems to domestic and foreign copyright industries as a means of protecting and promoting the development of new types of industries. Knowledge, information and technological achievements of the production, dissemination and use are the core content for copyright industries.

 

At present, the western countries have the main forms of copyright trade are as follows: the right to transfer the work, that is, the media or the author allows other country’s media organizations or individuals translated works into other languages and charged copyright transfer fee; the mutual adaptation of television and the publications; the right to allow operators to use the image of people or animals in their products, its products are mainly toys, food, stationery, apparel, cartoon picture , accessories, travel souvenirs and so on.

 

In addition, the paperback book publishing industry copyright transactions, that is, the publishers launched best-selling hardcover books to the market, for sale to a certain time (for a year or so), then a paperback book out of copyright transferred to domestic publishers. Besides, multi-media rights, digital photocopy right, the initials right, book club rights are important aspect of copyright trade in western countries.

 

Why we need copyright agency?

 

Britain has formed a set of mature and professional method of operation in the long-term practice of copyright trade, reflected in the whole process of operation of the copyright trade.

 

According to Soulxtc (2009), David Lammy, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, writes: “A properly worked out rights agency could be a real step forward. We can’t have a system where even net-surfing 12 year olds have to understand copyright in order to keep themselves and their parents’ safe within the law. The real prize here is a rights agency that sorts out the complexities that keep consumers on the right side of the law, and ensure artists get properly paid. We need to make it easier for consumers to do the right thing. The internet has become an integral part of daily life. You shouldn’t need to be an underwriter to take out an insurance policy, and you shouldn’t need legal training to surf the web. At least he understands that copyright laws are overly complex, products of a bygone era that proceeded today’s digital age.”

When the time for the output of copyright by the copyright agency, the first choice would be a potential copyrighted content of products, and then would be the audience-depth analysis of cultural psychology, consumer interest and the characteristics of their social states, as well as the contents of product, style and other factors.

Secondly, the market research will be carried out before the formal copyright trade in order to clear the object of copyright transactions, the scope and timing. Market research including market demand, the impact of the macro-political and economic environment, the target audience of consumer demand and the tendency of the advantages of competitors, market position, as well as the potential buyers to purchase the copyright and so on. Earl M. stated that, take JAMCOPY as an example, the Jamaican Copyright Licensing Agency (JAMCOPY) has signed agreements with two educational institutions as part of a bid to protect the copyright (and income) of authors and publishers, locally and internationally. “The license allows you to use the copies within specified limits from any of these publications that we represent. It sets out the terms, the time, how much you pay,” explained Carol Newman, general manager of JAMCOPY, at this week’s Gleaner Editors’ Forum, which focused on copyright issues.

Thirdly, the copyright agency has taken a variety of marketing methods to promote the content in the products of copyright. To take the publishing industry as an example, in the past, publishers used to advertise in the media industry, will be added to their own publications in a variety of titles and taken the initiative to the copyright agency or foreign publishers to post titles, as well as participate in various international fair. The general cost of publishing propaganda was 5-10% of its production, sometimes the prices accounted for 80% of first edition of the textbook, or even equivalent to the price of the first edition. Use of the Internet and other multi-media marketing to start the copyright campaign as well as the means of some foreign media organizations commonly used. A number of online copyright trade organizations, used their advanced technology, rich database copyright to provide a fast and efficient platform.

 

In addition, in the process of negotiations about copyright, the copyright agency is usually able to act in strict accordance with the rules, the terms of the contract signed by the copyright and meticulous detail. After an agreement is reached, most of them can strictly enforce the contract with a strong awareness of the law.

 

Besides, the media organization is also very professional of the internal management of copyright transactions. Under normal circumstances, copyright trade sector will be filed for each copyright trade records, to be centrally managed so that future queries of the sale of copyright can be quickly. Media organizations will also be applied the customer relationship management technology to transaction management of copyright in order to ensure the effective interaction between enterprise and customers. According to Journalonline, take copyright agency in Glasgow crackdown as an example, The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) is to target professional businesses across Glasgow in a clampdown on illegal photocopying without a license. CLA, formed in 1982, is a non profit-making company which protects the copyright interests of over 60,000 authors and 1,200 publishers in the UK. “We believe a number of large Glasgow-based accountants and lawyers are deliberately flouting copyright law. We know who they are, and we’ll be knocking on their doors to point out they need a license for what they are doing”, said the CLA’s Licensing Manager in Scotland, Jim MacNeilage.

 

At present in Europe and the U.S. media and information industry, the most hot topic is digital rights management, publishing and professional publishers, is particularly concerned about this topic. Digital rights management is a description, identification and protection of digital content technology. Some professional publishers from Europe and the United States believe that the digital rights management revolution which has currently occurred in the music and film industry will affect the whole area of publishing.

 

How to expand the scale of copyright agent?

 

The field of copyright trade has a wide range of skills requirements: for the licensor, is the creativity and marketing skills; for the licensee, is the evaluation and selection skill of suitable topics for their own markets and projects. Whether the seller or the buyer, are required to have a high level of organization and efficiency of the system, they record a large-scale copyright trade.

 

A high level of organization and efficient system provide effective support for western countries to carry out copyright trade industry. On the one hand, in the design of media organization, the media companies in the Western countries generally have a specific copyright sector as long as they reach a certain size. On the other hand, Western countries have highly developed copyright trade, copyright agency as an important link in the chain of the copyright industry trade has been the scale of development. The United States has more than 600 copyright agencies as well as the United Kingdom has more than 200. Such as CAL (figure 1), is an Australian copyright management company whose role is to provide a bridge between creators and users of copyright material. Because the agents are familiar with copyright trading market, operational procedures and the mature standardized methods, copyright trade in western countries are mostly carried out through agents.

 

Figure 1

(CAL 2009)

 

The prosperity and development of copyright trade in western countries can not be separated from a number of highly qualified professionals. The professionals generally have higher quality to engage in copyright trade, they not only have good professional knowledge, rich reserves of knowledge, but also a wide range of social relationship and a strong capacity and skills of public activities.

 

Someone pointed out, the staff who engaged in copyright sales should have the following qualities: the discriminability of sales potential of each item; accumulated the specific information of items; to enhance and maintain knowledge of foreign markets; enthusiasm and sales skills are the essence for copyright; excellent interpersonal communication ability; familiar with the production, dissemination of business processes; have excellent computing skills; can deal with a different set of negotiations; to sign a consensus, clear and accurate licensing contract; excellent memory and ability to co-ordinate arrangements for the workload. Of course, it is very difficult to ask for a sales staff has the quality of this series at the same time. The point of view is an ideal framework for copyright trade.

 

Copyright industries can not develop without the right soil. Therefore, if the copyright economy wants to obtain the healthy development, first of all the government departments at all levels need to create a good environment and sound macro-industry policies and regulations of the system.

 

First of all, to carry out copyright trade institutions require in-depth understanding of target markets. Secondly, there should be a high standard of copyright trade planning and establish an international perspective, for each selection, product planning need to focus on the world market, operating in the world arena. Many foreign organizations adopt this business model.

 

Network as a new force in the copyright trade has shown its unique charm. At this stage we can register in the international copyright and other online website to have more copyright trade business through the network.

 

Another voice of the establishment of copyright agent

 

However, as Dinah G. (2009) pointed out, “Consumer Focus said it believed the Government should abandon plans to create such a body and focus its efforts instead on copyright violations perpetrated by organized crime. If implemented, the Government’s proposals for a digital rights agency would see an industry-run body set up to enforce copyright law. Consumer Focus said this will have a significant impact on the UK economy and society for generations to come.”

 

“The consumer rights watchdog said by giving stakeholders just 10 working days in which to respond to proposals for a digital rights agency laid out in the Copyright in the Digital World open consultation, any responses the Government received would be rushed and ad hoc.”

 

Even so, copyright agent still plays a vital role to carry out copyright trade. I believe that through the development of relevant laws and regulations, policies and industry norms, it is a vigorous support of our copyright industry.

 

Reference:

 

CAL (2009) figure 1 [online] available from http://www.copyright.com.au/ [15^th April 2009]

 

Dinah G., (2009) Consumer Focus slams Government plans for copyright agency, [online] Available from <http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2239808/consumer-focus-criticises>

 

Earl M., (2006) Copyright agency gets tough, [online] Available from <http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060609/lead/lead6.html>

 

Journalonline, (2005) Copyright agency in Glasgow crackdown, [online] Available from <http://www.journalonline.co.uk/News/1002565.aspx>

 

Soulxtc, (2009) UK Govt Asks for Input on Proposed Copyright Agency, [online] Available from <http://www.zeropaid.com/news/10052/uk_govt_asks_for_input_on_proposed_copyright_agency/>

 

presentation for 4th March March 4, 2009

Why we need to protect copyright?

 

Seidi Consultants Ltd. pointed out: “At present, the key problem which troubled the provider of digital television programming is the issue of copyright protection. Because the changes in the media market are too fast and need to quickly update, but the cost of copyright of world-class film and television is too high, which increased the investment risk of content providers. But if the copyright protection is done well, the content of programs can published through high-definition television, high-definition discs and many other distribution channels, thereby reducing the price of copyright. In contrast, if the copyright protection is not good, it will be dampened the enthusiasm of program providers. The digital television program must be the lack of content if the providers do not go creative.”

 

As we known, YouTube is currently the world’s biggest video sharing website, users can apply for an account for free, then will have no copyright issues and uploaded the file size at 100MB, 10 minutes of video file to YouTube, and can be placed in their own blogs, forums or sharing with friends.

In 2008, Viacom sued video-sharing website YouTube of copyright infringement, and claimed one billion U.S. dollars. Legal experts said that this is a typical example of the battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, it may be effected the digital future of the world.

The key is that whether the Copyright Law which was amended by the United States in 1998 can be applied to protect YouTube’s digital world. When DMCA has completed the legislation, there is only 19 million people in the internet world, today is as high as 1.1 billion people and YouTube users are more than 100 million people. At that time, the moderators do not have any cause of vitality, DMCA provisions did not explicitly deal with the situation similar to YouTube. The safe harbor provisions of the controversy may have a lot of key factors, such as whether YouTube is directly aware of unauthorized copyright material attached to the web on their own, whether directly get the profits from these actions.

Big Champagne’s Fleischer considered that, despite the Internet video website YouTube has learned from Napster and other more controversial digital media start-up companies’ painful experiences, but it is still shrouded in the shadow of law. YouTube is developed a content filtering technology now, in order to avoid unauthorized pirated content, at the same time once the website has found that illegal copies of the content, then immediately remove it.

Because of the diversification of piracy forms and anti-detection methods, I think YouTube’s efforts may have no effects. The most practical problem is how to compensate the copyright holder by the presentation of video piracy, content and ownership. When YouTube is a no profitable small company, no one will go to prosecute it. But now, YouTube has been acquired by the network giant Google, the situation is changed, those long-awaited copyright owner may take legal action at any time.

 

http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/warrenlois/article?mid=578&prev=580&next=577

 

This is from Cnet news:

 

“The United Kingdom is preparing its own version of a digital anti-piracy law, following the publication of proposals designed to implement the European Union Copyright Directive. In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has received widespread criticism for restrictions that, among other things, have been used to stop researchers from lecturing on anti-copying technologies and from publishing information on holes in those technologies. Significant parts of the law include new legal protection for digital watermarks, copy protection systems and other measures used to protect copyright material online. There are also new proposals aimed at combating Internet piracy. But the most contentious part of the new rules is that which mirrors the DMCA’s outlawing of devices intended to circumvent anti-copying technologies.”

 

http://news.cnet.com/U.K.-enters-digital-copyright-debate/2100-1028_3-949367.html

 

 

 

comments on digital britain, section 3 February 17, 2009

“UK content production is in turn an important part of the overall creative industries sector that in total accounts for more than 6 per cent of UK gross value added, which as a sector is equivalent in scale to the financial services industry.” In export of TV show formats, the UK is the largest single source. This overall growth trend stalled in 2008, however, this sector has begun to face significant revenue pressures.Since 2002, e-commerce has grown and the Internet advertising has grown with it. Britain has the highest proportion of internet advertising of any developed economy. British consumers have a huge appetite for new digital services. This in turn creates a market environment which unlocks new commercial possibilities and encourages innovation in new content, services and applications.

For my part, with the rapid development of science and technology and the evolving concept of media, we have gradually entered the era of digital media, Internet media and mobile media as represented by the new media. In the new media era, as the most powerful party of traditional media, how does television to use the opportunities brought by new media and innovation? In the “triple play” era of telephone network, cable network and the Internet, they are more and more to speed up the process today, to digitization, networking and interactivity for the new media technology on behalf of powerful impact on the survival of the current television media laws and the survival pattern.

New media technology rapid rise with the spread of technology, access and other advantages, continuously streaming audiences and advertising of traditional television and posing new challenges to the British traditional media. But from another angle, with the content of basic resources and network resources of the traditional media, with the continuous advancement of technology, profitability will become increasingly abundant. From the rapid development of interactive television, network television and mobile TV, you can see the fact that the integration of new media to explore new profit model, is the future for television media. New media technologies are “debris” of the spread of Context. Media industry is an industry which “content is king”.

From the industry perspective, if the media industry wants to profit, we must create valuable content. However, valuable content is not necessarily bound to a profit (unless not required to profit), and whether the profits or windfall profits will depend on the media set up and selection of models. Therefore, the interaction between the logical relationship of the construction of media content and media profit model finally decided to sustainable development.

 

research for digital content: DRM system February 11, 2009

DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) will be sought on the interoperability of digital rights management recommendations to formulate a mechanism that would enable various DRM products compatible with each other open standards. The organization would likely adopt the Coral Union’s first specification in June last year. This is another significant move of the DLNA which has 230 member organizations, so that is about to realize its own primary objective, namely, the adoption of internet protocol-based to create a digital home network products interoperable platform.

 

Scott Smyers, president of DLNA, said he has seen the service providers have used Coral technologies at present. Recently, there are an increasing number of companies to actively add to the DLNA organization. Coral have invented a way for the service providers to use a standard approach to digital copyright; the digital rights can transfer from one system to another system.

 

This approach required the service providers to cooperate in the software without the need to make an issue of DRM products. Therefore, even if Microsoft does not dictate the popular Windows Media DRM to make any changes, Coral methods are still valid. But Apple’s iTunes service on the need to make certain changes of Apple’s FairPlay DRM which songs can be played on other systems. At present, Apple and Microsoft both is not a member of Coral, which is a disadvantage of Coral.

 

Who used the method, when used, is still unknown. Smyers said he was unable to confirm when DLNA will begin consultation with the DRM but at present he thinks the Coral’s method is the best way to realize DRM interoperability. But Smyers also said that at present, the service providers inside and outside the organization DLNA are in positive action, which brought him confidence. Comcast’s currently is one of the main members of DLNA organization, the AT & T, British Telecom, France Telecom and Verizon and other companies have also joined the organization. Smyers said: “When these companies are active, that is a very exciting scene.”

 

In addition, DLNA is also planning to adopt the technology of Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) to develop a home network to share a remote user interface, and Universal Plug and Play Forum formulated a default media recording standard in its account.

 

Whether to quickly develop a parameterized quality of service standards will ensure that the media content can be transmission through the home network, DLNA organization has not reported much hope. UPnP is currently developing a standard and there is also a separate IEEE 802.1 Task Force is using a different method. Smyers said: “We can not determine when these standards and methods can develop sophisticated, for our reference.”

 

 

 

 

Assignment one, how did idea develop? December 11, 2008

·         How did your idea develop

When I finished filming, I watched the clips again and again, to think about the links between them. Because there is just 3 minutes, so I need to make a strong structure about it, but I take 10 minutes interview for 2 characters, then I need to cut some part of it. I choose the questions which are most fit to my theme:

1.      Who you are? 2. When you start to dance? Why you love it? 3. Do you think dancing is a good thing of our lives? 4. Do you think ballroom dancing is popular in UK and why the British love this kind of dancing?

When I decided the questions, I mixed their answers to the same question. Then I choose some scenes are fitted to their voiceover. Such as the close up of when she trying on her shoes, smiles on their faces, the sunshine on the CDs. I choose 2 pieces of their dancing for the beginning and the end, make it has a strong structure.

·         What things didn’t go according to plan?

Actually, at first, the final clip is totally different from my oringinal plan, coz I think I can’t make 3 mins too complicated. Secondly, I prefer CJ to be the male character, but he was sick. So I had to change the plan. And when I filming, I can’t make a good flame and light of the camera coz this is first time I filmed by myself, and when I watched other students works I start to have a concept about the technique of filming.

·         How did you deal with difficulties and how did this affect your film?

Because of the poor filming technique, I got a lot of clips which I can’t use, so I need to find everything I can use to instead of which I used to want to use, such as some pictures and photos.

·         What decisions did you make when editing your film?

Because I think the assignment one need to be cinema verita, so I just use cut, fade in fade out and dissolve to depict it and make the things reality.

·         What things might you do differently next time?

Maybe I will try to find some more deep things next time, other perspectives(pessimistic and alternative) of people’s lives, try to use other kinds of editing transition and improve my filming technique.

Reasearch of second project December 5, 2008

Who is the enemy of democracy?

 

In 2008, there is a troubled year of China: the 314 firing incidents of vandalism in Tibet; the torch relay is blocked overseas. At the same time, some split forces embark upon a political venture: so-called peaceful protest. But who attack whom? Why they all have selective BIAS, neglecting truth? It is simply a transaction between Dalai Lamar and the Bush administration. Here reports from the main west media all with distorted voice, has surprised us. And they lie…again and again. Obviously, there is a cabal, a cold war against China! We need to stop violence, stop media distortion. To guard the Olympic torch this is the symbol of peace and friendship but there are always various obstructions on the progress of torch relay. A hard long march!

In Paris

In London

In Canberra

In Soul

 

It’s all about interests – political, “national security”, economical etc. The US government doesn’t give a shit about human rights or democracy. For the US, It’s just an approach of retaining the dominance over the world. When they’ve done something nasty in Mideast, Latin America and Asia and “unfortunately” screwed it up. There is always somebody to be made a scapegoat for what happened and the “SO-CALLED” free media to save their ass.

 

Thanks to CNN, BBC, Spiegel, all the liar western media, their behavior have educated a whole young generation in China. As chairman Mao said: “All reactionaries, paper tigers!”

 

From second piece of work, I decide to make a video about this topic. Make the world listen to our voice.

Progress of my work October 17, 2008

This week I have done a lot of things. The first one is that i found a local issue about Disaster Capitalism. I went to a socialist party’s meeting with Talat and Aisha at monday night. During this meeting i found 2 influenced local issue: the postal system and healthy system have been influenced by American company.

In the postal sector the Communication Workers Union faces a huge battle. The entire post office network is under threat, with 1 in 3 delivery offices, including Coventry’s Bishop Street, threatened with closure. In the last 10 years 22 local post offices in Coventry have closed, with 4 more announced in recent days. The main city centre post office in Hertford Street has gone to WH Smiths. These whole things is due to the labour government and postcomm opened up the British postal market to other countries. And hundreds of local jobs are at threat.

In health New Labour wants privately owned clinics directly competing with existing GP and hospital services. It is no coincidence that US health corporations are muscling in on the NHS market. In coventry, the only one hospital has been owned by a American company. Now coventry’s residents have to pay money when they go to the hospital.

The socialist party want to win the campaign because today’s labour party is a party of the giant corporations, its policies attacked on the lives and living conditions of working-class people.

And the second thing what i did is filming the paper portraits performance by florence peake and katye coe. Then i will edit this clips to a short documentary.

 

 

 

Local, Global October 20, 2008

Local, global – treatment

Scene 1 – introduction

Fading up on subtitles of, “there are lots kind of dances in the world, some for arts, some for entertainment, the link with both is, they are all passion of life by human beings”. Then the camera shows a big, bright dance studio, there are two young professional dancers discussed their positions for the next performances. Around the stage there several heating fans are rising temperature. We turn to the other side, there are some old people chat with each other and wait for their dance teacher. Different preparation for the same thing, they yearn to dance.

 

Scene 2 – performance

Back to dance studio, two young dancers began to dance. They performance “paper portraits”, a kind of contemporary (dancing with painting on a paper). We can see there is a serious struggle looking on their face. All of audiences are young students; they are focus on two dancers and want to understand these visual arts. Cut to the other side, old people follow the dance teacher and start to dance with their slow ugly movement. They are smile and enjoy what they are doing, even though have no audiences, and also need to pay for these classes, just for fun.

 

Scene 3 – workshop

From a ground viewpoint we can see the young professional dancer, Florence, are talking with some students about performance then teach them how to dance with paper. Cut to the other room, some old people change their partner and dancing with music. The students are asked to draw their own self on a paper, they start to imagine and find true appearance about themselves in deep heart. We cut from the interview to Florence, she tell me how inspiration about students’ work.       

 

Progress in week 5 October 28, 2008

This week I finally contacted the lady who worked in the city council’s performance office. coz this week is half-term holiday so I arrange time to meet her next week. And I, Aisha and Jeff, we leaflet campaign to every residence in Hillsfield last sunday. we also filmed how they talk with some residents.

presentation for 4th March March 4, 2009

Seidi Consultants Ltd. pointed out: “At present, the key problem which troubled the provider of digital television programming is the issue of copyright protection. Because the changes in the media market are too fast and need to quickly update, but the cost of copyright of world-class film and television is too high, which increased the investment risk of content providers. But if the copyright protection is done well, the content of programs can published through high-definition television, high-definition discs and many other distribution channels, thereby reducing the price of copyright. In contrast, if the copyright protection is not good, it will be dampened the enthusiasm of program providers. The digital television program must be the lack of content if the providers do not go creative

This is from Cnet news:

“The United Kingdom is preparing its own version of a digital anti-piracy law, following the publication of proposals designed to implement the European Union Copyright Directive. In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has received widespread criticism for restrictions that, among other things, have been used to stop researchers from lecturing on anti-copying technologies and from publishing information on holes in those technologies. Significant parts of the law include new legal protection for digital watermarks, copy protection systems and other measures used to protect copyright material online. There are also new proposals aimed at combating Internet piracy. But the most contentious part of the new rules is that which mirrors the DMCA’s outlawing of devices intended to circumvent anti-copying technologies.”

http://news.cnet.com/U.K.-enters-digital-copyright-debate/2100-1028_3-949367.html

assignment two, how did idea develop? December 12, 2008

·         How did your idea develop?

For the second assignment, I decided there are two parts of my clip. The first one is how the western media distorted the truth of the riots in Tibet and the second part is about torch relay was disturbed in Paris and London. Coz I find lots of videos from YouTube and www.anti-cnn.com, but I can’t use a lot so I decide use 3 clips about how the western media distort truth. Then I choose the song “conquest” which is from website, I think it is very fit to theme.

·         What decisions did you make when editing your film?

When I edited my film, I used the subtitles to explain the situation what I want to talk about, and mix the clips with the storyline, modified some pictures to highlight the serious fact.

·         What things might you do differently next time?

I will try other editing transition next time and some sound’s effect, to learn how to use 3D max or Flash CS 3 to make a short animation.

assignment one, plan b December 11, 2008

1. Subject – Who is your film about. Why do you find them interesting? Is this someone whose story is happening now that you can film in actuality or are they retelling a story?

 My film is about ballroom dancing. Coz I have learned it for 2 years, and I knew UK is a great place of ballroom dancing, so I want to find some ordinary people’s dancing lives. I find 2 people they are dancing partner and really enjoying their lives now.  

2. Creative – What will the film look like – what images will you use, what style of camera work, how will you use sound. Describe the film visually.

 My film will make people to know why people love dancing and how their lives look like. I will use cinema verita, and use the songs when they danced. Begin and end of a piece of when they danced in public, mix their interviews together to the same question and use some scenes and picture instead of they are talking.

3. Production – What considerations do you need to take practically and technically to make this film?

The most consideration is, I need to learn how to film something what I want and think deeply about the question what I ask, coz there are most important to a cinema verita documentary.

 4. Impact – what do you want your audience to feel or do when they watch your film.

I want to make my audiences comfortable and happy when they finish watch, coz dancing is a very good thing for people’s lives, impress them and make them want to know more about dance.

progress of first project, part one November 28, 2008

How to contact with the characters?

 

After finished the treatment about first project, I start to do some research about ordinary people dancing in Coventry. At first, I find some information about some dance classes and clubs from the websites. There has a promotional website attracted me, which is about dancing courses for adults, who want to have a fun and keep fit, hold by Coventry city council. What the greatest attraction is, there has a publicity picture which is an old woman dancing with a young man. Then I phoned the performance office of Coventry city council, it has taken me a few days (because there were always no one answered the phone and no one response my emails) then finally I’ve contacted with stuff and arranged the time to talk with the performance manager, Anne. At 6th Nov, I went to Anne’s office where is inside Finham Park School, she is very friendly and told me the specific information about these courses in the past 3 years, but the biggest problem is that if I would like to shoot some scenes in class I must get everyone’s permission, she found it is extremely difficult, because not everyone is willing to be shot, and I also need to get the person in charge of dance studios (because they are all leased school sites in Coventry), as well as the dance teacher’s permission. When I hear these cases I really feel very upset, but then Anne gave me a number of recommendations, first of all, she knew a lot of Coventry’s local public organizations, which have lots of activities about old people’s lives. Secondly, at 10th Nov, there has a good activity “fit as a fiddle” hold by Age Concern which is very fit for my theme. When I heard this news I was very exciting and asked Anne helps me to contact the relevant person in charge. She helped me to phone the head of Age Concern, Deb, and get her permission. Then I began to prepare for the 10th Nov shooting and looking forward to find the appropriate characters that day.

 

11 a.m., 10^th Nov, city center

 

In the shooting day, I arrived the scene before the start of the activity, where is hold in the lower precinct, city center. Then I asked the person in charge, Deb, about the arrangement of the activity. There has divided into 4 parts, the first part is a performance of the Latin and ballroom dancing by a local dance club, “love ballroom”, which is very fit to my theme. From the started of performing, I have filmed the dancers individually, C.J., Mary and Mark. I was all taken their dancing scenes and a number of close-ups, mainly focus on their facial expression. After the show, I came up with Mary and had a conversation with them about the details of the club and arranged time to film them in their dance studio.

 

8 p.m., 11^th Nov, dance studio

 

Their dance studio is quite far away from the city center and inside a hotel, at that day there were about 10 people came to the class, most of them are over 40s. But it is a pity thing that I did not get all people’s permission, so I can only film Mary and Mark when they were dancing. After the end of the class, I made a about 7-minute interview of Mary. But there was a pity that too much noise around, so can not be used in my chip. I arranged the time to go to Mary’s house and make an interview with her.

 

3 p.m., 16^th Nov, Mary’s house

 

On this day I came to Mary’s house, there has a room is used for dancing in her house. I filmed the dancing room and Mary’s daily life. Then we started to do interview in the living room, mark is also in there at the same day, so I asked him the same questions as Mary did before.