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.

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.

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.

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.

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.