Posted by wozamasala at 4:51 AM | Permalink | Comments

It's been fantastic, it's been great...completely enjoyed the course and I know that everything that we've learned here will benefit us greatly in the future. Thanks Paul & Paddy! It's been a great experience. You're great teachers and no...this isn't sucking up for a better mark...it's genuine. ADIOS :)

Posted by wozamasala at 4:58 AM | Permalink | Comments

So we got slammed today for our documentary and I think for the fact that our whole structure had changed in the last minute. Different from other groups, our group is the only one who had not shown Paul our final product. That has put us in an obvious disadvantages. Our technical skills were badly criticised, I can accept that there were things that we could have done in order to make sure that our thing was a hundred percent technically sound so I'm not too bummed about that one. Our whole conceptualisation was also badly hit though, and here I think we did the best we could under the pressure we were under and the fact that there were so many story lines to incorporate in a 5min doccie. The number one thing that people missed was a child's voice telling how hungry they are. We did try to bring this in through looking at a child who was benefiting from her school nutrition program. The only thing though is that she was not really lacking at home either even though she does not live in bourgeoisie living circumstances. So she did not fit in well, it was also hard trying to get children who would actually talk about their poverty, instead they performed for the camera or ran away... so it's a learning curb, we have to find a way to deal with children so you get what you want from them in order to get the statements you want for your purpose of your documentary. That's a skill I suppose we lacked. But overall, it's fine...we got a couple of A and Bs, which is a definte plus! We did try our best to put our all into the project, and we are proud with our final product!

Posted by wozamasala at 4:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

Nearly there!!!! This week we have been spending nights at the journ department trying to make sure that our documentary is done on time. Was was especially great is the fact that I came down with the flu and had to be here to edit nonetheless. Because we had such little time to work on the documentary, we crammed everything into one week for editing. This worked against us since I think that we need some time to take a back seat so we can inmprove some things here and there. The final product isn't too bad though...we'll have to see what Paul says about it coz he has not seen the whole thing and we had to change the structure in order to make everything make sense. We could not fully interrogate some things that we hoped for because of time, resources and too many story lines.These aren't excuses, I'm sure with more time we could see what we can improve but this is our final product and we put our all into it, to make sure that it is something that is actually broadcastable.

Posted by wozamasala at 4:40 AM | Permalink | Comments

-some creativity in documentary
investigate - no scripts - no prior knowledge
- object of information

cenceptualize building blocks
viby atmosphere
scripting technique - how viewer can make sense of video
messaging - (audio) with pictures
function of script - open ended/closed
scripting - project planning process
commercial resourses, cost associated
- brief, what sells the idea.bcums contract

Written assignment
-write up impressions, research on how to approach, backing info of how and when made,google director, impact

look at impact of previous contemporaries
look at ideological satisfaction
cinema for transformation
expose to good and bad practise - look at what's crap and what's not

look at what is good about a movie and what's not
visual bulding blocks to production

Read mamnuals in week 1

Manuals + googling more info on camera and lighting

Who to interview? - experts, vox pop on streets, special interest

General shots - steadiness, framing

A camera + laptop, e.g. NGOs

Posted by wozamasala at 5:26 AM | Permalink | Comments

We are brushing up on our technical skills now. We were lucky enough to get a working camera nad to get the sound that we needed on our shoot. God truly answers prayers. SAnel and I went shooting yesterday morning as we had to get our mother and child subjects shot for the documentary. It was great! The little girl was som much fun and very naughty. She was too cute. So after that we went for more shots at the pre-school and we had an interview with the two cooks of the school. They were fantastic. Everyone there is so charitable. It's amazing. We've had trouble capturing all our material, that's why we need to brush up on our technical skills. But we have found a way and everything is going to go well now...hopefully. We are having a meeting with our lecturer to moroow morning where he will crit our material and actually say whether we actually have a story there or not. We have to make this work, no matter what. The first draft is to be completed this week in any case. So there is going to be hectic editing sessions. And I am chief editor it seems. Wow...this week is going to be long and hard but it is definitly going to be worth it.

Posted by wozamasala at 4:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

We've decided to take a soft angled story for our documentary. This was simply because we did not have the resources nor the time to actually get the hard story that we were hoping for. So while we were in dispear thinking that we had no story, we decided to just change the angle of our current story since time was running out in any case. So we decided to take the Siyazama project, where the pre-school is privatised and owned by the community. It has its own feeding scheme and thte children are well fed. The grounds and education is also good and the cook is being paid while the other is a volunteer. They are happy at the school and find that things run smoothly with them. This pre-school is the man focus of the story. We then juxtaposed this with poorer government schools that are under the government's pilot program that started a few months ago. The press has been publishing articles on the short comings of the scheme. We decided to go to Pedi on Thursday and investigate for ourselves what the condition in the schools is. We were met with disatisfaction but somewhat incoherent accounts of what was happening. We then interviewed Mr. Fray who is in charge of the scheme and asked him questions on how the scheme was working out and how he planned to combat the problems that are in the current scheme. We wanted to know more about why the government had changed from the previous scheme to the pilot scheme. The answer was that they wanted to get communit members involved and that they sould benefit from the scheme. This has not worked out as Mr. Fray and co. had hoped it would. We hoped there would be some meater. The press certainly aluded to something of the sort but that was not what we found in our meetings with various subjects of our documentary. For all we know there could still be something out there but the trouble of course is that we do not have the resources nor the time for a further investigation on the subject. The problems of the government will then be set as background to the Siyazama Pre-school, just as a juxtoposition that will help question why things aren't running as smoothly in other schools or projects.

Posted by wozamasala at 3:52 AM | Permalink | Comments

Points to note:
- Perspective
- Framework
- Ethnographic Research
- What programmes it relates to

OPEN ENDED

Proposal:
- Idea
- Target audience
- Interest
- How it is to be done: "youth edge", what people say about themselves

Director's treatment:
- theoritical framework
- shoot in this area
- speak to certain people

Production schedule:
- deadline
- who to work with

Project management:
- self reflective piece: see faults, self expressive, academic, intellectual

Go to library:
- tune you into jargons

Posted by wozamasala at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments