Wednesday 5th May 2010

Today we started to research documentaries. We began the day mind mapping what we know about the conventions of the documentary genre. We watched and analysed some short documentaries on 4Docs. We looked at the website and all analysed one of the documentaries.

We all started to create our individual presentations about Documentary for the LO1/Investigation section for our RECORD Unit.

Here is a link for 4Docs website:

http://www.4docs.org.uk/films/tag/all

London Media Trip (25th - 27th March)

Thurs 25th March - 7am

At 7am on Thursday the media students attending the London Media Trip left Portchester Community School, made our way to Brune Park, then to Brookfield to pick up the other students, and teachers, that were attending the trip also. Once all were collected we headed off to London.

We arrived at our hotel on time and left our bags in an empty room, as our rooms were not ready yet. Once leaving our belongings, apart from our travel bags, in the room we got back on the coach and made our way around busy London to get to the BBFC. We a little bit late, due to our drivers not particularly knowing where they were going so we got a little lost.

When we finally arrived at the BBFC the man running the presentations was not the very happy, as they presentations had been set up for a certain time and the people he had assigned to run both rooms were not free when we got there, due to other work that had to be completed. When we got there we realised that not everyone would be able to fit into the presentation room so some had to head off to Covent Garden for some impromptu shopping.

Those of us that could get into the room were very interested to hear about the different things that influence the way that they classify certain films. We were shown various different clips from different films and, based on the information that we had been taught in the beginning of the workshop, we voted on the rating of the film... most of the time we disagreed with the actual rating of the film. For some reason the guy thought that we were 17 so some of the clips annoyed the teachers/supervisors, due to the content.

We left the BBFC and made our way to Covent Garden to meet up with the others who, unfortunately, couldn't join us for the presentation. We had a little bit of time to do some shopping and hang out with our new friends. We then made our way to Pizza Hut (which was underground), but they didn't have any disabled access so George had to go somewhere else, but Pizza Hut was very nice for us.

We then made our way to the Lyceum Theatre to see The Lion King, which was absolutely amazing! The performance included puppetry, shadow puppets, fantastic musical numbers that everyone knew the words to and sung along to and slight audience involvement, when the actors would come into the audience and fly their awesome puppets around in the air.

Friday 26th March

After last nights mishaps Miss Hoad phoned ahead to the London Film Academy to see if they had disabled access. On the way there they phoned back and informed her that they didn't so George went to Ascent 142, who are involved in film and TV post production.

To begin with we split into two groups and went to two different workshops, that later on we would also experience. We went to the cinematography and lighting workshop, whilst the other group had a workshop about airbrush make up. In the cinematography and lighting workshop we were able to sit under different lighting and see the difference on the camera. The man that led this workshop had worked with such greats as Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich and Johnny Depp. I really enjoyed talking with him as I am a huge fan of all of these actors.

In the airbrush make up workshop, that we did after lunch, some of us were able to get it done on us using stencils, eyeshadow, pieces of lace and the airbrush tool.

Planet Hollywood

Dinner was very noisy at Planet Hollywood, with people shouting and screaming when the camera went across them and their image appeared on the large flat screens that were scattered around the restaurant. Despite the craziness the food was fairly nice, but didn't sit well in most of our stomachs, making a few of us ill that night.

London Eye

Due to eating at Planet Hollywood only minutes before I felt too ill to go on the London Eye, so Miss Hoad and I stayed on the ground as the rest of the group went on the tall structure.

Saturday 27th March

Movieum - London Film Museum

We went to the Movieum, that was right next to the London Eye this morning after Olivia (my room mate) and I had woken up late and rushed around to pack our bags to put on the coach. It was a pretty hectic morning but it all calmed down as the day went on on our last day in London. They had a great selection of props from many famous films, such as The Borrowers and Alice in Wonderland, that we all got to take lots of pictures of. Here are some pictures of things that we saw at the museum:

BFi IMAX - Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland was completely amazing! It was a really good choice of film to see at Britain's Largest Largest Screen. The screen itself was immense and the film was even better. I was sat in Row N and the view was very good, compared to those sat in the first few rows, where the 3D made them feel slightly sick.

We then got back on the coach after the film and made our way back home (:

Wednesday 9th June 2010

Today we had more freedom than most days... which was bad, but good in the end result. We're at the point where we need to organise and rehearse our Theatre in Education performance piece and we also need to film for our documentary that we are going to attempt to put together in three weeks time (PANIC!).

Our company, Elastic Bandits, divided up the work and got on with our individual tasks. Nikki and Ryan managed to work together (shock horror) and set up the dummy facebook pages we need for our performance, but to do this they had to stay away from the rest of the class, to avoid getting distracted and off task. Nikki also managed to design costumes for the three actors in our group, which will be taken into account for next week when we show Annabel, from Ashcroft Arts Centre, what we have done so far. Hannah, Nathan and Jacob worked well together by creating and rehearsing the first two scenes of our play and they all wrote their character profiles for the performance to help them go into depth of their characters and to add it to their blogs. Whilst they were doing this I completed all of the paperwork that needed to be done, such as the permission form to allow us to use the Dance Studio on 30th June during Period 5 and the day plan sheet that we would follow for the rest of the day. I also recorded Nikki drawing, Hannah, Jacob and Nathan acting and our group discussion at the beginning of the day. Although we all worked pretty good separately we need to come together and plan everything as a group!

Towards the end of the day we all came together as a whole class and assessed what we had achieved today, and it showed that we hadn't really done much, despite us thinking that we had.

Next week Annabel is coming in at 10am to see our Theatre in Education performances so far... hopefully it will be better than the jumbled mess that it was this week.

We've decided on what tasks we still have to do and they are:

• Ask Mrs Ball about using her class on 30th June during period 5
• Check that we can use the Dance Studio at that time
• Talk to the Site Management team about the seating in the Dance Studio
• Organise props and costumes that are needed
• Rehearse both performance pieces, including technology that is needed, that works

Wednesday 28th April: Workshop at Brune Park & Parents Evening

Today we went to Brune Park, after we finally managed to get a minibus and a driver to get us there. We had a workshop with Tina Gardiner and two of her degree students, PJ and Bobby, from the Guildford School of Acting (GSA). They started with some drama exercises, a few of which didn't go down very well (such as the exercise when they were to act like a fairy). We were soon put into groups and began the workshop that we were all there for.

In our groups we were to think of a short story, or freeze frame, to create to show to the rest of the group at the end of the day. After we had come up with our ideas each group had to nominate someone to collect props for their group from a huge pile of junk at the front of the very large hall. Ben was our nominee and he got so much random stuff that we had to somehow use in our amazing idea. Other groups were more successful at getting what they wanted than ours but we dealt with what we had.

At the end of the day we all had to perform our stories to the rest of the large group. There were junkies dying in alleyways, mermaids answering their 'shell' phones, immensely stupid astronauts getting their rockets repossessed, an intense self image performance, crazy people with telephones strapped to their heads who are convinced that the Germans are attacking and pirates on a sinking ship

Although the day began off rather rubbish, with everyone from Portchester Community School not wanting to go to Brune Park in the morning, it was a really good, creative day. We all enjoyed the workshop and want to do it again, but it's a shame that we didn't do it at the beginning of our Artefact Unit - hopefully next years Diploma group will be able to do it before instead of after their unit of work.

...

Later that evening we had parents evening and mine went fairly well, I just need to be more confident.

Wednesday 24th March

Today was our first meeting together after 2 weeks of work experience. We were a tad behind as we had not met up throughout work experience.

Our plan for the day was to pull the project together and to finish making the artefacts. We started the day by working out which parts of the project we had achieved and what we still had to do to make the work decent looking. There were quite a lot of print-outs and plastic wallets used up today and some of the projects were beginning to take shape - finally!

Common problems were:

• research copied and pasted from the internet with no thought given to what it meant for their artefacts
  
• research nothing to do with their artefact
• no planning of what they actually wanted to make
• no photo diary
  
• artefact not finished
• no evaluation of their work

The end of next wednesday is the final deadline of the project... hopefully it will all be done by then (fingers crossed).

Work Experience

Throughout work experience we didn't have to go to Diploma days over the two weeks, which then lead to us being two weeks behind on the Artefact Unit.

On Thursday 11th March most of us (except from Ben and Lewis due to work experience commitments and no Nikki or Nathan for unknown reasons) met at the Ashcroft Arts Centre to see a performance by the Spike Theatre Company, 'On Top of the World'. The show was amazing. It followed the journey of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay as they attempted to conquer Everest. The show was hilarious and very creative, as it involved the audience throughout the whole of the play. They used a variety of props to create the set, mainly involving ladders, but also using white clothes, elastic, ropes, cotton wool and bags. They used projections, puppetry and recorded voiceovers to make the show even more fun and it gave it an even more creative feel. One scene was especially funny, where two actors mimed the actions whilst the third actor made sound effects into a microphone. Sometimes he would make the sound effects out of time for a comedic effect.

It was really funny and I'd love to see it again.

Wednesday 3rd March - Paper Birds

Today was a weird, busy one. At 9am some year 9 students from Portsmouth schools, Priory and Mayfield, came over, for a Diploma taster day. Because they were in this morning we didn't have to come in to school until 11am. When we came in the year 9 students had created some good props and were really good at making things in such a good time. They spent the afternoon writing up a presentation on their process and production, whilst we were in the Gymnasium taking part in a workshop.

At 1pm the Brookfield crew arrived at our school and so did our workshop guest Ellen, who is a designer for the Paper Birds Theatre Company. She asked us to think about how we may create an atmosphere, character background or location with just props that can be easily moved on and off of the stage.

She then talked to us about the idea of creating a set in a suitcase, creating a character's whole world in just one small box. They would walk on to the stage with a suitcase, open it up and their world would be created. With this thought in our minds we had a go at creating some suitcases of our own that would create a set. We would first create a story line with four scenes and then we were to design four different suitcases that contained these worlds.

After we had all designed our suitcases we had to present our ideas to the rest of the group... we really need to work on our presentation skills but other than that our designs were good.

...

That evening we travelled by minibus, thanks to Miss Flux who drove us, to the Ashcroft Arts Centre in Fareham to see the Paper Birds production of 'In a Thousand Pieces'. The performance followed the story of three young eastern European girls who had been promised new, exciting lives in the UK but they are then sold into the sex trade. The story was very strong and was a very graphic piece of theatre. It was a real shock for us all as we didn't know what it was about before we went into the theatre. The way the play was performed was very interesting, as it involved 3 actresses playing the same character. A tape recorder of 'her voice' with recordings of her speaking was repeated throughout the play, giving it a real impact. It was really shocking.