Week 1

Our Websites
This was our first proper day of lessons and we did them online using Zoom. I was in Group A. One of the things that Nargess (tutor) talked to us more about is the idea that we would be recording all our work this year on our websites. She explained that we should put all our Units 9-13 work, that will get graded, on our website, and that also we could put anything else that we felt could reflect ourselves and our journey on our websites as well. I like this idea since I have been interested in Film/TV for many years and I would like to share my journey and thought process to get to where and who I am now. I would like to include some of the films that I have already made, prior to starting College and outside of College, and also the films that I made in Year 1 of College, since I feel that they show how I have progressed both technically and from a story-telling point of view. She had some very good ideas for us to follow up, like an “About Me” section which can combine information about us with demonstrating our story-telling skills and development, also testimonials, and to think carefully about what brand represents us and also how we want to be represented. I also have ideas like a section discussing my thoughts about Films/TV shows that I have watched, a section with Personal Independent Projects like films I have made myself both before and outside of College and also my Year 1 films. I also like finding out about stuff myself, I guess this could come under “Independent Research”, to give it a formal name, but I have always got fascinated by things to do with Film/TV and spent time trying to find out about it, and I think that would be a good thing to put on my website. There is a lot that I want to add, I think I won’t be able to add it all at once, but I like my plan and this lesson was very helpful in getting me thinking about it like this.

The Red Water Bottle
“A weathered, translucent, red water-bottle lay in the middle of a muddy field with labels hanging off that said ‘Gareth Edwards, Swans & Stags'”. This was the sentence that I came up with for Attila’s first challenge to us. We had 2 lessons with Attila today, and in the first lesson one of the things that he asked us to do was to find an ordinary everyday object in our house, with emphasis on the “ordinary” nature of it. I chose my red water-bottle which I keep by me most times. We had to jot down what was ordinary about it – translucent, red, in my case. Then we had to think about what could be classed as unusual and/or unexpected or not obvious about it, look at it from a metaphorically “unusual angle”. I noted that it was “weathered” – I know why, it’s because I have been using it every day for well over 18 months, but other people wouldn’t know that, so it could be a bit of a mystery – and also that it has labels on it that are hanging off – again, due to getting a lot of use, but you could wonder why there are labels on it in the first place. Also, that the labels say “Gareth Edwards, Swans & Stags” (which they do) which other people hearing or seeing this would not know what it means. So, it sets it up as even more of a mystery. The labels are actually there because I took it to the 24^th World Scout Jamboree in West Virginia USA in summer 2019 so I labelled it with my name “Gareth Edwards” and the name of my Scout Unit “Swans & Stags”. But this is not obvious. Then we had to put all this into (preferably) one sentence, that could be the start of a story, or an opening shot, with the view of intriguing an audience and making them want know more, and hence keep watching which is every Director’s aim.

I read my sentence out first, and Attila liked it, which I was pleased about. Later on we had to think about how we could develop the idea further, and Attila told us that a good start is to ask yourself questions about your idea, starting with the 6 basic questions of “where, who, when, why, what and how”. I found this fascinating. I should add that I loved the whole 2 lessons, we also talked about Pitches, Synopses, Scripts, Proposals, amongst other things, which I also loved since I love learning anything and everything to do with Films/TV and the Film/TV Industry. I will write the rest of the lesson up more in my Lessons Journals. But this storytelling aspect really made the creative part of me think. So, the questions – Where? Maybe in the middle of a desolate, muddy field (opportunities for establishing shot then closeups at interesting angles?) Who? My first thought was a man, in his 30s (i.e. not old or young, average sort of age) going for a walk. Did he find the bottle? Or did he maybe have a dog with him who picked it up like dogs do? When? Since I thought “desolate”, it needs to not be in the middle of summer since that would be warm and not feel desolate. So, maybe autumn or winter. Daylight I think, since most people don’t go for a walk at night. Although maybe making it night-time may add to the mystery, i.e. why is the man there at night-time?

Even these first few questions got my mind racing. I really like putting a different, and unexpected, twist on things, e.g. when I did the first film project in Year 1, which was “Poker Hand” with a brief to include some tension (like “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1998)) I wanted to give it a twist, and I thought “what if some other type of cards, not just a normal playing deck, were involved?”. After thinking, researching and playing around with different ideas, I came up with the idea to include UNO cards – i.e. like in this lesson, a metaphorically unusual angle, unexpected. Although I have improved my filming skills since that first College film, and would film it a bit differently now, I am still really pleased with the original concept. This lesson with Attila backed up for me my way of thinking. Also, for my “Toast Advert” which was our second College project, when my original idea of an M&S style “toast is delicious” type advert just wasn’t working out (I took lots and lots of test film of toast in my kitchen, but it just didn’t look how I wanted, it was a good job my family like eating toast) I stopped and rethought. Again, I thought about how I could include an unusual twist and came up with a “Spy themed” toast advert. Yes, “Spy themed”. I know it doesn’t seem obvious, which was the aim, but everyone who sees it seems to like it. I won’t give spoilers here, but I’ll put a link here (my other Year 1 films are on here too) and recommend that you watch it and see what you think. Hopefully I will be able to put a space by it sometime for you to give comments about it too. Again, I feel that my technical ability has improved over the year, but I still feel the concept is strong and works, backed up by the work in this lesson with Attila.

Unit 9 Black and White Photos/Film
On Wednesday we had another online lesson with Attila. He went through in more detail the Black and White / Colour Selfie and Back and White Photo Essay part of Unit 9, along with very useful theory of Black and White Photography. I will write more about that in my Lessons Journal.

What I wanted to talk about here is a certain reflection I had when thinking about Black and White photos/film generally, as a result of this lesson. Atilla showed us a photo of a horse, and then an owl, both first in colour and then in Black and White. They looked quite startlingly different when viewed in Black and White. We analysed generally why this was, and discussed ideas like the contrast, tones blending in Black and White, the bigger effect that the light has, how the focus of the photo is changed e.g. in the colour owl the focus is on the green in the background, but once that blends in then the focus changes to the owl’s eyes.  However, there was something else for me that I couldn’t initially put my finger on.

It came to me later, when I was thinking about the photos that I would take for this project, and what I would film –  I was feeling more nervous about this project than I normally do about filming projects. This is unusual because I love filming and am usually excited about getting a new project. So, what was different about this one? I realised that my nervousness was due to my dyslexia. If that seems an odd statement, bear with me and I’ll try to explain.

Having been diagnosed formally with dyslexia in 2017, I take a very positive view of being dyslexic. This is because although it does give some challenges like it took me longer to learn to read and write, in this day and age many of those type of challenges can be reduced or overcome by finding a way to make technology work for you. Technology doesn’t take away the challenge, and it can mean working extra hard, but I always do work hard to find successful ways around all challenges. And I feel overall positive about my dyslexia because there are so many people who have succeeded with dyslexia many of them in the Film/TV Industry including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Tom Cruise.

Although Steven Spielberg “learned to read two years later than his classmates, who bullied him so much that he dreaded going to school,” he also said that “I never felt like a victim, Movies kind of saved me from shame… from putting it on myself, from making it my burden when it wasn’t“. From an article, “He says that it takes him twice as long as anyone else to read a book or script, but he uses the extra time to look for things to appreciate as he lingers over the words.” And one of my favourite quotes is his advice to young adults with dyslexia – “You are not alone, and while you will have dyslexia for the rest of your life, you can dart between the raindrops to get where you want to go. It will not hold you back.” I love the idea of darting between raindrops, it really gives me an image of doing thinking outside the box, which I love doing. And I don’t think anyone could argue that it has held Steven Spielberg back.

 A quote from Tom Cruise is very relevant to me too, – “I had to train myself to focus my attention. I became very visual and learned how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read.”  This idea, of creating mental images, is why I think I was feeling unusually nervous about the Black and White Projects. Because I just automatically create mental images in my head, I have done so for as long as I can remember. I just see everything as like a film playing in my head. Tom Cruise said that he had to learn how to do it, but I have always just done it. When I was diagnosed, my assessor said that although not all dyslexics do this, it is a trait that many dyslexics do possess. I think being home educated, after 3 years in school, enabled me to naturally find a way of learning that suited “me” without, at the time, really linking it to being dyslexic. I was just who I was. I knew I had various challenges that have now been explained to me as typical dyslexic challenges, and we (my parents and I) worked to find ways, lesson groups, learning methods to help me develop independent learning. YouTube and videos always played a huge part, and as I say, I could run ” mini films” in my head very easily. This is one of the many positive parts of dyslexia, and one that has been a huge advantage in making films, and has contributed greatly to my passion for Film and TV, and my desire to (eventually) work towards becoming a fiction Film/TV Director (as I am sure many other students want to do too).

So, when we are given a brief for a film, I am excited and start running mini films in my head, examples of what I might do, pretty detailed in most cases. HOWEVER. They have always been in colour, because the real world is in colour, so that is what I have always seen. So, I needed a way round this.

Attila had given us some Photographers, who took Black and White photographs, to research. Also, I was aware that there are lots of Black and White Silent films around. So, I decided to try to immerse myself in Black and White images, both stationary and moving. If Tom Cruise could teach himself to create mental images, then maybe I could teach myself to be able to control turning the moving images that I already had into Black and White when I wanted/needed to. So, this was my plan, watch loads and loads of black and white stuff.

(Later Note: I don’t know where it was all from – I noted down some of the key films that I took actual inspiration from, like “The Circus (1928)” but my main objective was to see if I could make my mind play internal films enough in black and white. I would say it worked well enough. When I was filming “Musical Chairs”, I was imagining it (more than I had been doing previously) in Black and White. This was quite exciting, to be able to work to change how I see things in my head. I guess it’s not entirely without precedent, since in my GCSE film “Serebrus” (Later Note: this is under Personal Independent Projects)  there is a section where the spy, Agent JJ, goes mad, and I had already seen in my head pretty much how I wanted this to look, then looked in editing for the effect I wanted. Interestingly, it was still in colour, but washed out quite a bit. I’m really pleased that I did this, and that we did this project, since I got to develop a potentially very useful new skill, and to think about Black and White which I had not done before. Although I think that overall I still prefer colour, it has opened my eyes to how you can use black and white, or a muted colour palette to distinguish between different times past and present. I kind of knew from watching films that directors did this, but now I feel that I could do it and really see it in my head, which is very useful for the future.

More on Our Websites
At the start of the week Nargess had given us a very good intro to how we should use our websites, the content that we should be thinking about including, and in this Simon talked to us about the practicalities of setting up our websites e.g. making sure it could be seen from inside College. He explained that although many of us had used Wix for our Year 1 FMP websites, we could not use Wix this year due to problems accessing Wix websites from in College. It is fortunate that my group of 5 of 90%Bloopers had already decided to use WordPress, so we will be OK.

Samuel Sellers – Distinction Website
Another really helpful thing that Simon did was show us round the website of Samuel Sellers, a student who got a Distinction grade in 2019. This was great to see, since I am hoping to aim for a Distinction grade this year, having already got a Distinction in Year 1. It was very helpful to see the kind of standard that I should be aiming at. His Year 2 FMP is extremely professional, and so is his planning, write-up, reflection and evaluation, I can see why he got a Distinction. I will spend time outside lessons going over his Year 2 FMP website and also his other College website in more detail, to get a good idea of what Distinction looks like. I am a perfectionist, and always work hard to produce the best work that I can, so it is really helpful to see actual examples of levels.

Jaws in Space (or Motivation and Inspiration)
This was a really interesting lesson on several levels. There is so much that I could write about, and I have loads that I learnt to put in the Lesson Journal, but in this Reflective Journal I want to focus on one thing that really made me think personally, that I related to, and that has made me think about something related to me that I want to work on going forwards.

One of the things that Tim talked to us about was the Film/TV terminology a “sting”, which is an instant first pitch that will make people stop dead in their tracks and think “I like that, I want to hear more”

Tim told us the story of a guy who years ago wanted to make a film. He knew that he needed to get a film production company to back him to help him to make the film and he needed the finance. Once he found the location of the company and the right person that he needed to speak to, he tried ringing. But the secretary kept fobbing him off and fobbing him off and fobbing him off, because the person’s time was valuable and so it was the secretary’s job to only let certain people talk to him. So, the guy got so frustrated that he jumped on a plane and flew to the place. He found somewhere to stay and every day for ages he went to the offices, went up in the lift, went up to the level that had the office of the person he wanted to speak to and tried to get to speak to this person. And every day, he wasn’t able to. He thought “I’m never going to get to pitch my idea” but he never gave up, and one day the lift stopped halfway up, and a gentleman got in the lift. At first our guy didn’t notice, but then he looked up and realised that the person who got in was the person he was trying to see!

Tim asked how we thought our guy reacted. I said I thought he was probably initially startled because he wasn’t expecting it but wanted to try to get his idea across as quickly as possible since you don’t have that much time in an elevator. Tim said this was right. And Declan said he would also have to try to stay calm as well, which would be hard to do but you’d need to in that sort of situation. Tim agreed and said it is human nature to worry about what the reaction will be and to not want to be rejected, and this often stops us from saying things to people because we worry that it could go wrong, we don’t feel prepared etc. This confidence is something that comes with time and maturity, but it is definitely something that we need to work on to get on in this industry.

So, back to the story, what did the guy do? Although he had planned for a pitch, he hadn’t planned for literally a couple of seconds, which was all he had as the gentleman was literally getting out of the lift at his floor. So, he just came out with his “sting” off the top of his head. It was “JAWS IN SPACE!”.

The gentleman stopped. He turned round and said, “I beg your pardon?” So, the guy said, again, “Jaws in Space.”

And the gentleman said, “Interesting! Here’s my card. Make an appointment. Come and see me.”

So, the guy got a direct invite from the gentleman he needed to speak to, and that was his foot in the door.

And the film? It got made and it is very famous. It was ……. Alien. And the guy was Ridley Scott.

I think we were all pretty mesmerised by this story, and others that Tim told us, and I thought about it afterwards, beyond the facts in the story, (which was really interesting). Firstly, about how Tim had kept our attention, and how he is a very good storyteller. I thought about how he kept and built up the suspense. Not giving us names until the end made us want to keep listening to find out who it was, since we figured it was probably someone we had heard of. Putting words into the people’s mouths (dialogue) engaged us, making us feel like we were really there. Making us feel like the guy was so close to failure made us root for him (even though we could probably guess it was going to come right in the end). I imagine that Tim took a few artistic licenses with the story, for effect, but I felt that it really showed the power of storytelling, rather than just relying facts. Which, if I am to fulfil my dream and ambition of eventually becoming a fiction Film/TV Director, is really important, and not just in making films but also in how I engage with people around me. At the end of the lesson everyone was telling Tim how much we had enjoyed the lesson, I think we came away motivated and inspired, so it is a lesson for me to take away for future dealings with people.

Also, within the actual story, I was impressed with the idea of Ridley Scott being able to come up with such an apt and image provoking 3-word sting, off the top of his head. Whether he actually did, or whether he had already run through options previously doesn’t change the fact that you do need to be able to come up with ideas quickly on occasion, either from previous planning or on the spot. I am very dedicated and put a lot of time and effort into details, to getting things just right, to trying to think about exactly the right word and the effect that I will have. To a certain degree, this is just how I am, because it is a way that I get round some of my dyslexia challenges and turn them from a disadvantage into an advantage, and I don’t want to lose that.

But I would like to add to that the skill of being able to come up with “words” on the fly. Interestingly, when I am filming and/or when there is anything visual involved, I think that I am good at thinking on my feet, coming up with alternative shots, spotting the opportunity for a quick shot that I/we hadn’t planned on, which I am pleased with as a skill. But could I have come up with the phrase “Jaws in Space” on the fly? It is a phrase that sums up Alien really well, backed up by the fact that all our class agreed, when Tim asked us, that we thought it was Alien. I’m not sure that I think that I could have come up with that phrase that quickly. And it is a skill that I would like to add. So, I will think about it some more, I will think more on the skill set that I do have, and how I can use or modify the skills I have to help me.

Logo
This was a great lesson. Sabah told us that she was a student about “a decade” ago and was taught by Tim Skegg, and that animation is her speciality. She talked to us about thinking about the design of our websites, asked us to research and find 5 websites that we thought were well designed and 5 that were not, and then think about why. She showed us her website which looked really great, she is a very good artist. She showed us her logo and talked through her thought process that ended up with that logo.

She said that a logo must stand out. This reminded me of a talk that my World Scout Jamboree Unit was given when we were designing our logo and badge. The speaker told us how he had been at a Scouting event and had seen what seemed like hundreds of Network Members (Scouts aged 18-25, I am now a Network Scout) wearing black hoodies with a distinctive pink design on them. He said it turned out that there were only about 16 of them in this group but that because their hoodies and the design on them was so distinctive you just kept noticing them all the time. So that shows the power of a distinctive logo that stand out.

Sabah also said that it is good to have a logo that is recognisable in black and white. This means that you can also use it in black OR white and a different colour. This again made me think about the design that we came up with in our World Scout Jamboree Unit. The name of our Unit was “Swans and Stags”. We kept our badge simple and took and an element out of it as a logo. I have put a photo of both below. To be honest, at the time I had wanted our badge to be more detailed (as many other World Scout Jamboree Unit badges were) since the requirements for a badge are actually different to a logo (I will discuss this more in a section about the logos that 90%Bloopers came up with) but the element that we took out of our World Scout Jamboree Unit badge to be our logo was really good, and I think it worked well. It followed the “rules” that Sabah spoke with us about since it is essentially 2 colours so we could adjust those colours depending what we put it on. Our badge wasn’t only 2 colours, but it still had limited colours and stood out when embroidered on various clothing and on banners, so I can see that the principles that Sabah was outlining to us make good sense. We wanted our logo to stand out especially on our clothing since there were over 45,000 participants from all over the world at the World Scout Jamboree.

(Later Note: I will also put a link to the videos of my Jamboree experience that I filmed and edited.)

I was also meant to be going to the European Scout Jamboree, in Poland, in summer 2020, before it was postponed then cancelled due to Covid-19. There would have been about 16.000 participants (not quite as big as the 45.000 at the World Scout Jamboree, but still pretty big). I had been part of that Unit for about a year, and we had also gone through the process of designing a badge and logo. Our name was “Bucks Kites”, I have put photos of our badge and logos below. I was the only one of this Unit to have attended a worldwide type Jamboree before, so I was able to share suggestions regarding designs. I think I would have preferred a different colour for our hoodies rather than grey, since I don’t think that background colour stands out enough, but it was a group vote, so that is fair enough.

Sabah got us to start drawing ideas for our own logos. I find drawing difficult (it is a skill I am working on improving) but I was so inspired by what Sabah showed us that I had a go at drawing 3 different ideas.

After the lesson, the 5 of us in 90%Bloopers started talking about a group logo. Adam came up with an idea based on a stylised film camera, then we each decided on elements to add to relate to ourselves. For me it is a trilby style hat since I am known as “Hatman” due to my constant trilby wearing. I use a trilby hat image in other places already.  I think our 90%Bloopers logo is a really good logo, since it meets Sabah’s suggestions of standing out, and being 2-tone, and it represents us and Film/TV well. It is also flexible since we can use the whole logo with all 5 additions in, or we can just use the basic logo with our individual addition in. I have put both below, I am pleased with both and think they will be very useful.

Weekend and Verisimilitude
The deadline on Cloud for our Black&White/Colour Selfies and our Photo Essays was midnight between Sunday 20^th and Monday 21st, although in the brief it has a later date. Since I work hard to avoid handing work in late, I wanted to be sure, so I went with the earlier deadline of this weekend, just to be sure. I had arranged to meet up with a friend, Zoe,  for a walk in Burnham Beeches on Saturday, and the weather was looking like it would be good (it was fine) so I decided that would be a good opportunity to take a some selfies. Attila only asked for one selfie, submitted both in colour and converted into and Black and White but I decided to take a few. I have submitted 2 of them and I have written about them in my Unit 9 section of this website. Taking selfies while socially distancing was interesting, but I think it actually gives the photos an interesting twist, and also means that whereas you can only see a close-up of me, you can see the whole of Zoe, which gives the opportunity to see more of the effect of clothes blending in with the background while still technically being a selfie and thus meeting the brief.

I also took photos back at home for my photo essay. I had played around with lots of different ideas for this, including me going for a walk in the wood by my house. Again, although we are not in full lockdown at the moment, social distancing does still have quite an effect, since in pre-Covid-19 times I would probably have arranged to get together with the rest of 90%Bloopers to take the photos. But that wasn’t a good idea due to Covid-19, so I had to think what would be effective as a Photo Essay in 3-5 shots that I could take just around me. Attila had given us 4 Black and White Photographers to investigate and to choose one to include their influence in our Photo Essay. It had been a pretty easy choice for me, I felt drawn to one Photographer in particular, and then I reflected on why that might be. This is what I think. I was draw to Robert Capa, and American-Hungarian photographer. Some of his most famous photos are of WWII. The biggest difference I could see, when I was analysing my preference after making my choice, is that the other photographers all had varying but greater elements of an “abstract” nature in their photos.

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with that, but one thing that I started learning about myself during my Film Studies GCSE is that “verisimilitude” matters to me. Our Film Studies tutor introduced me to the word, which I had never heard before. Various dictionary definitions are “the appearance of being true or real” and ” promoting a reader’s willing suspension of disbelief” and I have since found that the Language Philosopher Steve Neale suggests that there are 2 types of verisimilitude – cultural verisimilitude meaning “plausibility of the fictional work within the cultural and or/historical context of the real world, outside of the work” and generic verisimilitude meaning “plausibility of a fictional work within the bounds of its own genre (so that, for example, characters regularly singing about their feelings is a believable action within the fictional universe of a musical“. So an audience is happy to accept super powers in a superhero film, like all the MCU films, but they wouldn’t accept it in a film aiming to be realistic on a possibly  normal life like “Bend it like Beckham.” I want to do a section researching into and talking more about verisimilitude under my Personal Research section, but for now, it is a concept that I have found matters to me, and I find that the less abstract something is the more I prefer it. So, Robert Capa stood out due to his realistic photos.  

The problem is that I am not so good a photographer as Robert Capa to be able to capture the amazing moments in real life that he did, e.g. the moment that a bullet shot a man – unpleasant but an amazing photo. I felt I would need some posing, while trying to make it not look posed. But I wanted to do a real situation that really happened. Which is why I decided to ask my Mum to do some vegetable gardening, which she had done most days since the start of lockdown, while I moved around and took different views to try to best tell the story and get interesting shots with good contrast. I took photos on Saturday, with my phone as we had been told to do. They looked OK on my phone but when I looked at them more closely on my computer, I wasn’t happy with the contrast. So, I took them again the next day and I think the light was better.

(Later Note: Verisimilitude also came into my idea for my Silent Black and White film. The brief stated that the film should consist of one long (duration) shot, probably a long/medium (distance) shot. This was an interesting restriction since I love getting lots of different shots from different angles. But I could also see that it would affect my choice of story. I explain in my Reflective Research for my Silent Black and White film how I used the concept of verisimilitude to dismiss ideas such as a chase scene, which are quite common on Black and White Silent films, since the audience wouldn’t believe it realistic that the person being chased wouldn’t just run further away. Verisimilitude is what helped me settle on my idea of Music Chairs.)