22/05/10

Today we headed off to Northampton, we set off at 7:30am so we had a whole days worth of events on Camera, when we arrived there we arranged interviews immediately and then set about filming cutaways, throughout the day we got lots of battle footage as well as the stores and days attractions, it was clear that these people thoroughly enjoyed their hobby and it was something they really took pride in and looked forward to which is exactly what we wanted to portray, overall the day was a complete success and we managed to get some top quality footage.

21/05/10

Tomorrow we are heading off to Northampton to film some battle re-enactment after gaining permission from our contact Cathy, we booked out the equipment and decided to use two cameras so we could get a lot of footage as we wanted this to be the main centrepiece of the project, we then planned out the day so that we would not miss anything.

13/05/10

We captured the footage we got from the past two days onto the edit suite and pieced them together in a rough structure, the quality and sound were both to a professional standard so we were pleased with them, we then checked out the living history website where Simon found a weekend event in Northampton which would involve battles and medieval living over the course of the weekend, which sounded ideal and exactly what we wanted, we immediately set about emailing them asking if they would be willing to be filmed in this event.

12/05/10

Today we filmed inside Warwick Castle, we worked all day so we got some fantastic shots of the days events, such as the trebuchet firing and some minor battle events, we also got interviews with some of the re-enactors, we found that a lot of these were simply actors who did the job as a good source of income and did not infact have much of an interest in History, which is why we were directed to a forum called livinghistory.co.uk where people who were fully invested in the historic side of re-enactments spoke and met up. The day was extremely useful and we gathered a lot of footage for the documentary.

11/05/10

Today we went for our reccy at Warwick Castle, we did not enter the castle today so we got some cutaways and filmed some shots in the street of Simon introducing Warwick and presenting facts about the modern age and medieval life. All in all today was very useful for gaining an insight into Warwick and a good preparation for what we need to get tomorrow.

10/05/10

I came in and we planned out a schedule for the week ahead, we planned for tuesday and wednesday to film in Warwick in and around the castle, so today we did all the necessary pre-production including a shotlist and script, as well as confirming health and safety and risk assessments.

06/05/10

I had been ill for the past few days but today was the day of our pitch so i came in to present it to the lecturers with my group, we had stayed in contact so we all knew what we wanted to prove and show in our documentary. The lecturers said we desperately needed more contacts so we immediately rang Warwick Castle to arrange filming, i then went home to finish the risk assessment for our filming in Warwick.

30/04/10

Today we added more work to our pitch and practiced further, we recieved contact back from the medieval siege society and they told us dates and times when they would be available to film. Later on i watched Ross Kemp on Gangs as this was the style i would like to emulate for our documentary as it was interactive and was presenter lead, i also watched Louis Theroux as i enjoy his style and how he communicates with people who usually will not open up, both Ross Kemp and Louis Theroux both have this ability and i think if Simon can master it we will have a really special documentary.

29/04/10

We continued work on our pitch presentation and made contact with the Sealed Knot about filming them at one of their events, as well as the Medieval Siege Society and both gave positive feedback and seemed willing to participate in the documentary, we hit a slight snag in our documentary because we wanted our presenter, Simon, to participate in the events and you need to be trained and be a member of the societies to take part, however we endeavoured to work around this by instead showing The people taking part and Simon in the medieval clothes aso he could still experience the lifestyle if not the battles.

27/04/10

Today was the day of our pitch so we got up early to prepare, we dressed smartly and managed to get a few practice sessions in before we were picked to go up. I feel our pitch was okay but was missing some vital parts which we later went on to add in, the lecturers asked us to come back and do it again which we agreed was the right decision, we then went up to ALS and worked further on the points they suggested which were health and safety, more contacts and to find a definitive goal.

26/04/10

Today we finished all final preparations for our presentation and had a couple of practice sessions, we also completed all outstanding questionnaires to complete our research which i then compiled and put into graphs to show correlation between ages and attractions. We then all went over to Emilys house to practice our pitches with the other group and finish any last minute parts that needed completing.

23/04/10

Today we continued to work on our presentation, we practiced our pitch for the slides we have. Later we made contact with Warwick Castle through email and told them what we intended to film, we tried through the phonelines but it was all automated. We planned out what shots we wanted and decided that the goal of our documentary was to find out why people participate in medieval re-enactments and what is the appeal of them.

22/04/10

Today we continued work on our pitch and researched into health and safety and ofcom guidelines, George created the powerpoint and we decided on the name majestic productions for our production company.

21/04/10

Today we started work on our pitch presentation, i looked at some footage on youtube of medieval re-enactment and then checked out the facilities and events at Warwick castle, we decided that we would like to do some of our documentary at Warwick castle as it is the most popular historic site in England and features many events such as jousting and trebuchet firing, we felt it would be worthwhile to visit and get some shots of events, the castle and interviews with the crew at the castle.

20/04/10

Today we got together in a group meeting and decided on the topic to do our documentary, we initially decided on a documentary about The BNP, however this idea faced strong opposition due to it being a controversial topic, so we had a regroup and eventually decided on doing our documentary on the appeal of medieval re-enactments. We felt it was an interesting topic and something that is not in the public eye, we wanted to prove that the people who take part in these activities are not weird or public outcasts, we wanted to prove that these people were normal civil, everyday members of the public who like to escape modern life to experience.