Blackout Productions

Sadly the end of this season

MeKyle — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:58:43 +0000

Our second semester assignments for the first year are now over. Its been a fantastic learning period and the outcome has been absolutely fantastic. I look forward to the second year and producing many more films.

The result for our film ‘Afraid’ is appropriate landing above average (apparently) with 54% which is a 2.2.

Now having a break for the summer, but watch this space for any films from us!

Its been a pleasure guys

Feedback

lou89 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:07:21 +0000

We got the mark and feedback for the drama today which I thought was appropriate.

We had criticisms about things such as a shot of the back of a head, the music not adding anything etc. Nothing was said about it which I thought wrong and disagreed with, so despite the drama not being brilliant and the whole ‘Afraid’ experience being less than perfect I’m happy with the experience and the outcome because it will help me not to make the same mistakes in the future.

That’s all folks!!!!

andyh1988 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:02:34 +0000

Hopefully this should be the last blog from me, probably one more from kyle and not sure about louisa, I know you internet people have been reading this with mass excitement but please contain yourselves for now!!!

Right, just came out of our feedback session for our video, which wasn’t too bad to be honest. Firstly they sat us down in front of a 2nd year film which was filmed in a ‘saving private ryan’ style and was awesome. Never really helps the nerves before individual group feedback, when they say that you’ve got a long way to go to be the film makers they want us to be and then back it up with a brilliant short film. In all fairness, they are right. We do have a way to go.

However the final outcome was 54% which was a 2.2 above average which is not too bad. Personally I’m quite happy with this mark and the feedback was pretty much as I’d thought it might be.

Mainly I wasn’t too bothered about the mark in strange way, as once again I’ve learnt so much from just this short video. Working and organising the actors was fun and stressful to organise but worked out in the end and was something completely different from before. Our groups not been without its problems but eventually we’ve got there. Altogether a different experience than before which is good as you learn from it all!!!

I think the marks and the feedback we got were fair so I’m happy. Looking forward to a change of scenery and new start again next year though.

So I guess for now…thats a wrap!!!

Andy

Final Thoughts!!!!

andyh1988 — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:32:19 +0000

We have finally finished the video, all edited and on a DV tape at last!!!! I’m quite pleased with the final product. However the 3 minute limit works for our video, I prefer the 4 and a half minute version we had when we started editing. This left some of the pauses in the conversation between the two characters which I think added to the emotional content of the scenes and meant that some of the cuts could be longer and the scenes that we eventually deleted where added back in. Personally I like this version better but the 3 minute version is still good.

We had some ideas to replace the frisbee scene with a scene of a man walking towards the main character coughing to heighten his condition of being careful of MRSA and infections. However we used the frisbee scene which emphasises his paranoia more than the coughing scene.

I’m happy with the final result and its been interesting working with actual actors, but I’m glad we’re all filmed and finished!!!! We are making a dvd to send to the actors at the moment and hopefully it will be sent in the next few days.

Been helping some of the other groups with their videos and so I’m interested to see the final results of those and how well ours looks against the rest of the groups!!!! Andy

Photographs

andyh1988 — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:13:18 +0000

Here are some stills of the production of ‘Afraid’. Andy

Presenting: Afraid

MeKyle — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:36:38 +0000

Blackout Productions Channel on Vimeo

We’ve finally finished editing our short 3 minuet drama which we’re all proud about.

Afraid is a short film which is the second part of an University Film Production Technology Level 1 Assignment.
This Assignment we were asked to create a documentary and a drama about elements.
The element we chose as a group was “Hospital Superbugs” unfortunately our documentary can not be publicly shown due to contract limitations for one of our interviews.
This drama however can!

Technical information

This was shot on a Canon XL1 on Saturday 29th March 2008. It was edited in Final Cut Pro from Monday 31st March – Wednesday 2nd April 2008.
The sound score was arranged in Reason on Wednesday 2nd April.
This film will be screened on Monday 7th April 2008 at Staffordshire University.

Cast:

Joe Healy as Tom
Karen Heslington as Toms Mother (Barbara)

More importantly RIP to the frisbee!!!

andyh1988 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:31:02 +0000

Sadly, a special mention for our beloved university frisbee which has become a casualty of filming. Whilst shooting in the park I was in the background throwing the frisbee and the wind caught it and blew it in to the river!!! Attempts to save it were abandoned and it floated downstream…it will be sadly missed by us all.

Anyway…

It has been caught on film and will be displayed in the bloopers section of our footage ha ha ha andy

All the Hollywood cliches said all in one day: ‘Lights, Camera, Action’, ‘Rolling’, ‘Once more please’ and the all time favourite ‘That’s a wrap’!!!!

andyh1988 — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:25:30 +0000

Just finished filming for the day and its been really great!!! the two actors that we got involved, Karen and Joe were amazing and did a really good job, so its all smiles now!!! Fortunately the rain held off just about long enough to film the park scene, although we were all wet and cold, we got what we wanted. However a trip to park by me on friday proved useful as I had worked out where would be best to film what we wanted and saved time on shoot day.

Personally I was panicing a little bit as on friday we hadn’t got the house location and confirmed that both actors were going to turn up, but after a few phone calls it all paid off. The house looked the least likely house that a person with an OCD in cleaning would live in but we made it our own by covering things in white cloths to give a sterile look to it, it seemed to work!!!

The two actors were really nice and did a good job for us and we repaid them with lots of coffee and bacon sandwiches ha ha

All in all when we played the footage back we were really pleased with the results and we all had a great day. Roll on the editing next week!!!! andy

Been Shot!

MeKyle — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:02:10 +0000

We’re really really happy now, we have finally got our short film ‘Afraid’ shot with our two fantastic actors Joe and Karen. We are in the stages of capturing the footage from the MiniDV tape and later in the week we will be editing the film. A quick review of the footage just before our actors left put huge smiles on all our faces.

Location Hunting aka ‘Park Life’

andyh1988 — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:45:49 +0000

The following are some location photos I took with my SLR camera to get an idea of where we could put the camera when it comes to filming. Consideration was taken to find an alternative location if it rained but I found a few benches under cover which would work if the weather is bad on shooting day!!! Enjoy, Andy

Location, Location, Location

MeKyle — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:41:14 +0000

We have managed to successfully 100% authorize with Anthony Dale the Stafford Victoria Park Near the Train Station for Saturday 29th March.

At current we’re still looking for a house location for the first part of our script. Our success or failure relies on this location.

Casting Complete

MeKyle — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:34:44 +0000

We have finally finished casting for our actors and managed to get two actors who are willing to perform for our drama.

Joe Healy
http://www.talentcircle.co.uk/artist/Infiltra8
Joe is from Wolverhampton and was the first to answer to our casting call for our character Tom

Karen Heslington
http://www.starnow.com/glentie
Karen was one of many casting replies. We where about to choose someone else but that morning Karen applied and we decided on her as she was a lot closer and keen to work with us.

We believe these actors will be able to perform perfectly for our short film.

”The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, life doesn’t” Joseph L.Mankiewicz

andyh1988 — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:01:38 +0000

We are currently going through more and more redrafts of the script that we are developing, and I saw this quote and thought it would make a cool title and how true the quote is. Mankiewicz was an american producer and film maker so he knows what he’s talking about…

Anyway, we have had several redrafts from the original script that Lousia had drafted, each changing parts and ideas. We had a meeting with James, our lecturer, and he gave us a few ideas. The main problem we are having is we always seem to come up with two solutions or drafts to the issues in hand and can’t choose which is the best direction in which to take. Although this is good as we are refining the draft to be the best that it can be, but at the same time it’s still rolling on week by week and the constant agreement/disagreement is being to get annoying. I personally can’t wait for a nice tight script to be finished, which I’m sure will come eventually and we are doing well with it but still, times ticking…

So where are we are now? Well, We have once again got two directions with the script and both of them have the same scene that needs some consideration. As we couldn’t agree on which would be the final script, it was thought best to write another two versions and see which is best. That way we will definately have a finished script this weekend and we can quickly move on to storyboards. Andy

Casting

MeKyle — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:08:15 +0000

We have submitted our listing on a few casting websites such as www.starnow.com and http://www.talentcircle.co.uk. We are awaiting for our listings to be assessed and put into the pool so prospecting actors can communicate with us. Our deadline is sunday 09/03/2008 hopefully people will apply.

Infections, Illness and Ideas

andyh1988 — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:03:38 +0000

No posts for abit, but nevermind. I’ve been at home for the last week with a sickness and diahoria bug so not good, but I’m back in stafford now. However Kyle and Louisa have been working on an idea and have written a script. The idea is about a man who is paranoid about infections after his best mate caught MRSA and he now never comes out of his room. This is slightly different idea from the ideas that we came up with orginally but it would work within 3 minutes so we are all getting together later to develop the script.

Andy

All good ideas come whilst drinking tea

andyh1988 — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:32:47 +0000

Kyle and I had a chat in our kitchen today, just thinking of random ideas and thoughts about the drama. Below is probably the best way of showing the ideas in a list:

Film influences: 28 Days later, 28 Weeks Later, Resident Evil Trilogy, Out Break.
Ideas:
-Does the stoke campus have science labs that may be an interesting location to shoot in?
What will be the tone of the piece? Day or night? Night is scarier but harder to shoot, will need lighting. Daylight=natural light and is easier.
We originally had ideas to do a slightly 28 days later opening sequence featuring an idea about an exscaped virus and the conquences of that. We had striking visions of lots of collapsed people, students in a lecture threatre, people in cars collapsed at the wheel.
An alternative idea based on the above was to have them turn in to zombies but this is too cliche and hard to pull off well.
The Stoke campus had its water supply contaminated and lots of students have become ill. Could be a starting point???

However we came to a conclusion that all of these ideas although a starting point, were probably too long to fit in to 3 minutes. Well its a start none the less.

Andy

Take a break…

andyh1988 — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:01:30 +0000

After our intial reactions to the feedback and hearing how everyone else has done, we all feel happier with the mark that we were awarded. We’ve decided to have a bit of break from film tech this week, as towards the end of the documentary people patience was wearing thin and its good to chill out and come back to the problem in hand with fresh eyes. That way we will still work well as a group. Andy

Marking Criteria?

MeKyle — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:42:51 +0000

Today, we went to get feedback on our short documentary and personally, I’m not pleased with the results. John, Jim and James are great lectures but I believe we had got a unfair mark (56%). This mark is above average (said) 2.1 which is just a bit above a simple PASS.

The problem I’m having understanding there grading is because I believe we followed the criteria document Film Tech 1 Assignment 1a which outlines what they will be looking for in the documentary but they fixated on the content.

They commented the following;

Introduction too long
History of superbugs
Plagues are irrelevant
Did not interview a patient with MRSA
Medias approach

Im wondering what marking criteria they are using to grade our documentaries and if its really fair.

I think we made a fantastic documentary and deserves a far better grade then given.

About the Drama

I’m now concerned on how our drama idea will go, as we have a few shots we want to experiment with that are included in one of our drama ideas but I’m thinking they are just going to not mark it well when its screened.

I personally would like to know the full marking criteria if any different from Film Tech 1 Assignment 1b

Reactions to feedback

andyh1988 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:42:41 +0000

Well its fair to say that we are all disappointed with the lecturers feedback from this mornings session. We all thought that we had produced a solid mini documentary but the lecturers seemed to disagree. Personally I can see their point of view and the comments are fair but we all feel that our documentary deserved slightly higher than the 56% that it was given, which works out at a 2:2 and above average. Still a respectable mark.

Its caused us to wonder how it is that we are assessed on this video. With no indication of what it is we are supposed to produce, we have created what we feel is a good documentary. To produce our documentary and to get it looking like a documentary we used mny conventions of documentaries, still images, stock footage and interviews. We made a simple struction of intro, middle, conclusion and created a ‘mini documentary’ within three minutes. Maybe we tried to put too much in to the three minutes? We did this though to give our work the feel of documentary and I think we did that well.

They mentioned that the intro was too long, that we should have cut straight to talking about MRSA and our information on the plague was out of place. I agree that the introduction could have been shorter but we felt that we would put in a section on the history of superbugs, as that is what the documentary is about, and how they are prevented. The lecturers did not like this and said that it maybe uncessary and we should have saved time.

They mentioned they didn’t like the dark tone at the begining and the positive note at the end, they said that this wasn’t constant. This was purposely done, everyone sees superbugs as the new epidemic so we started with a dark tone to it, asking the questions, is this a new epidemic. The tone then shifts as the documentary goes on, as information is released about superbugs and it is revealed that MRSA is treatable. This was an intentional shift in tone. The lecturers however thought it was not constant and uncessary.

I can see their points of view and yes there is other things that we ‘could have put in’ and I understand their opinions but we all felt that we had created a very solid documentary that looked quite processional, compared with some other groups work.

It has been a learning curve which is great, but we are now slightly worried about the drama film as its still in the ideas phase. The documentary I feel had a structure and worked well and we were more certain what we were doing with it. And the lecturers disagree with the things we put in to it. So we now are uncertain as to what they are looking for and how we go on from here…

Rant over…Andy

Drama Ideas

MeKyle — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:38:09 +0000

After having tea, me and andy sat at the dinner table discussing ideas and shots we would like to experiment with on our drama piece. Some shots and structures where carefully planned on how we would peruse them and get a filmic look using the resources we have.

Drama Ideas

MeKyle — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:36:17 +0000

Presentation tactics!!!

andyh1988 — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:11:46 +0000

The final part of the project, the presentation is well underway now. We got together and discussed what we wanted to say about our piece and we all wrote notes to help us tomorrow. So hopefully it should all go well tomorrow morning…wish us good luck!!!! Andy

It’s finished!!!!

andyh1988 — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:11:10 +0000

After out disagreements earlier this evening we got back together after a break and started to edit again. This time it worked much better as everyone had cooled off and started to listened to each other which really helped. We now have a finished edit and we are all really proud of it which is a good thing.

We also got Colin (who supplied the voiceover for us) to come and have a look at it to see what he thought. We had a lot of good comments and a few suggestions which we corrected. My flatmate and his girlfriend also saw the finished video aswell. So far it all seems to be going well as the video is now completed!!!!!!!!!

Due to restcritons from the hospital we’re not allowed to upload our documenrty to the internet for public viewing. But we do have a Trailer we put together.

Stress

MeKyle — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:48:41 +0000

Trying to get a nice ruff cut of the documentary is not the easiest thing to do. With having no story board of where things are going to go, you’re swamped with tones of information, a very long interview and minimal filler footage. Having the group there to try and thrash out ideas of orientation of the documentary is a good idea at start but when you get a clash of ideas and misunderstandings, it does get rather argumentative. Group members feel pushed aside, others feel overloaded.

I’ve expressed my way of working, as having the only computer with Final Cut Pro installed the work is saved onto my computer. I try and get everyones ideas into production the second they mention them. When I’m trying to do this I put all my concentration into it, thus speech drive is disabled. Yes I have a flaw of not communicating back when more ideas are thrown at me. I null them out to focus and this causes other members to get annoyed.

At this moment of posting, we have all had a break from the documentary, to go do something else to empty our minds and chill-out from the project. Its due in in 2 days and I’m pretty confident it can be done. Just one simple request is to not to expect everything to be done instantaneously.

Editing Well Under Way

MeKyle — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:15:11 +0000

After all of the stress of trying to get the interview filmed on time, we have managed to make a start on the documentary. A trailer was created earlier in the week found here on vimeo. This trailer is the first test of our introduction sequence.

At the moment we have 1 fully edited minuet of footage and currently working on cutting up the interview sections to try and fit into the three minute documentary.

Interview!!!!!

andyh1988 — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:00:18 +0000

We had our interview with Debbie Adams this morning. She was really nice and answered all of our questions. She even went to get the ‘Hands up for the cleanest hospital campaign’ poster for us to put in the background. We were interviewing her for about half an hour which was brilliant as we now have all the footage to edit our documentary together.

We asked her some of the following questions:

Is the spread of super bugs the fault of the patients or the hospital staff?

Are government measures being put in place any good?

Would a ‘deep clean’ of hospitals be a waste of time and money?

Is it possible to screen patients for the infections such as MRSA

How can it be caught?

Have you had any first hand experience of a spread of infection/s?

What are the realistic chances of MRSA becoming an epidemic within a hospital?

Are viruses and infections a problem within this hospital?

Interview

lou89 — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:27:57 +0000

Yesterday everything felt like it was going wrong because the hospital replied and said that the confidentiality agreement wasn’t good enough. This made us panic because it seemed unlikely that we would have it filmed by Friday due to the time it takes for getting what they wanted for the agreement done, and actually arranging a time since it always seems to take a long time to hear back from the hospital. Due to this we spent time discussing what we would do if unable to get an interview.

Thankfully things now seem to be working out as this morning we quickly got what was asked for on the agreement done and e-mailed, soon after we received a reply and are now due to film Thursday morning. We also now have the voice-over recorded, which while it needs some editing is good enough.

The events of the last few days…

andyh1988 — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:43:39 +0000

Right…I shall fill you in on the events on the last few nights work. We’ve been so busy and stressed that we haven’t had time to blog all the things, its been crazy.

Right where to start…right well on Tuesday afternoon I had an email through from Debbie Adams from the hospital again. The board who authorised the agreement that we had created, said that it needed the be amended. This was a big problem as it had taken them four days in which to authorise that one, and we did not have enough time for them to take that much time again. This made us all really stressed as we thought that we couldn’t get the interview and so our documentary would be incomplete with out it.

However we decided to amend the document and try and send it back to the hospital to see if we could get an interview anyway in the little time we had left.

We finished the end of the script for the voice over and we were ready to move on with the recording.

The next thing to be organise was the voice over which was originally decided to be recorded at 7 o clock. When we got there the person that we were recording wasn’t there and was 3 hours late. This added to the high stress levels. However we did manage to get the audio recorded for the voice over and organised everything for the next day. From 5pm to 1:30 am was an immensely stressful period trying to organise everything.

On Wednesday morning we got up early and got the confidentiality agreement printed out on university letter heading and got a lecturer to sign it for us which is what the hospital required. Once that was done we had to email it back to Debbie in the hope that the email would be verified in time.

Fortunately Debbie got back to me within a few hours and we organised a time on tomorrow so that we could interview her.

Panic over…

Progress?

lou89 — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:04:17 +0000

Yesterday we met up to discuss and do work on the documentary.

I made a title for the documentary but then decided I didn’t like it so created another which I believe to be better.

We also went to talk to a fellow student about recording the voice-over, he had already agreed to doing it but we needed to confirm it and arrange a time. We have decided to do it this evening since he like us has a lot of work to be getting on with so it can’t be done during the day.

I’m getting quite worried about the interview since a time still hasn’t been arranged. The process to get it officially arranged has taken much longer than we anticipated, and I’m not very happy about how we’re being forced to do it so close to the deadline if we can even do it at all since it may be that the hospital can’t fit us in.

New Vimeo Page

MeKyle — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:41:08 +0000

I have created a Vimeo channel dedicated to Blackout Production on Vimeo.

Vimeo is a video community website more directed to video creativity.

View the Channel Now

Finally…

andyh1988 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:49:07 +0000

Finally we got a call back from someone at the hospital this morning!!! sods law I got on the bus to go down to remind them about it, got to the main hospital entrance and my phone goes off and its the nurse Debbie Adams calling me back!!! slightly spooky!!!

An interview is not a problem but we have to send them a confidentiality agreement document first and then she said that she’d try and sort it out. I have a bad feeling though that to arrange this interview is going to take longer than we have for the deadline. Just a feeling I have, because by the time the department has authorised our request it could take ages and we only have a week and a half to sort it out!!! hmmm but worth a shot anyway.

I suggest that we just press on with the other footage we need to do and hope that the interview we need arrives in time. fingers crossed. Andy

Waiting…..

andyh1988 — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:59:13 +0000

We haven’t heard from the people at the hospital yet, so may have to go down and remind them about our documentary. I dont think we should wait too late as it cuts off our options of finding another interview if we have to wait along time. We have decided to try get some of the post production work started such as the voice over and some of the titles and logos sorted. These are some of the things that we can get sorted out now and not have to wait until later on in the week. Andy

Breaking news, just in…(be prepared for a longish blog)

andyh1988 — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:59:05 +0000

I haven’t written anything on here for a bit so thought I’d keep the blog up to date with all the new news on our documentary.

Interview News

Firstly I went down to the mid Staffordshire hospital on Friday to go and enquire about an interview with one of the members of staff who deals in infection control. The ladies on the reception desk were really helpful and allowed me to use the internal phone service to call the departments and looked up some of the numbers for me. After a few phone calls I spoke to a nurse who worked in infection control who took down all my details and said she would enquire for me and would get back to me. I am hopeful that we may get the director of infection control Dr Helen Moss but not too sure, it may turn out that we can talk to one of the nurses who works on the department, in which case it would be just as good. Anyway, just waiting on a phone call back for now. If they haven’t got back to me by Tuesday I shall phone or email them and hopefully prompt them in to a decision.

Bed time reading??!!!

Also my sister sent me a load of information through the email on MSRA, hospital polices, Clostridium Difficile, hand washing leaflets, and papers to do with Cancer which contains info on infections to do with cancer related treatments. All useful research which is fantastic, we just now have to sit and read it all.

Research and good luck

On a different subject, I picked up a local newspaper this morning during food shopping and as luck would have it, inside was an article titled ‘Hospital winning battle against superbugs as rates fall’. The article is about how well mid Staffordshire Hospital is doing against the threat of superbugs. We can use this in several different ways,

1) Its full of information regarding MRSA so is great for research.

2) The information is relevant to the hospital we are hoping to get an interview from.

3) It contains comments and quotes from other members of staff and local governors and so would be useful to quote in our documentary.

4) We can use it physically in the documentary as a still photograph of the article and use it as a topic point.

Shot Types

We have also thought about the different shot types that we want within the documentary. Some of these ideas came from watching news articles and clips on you tube and from news reports seen on TV.

Ideas for shots include:

1) Interview

2) Close up of microscopes and test tubes

3) Still photographs with panning movement on them.

4) Images of walking feet seem to be a prominent symbol that appears in news reports as an insert shot (usually associated with voice over about the spread of infection) this is featured in several news clips, both British and American News clips.

5) Clips from news bulletins.

6) Stills of news articles.

7) A scene featuring someone washing their hands (apart of the hospitals infection control policy).

That’s all the exciting documentary news for now folks, we hope to be shooting footage at the start of next week. That gives us a week for footage collection and a week of editing.

Rock and Roll. Andy

First Documentary Script Draft

MeKyle — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:50:59 +0000

We have spent most of the day talking and researching on the subject of infectious diseases and have started to compile our documentary outline script.

The script is subject to change at any time but its a brief outline of the documentary. Script Draft

Lighting Issues

MeKyle — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:43:59 +0000

We have finally gotten our photos printed and when viewing the photos we where shocked on the results. We must have mis-calculated the lighting for the shoot. We have decided to retry our shoot using the flash on the camera also try changing the lighting arrangement.

Photo Processing Where?

MeKyle — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:16:30 +0000

On planning on when we are going to get our photos developed we began to think, do todays developers digitize the images before there printed? We are deciding on using a independent photo processing company instead of a quick supermarket printers.

Analogue Photo Shoot

MeKyle — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:37:10 +0000

We got inspiration for our 12 photo-shoot from an BBC Television Episode ‘Hustle’. There was one scene of a poker game that one of the con artists who cheated on the game to win. The composition and lighting of this scene was amazing and attempting to try and do this for a 12 photo shoot would be a interesting test.

Video clip uploaded to YouTube for reference only, Hustle is a copyrighted program of the BBC

Swedish Porn?

andyh1988 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:25:37 +0000

We all got together again to discuss ideas and develop a plan of action for the documentary. Once again this was really productive and we came up with the following ideas to research and gather information to help us construct this documentary.

Content ideas and research suggestions:

* The black death
* NHS Hygiene standards
* Prevention of infections
* Has there been significant change in standards over the last few years.
* Interview Techniques
* Interview student nurses (they may have textbooks with information in them)
* Media attention, helped or hindered
* Use newspaper articles and new reports as stock footage.
* Older killer virus (Ebola)
* H5N1(Bird flu), AIDS, BSE (mad cow disease)
* Virus inspired films (Outbreak, Resident Evil, 28 Days Later)
* GP practices
* Brainstorm relative questions for interview
* Locations, Hospital, GP practices.

We decided that we wanted a voice over instead of a presenter as we thought we would need more time for the audience to get to know the presenter and time would have to be allowed for ‘piece to camera’ presenter shots. This we felt was unnecessary and went with a voice over as it meant we could deliver information and visuals at the same time.

We watched a documentary which was on the special features of the 28 days later DVD disk called Pure Rage: Making of 28 Days Later. On this documentary had a concise summary about the truth of infectious viruses that could harm the human species. Also this documentary gave us huge inspiration on filming techniques for the subject area.

We came up with a basic structure for our documentary or the key elements that would work.

* Start with a basic intro,
* Describes the known bugs/viruses, infection, AIDS, MRSA, BSC etc.
* Describe an aim that we are trying to prove or disprove.
* Some factual information about the aim we have described
* An interview with an expert.
* Conclusions

The last thing to be discussed was the production name that we would us, ‘Blackout Productions’, this was chosen at random while looking at song titles by Muse.

We were struggling to come up with a title for the documentary. Suggestions included Imminent Death, Airborn, Single Cell, Outcome, Safe?, Infection, Breathe and Kyle’s favorite ‘Bad Spread’ (as in the spread of infection) ~~but it just sounds like a bad Swedish porn movie.~~ The original title I had for the drama was ‘Exposure’ and the documentary was ‘Exposing the truth’. As we couldn’t think of a better title, I think this one still stands.

We decided that the best thing to do would be to research the subjects that we had discussed over the weekend and get together on Sunday to regroup and discuss what we had found.

Christies Cancer Hospital

andyh1988 — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:59:03 +0000

To gather information on infections in hospitals I have contacted my sister dawn who works in Christies cancer hospital in Manchester. Hopefully she will be able to find out information for us. She mentioned that in Christies there is a department called ‘Infection Control’ so this could be a place to find information.

This is the email that I sent to my sister

hey!!!  i need you help with a film video that we have to make, i dont know whether you can help us or not.  We have to come up with an idea for a 3 min documentary for film tech, my idea was based around hospitals and infections, exploring what preventions can be taken to ensure that infections wouldnt spread! As a group we had to come up with 3 ideas and the lecturers would pick one. I honestly dint think mine would be picked as Kyle and Louisa had stronger ideas, but the lecturers thought it would be interesting to see a student perspective documentary of a topic thats in the news today, so they picked my idea.


1) what i was wondering is if you could get any information for me on, infection prevention, protocols (hand wash etc) problems that christies deal with (isolation units and why this is critical) i dont know if there are leaflets on this sort of thing or not. Even leaflets on cancer would be alot of help.
 2) depending on the information in the next weeks we can collect we will may need an interview (on camera) with someone so i dont know whether there is anyone who would be willing to answer some questions. if not on camera just to talk to us about it, so we can gather research but on camera would be preferable as it could be used in the final video.
The main idea is not to expose any problems in the NHS or anything daft like that, there is no agender like that, just to document what sort of problems of hospitals have to deal with and how they prevent infections.
If all you can get is some research that would be great, we are looking in to the Staffs hospital aswell, but thought you may be able to help in some way. You know more about this sort of thing than me lol
If you want to skype me about this later i'll be around about 7ish (the time we normally skype)

if you cant help with anything dont worry about it, we are only just starting to gather info, making inquiries and stuff, and i thought of you first.  
Thanks alot rew x

Hopefully later in the week we can get together and brain storm some ideas to get the project underway.

Nerve Racking Pitch

andyh1988 — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:55:57 +0000

We had to pitch our ideas today. We were the very first group of the day to pitch ideas which was nerve racking but was good to get it over with and not have to worry about it. But now that my virus/infection idea has been chosen, the slow realisation that we only have 5 weeks in which to do the documentary is a bit daunting.

We agree with the lecturers that the drama will need work on it.

Group Idea Session

andyh1988 — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:54:15 +0000

We all got together in my bedroom for a chat earlier on this evening to discuss and develop all of our pitches and to thrash out some ideas. Personally this was really helpful as we all had our own opinions on each others pitches and if we could persuade each other of our individual pitches, we would then be set for Monday’s session.

It was good to socialise a little bit with each other and it became apparent to me that we have a really good group as we all developed each others ideas and I hope that this enthusiasm would continue after the pitching. I think we have 3 really strong ideas and its going to be hard to pick one out of the three pitches. We shall have to see tomorrow.

Chicken Wang

andyh1988 — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:29:35 +0000

Kyle and I(Andy) were discussing pitching ideas over a bowl of chicken wings this lunch time. We just chatted vaguely about the project as a whole and some ideas that we were working on. At this stage we don’t really have any concrete ideas but were just thinking in terms of documentaries we had seen and our thoughts about the task ahead.

Welcome to Blackout Production

MeKyle — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:02:49 +0000

Blackout Productions is a First Year Student Group studying at Staffordshire University. The group consists of three members; Andy Hargreves, Louisa Rowley and Kyle Welsby.

As part of our assignment we are required to setup a blog and post entries daily about our 3 minuet documentary and drama films.

From ideas to experiments, discussions and meetings all things to do with Blackout Productions will be posted here.

I finally figured out how Andy’s idea go chosen, He is the true devil and here is the proof. Still it was a great idea asides the dark lord.