Week Beginning 11th May

Monday kicked off with a tutorial with Richard. I'm working on two ideas at the moment, and am quite fond of both of them. I'm finding the development process very useful. It seems that I am far more likely to come up with something good if I am tweaking and twisting an idea that already has promise than if I am trying to break up new ground with a completely new premise.

Monday lunchtime was supposed to be a shoot for Dust. As it turned out, we had to cancel due to a major lack of communication between the team. I have decided to try being the point of contact for everyone: cast and crew. Previously, we had Phil, as Producer, talking to the crew, while I, as Director, talked to the cast. But I don't think that is a good solution.

Monday afternoon was our class with Kim, looking at Storylines and how they would fit togehter in an episode. I think we had a little problem in only having three storylines. Some episodes would have next to no plot. With a fourth or even fifth story ongoing, we would have been able to keep each episode engaging.

Tuesday was a short Technical class with Ray. Not much happened, but I found some old tapes from Sound classes lying around in Paul's locker and started taking some of the edited highlights into Final Cut. Our class are rather odd!

Wednesday was a location recce for Dust, followed by a hectic shoot in the Cafe Bar and the Fyfe lecture theatre. It was rather crazy towards the end, and I haven't had a chance to review the footage since, but it all looked rather nice on the monitor.

This was followed by a screening of Bonnie and Clyde. I'll try to get some thoughts up on my other blog when I get a moment.

Thursday was a Mobile and Web class, where we pitches our ideas, as they are so far. I am developing an idea I originally had for a short film before I started this course, and which I think tranfers rather nicely into an interactive series.

Friday was a talk from John Yorke. I think I was mildly in awe of the rank he had reached in the BBC hierarchy, and also being utterly exhausted after working till midnight the night before, I found it difficult sometimes to follow the intricacies of his psychological illustrations. But I certainly got the gist, and found it all very engaging.
I had to rush off at the end for a two hour Maths tutorial with an Advanced Higher student.
Then Friday afternoon was a tutorial with Abigail, which was short and sweet. However I then heard that our shoot for Dust, scheduled for that evening, had to be cancelled due to a mix up with the kit booking.

I think the problem with scheduling Dust was that we had originally planned for the following week, but then we heard that the kit would be unavailable then. We had to then pull the whole thing forward and we weren't properly perpared when we were going into production. We now have two weeks off for planning, and we need it all, certainly with all the extra things that are coming up.

Saturday was our first day at the BBC - a fascinating day indeed, even if the Vision job seems for us to be either to be a case of sitting around drinking tea blethering with the professionals, or else watching them rushing around like headless chickens for a moment or two trying to sort something.