Filming the world, me, the other
Project outline
Each year the British Film Institute (BFI) run a 'Film Making' competition/assignment in conjunction with Le Cinema, Cent Ans De Jeunesse. This has been ongoing for some years now and is aimed at encouraging students to learn about film, both practical and theoretical.
The project runs for an academic year and usually starts off with some short tasks so as to introduce the main theme and then students work towards creating a piece of film which is showcased at a major cinema in London where there are prizes and awards etc. You can see the kind of structure to the programme via the link to the Padlet above...
This year the theme is all about documentary film and exploring how we see ourselves and others in different contexts and situations.
The Garden
The concept for our film is to focus our documentation on a garden; the school garden, at LPGS. The garden and the activity of gardening have community connections, a sense of well-being, consideration of nature, environment and ecology. There is so much to gain from making a documentary about people, us, the students, their parents, their grandparents, all sharing their knowledge, experiences and sensory responses to the theme of the garden and the activity of gardening.
During the project students will cover a number of skills/areas such as:
- researching about types of plants, animals, insects and their habitats
- planning and designing the garden
- how to film and record the development of the garden over time and at different stages
- story boarding
- script writing
- sound recording
- how to interview and film people such as parents, grandparents talking about gardens and the value of gardening
- how to edit film and sound together to create a documentary
The Garden - Lesson 1 - Part A - (30 mins)
An Introduction to Film Making & the Genre of Documentary
What is a documentary?
A documentary film is a non-fictional film or TV programme which 'documents reality'.
The very first films by the Lumiere Brothers were called 'actualities', little documentaries that observed every day life.
John Grierson
Scottish documentary maker, John Grierson is sometimes called the 'founder' of documentary making. He described documentaries as a 'creative interpretation of reality'.
So documentaries claim to represent ‘real life’, yet at the same time they use the language of storytelling, with characters and clearly constructed narratives.
The question of how reality can ever be fully ‘observed’ is controversial and can at best, only be understood as a creative expression, representation or portrayal of ‘real life’.
In fact, even the Lumiere Brothers took creative licence with their 'actualities'.
The Lumiere Brothers
On 11 July 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrated their film technology, the cinématographe, to scientists. The cinématographe was an all-in-one motion picture film camera, a film developer and a projector. Their first film was 'Sortie de l'Usine Lumière de Lyon' (Leaving the Lumiere Factory in Lyon) which is often cited as the first real motion picture ever made although this is disputed.
The Garden - Lesson 1 - Part B - (60 mins)
An Introduction to Plants, Insects, Animal and Habitats
What can we find in The Garden?
1. Activity: what wildlife lives in our garden? Can you think of any plants or animals? Ideas on whiteboards...
2. From the ideas, talk about some examples (VP to lead):
• Frogs
• Trees
• Birds
• Bugs
3. Habitats: show picture and short discussion on what makes a good (or bad) habitat
4. Head outside with clipboards, scavenger hunt sheets and ID swatches
What wildlife lives in our garden? Can you think of any plants or animals?
What is a habitat? What makes a good habitat?
Scavenger hunt: what can you find in our garden?
The Garden - Lesson 2 - (90 mins)
How to use a Camera for making Documentaries
The Garden - Lesson 3 - (90 mins)
Sound Recording and Interview Techniques
THE GARDEN - LESSON 3: SOUND RECORDING
OBJECTIVE: learn how to use and experiment with different sound recording equipment to gather recordings of sounds in The Garden and of interviews with people talking about The Garden, gardening and environment etc.
AMBIENT SOUNDS/SOUNDSCAPES – working in The Garden we will use a boom pole, mic and audio recorder to capture the sounds of The Garden – animal/bird noises – the wind – people talking while gardening – sounds of traffic – people walking by the school – children playing across the road in the primary school etc.
PODCASTING ROOM – in the podcasting room you will learn to interview some of the LPGS students who are part of the Eco Club and work on The Garden – you will ask questions such as:
Why is the Eco club important to you?
What do you hope the Eco Club can achieve in The Garden?
What are the well-being factors of gardening and working outside?
What things are you hoping to grow in The Garden and why?
How can you inspire others to get involved in gardening and The Garden?
How would you like to see The Garden develop?
Try to ask open questions that require longer answers.
We will also record some of the Eco Club members read out their statement of intent.
MEDIA STUDIO – you will interview parents/grandparents - we will film the interview and make a sound recording of the interview/s – you will ask them questions such as:
When did you first start gardening – how old were you?
Why do you garden – what are the benefits for you?
Do you have your own garden and or allotment?
What to you grow and why?
How would you encourage others to take up gardening and why?
Try to ask open questions that require longer answers.
All of these sound recordings will be used with our film clips from last week to help make a short, edited piece of film in the final lesson next week.
The Garden - Lesson 4 - (90 mins)
How to Edit Film & Sound
In the final session we will use Adobe Rush which is a piece of editing software. We will use this to edit together our final sections of film towards the final outcome. In addtion to editing the bits of film we took in session two of the project we will also use some of the sound recrodings and interviews we made in session 3...
The Final Film
The final film was shown at the Cine Lumiere in Soth Kensignton, London, together with many other schools involved over the year in the project. All students involved in the project made a trip to the cinema to see all the work and they were invited onto the stage to talk about their work and experience.