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Thursday, 6 November 2008

Representations Documentary Shoots

For all of you shooting Friday and over the weekend for your documentary essays on the representation of Young Black males in the Media please take note of the following.

  1. Safety while filming: make a risk assessment for what you will be filming where and when. It is extremely important to keep yourself safe at all times during the filming process especially near roads, in potentially risky public places where you might encounter trouble of one kind or another. If you assess before you go and set some rules to follow and use common sense you will not go far wrong. However, you do become more visible when you are filming and you should therefore be aware that people are more likely to take notice of you.
  2. Schedule: have a clear schedule of what and who you are going to film and where and when. Be disciplined about keeping to time and NOT keeping people waiting. Be professional in your approach and it will have apositive response from those you interview or those from whom you want favours.
  3. Planning: have you questions planned in advance and know what you want to achieve. Have reseources made before-hand if you need them and don't just trust to luck. Good planning can sometimes 'make' good luck.
  4. Technical: wherever possible plug into the mains power (though ask first). Be mean with the tape you use. Rehearse a little even for interviews so that the interviewee becomes relaxed. Use the tripod. Try to make sure the subject is lit appropriately: either just to show their face clearly, or for effect. Think about other images you might like to use to illustrate their interviews. Talking heads on their own are not wildly interesting.
  5. Remember this is a visual essay and you should be trying to show your understanding of the issues involved in representations of Youn Black Men. Use theorists. Apply SHEP. USe other media texts from Web, papers, TV etc.
For those not hear on Tuesday (Hanza and Callum) all this will seem very strange. Hanza you should get in contact with Jessica and Kylie and help them. Callum please contact Anam and Sanjay as you should work with them.

Our expectations are high but do keep some sense of proportion too.

Finally, we need to schedule editing time which will most likely be Thursday evenings starting next week.

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