My MA is now done, dusted and handed in (in fact it has been for over a month).
Coming soon will be a link to my completed documentary – I hope you all like it.
First of all though, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped me through the whole process – I would not have completed it without your support.
Thanks
Mary
Today, I will be finished!!! Which scares me a lot. But as you can see… there’s not much more to go! 
So very nearly there
Ok. Spent an entire day in Avid today scripting and cutting sequences and I think I have a better idea of which shots I still need. I have also come to the conclusion that I am going to, if I am true to my genre, have to appear on camera at some point.
Seeing as how I’ve already been to all the fesitvals I think I am going to use a BBC trick of picking a location to shoot all the pieces to camera and keeping it the same all the way through. For my location I choose a non-descript field or a woodland (click to see why) because that’ll enable me to use my Mum/Dad/Sister as ‘crew’.
Also I have come up with a great idea for my Invisible festival sequence, as well as the cyber shots I am going to plant my computer in various places where such ‘festivals’ could have happened – patio/ lounge/ conservatory/ bedroom etc. and use them as cuttaways – no people because it’s invisible obviously! Don’t know if that’ll work - it might look ridiculous, but doesn’t hurt to try!
Anyways, I have edited together a very quick 16 seconds – I have done much more than this today, but nothing that I can actually show as a sequence.
Script beforehand is talking about diesel generators and then I say ‘But now, there’s a new kid on the block!’ And cue…
Ignore the video, watch the first 10 seconds and you’ll have an exact description of how I feel vis-a-vis this project right now.
So where has this panic come from? Well, scripting. Up until now the longest package I have put together has been 2.30mins! We have never had to do a documentary and I honestly have had NO idea just how long 15 mins is.
There I was thinking this is fine, I’ll just script and get a plan and then just cut the images together . (I have nearly 6 hours of footage). And the job’s a good-un.
Oh no! 1st off, I realised I didn’t have enough different shots and I didn’t have any shots of mud (even though we were ankle deep in it at Chagstock) and I didn’t have this or that… so I have had to go completely back to the drawing board – and I’m still on the hunt for some mud!
I can totally pinpoint where I went wrong (although that doesn’t help at all). It was the BGG’s cancellation. When I was at Chagstock I didn’t get certain shots because I thought (mistakenly) it’s ok.. I’ll get BETTER shots at the BGG. But now I’m screwed, and it’s due in in a month.
But, always a fighter and never one to give up, I’m chasing other avenues in the vain hope it’ll all turn out better than before in the end. All I can say is, I won’t have any trouble filling the 5000 word limit of my contextual review!
But finally, some good news.
I have re-edited the opening sequence, added some shots from the Countryfile programme which inspired me to take up this project and moved some stuff around. (Which, since I’m creating this for a hypothetical BBC3 audience I would have been able to use)
I want to replace those wellies with my own shot… which is why I’m looking for the mud. And yes, I’ll be making sure the shots don’t wobble that much!
So enjoy.
Only 13 more minutes to fill. (Feel free to replay those first 5 seconds of video 1)
So much has happened since I last blogged. And I just want to thank everyone who gave me ideas, suggested new ways of looking at the issue and commented on what I have already produced.
A final plan has been drawn up and I am now very much heading on the final straight (ish).
So to catch up. I have returned to my original idea, albeit with some alterations. I have also finished filming – except for a couple of interviews that I still have to do in due course. And finally… I have edited together the complete opening of my documentary.
I wanted to have a pre-title sequence showing which I dubbed the ‘oh what a mess’ sequence. In my head it would show all the mess left after a festival and over the top I would overlay headlines from the various news articles which have covered the issue. But when I came to edit it down, the headlines covering the screen looked really messy and distracted from what the images were showing and also I felt that by talking about the rubbish and showing it at the same smacked a bit of ‘Lord Privy Seal’!
So, what have I done instead?
Well I don’t want to pre-empt the video but I feel a couple of things need to be explained. In order to entice the audience to keep watching I have tried to evoke the festival feel from the very start of the piece.
I have also used extracts of the Radio 4 documentary ‘Costing the Earth’ in this first sequence. I had hoped that this would raise the issue without me having to explicitly explain it and by using it alongside pictures of people having fun at festivals, I had hoped to denote that even though you, as a festival goer, are only one person in a field having fun, there is this whole bigger environmental picture which needs to be addressed.
The script is still in it’s draft stages, it is most likely going to change – and of course it’ll need to be recorded using proper microphones and not the internal mic of my Shiny.
But anyway, enjoy.
The internet can either be a God-send or a complete pain in the ****.
I have been sitting here for approximately 3 and a half hours looking for a person who I know exists, who was mentionned in an article which I know was written and who objected to a planning application which I can’t access because the Cornwall Council site has got it’s knickers in a twist.
Ok, from this rant you may have gathered that for the moment I have changed to Plan B – although I will be happy to ditch it all if another festival comes through for me. Yes, even though this is an ‘excellent’ story, it’s not my story, it’s not the story I fell in love with and wish to tell.
But with claims of political interference at the highest level and also that threat of a high court injunction, it seems too good a story not to at least research further. Besides, as I said, I am going to Cheddar at the weekend anyway!
But my angle still has to be finalised, as does the exact reason why the festival was cancelled. I think this blog post best sums up the information that is currently in the public domain, but I’m still hankering after the official line…
Now, with this decision comes a whole evening of work – I need an angle, people to appear in the documentary and also some sort of plan of attack.
Lets just hope I get to use the opening sequence… it would be such a shame to have to ditch it.
Ever had that feeling that you are cursed?
First of all there was the whole Beach Break saga – will it, won’t it and then the eventual upheaval to the other side of the country, now it looks like history is repeating itself with yet more disasterous effects. The Big Green Gathering has been cancelled.
Dear Friends, following threatened injunction proceedings in High Court by Mendip District Council supported by Somerset & Avon Police and having taken extensive advice from a prominent QC and other eminent lawyers, the directors of the Big Green Gathering have been left with no other option than to voluntarily surrender the license for the Big Green Gathering 2009. The event will now not take place and the directors’ advice and request is that no one intending to attend the event should attempt to do so, as the site is now closed and they are likely to be turned away by Somerset Police. It is our intention to avoid any form of confrontation or public disorder in regard to this and it is our earnest hope that all those involved will follow this advice. It is with great sadness that we have been forced into this position and we express our profound apologies to all those concerned. The Directors of The Big Green Gathering
At the moment I don’t know the back story – in fact I hadn’t heard anything was wrong until about 5pm on Saturday when I got a message via Facebook. I will, of course, be contacting Mendip Council to find out the newest details.
With regards my project this is bad news! I had relied on the Big Green Gathering for the majority of my ‘greening’ – I was due to interview the 3 Daft Monkeys, the guys from Firefly Solar (solar generated stages), the organisers at the festival, and there were also the solar showers, horse and cart transport and the Big Red Bus to take into account. Of course I can still mention all of this, but since I won’t have footage I will need to have a rethink about how my documentary will continue.
Plan A
Continue along the same lines and just find a replacement festival.
Whilst I won’t have the awesome pictures that the Big Green Gathering offered, there are other festivals which are implementing green initiatives – that’s the whole premise of my argument.
I have actually had my eye on The Belladrum festival for a while now, although it’s not obvious from their website that they have eco-ideas in action. It was this blog post, which initially caught my eye. Even better, the 3 Daft Monkeys are also performing – so there may still be a chance that I’ll get that interview!
But occasionally practicality has to win out. The festival is in Inverness, which is a long way – even for me. So as much as it pains me to say it, it’s not really an option.
There are other, more practical options though. Other alternatives include:
Plan B
OK this is the second time that a festival I had planned to go to has been disrupted in some way due to their local council and so I could turn my project around and focus on what happens why festival plans go awry. This would mean a change in tack but I would still be able to use a lot of my interviews that I already have – and I could organise follow up interviews with some of those from Devon/Cornwall who had planned to go to the Big Green Gathering. To add to this the Stokes Bay festival also had a licencing scare at around the same time as the BBL saga – so that could be a nice mention as well.
I do actually have to go to Cheddar next weekend, so I might take a camera to get some shots of where the festival should have been held, even if I don’t go down this line.
Ultimately though I want to stick with my original BBC3 audience – it’s an underrated audience in terms of factual (documentary) TV and it is the channel which seems to attract those who actually go to festivals.
And yes (with reference to my opening sequence) – I would class Seth Lakeman as BBC3 friendly 
They say that in Avid no-one can hear you scream – which actually might be a good thing given the sound quality I came back with from Chagstock…
Nonetheless I am persevering and I have come up with a rough edit of the sequence I like to call ‘Field to Festival.’ In my head it will fit in just after an opening sequence which goes along the lines – ‘We’ve all seen the mess left after a festival – discarded tents, ploughed up fields and a mound of rubbish… What seemed like an eco-weekend has turned into an environmental nightmare. But this year – festivals are fighting back!’ I hope to use a mixture of my own shots and a montage of news clips for this opening sequence which’ll set out the context of the documentary.
Then we have this sequence which’ll also serve to be the credits – if and when I ever think of a name!
I’ve tried to use a variety of different shots, although I haven’t finished my filming yet so I might swap some around. Again, in my head I wanted to show a field turning into a festival from both the production p.o.v and also the from the punters’ perspective. To this end I’ve interspliced the two, hopefully mirroring actions where appropriate. Most of these shots came from the Beach Break festival, although some of them are from Chagstock.
Since I am creating this documentary for a BBC3 audience I have tried to use a variety of quick cuts and interesting angles. I also have no voice-over for this particular segment – I don’t think it would add anything, the pictures basically tell the story. Also, since I am creating this documentary for a younger audience I don’t want to overload them with too much talking – have to think about their attention span. :p
One more thing. Over the last couple of weeks I have had great fun filming, but I have had trouble keeping focussed. There is so much happening at festivals, its impossible to cover everything. Also, I have had to keep reminding myself that this documentary is only 15 mins! To this end I have come up with 3 different ‘topics’ to pursue over the course of my project – rubbish (what’s happening and why is it necessary?), transport (seeing as getting to these places is the worst offender in the environmental stakes) and use of water/ toilets (sorry, but what is the one complaint with festivals – those portaloos. Plus they have some awesome alternatives at the Big Green Gathering which I can mention.)
I can, and will, mention other stuff but I’ve had problems securing some interviews and so, hopefully these areas will keep me focussed and also help me create an audiovisual masterpiece.
Finally! I’ve used the violin introduction to Seth Lakeman’s ‘Lady of the Sea’ for the backing track. (Although at the moment it is badly edited together). I chose this track way before I started filming because the live version – which this is – has such a strong beat which drives everything forward. Also, being ‘folk’ it’s a organic genre, which I hope will conjur up images of fields and countryside and pastoral Britain… Finally, he headlined – although this track isn’t taken from Chagstock (sound issues – stood too close to the speaker **rolls eyes**). Also, he’s been a fixture on the festival scene for the last couple of years…
So here goes… From field to festival!
I will of course be editing out that empty field – just needed a stopgap!
2 festivals down, 1 to go…
With the deadline beginning to loom I have now got to knuckle down and start sorting out my project in my head – which unfortunately will mean several hours in Avid logging all my shots. (I have so far got about 4hours worth of footage and I’ve not been to the Big Green Gathering yet!)
At this point I have to admit that I did have a major panic at Chagstock this past weekend.. Since it was quite a small festival I did get some wonderful shots of the artists doing their thing from quite close up. (Really very close up to Seth Lakeman on Friday night!) But whilst this is all well and good it’s not entirely relevant – I really need to crack on and find stuff that’s green.
To this end I have now organised a meeting with Firefly Solar who will be providing generators and a PA system for the Big Green Gathering. They are one of the leaders in solar stages in the UK, so I hope this will be something concrete that I can film and show the developments in the field (no pun intended).
At Chagstock they kept the rubbish under control by getting a team from Proper Job in to help recycle it all. But they apparently hand sort it all (!) which meant that unlike Beachbreak, where they had seperate bins, it didn’t look like they were doing much at all. But I am in the process of organising an interview with them as well to try and get another angle on the whole rubbish issue….
But of course rubbish is only one side of the problem, the carbon emissions from the vehicles are a whole other story and unfortunately much harder to show on TV. I have sent an email off to the Big Green Coach who organise coach travel to some of the biggest UK festivals. It would be awesome to talk to these guys about how they are trying to help the music industry cut down on their emissions, but as of yet I haven’t got anything sorted.
It was a question that I asked Celia when I interviewed her at Beach Break Live, and she said that with the move to Kent, they had had more people drive to the event than in previous years. Nonetheless I found some people who had come by bus or by train, so some people are obviously still thinking green.
I am also having some problems tracking down dates for my main interviewees – but I won’t bore you with all the details.
I’ve had my panic and now I’m going to sit down and set some dates in stone, try and get my thoughts down on paper in a storyboard form, and also consider a basic script.
I will also honestly try to get some of my footage on to youtube in a bit – there are some issues about copyright, but I’ll do as much as I can.
Around 750 miles later (eek), and I’m back.
The Beach Break site at Port Lympne looks absolutely amazing, you really can’t tell that they only had 5 days notice, and it would seem that both sudents and artists are having a good time in the Kentish sun (for unlike Cornwall, it IS sunny over there.)
On the ‘green’ front I am in complete awe for the organisers. I used to work behind the bar at a major festival and I remember that when walking back to my tent at the end of the night, you walked on more cups than grass. Of course there was some rubbish around the site, but no way near the extent to which I was expecting.
Ok, the rubbish left over is only one part of the story – there is also the matter of the carbon emitted by those actually getting to the festival (myself included). Talking to organiser, Celia, she admitted with the sudden change of location the usual coach travel broke down slightly, but they have tried as hard as possible to keep the festival as green in Kent as it would have been in Cornwall. I also talked to Eddy Hill who runs the animal park at Port Lympne, she was instrumental in bringing the festival to Kent and said that the environmental plan provided was crucial to her approval.
So all in all a good time had by all. Photos and videos coming soon!
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