Monday, February 26, 2007
Progress Report 3
Sonia
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Kunal Progress Report 4
During the holiday, our whole group went on a MISSION to Pimlico and we went to film our interview with an expert who was a representative from CEOP. The interview was perfect, we received all of the information which we wanted and we managed to get an excellent background in the shot with different images and posters which are 100% relevant to our topic which makes it even better!!
We managed to get some stills of their offices and their working environment, as well as their facilities and equipment which CEOP use catch paedophiles by accessing their computers and viewing images of victims etc. we also managed to get shots of their reception desks and we saw their ‘2 toned tiles’ which were pretty impressive. It was really interesting and the people there were very helpful and kind and welcomed us back with more students as well!!
On our way home we stopped at different stops and looked around for internet cafes and filmed from outside and we recorded people walking in and out and walking passed them including a few girls from Greenford….
Kunal
Kunal Progress Report 3
During the holiday we aim to finish off all of our filming and sort out all of the music which will be played the background and sort out the voice over.
Kunal
Saturday, February 24, 2007
CEOPPPPP
CEOP
I put a post up a while ago about CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) and thought it was a long shot to try and get them in our doc… but I emailed them any way… and yes…. WE GOT THEM!
My letter:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a student at Greenford high school and am really interested in some of the work that the CEOP has done and is working to achieve. I feel really strongly about child sex abuse which i feel has become a greater issue due to the increasing popularity and misconduct of social networking sites such as 'hi5' and 'My space'. As a result of this, i am producing a documentary for my media studies practical production called 'Dot Com' which aims to educate and inform teenagers (primarily teenage girls) on the dangers of these sites as well as make a secondary audience of parents more aware of the threats that their children face.
I hope to create a very strong message with my documentary to many teenagers and would really appreciate your help. I would like to arrange a short interview with a representative from CEOP who specialises in the safety of children online.
I appreciate the fact that the CEOP are a large corporation and may not have the time to agree to my request but still strongly believe that your help would be an extremely influential and positive tool in the ‘Dot com’ documentary as well as the lives of the many teenagers which will eventually view it.
I hope you are able to consider my request and hope to hear from you soon.
- Rohini Bali
Reply :
Apologies for the delay.
We're a bit short staffed at the moment and aren't always in the office.
When and how were you hoping to do the interview.
If you are wanting to do something face to face it would have to be here at the CEOP Centre.
Please let me know when you're free and i'll try and arrange something for you this end.
Thanks and regards
Sarah
A few emails later we arranged to meet at after 11 on Thursday. So our whole group travelled to Pimlico. The place was really niceeee! Met Sarah Shakespeare (the lady that I emailed) who gave us a tour around the building which was interesting as she pointed out all the different departments which gave us a greater insight into how CEOP really works. Sarah was so so so so so so sooo helpful as she tried giving us ideas and looked around for good backdrops to use. The actual interview that we conducted was with another very nice lady called Helen. She was really sweet and also gave us loads of help. Sarah also gave us a copy of their corporate add that she says we could use in our documentary and Helen told us a little about the work experience that they offer! Both Sarah and Helen were really patient and nice people so our group would just like to say a big thankyou to them for their help.
Sarah and Helen were also interested in inviting some GHS students to CEOP for a presentation and to watch a few CEOP vids.
Rohini
Progress Report (4) - Rohini
Progress Report (4)
- This week Sonia and I completed the log sheets for our tapes. I think the time thing was a little dodgy so I’m not sure if its all right. Was pretty good watching stuff over on Sonia’s massiveeeeee tv lol.
- Earlier on in the day our group went to Pimlico to film the interview that i organised with a CEOP representative. Went really well!... exactly what we wanted. We tried to think carefully about positioning of shots etc being careful to include their campaign posters (think you know) which will also be featuring in our doc.
- Also got some shots of their office, the computer analysing room where they analyse computers that have been confiscated from Paedophiles. Got some shots of the main reception area… the CEOP sign and some good looking information boards. Also took a shot of the outside of the building. Had to stand on an island in the middle of the road to get the shot :|
- As we were on the tube anyway we went to different stops and got good shots of internet Cafes. i thought of postitioning the camera really low to make it look like it was just lying there (sort of fly on the wall style - almost :S) . We let the camera run for a while as people walked past so that we can fast forward those shots later on (appealing to the TA).
Friday, February 23, 2007
Progress Report (3) - Rohini
Progress Report 3 :
Next week we plan to…
Finish all filming and organise structure, voiceover etc
RohiniTuesday, February 20, 2007
Progress Report for week beginning 12th Feb:
Although we had a lot of footage last week, we couldn’t get as much done this time. On Wednesday, we decided to add to our vox pops of teenagers and make the most out of the school grounds that we could, as we won’t be able to use it in the holidays. This time, we only interviewed female teenagers as we though that because they are our target audience, most of the vox pops should be of them. Therefore, again we had the same problem as last week: we couldn’t find any females to film, but eventualy we managed to get a good amount done. Also we filmed students in their uniform by taking a few out of their lessons. We also tried to keep changing the setting of the shots without losing its impression of being a school. Our settings included: the 6th form computer room, the graffiti wall, the huts and the main school building. Filming went as planned as we managed to film the last group of people that remained to be filmed for the vox pops. For next week, we plan to completely finish filming, choose and write our voiceover script and find the songs that will be played in the backgound.
SoNia
Monday, February 19, 2007
Test Screening Feedback
Media Language: C
Conventions: B
Creativity: B
Attention to detail: C
Technical Proficiency: C
Positive Comments:
Cinematography
~ Always has steady shots
~ Good shots of people being interviewed
Mise-en-scene
~ Each scene has a different background
~ Good settings
Lighting
~ Good bright lighting-easy to see everything
~ Good lighting
Sound
~ Easy to understand what the interviewees were saying
~ Microphone was used well easy to understand everything
Conventions/matching audience?
~ Shows typical documentary conventions e.g. rule of thirds used in interviews
Miscellaneous
Constructive Criticism:
Cinematography
~ Need to use a tripod on the computer screen scenes
~ (same as above)
Mise-en-scene
Lighting
~ Some shots have too much lighting-glare on people’s faces
~ (same as above)
Sound
~ Too much outer noise e.g. cars
~ Microphone needs to be far from the person speaking
Conventions/matching audience?
~ Interview more teenage people
Suggestions and ideas:
What else would you (or the target audience) like to see in this production? (scenes? sequences?)
~The montage should have some the logos of the sites Hi5 My Space etc flashing up one after the other
~ More interviews of teenagers as they are the ones that use these sites the most and are the target audience.
Suggestions for post-production/editing (music? voiceover? cutaways? montage? cross cutting? titles? slo-mo?)
~ Include some up to date music in the background to catch the audience’s attention~ Have a voiceover when showing the montage or the interviews
Sonia
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Blog Comments
- What do you particularly like about it? What's especially impressive?
- What could be improved? What's missing or could be added?
- What other things could we include in the production?
- How should we go about filming any remaining scenes or editing the footage during post-production (+ suggestions for music, etc.)?
Progress Report - Kunal
For the week starting the 5th February, we done the following in terms of filming:
On Wednesday the 7th we completed our vox pops by filming students in the school, on Thursday the 8th after school we interviewed our expert who was the school policeman and on Saturday the 10th Rohini and Sonia filmed the opening scene montage at sonia's house WITH the tripod!
On Wednesday we finished off our vox pops by filming students in the six form and a few students from the high school. One of the main things we noticed was that the girls did not want to be interviewed (probably because they were shy) and the boys were up for it. therefore we had soo many boys and not alot of girls due to them being SHY. however it all went good and i jus wanna thank every1 who helpedd! we used a low angle shot whilst interviewing the tudents to make it look like they know what they are doing when really they have no idea. there was alot of noise in the background throughout the interviews and people kept on laughing in the background therefore it took alottt of time to finish our vox pops becasue we had to tell people to shut up so many times and we ended up not letting people into the room. We all shared the responsibilities and all participated in the filming in terms of interviewing the people and holding the mic and camera. We filmed students in the school but it was very noisy and was pretty hard because we had little immature children running around making noise so we did not get to do that much. however, after rohini and sonia went to lesson, me and nikki managed to do an interviews with some more school students in a more matured crowd. towards the end of the day we managed to fix an interview with the schools policeman PC Priece for thursday after school.
So on thursday after schoool we met with PC Priece and looked around the school for a suitable setting for the interview. We found Mr Bush's office which was a perfect setting as we easily made it look like an police mans office with a computer and his police jacket behind the chair in order to further emphasize his profession and status. we included the computer into the scene in order to make it look more professional and the shot looked really good. we used the tripod throughout the interview which was very annoying as we encountered a few problems with the positioning which got sorted out but wasted a little bit of time. the interview went really well and he was very helpful and patient and gave alot of good answers which will help us make our documentary more effective amongst the audience.
Rohini and Sonia then filmed the opening montage scene at Sonia's house on saturday and i didnt go because i guess sonia aint allowed to bring boys overr haha. But they used the tripod this time and finished it off. Overall we got a lot of work done this week and alot of footage which will help us when we begin editing.
By Da 1 N OnLy
***Kunal***
Progress Report-Sonia
Interviews with teenagers from school for our vox pops (Weds 7th).
An interview with our expert-the school’s policeman (Thurs 8th)
A re-shoot of our opening montage (Saturday 10th)
On Wednesday, Rohini showed us the research she had conducted and with this we were able to develop our ideas further and enhance the type of shots we will be taking in order to make the documentary more interesting. We then began interviewing our teenagers-interviewing guys was pretty easy as they were all up for it but interviewing girls was quite hard as we found it very difficult to find some girls to shoot. In order to improve the quality of the some shots, we may have to find those people again and re-shoot the scenes. Although some were quite long, we still managed to get some really useful answers. However some of our interviewees used language we might not be able to put in our documentary unless they are beeped out! We have now shot our interviews with adults and teenagers therefore our vox- pops are complete as we can clearly demonstrate how differently teenagers react to the dangers of social networking sites compared to adults. We took the shots near computers and also near the graffiti wall in the school playground in order to show that these are all students. Throughout these interviews, the responsibilities of standing by the camera, holding the microphone and asking the questions were shared and swapped around in order to keep it fair. Although we had planned to interview more girls than boys due to the fact that our primary audience is teenage girls, we were unable to do so as not many girls were prepared to confront the camera so we may find time later to interview some more girls. On Wednesday, I also managed to fix a meeting with PC Priece (the school’s policeman) for Thursday after school so that we can interview him.
On Thursday, we met PC Priece after school and interviewed him about the dangers of social networking sites. We gained answers to questions such as: how can someone who is faking their identity online and is a paedophile be traced, what can be done to protect a child from this, what is the legal punishment for paedophilia, and if he has ever encountered such cases. We therefore will be able to inform and advice both our primary and secondary audience. We decided to film the interview in a room with a desk, a computer and a plain wall in order to give him a professional, sophisticated and trustable look. Additionally, we placed his fluorescent policeman coat on the back of his chair to reinforce his profession. We filmed the shot at an angle, following the rule of thirds in order to add to our documentary’s professionalism. As he was giving advice on how to protect yourself in these cases, we took a close up shot of the panic alarm in his hands and will edit it to fit with the time when he is talking about it. Overall, the filming went well but the STUPID TRIPOD really ANNOYED us, as it seemed as if our camera was bent when we were filming and because we had a small amount of time to use the room it really delayed the interview.
On Saturday, Rohini and I refilmed the opening montage at my house due to the fact that we did not use the tripod the first time round. The montage consisted of various shots of You Tube, Hi5, and My Space. We also took a few shots of the logos of different social networking sites including, Facebook, Wayn, Bebo, Hi5, MSN, and Bebo. These along with the shots of a search bar and the keyboard that we took earlier on will also be placed in the montage. The song that these shots will correspond to is Slash Dot Com. When filming the songs on You Tube, we picked songs of different genres and ethnicities such as R’n’B, Hip pop and garage in order to show what sort of things teens watch on You Tube and that we are targeting all ethnicities. We also filmed the Hi5 and My Space accounts of both boys and girls in order to show what type of pictures both sexes put on the Internet. Both Rohini and I did filming. The problem we faced throughout was avoiding the rim of the computer screen from showing. Also, because my computer screen is quite big, the text on people’s Hi5 and My Space accounts did not show very clearly, but this will not be a problem as each shot will only last for a second when edited.
SoNiA
Progress Report (2) - Rohini
What we have achieved this week... On wednesday (7th), Kunal, Nikki, Sonia and i filmed some more vox pops but this time used students. we filmed in the six form computer rooms so that we would have the right background (each shot was thought about in detail). we used a SLIGHTLY low angle shot during the interviews to show how the respondents felt powerful and in control in a situation in which they were most vulnerable. It wasn't ideal to film in their as we seemed to have generated a small audience. Everytime someone said something slightlyyyy funny eveyone would laugh! i must have told people to shutup like 100 times but they just didnt get it! Although, the people who did take part were really helpfull...so... thankyou!. We also seemed to film a lot more boys than we did girls ... i think this was because most girls we asked were a bit shy. so we are hoping to do some more shoots when it is a little more quiet! We also did some shooting with some of the younger years but didn't get very far because time was running out and we had a lack of co-operation. People were just messing about tooooo much. i know this is reallyyy moany but it was realy frustrating!. arghh!. so to solve that problem (and the level of noise) we will try and film during less time and try to get permission to take some students out of their lesson for a short while. PC PRIES Thursday after school Sonia, Kunal and i filmed an interview with Pc Pries. Nikki was unable to make it and had the camera so we had to borrow someone elses. we were stuck for a place to film and spent about 1o minutes trying to find somewhere. i managed to get Mr Bush's office (Mr Cramer's old one) which was an ideallll setting. Nice office sir! the interview went well and PC pries was really nice and co-operative. Sonia nearly went deaf when he set off his alarm and we had some trouble with the level of our tripod but other than that everything was okay. Filming on Saturday. On saturday i went to Sonia's house and we both re-filmed the opening montage sequence, this time using a tripod so its more steady!. We filmed lots of different social networking sites and also took on Mr Bush's idea of getting a load of logos like youtube, myspace etc. It took quite a long time but we got it done so thats all that matters really!. Oh yh... Sonia made me some yummy chips!
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
NCH
I did some more research and found out about a childrens charity called NCH. One of the things that they do is specialise in child safety on the internet.
so i rang up there media press line and tried to arrange an interview with an internet safety expert. i couldnt get through to the main media helpline so i rang the after hours one. i forgot to take the name of the lady who answerd my call (silly me) but she was really helpful and told me to call the other number in the morning and ask for John Carr.
i reallyyyyy hope this works out...
Will post up when i hear more..
- Rohini
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Information
One of the main things that the CEOP make availiable is a list of some of the UK's most wanted missing child sex offenders who are named and shamed. (Possibly include this in our doc?)
Have a look at the corporate film that they have made here.
As well as this other advert made by them which is similar here
It has got some really useful scenes and ideas that we could use in our production. For example, showing a closeup of a person's glasses making them look like a peadophile without having any identity issues ( have a look so you know what im on about).
Also the turning of the web cam is a good idea along with the uses of blurs and pans.
If you want to know any more feel free to look at the main web page for CEOP by clicking here
Please give me some feedback on this research and let me know your ideas about what we could use in our doc.
I'd really like to get hold of someone from CEOP to appear in our documentary. Ok, it might be a bit of a long shot but still worth a try. I'll email them and will post up on the blog if i hear any thing.
- Rohini
Ideas for voicover narration: Facts
Possible facts/advice that we can include in our voiceover narration :
Other:
-In the 13 months since it launched, Bebo has racked up more than 22 million members. It is aimed at those aged 13-30 but has proved particularly popular with school and college students.
-Bebo is a social networking site that lets members share pictures and messages with friends that are also on the service. As such, it stands alongside sites such as MySpace, Friendster and many others.
-Although both MySpace and Bebo are relative newcomers to the web, both have proved hugely popular with younger users
-Chatting with friends online - via services like MSN and Bebo - is beginning to take over from watching TV as the main hobby of many young people.
-In the 13 months since it launched, Bebo has racked up more than 22 million members. It is aimed at those aged 13-30 but has proved particularly popular with school and college students.
-Bebo is a social networking site that lets members share pictures and messages with friends that are also on the service. As such, it stands alongside sites such as MySpace, Friendster and many others.
- Rohini
i've done some research and found a load of really useful news pages that we could either feature in our documentary or use information from.
There are also some audio clips on some of the links with some interesting shots and techniques.
Have a look and tell me your ideas on what we could use:
Site 1 : 'Safety tips for social networks' (BBC News)
Site 2: 'Teenage networking websites face anti-paedophile investigation' (Guardian News)
Site 3: 'Men jailed for online rape plot' (BBC news)
Site 4: 'Social sites wrestle for top spots' (BBC news)
Site 5: 'The MySpace Age' (BBC news)
Site 6: 'Teenage life online' (BBC news)
Site 7: 'Teen craze over networking sites (BBC news)
Site 8: 'My space tackles teen safety fears (BBC news)- Rohini
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Plan for next week - Kunal
we plan to do the following..
1) Arrange the interview with the school police man - rohini and sonia left a message and we are all awaiting a POSITIVE reply which we shall hopefully receive..
2) re film the vox pops with a few more adults and try and get some students from the school or ealing as they were in lessons last wednesdayy
3) Construction in ealing
Kunal
Progress Report - Kunal
Welll..... on the 26th of january, two members from our group began filming the opening sequence montage which constisted of various shots of different websites such as hi5, my space, etc. this is going to lookk very impressive once it has beeen edited by the master editor ie ME.
Moving on.. on the 31st of January on the Wednesday our whole group went onto LADY MARGARET ROADD and outside GREENFORD high school and began to shoot our vox pops. Before shooting these... We went into the social services building next to the school and asked a lady at the receptionist desk for some help and she was very very VERY unhelpful and UNHYGENIC, she had no manners sorry to say,, urghhhhhh... anywayss... after that pointless experience we began filming and we got rejected a few times by some grumpy people.. but we interviewed 6 adults such as the guy in HARRYS and workers from the petrol station when they were on their break.. we also interviewed random people on the street as well as shop keepers and a 'mysterious' lady outside a lady margaret newsagent :D.
The responses we received from the people were in fact very helpful and factual. The people we interviewed answered the questions thoroughly and the camera angles were not soo badd for our first time as we got a few decent background shots into the scene. We only interviewed adults so far who are our secondary target audience and we will be filming students VERY shortly.
Kunal
Progress Report - Rohini
What we have achieved so far..
We had also planned to research into and arrange an interview with an expert but that didn’t go to plan as we changed our mind and decided to collect more footage before we went ahead with anything. HOWEVER, on Wednesday we thought we’d try our chances and ask for some information at the social services building next door to school. No luck. The lady at the desk didn’t have any information for us and was really unhelpful to be honest. Later on during the day, Sonia and I went to see Shirley in the pastoral block and she was much much muchhh more helpful. We asked her for some information and she recommended that we talk to the schools police man who had experience with related issues and cases. We left a message and hope to hear from him ASAP!
The next shooting that we did was on the 31st of Jan and this time the whole group was present. We had planned to shoot our vox pops. As all students were in lessons we were forced to focus open adults. So we ventured down the dangerous streets of Southall. (…. Ok we just went down the road). In all, we interviewed about 6 adults. I came up with the idea to try and get people from the local community doing everyday activities…. So we filmed a guy who works at the Esso on his break, a guy putting petrol in his car and so on. We also went to Harry’s fish and chip shop which got us some good footage.
- Chase up Shirley regarding interview
- Film / re film some vox pops
- Ealing scene!
ROHINIProgress Report
The next shooting took place on 31st Jan when we filmed our vox pops. The idea was to get comments about social networking sites from both adults and teenagers in order to show the contrast and emphasise how unaware teenagers are of the dangers. However due to shortage of time and the fact that the students were all in lessons at the time, we were unable to interview any teeagers and decided to film this another time, either after school or in Ealing. Nonetheless, we managed to get some good comments from 6 adults. We decided to shot in locations that were familiar to our audience e.g. outside In and Out and people the audience knows such as the man that works in Harry's Fish and Chip Bar. For this session, I had done the filming, and Rohini, Nikki(who also got the consent forms signed) and Kunal had interviewed the adults.
On wednesday, we also manged to find our expert:The school's policeman but we still have to arrange an exact date to meet and interview him.
Sonia