Overall, the standard of the class exercises was low, however, we learnt a lot which we applied successfully to the final project and by the time we were starting work on the final project we had worked out our individual strengths and weaknesses and how to function well as a team, this made producing the final film much easier indeed.
For the final film we decided to look at body modification. It was thought that this was a current subject, as there has been an obvious increase in the amount of piercing and tattooing around in the last few years. We also thought that this would be an interesting subject to cover. We wanted to look at the whole spectrum of body modification available, from having a hair cut right through to more permanent expressions such as tattooing. By covering such a broad range, we hoped to find what relationship if any existed between these modes of expression.
With the subject matter being somewhat exciting and youth orientated, we decided to aim the film at that target audience. To do this we included music throughout the film to give it a ‘funky’ feeling. Rather than make a substance-less montage, we also wanted to include a valid and educated point of view, to do this we included an interview with a lecturer in sociology, Rudy van Kamenede, as well as practitioners of the various trades. This would give a balanced view, not only of the trends within the industries, but also an overview of the peoples motivation in getting these modifications done.
It was also decided to include a selection of vox pops in the film. We felt that this would give the public opinion on the subject and hopefully include a balanced message. Obviously, everyone in a tattoo or piercing studio would advocate such practices, whereas getting the opinion of people on the street, would give an idea of whether the general public opinion was for or against this. By getting both sides of the argument, we planned to address any criticisms brought up in the vox pops with interviews of the body modifiers, thus develop a structured debate. As it turned out, we didn’t get any vox pops which were resoundingly negative, we did however, have several people who expressed a personal dislike for such practices, but who said they didn’t look pejoratively on those who practiced them. We therefore tried to carry this message in the film.
We were aware from the start that this would be a very visual topic to cover; the whole point of body modification is to have something visual at the end of the process. We decided to utilise this to our advantage in creating a montage ‘interlude’. The interlude would be put to a drum beat and last a few seconds, it was planned that it would show various body modifications, going from minor to more extreme. We decided to use this to break the programme up, it would act as the link from one section to another, for example when we went from looking at hair cutting to piercing, whilst also giving the film an over-all feel, some continuity throughout.
As a group, we functioned very well together, all decisions were taken democratically with all group members contributing ideas and decisions on which ideas should be used and which discarded. This made the final product far better, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts’ was the maxim we worked to – the more input from different members of the group, the more good ideas would become part of the film. The finished product was no one person’s vision, however, the unity of the group meant that all involved were happy with it; this was not a mis-matched mosaic.
(For a complete breakdown of the work done see the appendix)
We started work on the film on the 3rd of April with a preliminary meeting to finalise the decision for the topic of the film and discuss what angle we wanted to take and any ideas any of us had. It was immediately decided that we should interview a tattooist and a piercer at some point. I have been both pierced and tattooed and know quite well practitioners of both these trades, who work in the same studio. This would mean we could get two interviews on two topics done with one trip. I contacted the proprietor of Tattoo House in Dewsbury who was more than happy to have us over to conduct an interview. On the 8th of April we travelled to Dewsbury to carry out the interviews.
We wrote the questions as a group, coming up with the themes for each question and then refining it so that it conveyed the meaning we wanted without being too obtuse or long winded. Whilst carrying out the filming I acted as the camera operator, Jerome as the interviewer and Dee as sound person (Rebekah, through no fault of her own, couldn’t be present for this session.) Whilst at Tattoo House we filmed a lady called Rebecca (not to be confused with our group mate) being tattooed, the process as a whole took over an hour, I filmed this process sporadically, whilst Dee utilised the time there doing research into the history of the medium. Whilst there, we were informed of a customer who would be coming the next week, who we would probably be interested in and who would more than likely be quite happy to talk to us. We arranged to come again next week to conduct another interview.
On the 16th of April we went back to Tattoo House to interview Sam, all we knew about her was that she had a very large back tattoo and that she had had a double mastectomy for cosmetic reasons. Again, the process of arriving at the questions was a group effort. Jerome and I stuck to our previous roles of interviewer and camera operator respectively. Dee and Rebekah shared the sound duties. As it turned out Sam used to be a teacher and as a consequence was very vocal and articulate. She had also given interviews previously on various topics to do with body modification. Her interview lasted a total of half an hour. On the return journey, it was decided that the interview with Sam covered such varied topics and was so clear on them, that we should attempt to use Sam’s interview to conclude the piece, especially with a point she made about the relationship between body modification and perception.
On the 23rd of April a meeting with Andy Fox was held to discuss the progress of the film and where we felt we could go with it. On the 29th of April, through a contact of Jerome’s we were able to visit Ruben’s hair salon to interview Carmen a hairdresser and Julie a beautician. In the end, we didn’t use any of the interviews with Julie, however, the points she made impacted on our understanding of the film, and therefore even though she is not present, she did impact on the final product. By this time, the roles had become fairly standard, with the two ladies covering sound duties, Jerome interviewing, and myself on camera. It could be seen that we were limiting ourselves by not switching roles throughout the production, however, we were doing the jobs with which we felt the most comfortable, and knowing in advance what we would be doing made the process far smoother.
The next day 30th April, we logged both the tapes we had at that point; we did this in an effort to be able to decide on some of the editing sequence before we were actually on the editing suite, and also to make the digitising process easier in finding the pieces we needed. On the 3rd of May we interview Rudi on the main campus of the University. This interview had been set up by Jerome and by now the procedure of coming up with questions and the process of filming were very much second nature to us.
On the 6th of May we spent three hours at my house discussing what music we wanted to use. We hoped that if we had several pieces in mind before we started, this would make it easier when we actually came to physical process of editing. We also wanted to discuss and decide on some sequences which we could use; again, we hoped to decrease the amount of time necessary on the editing suite. That day resulted in a rough idea of what we wanted to do in the opening titles and at the end of the film as well as an overall structure of the film.
On the 7th of May we started editing, we were started for 9am and finished the piece at 10pm. The actual physical manipulation of editing suite was carried out by myself, however, the decision process was very much a group effort, discussing various ideas, and sometimes trying them until we came up with a combination that we were all happy with. The work we had done the day before in planning made a massive difference to this process, we were able to edit some sequences straight away in the morning, and the selection process throughout was aided both by the overall structure we had decided on and the logging we had carried out.
Two main problems emerged in the piece. Firstly the titles of the interviewees are sometimes slightly cut off on the screen. This was because we were unaware of the safety areas marked in the text tool of the editing suite. Secondly the music levels were too high in places which distracted from what was being said, however, the presence of the music itself was in keeping with the overall style of the piece, and the only problem I felt was present with that aspect was the levels.
