Professional Toolkit - Shooting

So during our first day of shooting we didn't have an actor, this is because we didn't need one, and spent the day setting up our set. We made sure that the lighting was ready and prepared for Tuesdays shoot, and filmed all the close up shots that didn't need the actor along with additional shots.

Tuesday was a smooth shooting session as we prepared the day before, and because of this we ended up finishing a little earlier then expected. We met the actor in which he did a great job along with the rest of the crew. We all had roles to undertake and helped out when needed if some one was absent to undertake their role. Personally I had the role of the screenwriter as well as construction on set. During production I helped with sound assistant for a while, eventually moving on to other small jobs and grips.

It's a wrap! After a hard days work it was time to back away and preparing the set for the second group to prepare and shoot.

Sound assisting

M&J - Feedback questions

So I got some feedback along with some questions to ask myself about my work, and so I carefully answered these questions in order to help produce a better briefing on my work.

Here are the questions along with my answers;

Why would people want to come into my booth and speak to a digital god?

• It’s a confessional booth for everyone, not just those of religion as you find in catholic churches. But for people of religion and no religion. I don’t want anyone to approach the booth, I want people who have something to say but can’t. Those who do want to come to my booth would come because they have something that they want to let out anonymously, and without the fear of being identified. They would come to help release emotional stress, that being a kind of secret they need to get out, and I also hope curiosity into this so called "Digital God" draws them in. 

Why do you want to film them with masks?

• The white masks would hide their identity but it also represents the person they are speaking to, as the monitor ahead would be a live recording of them wearing the mask. The Masks would be plain white masks/ the colour white is the colour of new beginnings. It’s also the colour of protection and encouragement, offering a sense of peace and calm, helping alleviate emotional upsets. White also offers an inner cleansing and purifying of your thoughts, emotions and, ultimately, your spirit. So wearing this white mask to some extent is a metaphor of this god. 

Won’t they still be recognised?

• No, as they would be hidden behind this white mask. Also I’ll be using a software called sound-flower to change the tone and pitch of their voice in live time. This would make their voice unrecognisable to the viewers. Overall they won’t be recognised at all, not by me or the public.  

Should this be a sound piece?

• I was considering a sound piece but not 100% sure if I want to take it in that direction as it would defeat the purpose and meaning behind wearing a white mask, and I would have to find another rational reason on why I would be using sound only. 

What’s the purpose of reposting the recording to a blog afterwards?

• The dedicated blog will be used as a platform for the viewers to engage with, as the viewers are also to some extent another metaphor for this so called “god”. Also it will allow others to give advise on the confessions, if wanted to, and as a place to view my work.  

Why am I doing this? 

• For my Map’s and Journey’s unit, but to get more rational with the question. I’m doing this for those going through an emotional journey of some sort. Those looking to relieve themselves, and get stress of their chest.

How do I want the audience to respond so the work is coherent?

• I want the audience to feel curious to what this so called "Digital God” is, and after leaving the booth I hope for the audience to respond to the work feeling emotionally stressed relieved to some extent, as I hope this work will help them get a lot of their chest. Overall I know what I want to expect from the audience but I hope to get multiple responses on what they think of the work. Enabling them to interpret this “Digital God” themselves.  

M&J - Developing a rough interactive model of the confessional booth

Now that i've had the design of the booth figured out for a while now, I thought it would be good idea to start building a rough prototype of the confessional booth. I haven't completely finished the prototype as it needs some work to it still, but the outline and model has been put together.

The prototype isn't to scale, but will be interactive. The audience assessing the prototype will be able to place there hands inside the booth, turn on the recording device to start recording, and can have a little whisper into the booth as a practice confession just to get the gist of the confessional booth.

As you can see it's not the greatest looking booth. But like I mentioned above it still needs work.
Here's a list of what needs doing:

•  I'll be using masking tape to cover the edges and taped sections of the booth. 
• I'll then start to paint the booth both inside and out
• Once dry, I'll be filling a straw with some material to strengthen it. I'll place the straw above the booth's entrance, going across to act as a curtain pole. 
• Using special materiel as the curtains, I'll cut it out to shape, and connect it to the straw. 
• Now to add the main design to the booth. I'll strip and cut spare cable wires of all shapes and sizes, and glue them to dangle down from the roof of the booth. On top of the roof I'll create small models of pc towers to place across the sides of the roof. I'll also be adding a small sized FAQ's sheet at the front of the booth. On the monitor at the top of the booth I'll be adding something to represent a screen. 
• Now to add some of the finishing touches. I'll add a chair model to sit inside the booth along with a sound recorder that would represent the recording process of the booth. 

 Once completely finished I'll keep you all posted. I'll be including a fully detailed briefing document with the completed prototype that will help explain everything in depth, with booth dimensions, information and more.

Professional Toolkit - Casting

Lauren, Thomas, and I had all came in for casting auditions. We had two actors scheduled to come in for auditions. Unfortunately only one actor attended. 

Ryan's Audition we taped

Another actor had a Skype audition, in which we thought fit the role well, and so we had decided to go with him. Even though we didn't get to meet him in person, we thought he done well in the Skype audition that we didn't need to as we didn't have time. 

Aaron's audition we taped over Skype. 

Overall we did have several actors who took interest in the ad campaign but never replied to the messages that had got sent to them. 

Starnow applicants

Starnow applicants

M&J - Setting up a dedicated blog for the confessional booth

I've created a dedicated blog page for the installation piece so the confessions have a platform to be viewed on. The Blog page will be simply and contain each confession by those who have entered the booth. The blog page will be open to everyone to visit.

You can access the blog at confessionstoadigitalgod.wordpress.com. Even though the blog is up and running and can be accessed by the public. It isn't completely finished yet, this is just a rough design and layout.

One of the first pages that I have created to feature at the front of the blog is an 'About' page. This would allow the viewers to read a small briefing on what the installation piece is about and why the video's are being displayed on the blog.

I will feature a few more pages on the blog that isn't yet presented on the blog. One of these pages will be a contact page featuring my name and email for those who wish to get in contact with me for what ever reason.

The blog also features an approved comments section below the video's, for those who view the confessions would be able to make a helpful comment/advice that would hopefully give the person confessing some advice, and as it's an approved comments section all comments would have to be approved by me. This would stop any negative comments against the confessions.

M&J - Interpreting "Digital God"

I haven't really had the chance to explain what this so called "Digital God" is or what it stands for, and it's a question that a few people have asked me when explaining to them my project proposal. To some extend I would like the audience to figure that out or even interpret this for themselves. The way I had interpreted the word's "Digital God" and what it stands for with my confessional booth is the internet, and everyone who has access to it. Which is mostly everyone. You could consider to some extent the dedicated blog and internet (Including cyberspace) as this "Digital God", with the viewers who access the blog and watch the confessions to be apart of this.

Not to cause any offence to anyone of any religion. This is just a project that I am undertaking and consider us to be some what "Gods" of the digital world already. We have created the internet (Including Cyberspace) where information is shared, viewed, produced and changed. We have created digital technology such as camera's and computers that generate, stores and processes date. So to some extent we could be called "Gods" of the digital world. Everyday some one is creating something through the web or innovative technology , whether it is a website, shared image or a new function camera . We create this digital based information.

This is just my own interpretation of "Digital God" in my own perspective. What I hope to achieve throughout the exhibition is for the audience to interpret "Digital God" in their own perspective after visiting the confessional booth.

M&J - Budget

Budget List

Above is the current budget sheet for the confessional booth. Overall £100 is the max I would spend. The total so far reaches £97. I am looking to reduce the cost of the budget down by £30 but that all depends. Sound proof curtains is something that I did want to add to the confessional booth, as it would help keep others from hearing the confession from outside the booth. The curtains is something I would not order till after the booth is built, as I am planning to give normal thick curtains I have a test first. If it is the case that normal curtains would work and keep the confessions inside the confessional booth, then the overall budget cost would come to a total of £67. As you can see a lot of the stuff would cost me nothing due to the fact that I have the software and equipment needed for the exhibition. 

M&J - Risk Assessment

So it came to mind that I would definitely need to create and sign a risk assessment before the exhibition. The audience would be engaging with something I have personally built, so I safety procedures and assessments would need to be taken to insure the safety of the audience interacting with my confessional booth.

One of the biggest risks I have to think about when building the booth is to make sure it doesn't fall apart during the exhibition. I don't want to kill or seriously injure the person inside the booth, so making sure the confessional booth is securely built and place together is one of my main objectives.

Part of actual risk assessment

Part of actual risk assessment

Before the exhibition would start I would need to make sure that the current risk assessment is re-assessed (To make sure I haven't missed anything out), and signed by the Unit leader (Course head) and myself. The risk assessment will stuck on the booth in a suitable spot for the audience to see.

Professional Toolkit - Constructing the set

Still image of the finished set, and what it would roughly look like during filming 

So yesterday was a good day at the set build. We had managed to get all the old wallpaper and paint off the set walls. It took some time as there was wallpaper after wallpaper after wallpaper. We all took turns as there was only four scrapers provided. Using hot water and some solution I sponged the the wall I was scraping to help make it easier to take off. It took a few hours to do the whole wall.

Scrapping off layers of old wallpaper - never again :|

After the walls where complete. I had borrowed a hammer from Chris in which I double checked the walls for any nails sticking out, and used the hammer to remove them and flatten anything else that would stick out of the fresh wallpaper that we started to put up that day.

Just before we where ready to get the wallpaper up we had noticed that a small portion of the wall was sticking out. I had got Chris in which he let me borrow the drill. He helped me straighten the wall and add another bracket to the set to keep the wall straight. Now the wallpaper was ready to go up, and with only half hour left in the studio. We had decided to only put up wallpaper to one section of the wall, and finish the rest off on next weeks build.

Brown tape to cover the joints of the wall

Before we could put any wallpaper up we had to use this special brown tape to cover the gaps between the walls. Chris mentioned that he had a big roll we could use, so he went and got it for us, and so Rob, Lucy and I had started working on covering the gaps. Using a wet sponge I applied a bit of dampness across the tape, to get the stickiness active (like the sticky part of envelopes), and we stuck it vertically across the gaps of the wall. Firmly pressing against it making sure the tape stuck.

One side of the wall completely finished

Placing two tables together we had a big enough pasting table for the wallpaper. Lucy had made the wallpaper paste in a bucket. Once everything was prepared. We had laid out the wallpaper across the table, using a measuring tape to get the right measurements in place, and cut the pieces we needed. We started to put the wallpaper up. The next day we fully completed the wallpapering.

Both walls fully wallpapered

Unfortunately I wasn't around for the painting as I had an accident, in which I had to go get checked out at the hospital that day, and instead made sure I came in for the flooring and the rest of the studio set up.

Flooring nicely fitted after a re-do

The next day I arrived into the studio and noticed that they already started on the flooring but wasn't put together right. So I had to take the flooring completely apart, and started from scratch. Me, Marko and shahid had started on the flooring again to make sure that the flooring was properly joint together. It took a while, especially with the end pieces as one of the walls where crooked. So we had to separately measure each side flooring board just so it could fit.

Adding the side flooring boards

At the end it all came together well, and we added the finishing touched to the set, such as the props, and got the set ready for filming.

Fully finished set with green screen background

M&J - Technical aspects of the booth

So after considering a lot about the design for the booth and how it would all come together. The thought of how I would capture the footage didn't come to mind, and so today I decided to focus on how I would capture the each confession.

With a little research I ended up finding a remote switch that would work perfectly.

Remote recording button (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/981223-REG/revo_vrs_lanc_video_remote_for_sony.html)

The plan is to connect the switch to the camcorder, possibly a Canon xf305 or Sony hvr-z1e, and with at least 5m of cable I would channel the remote into the booth. Placing it in a safe and easily seen spot, which would allow the audience to easily see and press the remote to trigger recording, and with a monitor inside the booth already connected to the camcorder. The audience would be able to see what's being recorded, this would be a security blanket for those shy to the camera. This would also allow the audience to see when the camcorder is actually recording and when it's not recording, through the indicator on the the monitor when the button is remote is pressed. This would help stop confusion with the audience leaving the camcorder on record after they have left the booth.

The Camera would be hidden in a separate section of the booth, hidden behind the wall. With a small section of the wall cut out and replaced with a small screen, possibly glass or a two way mirror, and so the audience would not be able to actually touch the camera lens. This would stop any potential damage to the lens. 

M&J - Rough design and dimensions of the booth

After doing some thinking and measurements, I finally got a rough idea of what sort of design and size I would want the booth.

Rough Dimensions and booth design 

I noticed that a lot of confessional booth's feature a cross that represents Jesus Christ. As the audience would be engaging with a metaphoric 'Digital God' of some sort for my confession booth. I thought it would be a good idea to add a small monitor at the top of my booth, this would represent the 'Digital God', along with other digital products such as hard drives, pc towers and more (The other digital products are not a definite decoration).

I find that a 1m x 1m space would be big enough, and comfortable enough for a single member of the audience to stand in. The height of the booth would be roughly 2.1 meters, just a bit bigger than a door. This would allow the audience enough height space to walk into the booth without hitting their heads, and enough room to fit a small 15" monitor.

I would not feature a door on the booth as I wanted to keep some traditional features that a normal catholic confession booth would have. So I will replace a door with a thick curtain that would hang down from the booth.


More to be posted...

M&J - Confessions To A Digital God.

After my tutorial today with Rosie Gunn I took the time to think about a clearer rational about my installation piece.

Comment from my previous post.

I was also given a site to look at: http://postsecret.com/. The website is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a post card. The website was inspiring to some extent as it gave me inspiration on being able to give a clearer rational about my work.

PostSecret website: Check it out if you already haven't.

I started to produce some mind-maps on how I could go about rationalising my idea, and have come up with a solution to why and how my audience would engage with my installation piece. I really liked the idea of secrets being told anonymously, and so I thought it would be a good idea to allow the audience to blurt out one of their secrets to a single booth, acting as a "digital God" of some sort. Like the website everything will come across as anonymous.

So overall I would not be using two booth's as mentioned in my previous post. Instead I would create a small single interactive booth with the same concept of hiding their identity, by wearing a white plain mask and changing their tone of voice. The design of the booth wouldn't be the same as previously posted but I will work something out to make it suitable for the audience to interact with it.

Mask that would be used to cover the audience's face.

So after looking more into confessional booth's I came across another artist who had a similar idea. Jamie Smith had created a confessional booth, in which the audience would engage in by anonymously writing their confessions on a piece of paper, and placed it in an art gallery for two weeks.

Jamie Smith's confessional booth http://www.jamiesmithstudio.com/a-busy-two-weeks/

With the confessions he receives Jamie Smith creates art pieces/paintings that relate to the confessions.

This gave me the inspiration to use the confessions recorded from the booth I will be creating. I will be creating a website or blog specifically dedicated to the confessional booth, in which I will post the outcome (video's) of the booth online.

Another booth in which the audience write their confessions

M&J - Documentary Archive

Another Idea that also seems interesting to approach is to create a documentary style archive of footage and photos. This archive would be based on the current journey of life I am taking, from birth to present, and would consist of family footage, photo's and interviews that would bring the documentary together.

Think of it as a autobiography...that isn't written. A good example would be Tupac: Resurrection

Taken from IMD: http://www.imdb.com/search/title?genres=biography&sort=moviemeter,asc&title_type=documentary

As a person I believe to be shy at times, especially in front of new people as I like to stick to a small circle of family and friends, and I want to provide a way of showing who I truly am as a person. This documentary archive would be a great way of showing that, because only I truly know me best to create something about myself.

M&J - Mindmap

So it's been really hard to approach and develop an idea at the moment, with several attempts on approaching different ideas, and so Diallo, Sahir and I decided that it might be easier to go our own separate ways instead.

With yet another fresh approach to this unit, and less then a week to develop the idea. I decided to take out the Nikon D90 dslr to hopefully give me some inspiration.

After a day or so of random filming, I noticed that I captured the essence of random strangers facial expressions, and this made me think about the current emotions these strangers were going through. So with this process of thought in mind I decided to create a mindmap and try work from that.

MindMap

The idea on emotional journeys came across as an approachable and interesting subject to work from. Emotion is something that we ALL experience all day, every day, and sometimes we even go on these emotional journeys. Consisting of emotion after emotion after emotion. Whether these are emotions we want to feel or dont want to feel, we don't tend to talk much about them because we tend to focus on what we're doing and thinking rather than how we're feeling.

Article I read on http://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2014/07/18/the-8-myths-about-emotions-that-are-holding-us-back/

THE CONCEPT

The concept is to create something that will allow people to share how they are feeling (emotionally) and why they are feeling those emotions.

WHY?

Hopefully this will allow people to discuss into more depth on there feelings. What I hope to achieve from this is to give people a different perspective of sharing emotions to help relieve themselves from the emotions that they keeping bottled up.

Article I read on http://www.sofeminine.co.uk/mag/psycho/d4488/c108605.html

 I want people to start becoming aware of their emotions, and to take the time to identify why you are feeling the current emotion your feeling especially if it's a negative emotion. Accepting and knowing how you feel makes it easier to put them into words, and makes it easier to talk about the emotions.

HOW?

The idea of having two booth like places being available for people to walk into came across when I was mind mapping out ideas, and both booth like places would be located within two different locations. For example I would have a booth at UCA's SU and another booth located within another university. In these booths would contain a single sofa of some sort, and in front of the sofa would sit a display screen and webcam. Both booths would be connected to one another through the webcam and display screen. This would allow the two people in the booth to talk to one another, expressing and releasing all bottled up emotions.

Example of a possible booth

I know it would also be a good idea to hide ones identity when entering the booth, as a lot of people would still be shy to express emotions knowing the person on the other side can see their face, and so being able to cover their identity fully would allow everyone to interact and express their emotions through the booth.

WHERE?

Both booths would be allocated an area that would easily be seen by passer-by's. One location that is in mind for one of the booths would be to place it with the UCA'S student union, allowing all UCA students to interact and release bottled up emotions, and as we all know students have emotions thrown at them left, right and centre so placing the booth here would be a good stress relief to some extent.  For the other booth no location has come to mind at the moment but I hope to find a suitable spot for the booth.

Professional Toolkit - Script Development

Last Week I was given some feedback and notes from the whole group that would help me improve the script.

Script Feedback/Notes

Using the feedback given I re-wrote the script.

Current script