A Good Friday

I'd like to start this blog by thanking Gemma (who kindly sent me a Facebook message whilst on honeymoon!) for telling me there was an opportunity to help out Dave Robinson with a short educational film the week I got back. The aim of the film was to give guidance to people with learning difficulties about how to recycle. I was keen to get involved as this was a good opportunity to work on a project outside of the University and would form part of my professional development.

The filming took place on Good Friday at Talacre. Gemma's sister had kindly agreed for us to use her holiday home as the location which was great considering it was a holiday and the weather was fantastic!

Along with my fellow first year students Sue & Gemma, two second years (Dave and Helen) were also there to help with the film. Dave R surprised us a bit as I'm sure everyone was expecting the shoot to have already been planned out and scripted. However, Dave told us that he expected us to take charge and plan the shoot from start to finish! Dave had also brought along his semi-professional Canon XH-A1 camera so it was great to get some experience on a video camera with a manual mode that gave professional results. Fortunately the controls are very similar to my Canon SLR so it didn't take too long to get used to it.

However, before filming could start the first thing we did was get our heads together to plan the shoot. We had to show how to safely recycle glass, plastic, cans, paper and also food waste. Helen had kindly volunteered to be the actress in the shoot so we filmed her whilst in the kitchen cleaning items such empty bottles and cans and then putting them into a recycle box ready to go outside to the relevant bags or bins.

We all had a chance at directing and also working the camera. The camera was set to manual so it was vital that it was sharply focussed, the f-stops were correct and the tripod level of course!

It was great to work with students from the second year and I got some great help and advice from Dave R on use of the camera. Overall it was a great experience, well worth giving up a bank holiday for. Many thanks to Dave R for the opportunity and Gemma of course! I'm looking forward to seeing the end result.