Richard's blog

Category: university

  • Dissertations, documentaries and such

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteI’ve been reading about documentary makers and it’s interesting. Today I read about several of them, took notes, and explored the ideas that they demonstrate. The one that has confused me is Kossanovksy and his ideas of Dogma. I’m wondering how you do a documentary without having interviews or cutaways. Does…

  • First time directing a multicam

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteDirecting a Multicam is easy, after being a cameraman at many conferences. it’s a matter of knowing which shots you would like to have had with just one camera but couldn’t get. It’s easy, switching from one source to another and making sure the pacing is right and that there are…

  • Sunday afternoon

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteSoon I may have internet access in my halls again and at that point the writing will begin again. it’s hard to be inspired in a library. On the positive side I’ve watched up to three new documentaries since last night so I’m wondering whether to look at the origins of…

  • Multicam work

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteThere’s a studio, three cameras, four female dancers, one male. It’s a cabaret show yet no one is in costume. That’s because it’s a practice session for those who will be using the studio in two weeks. I don’t like having a prompter on the front of the camera because it…

  • Project progression

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteI’m only a few words away from the completion of the dissertation but over the past two nights I haven’t had as much sleep as I would like to have had, thanks one night to myself and thanks the next night, to the people I’m living with. It’s a problem when…

  • Approaching the first deadline

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteIt’s six weeks into the course and the first deadline is approaching. It’s for globalisation and I need to work on it today to save on stress later in the week. I went out to Central London to record some vox pops asking people about myspace. The weather was good and…

  • Nick Broomfield

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteYesterday I bought a series of six of Broomfield’s documentaries and I watched one of them today. Chicken Ranch is interesting because Broomfield lets the camera appear in shot, through mirrors and more. He also allows himself to appear, although only fleetingly, at least in this documentary. He makes observational documentaries…

  • Bad organisation

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhen you’re the producer one of the first things you do is make sure that the person you’re meant to be filming is at the location where you want him at the time you would like him to be there. A few days ago though, when someone else was producing the…

  • On being an Resident assistant

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteBeing a resident assistant is a great job at the same time as it’s a lot of responsibility. It means that we have access to every room in halls for a few hours a week although in reality we’re only allowed to go from one room to another. We have to…

  • Fresher’s week is over

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    Reading Time: < 1 minuteFresher’s week is over and lessons start this week. It means being serious a little more of the time than over the past week. I’ve been patrolling the flats already, going from room to room and seeing lots of people, lots of new faces.  This is an easy and a hard…