{Art Professionals ~ Rob Watson; Producer & Jamie Kennerley; DOP}

I had the the great opportunity of meeting Arts professionals at the BFI Academy. Throughout the day we we had mini workshops and Q&A’s with the professionals, to help us with the looming deadline for our short film. Two of my favourites had to be Rob Watson & Jamie Kennerley. This because they had the roles that I aspired to learn my about for the sake for my role and future reference.

Rob Watson is a Producer, who started off his film career off going to the University of Westminster. He has been in the film industry for over 10 years, in that time he has aided his career by creating his own short films and worked with other independent producers and film makers. He also attended the NFTS where he completed a masters degree. Over the 10 years, he has changed his career path a few times due to fact that any career can have its difficulty sometimes. One of his challenges in his career was money – finding funding for independent films. Currently he is being funded by the BFI with his new film “Gone too far”.

We also pitched our film idea to him, where he gave us feedback from a producers perspective and pointed out aspects we didn’t think of. Upon his feedback we tweaked our plans. He gave a few other tips too – “make sure you networking, it’s about who you know not what you know”, “try out different career path whilst your still young” & “Avoid the cliches when it comes to your films and script, it’s all been seen before. Try something new and experiment”

I also met Jamie Kennerly who is a Director of Photography. Jamie started off his career by doing a non film degree. He then build up a skills base doing freelance work and working with the BBC. He along with other created the much beloved Pingu animations. This was something I was very curious about and turned out to be very interesting. He experimented with different genres eg documentary, animation, camera work etc.  He also gave us the advice to try different hings – short courses, genres, roles anywhere we could build experience would better us in knowing what role would be suitable for us later. Jamie gave me more inspiration about the DOP role as the ideal role for myself had changed from DOP to Producer during the span of the academy.

{Evidence from my Project}

My Project was aimed to enlighten already experienced film makers about the opportunities available to them outside college & also to share my personal experience at the BFI Academy and share the film outcome.

Here are some of the slides that were included in my presentation:

Feedback – participants

Feedback from teachers during and after the session:

“You stayed committed throughout and had a great session. Everybody was engaged from the start. It was nice to hear about your experience. The short film was great!”

Pictures taken by Liam at my Leadership Session:

Presenting about the BFI & NFTS

Sharing my experience at the BFI Academy

The Screening of mine & Liam’s film

Sharing the resources I used as a Producer

Game – Guess the film. Task about loglines

{My Arts Leadership Project}

This an overview of my leadership project, who it went and what I felt I could do better next time.

• 5/5 most enjoyed screening of short film and the contrast between mine & Liam’s
• 2/5 thought it could have been more streamlined in the information provided in the time slot available
• 5/5 thought I communicated effectively and confidently
• 5/5 enjoyed my retelling of my personal experience and growth throughout the BFI academy
• 1/5 ~(Teacher) thought I could have been more prepared with extra information about the BFI & NFTS eg. handouts, events, prices etc.
• 4/5 enjoyed engagement though tasks & games
• Overall the project went to plan with a few bumps – learning management week and communication etc. I was able to solve the problem of learning management week by keeping my partners updated about quick turn over of change of plans.

{Arts Challenge Review}

This is a report on my arts challenge and what I think went well and how I could have improved.

{Leadership Update}

To make sure i’m demonstrating and achieving my leadership skills, I have created a bullet point script that will help me stay on track during the presentation, I have practiced what I want to say and have researched my topics to make sure that when it comes to the Q&A i’m not stuck being awkward. Finalising the planning process for my project has been quite hard as my session has landed on the week of learning management, this has meant i’ve had to be in closer communication with both Liam & my tutor as things have been changing at little notice. Through the planning process, my goal of becoming a better communicator is being met as i’ve had to be in constant communication with the both of them.

 

{Evidence from my Project}

These are pictures from my presentation workshop with Gemma, I learnt the fundamental of executing a confident presentation and what I could personally do to be more confident when it came to my presentation. Gemma gave some advice on how I could be a better communicator for example, using eye contact and knowing your topic to fill any awkward silences.

I planned out the structure of how my session would go, thing about the participants and how to keep them engaged throughout.

{Working with Others}

Marketing Poster

Working with Liam: Me & Liam communicate through Facebook about any change of plans, what still needed to be completed and how we were going to achieve our goals.

Planning Update: Due to external reasons, my session has to be moved and rescheduled, this is where communication with my teacher and Liam comes into play as I need to notify them about any changes.

Planning meeting with teacher: I made sure keep my tutor updated about any changes that were made. I planned the session with them to make sure that I was doing the best I could with the time available to me.

 

{Health & Safety Planning}

I came to the health and safety workshop at East side to prepare me for the session, we learnt about health & safety, child protection and made a risk assessment. The reason this was helpful was so we were aware of anything that could go wrong and made sure we had the correct knowledge if anything did go wrong. My role when it comes to an emergency situation is to take orders from my Tutor, I will assist in keeping people calm and guiding them out of the room safely and as quickly as possible. In case of an emergency, the evacuation point is the Park in front of my college and everyone waits there until a signal is given to go back in.

I also made myself aware and had a health and safety meeting with my tutor also, these are a few of the steps I took to make sure I was prepared for my session.

Link to my colleges policies, they also have a safeguarding policy just like eastside: http://www.cwc.ac.uk/Policies/Pages/default.aspx

 

This is the timeline & Risk assessment for my session of what i need to do and by when:

My film – Seeing Red

Seeing Red:

• Good acting, great camera work, good editing.
• Hugely thought provoking. Really created tension and angst.
• Effective use of sound and visuals with a satisfying reveal using the pan shot.
• Very powerful, well-shot and poignant with the symbol of a place of safety in the red box. Good metaphorical use!
• It told a story using very little and was a powerful portrayal of violence, youth and pain.

This is the feedback we got back from the audience at the premiere at Rich Mix, I’m happy that the audience understood what we were trying to achieve because we had doubts as to if the plot was too hard to follow.

{Arts Research Summary}

1. One of the most interesting things I have learnt throughout this unit was peoples experiences and how they got themselves to where they were in their careers. for example, meeting Rob Watson and Jamie Kennerley , also the alumni for last year. It really inspired me to embark on more experiences such as BFI Film Academy.

2. What influenced me the most was seeing people’s passion for their role. Roles such as sound have never appealed to me but seeing someone in that role for example at the London School of sound, have so much passion for what they did made me more passionate about pursuing a greater passion for my role.

3. Finding out about everything throughout the unit has opened my eye to what role I could possibly see myself doing. When I started the film academy I was sure that I wanted to become a cinematographer but but the end of the unit, I found myself leaning more towards the pre-production side of things and liking more the producer role. At the beginning of the course, I couldn’t see myself doing the NFTS course but by the end, I could definitely see why people would want to progress onto that course and develop more in their skills. I’m also not still sure about which uni course to go into, a course at Ravensbourne, Digital Media Production allows me to fuse together film and graphic design so this is something i’m leaning towards because i’m not too sure what role I want to take on in the future.