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And there we have it. Day two of editing is over and we’re up to five minutes with a script that’s ready to be fleshed out by a variety of interviews. I love editing and whilst writing this I’m beginning to look forward to tomorrow’s editing. The problem is that I was getting a little tired of being in the same room for so many hours in a day. That’ll change tomorrow as new things occur. We’ve added the sequences to the timeline and it would seem that things are progressing nicely. I have captured the making-of footage for the multicamera project and that should be fun to edit. It will wait until later in the week when the Documentary edit is closer to completion.

Day one of editing has finished and I’ve spent the last two hours resting and relaxing. The editing is quite interesting. We’ve got an interview with someone who was considered as hottest single in the world two or three weeks ago. The documentary is about myspace and it’s effect on the music industry. It’s interesting because we have at least ten interviews, that’s ten points of view, some musical, others more ITish and yet more from the ordinary public. Three segments have been assembled and we have a few more to work on. The duration is only five minutes so far but will progress tomorrow. The rough cut needs to be done by thursday to give an additional week for gathering extra shots and cleaning everything up. I need to make time for the editing of the multicamera project.

Two weeks of editing await me. Both projects have been logged for the most part although now it’s a matter of finding out how to unite all the raw footage, something which may take a few hours. It should be a matter of going through the material and choosing all the most relevant bits, seeing whether they go well together, and then finalising that. Tomorrow I have to work on the documentary. We’ve got a lot of interviews although I’m worried about the shots that can be used for illustrative purposes. I don’t think there are that many location shots, just interview after interview. Tomorrow we’ll see how well they go together.

Being directed is often a good thing. It helps you achieve the tasks you are meant to achieve within a certain amount of time. Other times it helps you learn something useful. In occasional cases, though direction is one of the most frustrating things in the world. I have spent many hours standing over the past three days being directed by someone who had not taken enough time with multicamera directing theory books or taken the time to familiarise himself with the theoretical aspect. You’d expect most people who direct to watch others carry out such tasks, as I have with video editors for example. You’d also expect individuals to take the time to understand what shots can be achieved with which cameras. Over the past few days though I have seen an individual with the lack of skill to direct a team of people for a multicamera event. Among the flaws were: lack of clarity, both in ideas and direction, lack of direction - for onscreen talent, too slow resulting in people being bored, etc. One flaw I have seen from a number of directors is that they concentrate too much on the shots they would like to have without actually looking at what’s going on through the three cameras already in place, often missing one shot. Don’t stop a take just because your vision mixed the wrong camera at the wrong time. Keep it going and see whether any more of the production can be salvaged. I’m glad that the task is completed. Now it’s up to me to make it work in post-production.

It’s the final day of production today, we have three acts to film and two links as well. We’ll have someone going through a guillotine and another act of which I am not sure yet. it should start from 0900 until 1700 this evening. Yesterday was fine but it felt that a lot of time was wasted for a variety of reasons, leaving me a little dissatisfied.

Today’s been a long day, beginning at 9 with lectures and finishing at 1800 with tape logging and transcribing. It passed through some studio work, laying the floor, and such. Tomorrow we start at 9am and continue till night in order to get all our shots finished with. We’ll get a lunch break so have to factor that into any planning. I should have an early night but it’s halls and there’s alcohol around so others are drinking the night away and forgetting to adjust their volume control. Vivement Samedi

C’est deux films que je vient de regarder. I’m watching a lot of DVDs at the moment. I have neither television nor a fast connection, therefore, I take advantage to study the cinema. It’s a good way of spending time, of being transported into other timezones, towards other cities I constantly find more information as the days’ progress Only a few more days till my group’s multicamera and I’ll be busy every day until the end of the week. On the positive side, I haven’t been to the student bar to socialise. I have busied myself with work instead and my productivity has gone up. I no longer see the appeal of going to a bar or nightclub where there are three or four people checking for trouble makers. Where alcohol is served to intellectuals great conversations ensue, where it is served to the less enlightened there is nothing but “ruine de l’ame.” Last night I dropped by the library and explored the index pages, looking for information on documents. I found something about Arte and the films it selects. I found a few articles about Chinese cinemas and tributes to Jean Rouch. I photocopied them and have yet to read through them and digest the information that they provide. I am getting closer and closer to the point at which I feel I can begin interviewing the relevant people as part of my research. That should be the best part of the work I’m doing at the moment. I want to try making an observational documentary again, exploring new ideas, and getting an insider’s understanding of what I’ve been studying.

The proposal is handed in, I’ve done some camera work for a multicamera production and now I’m waiting to walk through the halls. It’s been a productive day and the workload should increase over the next week when the multicamera for my group takes place.

Today a friend of mine was in the news, after being arrested and released in China. He’s a photographer. At the same time, I’m in England and I am no longer welcome to a place where I have spent many hours. I have three documents loaded within the browser to continue work on the dissertation proposal I am going to continue on within the next few minutes or within the next day or two. I’m going home in about 28 days or so, that’s four weeks. I have a documentary meeting, a tutor meeting, and a  multicamera meeting, all for around the same time. There is also a globalisation meeting. After that, I may go home and edit what should have been edited already. This depends on what’s decided during one of the meetings. It’s the daily life of a student.

I’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 he mean that we should not use them gratuitously or in some other manner? I need to do more search on this particular aspect. Once more I’ve watched Control Room, the documentary about al Jazeera. I found it interesting.