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Directing 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 not too many screw-ups. Overall it went well and I enjoyed it. It was different today as I was a simple camera operator. I had to concentrate on getting the right shot and fight away the desire to sit down or do something else. On both days the last speaker was the more entertaining of the day.

Emanuele - Nov 3, 2006

Hi everyone, Hi Richard. I am actually the friend Richard was talking about in his previous message, the one who had the honour to shake the hand of the great actor Daniel Craig. My name’s Emanuele, nice to meet you all. Tonight was a great evening, we had lots of fun, especially watching and taking pictures of many celebrities walking on the red carpet. We even managed to take for us two of the posters which are usually put on the reel during any movie premiere. That was smply great!

I went to Leicester Square tonight and I saw many celebrities for the opening of Casino Royal, the new bond film. Among those present were the scissor sisters, Girls aloud, Richard Branson, Mohammed Al Fayed, Paris Hilton, Sting, Elton John, Eva Green, The songwriter, Miss MoneyPenny, Dame who plays M and a few other celebs. It was good fun in central London. I have uploaded some pictures. One of the images is of a friend shaking hands with Daniel Grey Casino World Premiere

Soon 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 french and English cinema. I had some inspiration whilst attempting to watch Nightmail by Grierson. Tonight I shall be watching Philibert’s L’empire des Sourd, documentary I recently read about. I went to see Borat and it’s really amusing, a good excuse to laugh for more than an hour.

There’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 makes smooth movements harder to achieve. It doesn’t matter. I’ll get it right for the proper costumed event.

I’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 you’re kept awake till 4 am and sometimes I wonder whether I shouldn’t take a hotel room and sleep there every few nights, just to catch up on the lack of sleep. of course it’s a waste of money so I would prefer not to.

It’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 people were quite willing to talk to the camera. In fact, it’s quite surprising to see what a high percentage of people accept to talk about. In general, they accept to talk if they know about myspace. I was editing for a few hours on Friday, getting one or two interviews shortened for later in the production. We’re missing a lot of footage at the moment. We need to listen to the interviews, see what is mentioned, and according to this decision on what shots best illustrate what is being talked about. I’ve watched my fourth Broomfield documentary, soldier girls, last night. It’s a different style. He’s far less visible in front of the camera and it focuses almost entirely on one problem recruit. We only see him at the very end when the problem recruit leaves the service.

Yesterday 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 and allows the viewer to come to his own conclusions. This is a style of documentary where the action happens in front of the camera, with no use of voice over. Intertitles are enough, similarly to people like Vertov. They are interesting documentaries because you can see that they have not been scripted. they document life, becoming more biographical and reflective of reality. They do not strive to tell you what to think but rather encourage you to see and intuit from them. How many documentaries do you watch that breath, that do not tell you what to think? Most attempt to say “he believes that” whilst “they believe that”. This is a more mature form of documentary making, one where the characters are the story. I still have another five documentaries to watch and we’ll see what else I learn through watching them. I found another documentary book today. It’s got many interviews with a variety of directors and I really hope that they help me understand the question that I want to ask and research without it being too broad.

When 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 talents did not show up and we waited five hours for no reason. This was frustrating since i had at least two other things I could have been doing instead. Today I have another more spontaneous vox pop gathering excercise around central London and probably Camden. I’m not sure about the best location but we should see this within a short amount of time. I’ve been thinking more about the topic of my dissertation and the research queston and whilst reading Documentary In the digital Age I think I may have found an essay question. I have to fine tune it to be neither to focused nor too broad.

10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80. The doors open. I walk forward a little more, a picture is taken, go up another 6 floors and I’m on an observation deck. That’s the experience people get as they go up to the observation deck of the empire state building. It’s amusing because although the view is great it doesn’t feel that high, probably because the structure is so massive compared to other parts of the world. What you see are many buildings, some sticking out by themselves and others clustered together. There are a lot of sky scrapers although it’s hard to see them with the haze. When down at ground level you see the valleys or canyons of buildings. Structures are tall requiring you to look up more than usual to see the top. The streets are long and straight making it easier to see for miles. The taxis and buses are numerous. The emergency services always have the lights on which is different from other countries I’ve visited. During my time in New york I visited a number of sights around the city. I went to Ellis Island, Statten Island and Liberty Island. Manhattan itself is an island connected by several famous bridges and a number of tunnels.