GM Pesh

ok…this is the process I hate the most. I love the idea of my work getting into festivals and people recognising, laughing at or hating my work but the process of researching and submitting to festivals is just boring! Franziska is right about getting someone else to do it. This is ideally where a producer (who isn’t me) would take over.

It was quite refreshing looking at the media kits for work that has had screentime. However, like all things in this field it can also be frustrating and scary! It’s a lot of paper work that has to be generated. When you have put your life and soul into a project it becomes very difficult to find anything extra to give to the marketting and distribution.

Again Franziska is right in saying that this should automatically become part of the process, not something that needs to somhow be worked into the equation at the end. With Dirty Diner there has been some talk from the beginning about it’s marketting and potential distribution. Bu with my individual project there hasn’t. This is because I directed, wrote, produced, shot and editted it. I have nothing left to market it. I will speak to someone about doing that for me.

check out Dirty Diner

Hmm…we’re living in an networked world. Everything developed for TV or radio needs an online component. And increasingly this web component not only needs to needs to support the TV or radio content but also somehow be ground-breaking, innovative and offer new stuff. Easy! However, I’m starting to wonder whether this increasing demand may result in poorer quality product on all platforms. Especially if the producers/directors are expected to create or manage this content themselves. don’t get me wrong I am not saying that an internet component is not necessary. I think it is absolutely compulsory…however, I’m worried that in a place like Australia where there already isn’t enough money in media production, producers are being asked to make more for less and that can only have bad consequences.

Dirty Diner for example: Adit create an amazing site with so little time and help. What would the website look like if she a had a team who wasn’t involved in the TV pilot to produced or appropriate the content for her? Leaving the producer or director to oversee it.

Bridget & Briony our guest lecturers from SBS online are the only two members of the Melbourne team. They’ve done a great job on their site. They mentioned working with producers and directors of docos to create web content. I know in Us Mob the director had a huge say in the way the website was designed but that was mostly because it was a documentary specifically designed for the web. He has now got stuff happening for TV that has come out of that. So in a sense its completely different from what I’m talking about.

well it’s done…sort of. “Dirty Diner” is near the end of completion: all we have to do is make the DVD and do a little tightening up.

“Trimming Migration” is also practically there. I would have liked to get some feedback but that’ll come next week. I know the end could be a lot better. But I will write a few more entries explaining some of the issues I faced and how a may or may not ahve overcome them soon.

OK…here we go..how was the process of producing Dirty Diner. It was obviously a huge project! Bigger than anything I’ve ever done before. I have directed tiny pieces of undergratuate work. I’ve watched and learned from people who have had more experience. But to go straight into directing a half hour TV pilot is just crazy.

The process of writing the beast was mostly fun but sometimes very difficult because we were working towards a deadline that was way too close with not nearly enough experience. I think we came up with an ok script. As assistant producer I feel I ended up with more producing work than I should have. But then again I did direct and co-write this thing so it must come with that much involvement. I actually enjoyed having so much ownership. Auditioning and rehearsals were fun. It was good to see the characters coming to life and having the stress of having to shoot this ina 5 days loom.

The shoot was also lotsa fun. Obviously this is my favourite part of the process. Living on not much sleep and seeing what it looks like on the screen was a thrill. I think everybody did an amazing job on shoot nights. It was amazing to see everyone come together like that.

Now the editing has been difficult. After seeing the rough cut (which should never be an indication of a project) I was completely disheartened. But after the hours speant by Gargi ,myself and Sharna things were getting better. The rest of the group were meant to come around and help but we got infrequent visits from everybody. This did annoy me because th three of us worked on this project much more than we should have. We ended up sacrificing time that should have been spent on our individual projects. I know that by the end of it I just didn’t want to edit anything else again! Especially after all the trouble we’ve been having from the computer in the V8 suite.

12:30am on a saturday night and I’m home…this building has everything I need: toilet, kitchen, close to amenities, edit suite…
WHEN WILL IT END?

Before I can finish off this damn doco I need watch the rushes from Sandra’s interview. I originally wanted to shoot Sandra and Priscilla together talking about getting their PR with me as the mediator. This would involve a two camera set up and would give me some space to play with the way the doco was presented. However, because of a lack of time and so on I was only able to get them to be interviewed seperately.

Sandra was really good. She is very talkative and although her English isn’t very good she does somehow manage to get across what she wants. Also after watching Priscilla’s interview and constructing a rough edit of they way I wanted things to pan out I was able to list some different questions for Sandra that would help give the documentary a narrative.

Besides looking at sandra’s interview I need to figure out if I’m going to need a voice-over. In my original proposal and the whole time I have been conceptualising this documentary I have been trying to avoid the use of a V/O. However, I feel that I may need to do this anyway. There are a few facts that I need to let the audience know about (eg. Department Of Immigration legistlation and the amount of points hairdressers recieve etc). I feel the nest way to do this would be through a V/O.

The brief was simple enough! create a video to be viewed on a mobile phone for ESL students. At first we were hoping that the project would be distributed on 3G phones. This meant we could have larger files and hence more complex narratives than is viewable on pre-3Gs. But alas the MMP blog told us to keep them under 100kb and keep the affordances of tiny screens in mind. DAMN!! there goes my masterpiece!
I got the idea after Jenny showed us her work in progress…machinima soap opera created out of The Sims. I had thought about using machinima for my major Emerging Media Project but needed a smaller project to practise with. I had been playing GTA: San Andreas for the Xbox. Everytime I played the game I would end up speaking like I was a “G” from da hood, yo! I also started thinking about teaching the ESL students some Australian colloquialisms. After chatting with dEAN and Jun about the idea we settled on a theme and a way to distribute workload.

All we gots to do now is stick that sh*t on and pop sum rounds off at yo gangsta ass!! word!

Info from Jenny on mobiles, movies, etc…