Final Day of Editing

On the final day of editing. Laura, Adam and Melissa wrote a voice over script and recorded it in the booth. When I came, we were putting the finishing touches on the documentary, watching it whilst critically engaging with it so we could make it the best that we could. It has been a long hard process but after last night, I'm happy to say that we are done!

Music

The two Soundtracks we will be using for the soundtrack to our Documentary is one named 'Martha Gunn' which Adam found on YouTube and was able to get the MP3 from the owner and the second is an acoustic guitar that fits with the narrative and emotion of our 'Brighton: A Seaside Story'.

Editing

Today myself, Laura and Melissa have started to fully edit everything together. It has already been a long hard day but I'm excited to see the end product. We have booked a voice over booth so Adam is able to record our script and we can finish the Documentary off tomorrow.

The photos below show what we have been doing this evening. Laura and Melissa put a rough storyboard together of the official chronological order that our film will be in whilst I went through all the interview footage and cut them so we had the clear clips we are going to use. This will make the editing process far easier as we are able to see where things can go and which clip is what. We will now start putting the clips in order whilst doing colour correction, titles and music.

Below I have attached the brief transcription that I did, some of our editing and Melissa and Lauras storyboard.

Paul Smith and THE END OF FILMING

WE FINISHED FILMING!
Today we went to Brighton early in the morning to interview Paul Smith at Brighton Swimming Centre near the marina. As soon as we got there we were greeted by Paul and offered a hot drink (putting us in a good mood after the cold weather). 
Due to the Sony Z1's not being available we had to use other equipment. This included:
A Nikon Camera, a standard tripod, a marantz PMD-661, a fish pole and an AKG 414 condensor studio microphone. I had used the microphone and recorders for my other module so I was used to this however I hadn't had much experience with the nikon before. 
The only troubles we had with the interview was the sound - the microphone is extremely good and picked up a lot of background sound. And the framing. There was a lovely life ring hanging up on the wall which we wanted to get in the shot however the sofa was too far down and it looked off.
Overall, the interview went really well and we found out a lot - including Paul Smith being an ancestor of Martha Gunn!
After the interview we walked to Brighton Marina and got a few more fill shots of the boats on the water. 
We concluded a very tiring day out with looking at birds at the bus stop, having a bit to eat and getting the bus home so we could upload the footage to the computer.

Below are a few photographs I took throughout the day.

Monday 1st December

In this workshop, the group and myself went through some of our fill shot footage and deleted bad shots and cut the ones we thought we could use.
Peter also suggested looking at the Brighton Swimming club as people who are members swim in the sea nearly everyday. Melissa and Laura phoned and asked to speak to a lady who swims in the sea 6 hours a day however she was only willing to do an over the phone interview which was unhelpful to us.
On Wednesday we will be going to interview Paul Smith and possibly taking some more fill shots around Brighton Marina.

Geoffrey Mead

On wednesday 26th November, we met Geoffrey Mead to do our first interview. We had some complications at the start trying to gather equipment however once it was all set up, we were good to go. Due to Dr Mead being an old lecturer he was confident and able to just speak to the camera rather than us asking questions and him stopping and starting. I felt like sometimes he went off on tangents and didn't speak about Brighton enough however we got enough footage to use for our documentary and I believe we did well considering it was our first interview. 

The only negative aspect I found was our framing and lighting choices. The room was full of big windows so it was hard to not get him in front of one. He also seemed adamant to sit in a particular place - not wanting to argue this we framed this in the best way possible however we may need to crop it when it comes to editing.

I didn't get any photographs from the day however Melissa sent me the below of myself setting up the camera.

Sea Bathing

In 1752 Dr Richard Russell wrote A Dissertation: Concerning the Use of Sea Water in Diseases of the Glands which argued that bathing in, and even drinking, iodine-rich sea water could cure glandular conditions.  The Prince of Wales on his second visit to Brighton followed the doctor’s advice and it wasn’t long before the fashionable crowd followed him to the town, a mere six hours from London by coach.  Brighton became the first choice for wealthy people seeking diversion and a cure for illnesses caused by rich food and lack of exercise.  A thriving industry devoted to bathing soon developed in the seaside resort. 

Men and women had to enter the sea at specified times in different sections of the beach. The women used the beaches on the east side of town, while the men were diverted to beaches to the west.  This ensured that the sexes could not view each other in bathing costumes, or while swimming in the nude, a practice that the men followed often and the women less frequently.  As the popularity of sea-bathing grew, a new profession developed, with some of the town's fishermen and their families turning to bathing visitors for a living.  Ladies were bathed by so-called 'dippers' and gentlemen by 'bathers'; in both cases the customer was plunged vigorously into and out of the water by the bather or dipper.  

http://www.isabellegoddard.com/sea-bathing-regency-period.html

I believe all of this research will help me with interviewing and gaining more insight to what our documentary is really about.

Second Interview

After setting up an interview with Paul Smith who seems to be passionate about Martha Gunn, the group and I believed it would be best to also speak to someone who knows more about the history of Brighton and/or the health benefits of sea water. During week 9 I was unable to make it to the workshop and practical sessions due to personal reasons however I got the great news from Melissa, Laura and Adam that they had set up a second interview that week with an old lecturer from the University named Geoffrey Mead for that week. Dr Mead is a historian and knows a lot about the history of Brighton and how it became a health resort at one point.

We have now got both our interviews sorted and we should have finished filming by the 3^rd December.

First Interview Set Up

As mentioned before, I had seen a video of a man named Paul Smith who is the managing director of Brighton Swimming Centre talking about how Martha Gunn was his 'Ultimate Hero of Brighton'. As I thought he would be an interesting subject, I emailed the centre. He kindly replied within a day and we were able to set up an interview for 3rd December. 

Below are the emails we exchanged to set it up.

I'm really glad I have set up this first interview as it feels like our documentary is coming along really smoothly without any hiccups.

First Day Filming

On Thursday 20th November, Melissa, Laura, Adam and I went in to Brighton early in the morning for our first day of filming. We used the Sony Z1's which were horribly heavy down to the sea front.
The weather was a little windy but thankfully was not raining so we were able to get some great shots. It was great to get started and also to bond as a group. This was important to me as I feel now we are closer friends, the documentary is able to come on a lot more smoothly as we work well as a team.
We did a few panning shots of the beach, old and new pier, a LOT of seagull footage, and close ups of the waves coming in and out.
We also went in to the fishing museum along the seafront where we found a photograph of Martha Gunn as well as information about the dippers. It may be a good idea to ask to see their achieves for our film.
Below I have attached a few photographs from our day out.

History of Brighton

I thought of looking in to the history of Brighton as we may be covering this in our documentary and I thought it was necessary for me to get some background information so we had a clearer idea of what we may want to ask our interviewees. Below is what I found from Wikipedia which I found insightful and I trust it will help me when filming and interviewing.

History

The history of Brighton is that of an ancient fishing village which emerged as a health resort in the 18^th century and grew into one of the largest towns in England by the 20^th century.

By the 1640s Brighthelmstone had a population of over 4,000 and was the largest settlement in Sussex. Its economy was dominated by the fishing industry. However this period of relative prosperity was followed by a slow decline into the 18^th century due to a fall in the demand for fish and sea erosion. The Great Storm of 1703 caused considerable damage to the town.

Health Resort

During the 1730s, Dr Richard Russel of Lewes began to prescribe the medicinal use of seawater at Brighthelmstone for his patients. He wrote a tract advocating the drinking of seawater and sea bathing in 1750. In 1753 he erected a large house on the southern side of the Steine for his own and patient’s accommodation. In 1758, Dr. John Awsiter, another prominent local doctor, also wrote a paper advocating drinking seawater and seabathing.

Above is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Brighton

Fill Shots

In our documentary we must have fill shots. I am not the best of artists but I have made a storyboard of a few shots I believe would look good and symbolise what our documentary is about.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Archives

As part of our documentary we would like to include visual archives to show photographs of dippers or Brighton in the 1800's. The first photograph below I took in the fishing museum and the second two are ones I found on the internet. We would have to credit the website or photographer but I believe it will make the visuals in our Documentary more effective.

Martha Gunn

 The group decided we were going focus on Martha Gunn as part of our documentary. Martha Gunn was probably one of the most famous dippers. Dippers were operators of bathing machines which was a device that was put in to the ocean where people would either sit or lye down in then be waded about. It was made for health benefits of men and women who would be separated so they didn't catch each other in their swimwear.

Martha Gunn was large and strong which was a requirement of being a dipper.

When looking in to Martha Gunn, I came across a site called VisitBrighton.com which had a video of the managing director - Paul Smith - talking about how he believes Martha Gunn is one of the ultimate heros of Brighton. I believe he would be an interesting person to interview after watching this video.

Video of Paul Smith