Documentary/Drama Evaluation

In term 2 for Creative Media Production Project we were learning about and analysing documentaries, what techniques make a documentary and then finally to create our own documentary. The brief was called Liverpool stories and we had to research things that were going on in Liverpool to eventually spend a few days through there to get the filming done. We had to work in a group of 6 and with people who you have not previously worked with, and delegate a role to each person. In my group there was Ryan Goff as producer, Olivier Chevalley as director, Jake Thompson as camera operator, Elliot Carroll-Dunn as Sound recorder, Heather Hall as editor and myself as Sound editor. In our first group meeting we all met in the library and started to individually do some research on what could be interesting to make a documentary from. We did this individually so that there was more chance of us having a lot of stuff to choose from. I started my research on the news websites around Liverpool for example ‘Liverpool echo’ where I tried to find some current events that would be rich enough with information for us to make a documentary out of. It was a lot more difficult than I originally thought as many of the news stories were either not interesting enough to get enough stuff for a 5 minutes film, or it just wasn't going to be possible to film. Instead of looking through news sites what we all then done was sit round a table and think of interesting hobbies, and then looked on line to see if there were any companies that done something to do with this. For example we had looked at things like gaming, skateboarding, bike riding (bmx or mountain bikes), etc. After finding a few that seemed quite interesting, Ryan contacted quite a few places to see if he could get any responses before we had to pitch two ideas to the tutors and other students a week later. What was disappointing about this was that we didn't really get any responses, not even to kindly tell us no and give us a reason. Eventually Ryan had got in contact with a guy called Chris via his facebook group for a company called re-cyles. Just in time for the pitch Chris got back to us and sounded really excited about the idea, and the company he works for had a really good back story that we could make a good documentary about. What their company does is fix broken bikes and can even teach you how to do it yourself for free. They used to have a workshop under the student union but without any notice the union got renovated and they had to move. They ended up working out of a shed in a yard in the middle of housing estates in Liverpool just outside the centre, where they still worked for free every weekend fixing the locals bikes. We loved the story and so did the tutors as this idea was picked over the free running documentary. I think that one of the faults my group had was that we didn't meet for many meetings before we went to Liverpool, so when it finally came to going I wasn't too sure on how we were actually going to go about filming it. Although my role was the sound editor, it would have still been a good experience to have some say in what we film and to have a go at filming stuff, which eventually I did get to practice on a couple shots. But I still feel like I wasn't really heard which resulted in me not really knowing what to say when we were on set which wasn't ideal as both myself and heather felt quite out of place. The guys we met were however really nice and all had great personalities and so much passion for what they were doing. On the day we done the interviews we got more than enough sound from about 5 of them explaining their individual story of what happened to re-cycles and their old workshop. Jake, Olivier and Ryan all took some really nice shots too and done well with using a steady cam, which in the edit ended up looking really good on the shots of them riding down the streets. There were also a lot of tracking shots used in the film but they were all really nice and the use of the interview shots really mixed it up. When it came to me working at my role, which was the first time I had done any sound editing before, I feel like there was more I could've done. When we first got back to the edit suites Elliot and I went through the sound clips he had recorded and pick out sounds of bike wheels, gears, tools and gravel of the bikes on the ground. And I edited a 10-12 second piece of these sounds to go at the beginning of the film to set the film up for the topic we were filming. But the rest of the sound track was made by someone who had got in contact with Ryan who created music and wanted to do something on one of Ryan’s project. His work was really good and fit well with the tone of the film so we ended up going with his sound for the film, which I had no problem with as I wouldn't have been able to create something close to that especially within the time-scale we had. Overall I think that the film as a visual piece looked amazing and some of the shots were really nice and we had the pace of the film right, with the music fitting in perfectly, only maybe a little loud at certain points. But we lost the narrative, and the important part of the story of re-cyles, which is what, would have made the documentary better since it’s such a unique story of so much passion.

The last project of the year is Drama and the requirements on the brief are to make a 5 minute drama about ‘journey’. Like the last project we had to find people that we hadn't worked with for Documentary and again we were to work in a group of six with the different roles as the previous project. In my group there was Oliver Guy as director, Louise Bailey as producer, Rose Ryk as cinematographer, Hannah Grencis as sound recorder, Adam Young as sound editor and myself as Visual editor. From the beginning this group I feel was a lot more organised in the way that we had a lot of group meetings that sometimes lasted for quite a while to discuss the film. On the first meeting Oliver already had an idea, which was going to be a journey in a person’s mind who is suffering from agoraphobia, and the journey would be how far they get with getting over their phobia. Everyone agreed on this idea as we all could imagine how it would look and liked the idea of having quite a slow paced film with lots of soft focus shots, which Rose was enthusiastic about filming. The first issue we managed to get over was finding an actor to fit the profile we wanted, as we thought the film would look better with an older male, preferable in his 40’s as this gives us more narrative to work with as he would have more life experience. Oliver also liked the idea of his having an army background as something that could trigger his phobia. We thought it was going to be difficult until we found out about a website called ‘StarNow’ which has profiles of actors of all ages, many willing to work in student films where they wouldn't be getting paid. Louise uploaded a post onto the website with a synopsis of the film and received a response from an actor called Jonathan, who lived about a 40 minute drive away from Sheffield. However we then had the problem on the set as we needed just one room, but couldn't use a bedroom in student accommodation, so Oliver said we could use his bedroom. The problem with this was that he lived in Halifax, which would mean all of us would have to travel there and either find accommodation or stay at Oliver’s, which wouldn't be ideal space wise. This would also cost us a lot more money as this would mean Jonathan has further to travel and might not want to travel that far each morning for two maybe three days, but so far this was our only option. However while having a meeting with Lee about how to best approach Jonathan as this would be our first time meeting an older and experienced actor to work on one of our projects, he told us about a room in a nursing home that would be free for us to use. The whole ground floor of the nursing home just out of the centre of Sheffield has just been renovated so there are no residents on that floor and there were multiple rooms for us to choose from to use. This helped a lot and was practically a bare room for us to decorate with as many props as we needed. It also was a lot easier to take equipment over in a taxi instead of on a train, as we had a lot, and made it a lot easier for Jonathan too. One thing about Jonathan that helped us a lot is that he explained to Louise that he was interested in this project as he used to suffer from panic attacks himself, and he gave us some very helpful tips on how you behave when you have a panic attack. He was also really easy to work with too and very laid back when it came to us all discussing what to do next. Overall I think as a team all of us worked really well together, Oliver and Rose took on other peoples input during the filming and we all had a say in what we thought worked well and what didn't and I think this made the experience much better. Setting the room up was also fun as we got to transform the room into what we wanted, hanging posters up, and throwing rubbish around the room to help make it look more lived in. After the two days of filming we were happy with what we had got and thought we had everything we needed. However after the Easter holidays when I came back to do editing I found that we actually could've done with having a lot more shots than what there was. These were mainly cutaways or different angels of certain shots of Jonathan moving from one place to another, just to help make the film make more sense. I liked the shots we had got and they looked really nice, but I was worried that people who had no idea what the film was about, weren't going to understand it. For example the shot before the credits is of him looking out the window (to the camera) and putting a party hat on and blowing a whistle, as today is meant to be his birthday, and I don’t think that is going to make sense to people as we never shot cutaways of the birthday candles, and only briefly see the calendar with the date circled. The editing went well I think, and Jonathan was a good actor that would walk on the same foot all the time and use the same movements which made it a lot easier to edit. I had to use colour correction on a few shots but not too drastically and also a stabilizer on a couple, which helped a lot and worked really well. Overall I think the film is good, and had the potential to be a really good film. I just think that we made a 10 minute film, which resulted in us having to get rid of shots or shorten them down, which could've helped more towards the film making sense to the audience. 

Editing Drama

I have enjoyed editing the drama so far and it's good to see if coming together, which the first half is looking like how we planned it which is great. What would've helped a lot is if we took more shots from different angles and took more time with everything, instead of the shots we originally thought would be more important as I'm not too sure it's making sense at the minute. Apart from that the film is looking really nice and editing it hasn't been a pain. I have to use colour correction in some shots but not too much, just darkening some where the light has been too strong. Another effect that has saved a couple of good shots is the stabilizer, as there was a few cutaways that really needed to be in the film, but were quite shaky. But after putting this effect on it has saved the shots. 

At the minute the edit doesn't have any sound on since that is being edited separately in ProTools, so I haven't seen the edit with any sound on, which I think will help it a lot and bring it all together nicely. 

Location Day 3 (Final day)

I think that today went a lot smoother than yesterday and took a lot less time as all the lengthy shots were filmed yesterday and we also had a better understanding on what we were doing. We still had the trouble with the zoom draining our batteries and Hannah had to go buy another pack to get through the day, which luckily they did. We also filmed the panic attack scene today which was hard to watch as Jonathan did a really good job at acting it out and got emotional, which will work really well for the film. At the end of the day which was a lot earlier than yesterday, we started on clearing out the room, packing everything up and putting the room back to how it originally looked. A big downside was the amount of stuff that we had, and to make it cheaper we ordered just one 6 seater taxi to get us all and the equipment back to Oliver's accommodation. We managed to do this although the back of the taxi was packed and we had stuff piling on top of us. It's been a good experience going out to this sort of location and getting a film a mature professional actor which is something I have never done before. 

Location Day 2

Today was the first day of filming and it took a lot longer than we expected, because of making sure we had plenty of each shot just in case and trying to work around the small space we had with all of our equipment as we had to move the light around after each shot and sometimes all of the equipment. It has been a fun experience so far and Jonathan has been really chilled with us as we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get things done. There were no technical difficulties with the camera and all the shots do look really good filmed on a Canon 70D. However even though we did get good sound throughout the day the batteries in the zoom would keep draining really quickly, and Hannah could only use it for about half an hour before she needed to stop and change them over, which meant we went through a full packet of batteries in a day and lost some time. At the end of filming we let Jonathan go home and then we started to tidy up the room ready to start filming the first half of the film tomorrow as soon as we get there. 

Location Day 1

Our main goal today was to get the room set up to look like it has been lived in and to make it less obvious that it is a nursing home room. We arrived at Woodhill Grange on Monday morning with all the props that we have been gathering for about a week and started setting up. We changed the bed covers, put posters up, put photoframes on the desk and best side tables and other general props like books and drinking glasses. 

We have decided that it's going to be easier to shoot the second half of the film first, so after we got the room set up like this we began to mess it up by piling plates and glasses around everywhere, having rubbish all over the floor and spilling out the bin, the bed covers messed up and clothes hanging out of drawers. This is because the second half of the film shows our character 'George' after he has a panic attack before trying to go outside, as he goes into the wardrobe to calm himself down. This happens to George everyday so we wanted to show the room slowly start to build up with rubbish as he never leaves the room.

Prop list

Props

General

Key

Ukulele

Field Poster

Empty cans/packets (labels removed)

Empty tins (labels removed)

Envelopes

Bowls

Plates

Books

Empty bottles (labels removed)

Alarm clock

Small notebook

Pen

Chain/string for key

Party hat

Whistle

Photo frame

Small bin

Bed sheets

Happy birthday candles

Happy birthday banner

Map poster

Deodorant cans

Furniture/Large items

Table/desk

Hangers

Plant

Costume

Red tie

Pyjama bottoms

Red coat

Clothes for wardrobe

Shirt

Black tie

Smart shoes

Short films on Agoraphobia

To help collect some influences for our film I have been researching into some other films that have been made around the topic of Agoraphobia, and to get some idea of how different people are going about filming this sort of subject. I have found some films that have taken completely different approaches to filming a drama about Agoraphobia, especially the film called 'Blurry Beating' which is a short by Stephane Payen
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xk8qjf_blurry-beating-a-short-film-about-agoraphobia_shortfilms
I like this film as it shows how a man living in one of the busiest cities in the world, New York, deals with his fear of leaving his home, which he decides to do in this film. The narrative and style is very different to how we are planning to film ours as first of all we are having no dialogue included in the film we're just going to use the characters emotions to tell the story. However it has helped to see how other film makers have filmed their actors panicking about the fear of being outside 

Group meeting 3

After a meeting with Lee we have found out that we can have access to a room at a nursing home in Sheffield and Lee knows the manager well and she is completely fine with us filming there and using a room as there are no residents on the ground floor. We have been and visited the room to see if it will work well as it's only about 10 minutes away in the taxi and we have all agreed that this room works a lot better than travelling to Halifax and having 6 of us staying at Oliver's house. We can be there as many days of the week as we want which is really good to know and less stressful than trying to get everything filmed in little time. 

Meeting Jonathan

Louise put a notice out on a website called StarNow which is a site for actors to put their profiles on for acting jobs. We were successful and had a response from Jonathan who is in his early 40's and lived about 40 mins away from Sheffield and has had a lot of experience working on student films which made us all feel more comfortable. He came to the uni for a meeting with us so we could show him the script and get to know him. Another thing he told Louise about was that he actually used to suffer from panic attacks, which he didn't mind talking to us about and using his experiences for the film. When we met him we didn't want to bring up the fact he used to suffer from them himself as we weren't sure if it would be rude or not, however it was one of the first things Jonathan talked to us about which was good as he is clearly comfortable about it to talk to us about. He was also able to help out with a lot of the props we needed and was available at the times we preferably want to film which was great. He will be supplying his own food but would like travel expenses to be paid which is completely fair as he does have a while to travel here. Overall we are looking forward to working with him. 

Drama students in lesson

In this weeks lesson 3 drama students were there to read through our scripts and act out a scene. When reading our script they were really helpful in how to structure it correctly and gave us a lot of tips on this. They also gave us some positive comments on the script as there was a lot of in depth direction which is really helpful for the actor. When it came to acting out a scene we had the male student act it out since we were looking for a male actor anyway, and we decided to get him to do the panic attack scene as this is going to be the most important part of our film. He was actually really good and again gave us some ideas on how to film the panic attack. Overall I think that this exercise was a good thing to have us do and having an actor read through the script really helped us a lot. We also took the students contact details and considered using him for the film if we were unsuccessful with finding a more mature actor. 

Group meeting 2

To be ready for the pitch tomorrow we had another group meeting today to build more on the idea. We discussed what sort of actor would be ideal and although Louise will be putting a post on the facebook group for the drama students just in case, we do want to try and get an older male preferably in their 30's. This is because we think it would work better with the film as it could look more professional, it would also mean we can add more to the script as he would have more life experience and Oli likes the idea of him being a former solider, which will be hinted at in the film. The fact he used to be a solider also makes the audience think that it could be something that happened when he was out fighting that caused him to be scared of the outside. But we won't actually reveal to the audience what caused his Agoraphobia. A problem we're going to have to try and get around is that we a bedroom but aren't allowed to film in student accommodation. Oli had the idea of filming in his bedroom at home at Halifax, which is our only option at the moment so we're having to work the script around his room layout. This also means it would be preferable to get an actor who lives nearer to Halifax as it is going to be expensive travelling there and finding accommodation.  

Research into Agoraphobia

After discussing that our film was going to be about someone suffering from Agoraphobia I have decided to do some research into this condition to see if there is any help on what to build our character like and their surroundings. I found that the definition of Agoraphobia is that it is a fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult, or help wouldn't be available if things go wrong. A person with Agoraphobia might be scared of: 

• travelling on public transport
• visiting a shopping centre
• leaving home (which is what our character is going to be dealing with)

To help with our panic attack scene I have also been looking into what people who suffer from Agoraphobia do when they find themselves in a stressful situation and they usually experience symptoms of a panic attack such as:

• rapid heartbeat
• rapid breathing (hyperventilating) 
• feeling hot and sweaty
• feeling sick

Drama Group Meeting 1

For the drama project it was a requirement to work with people you didn't work with on the previous project 'Documentary'. I am in a group with Oliver Guy, Hannah Grencis, Rose Ryk, Adam Young and Louise Bailey. Earlier today we had our first group meeting where we discussed any ideas we had to create a drama with the theme 'journey'. Oliver had an idea of doing a film on someone who suffered from Agoraphobia, it would all be filmed in one room which would be this persons bedroom that he/she would never leave, and the journey would be a journey in their mind on how far they have come with their fear and whether or not they would eventually leave the room. At first it was difficult to get the concept of journey to make sense that that was what the theme was, but we all agreed that it worked as a journey through the mind and we have chosen this idea to build on for the film. We also delegated roles to the group and Oli is director, Louise is producer, Rose is cinematographer, Hannah is sound recordist, Adam in sound editor and I will be the visual editor.  

Sound Editing

One of my jobs as sound editor was to review all of the sounds Elliot recorded over the full day at the yard of the guys working. I picked out all the best parts of sound that included a few sounds of the wheel spinning, a bike pump being used, general sounds of them working using the tools, and riding the bike on the gravel. There were a lot of clean and usual sounds and we all liked the sounds of the wheel spins to use at the start of the documentary. After I reviewed all the audio I put them into ProTools and cut out the parts of audio that weren't needed for the edit. We were left with quite a lot of tracks to choose from and what the editor needed was a short clip that just consisted of a few sounds all at once like wheel spins, chains hitting together and background noise of them working with tools. I chose the three best clips of sound that had quite subtle or no talking in and put them together to export for the beginning of the film. 

Screenshot of the tracks after the unnecessary parts were taken out: 

 

Interview Transcripts - Luke

To make the process of creating a storyline for the documentary more simple we had to make a transcript of all the interview footage so we can pick out the best bits for the story. 


Luke:
Yeah er, I-I guess erm... why did we start? why did we start? it's from er, DIY kind of project in-in Holland for me, so it was about kind of erm, self empowerment through learning so if you...could like start fixing things or start having an understanding how things work so like bicycles are a really basic...well, it's probably the most basic machine that's really high efficiency so, a lot of people could ride it and they could also fix it themselves erm, but, society that lives today doesn't really think of things, like Gemma said earlier, it's not-it's like its-its seen as like one whole thing so we'd find that people would have a puncture and er, they say the bikes broken when actually its just like the inner tubes broken do you know what I mean, I wouldn't break into components erm... yeah so err, what i did, I we-I wanted to do a DIY kind of repair caff I guess that's what it's called nowadays erm, and then yeah there was this big pitch and my friend Steph who id been asking about doing a bike shop there, [and the girl was saying no n-no] and there was this big pitch where it was like Dragons Den kind of erm, competition and you could present, and I think they put Gemma with us really because we were, kind of, rudderless like you know, we had this idea and I knew what I wanted to do but I didn't want to work with-I was against all kind of, rules, even though me and Gemma shared the same birthday [can hear Gemma laugh] it is like chalk and cheese really like, even though we like, I've always respected her and like, she turns out to be right a lot of the time but it's kind of like a good-a good balance where Gemma was promotion and like, producing... er saying we needed to market things like produce a website, produce poster, get a brand in, keep talking to the guild and id always be like fuck them let just do our own fucking thing kind of, got this nice little workshop, we'll just do what we want and ignore them and, quite a naive attitude really erm.... and then it kind of-so then I had to re-sit a year erm... well I didn't have to re sit a year that's another story in itself but I ended up having-I was-I was-I need to do maths and electronics so I had a lot of time and I just put-I was working down at Recycles a lot and I was learning how to fix a bike myself and for me it was like the volunteering was like a skill share so someone-it's not like he was asking them to come and volunteer for you it's like they can come down and learn how to fix a bike in return for like keeping the space running and that kind of then-other people come along and want to learn how to fix a bike and it kind of, it should, should be self-sustainable and like from peoples just, interest in bikes erm...Yeah but there was also like the-the money aspect of the-theeeerer-the like-the sustainability in the full sense of the word like it-like to be sustainable it's like I could volunteer all my hours but then I'd get burnt out like and how am I gonna live and like that's [kind of just decide] that Gemma was more always like aware of erm, seeing the bigger picture, like, erm...yeah so as it-so as it went on the bike project kind of grew more-we never really advertise more- we didn't ever produce any leaflets I don't think actually, maybe posters, I don't know... but kind of, it was always... people were coming as we were capable of-well we weren't quite capable of like, catering for the people that come but it was always fairly close balance, erm, yeah and it just become a nice place where people would come down and you could-you could come down if you hadn't ridden a bike before and learn how to build a bike for yourself to ride away however many week you wanted to take like there was no pressure, we didn't have to pay any bills, it was an unused space, it was an old bar so it was like-well a-a old club so it was like quite a nice space anyway, apart from a bit dark, you couldn't really see... yeah and people would just come, they come down and hung out and fix their own bikes, and it was nice, it was nice to see how people just f-their confidence grew and like be able to take control of just like-for some people it's just a vehicle, for some people it's a hobby, and for some people it's like...yeah, yeah, it's just that erm...just a learning experience and yeah it's like self empowerment kind of side of things...and I don't know what else to say now [Gentle laugh] so you have to prompt me. I don't know, where do we go from there? where we are now? so we carried on there. our relationship with the guild? [Laugh] I guess our relationship with the guild because of like, my attitude towards them and Gemma's attitude was er...up and down [Laugh] I think if-if Gemma wasn't there we would've been thrown out at least twice, possibly three times erm...and er, how it is now like there wer-wer-I mean we were selling er, bike products in the shop as well so like to-to pay for the project it like-we were sourcing  inner tubes, locks, erm, tires, don't think we ever did lights, break cables, did we do break cables? no. pumps. so that like-the selling of that and that profits from that was kind of erm, going to helping pay for new tools, stuff like that...bikes were getting donated to us at fairly regular pace erm, it all seemed to be going quite nice and then guilds get refurbished and...they wanted us to carry on but they didn't really want us to carry on in the same way, the weren't happy with it being-it was a student thing so it was only for students whereas we did have a lot of crazy people come in, we also had a lot of like er, people from all-all backgrounds coming in and it wasn't-it was-it was always, it's for the community and the university should be for the community it's not for like-it's the benefit of educating people is for everyone, you know, like its-that's why it should be free and I'm going right off topic [Laugh +background laughter] I been going on a right rant! I'm ranting okay I realised [Bigger laugh]
[Gemma suggests something, can't transcribe]
We did it at the Brink yeah, yeah, yeah
Gemma:
...and that's a really interesting venue...
Luke:
See this is why it needed to be both of us because I don't know [Laugh] So...I don't know it that well [Can't transcribe] I can't really-I can't remember. how did we get the Brink? I don't know
Gemma:
Well not how jus-just say w-we did it
Luke:
Okay, so yeah, so part of what-why did it come about though? why did we start doing bike doctors?
Gemma:
Because i knew the guy
Luke:
Yeah.
Gemma:
But it doesn't matter it's the fact that...
Luke:
Yeah but in my head it was always like [Laugh] I don't know why we did, because in my head it's like "it's a DIY workshop so..."
Keith:
[Something]
Luke: 
No, no, but we wer-we f-for me it was always like kind of, this is it, this is- this is the beautiful relationship between me and Gemma it's like-for me it's like we're doing too much already and Gemma was like "we need to do more", and we did more, every time we did managed to, somehow, do more but er... yes it-d-d-Gemma got contact with the Brink cafe which is the er, first dry bar in the country right? so it's for like recovering alcoholics or drug abusers and it's kind of, to give them a responsibility er, well not responsibility, to make them feel wanted in society again, i guess like by giving them responsibilities so like giving them shifts behind the bar or they'll be in cooking, or whether they're just waiting and we'd go down there once a month erm, on a Sunday and just do a free bike fixing session erm, the aim was always to help fix their bikes but, it's quite hard to let just someone just do it and you just-j-j-I don't know, wed-t-wed tend to kind of, yeah, do it for them if they didn't want to but a lot-like the-er-the-some people would wanna fix their own bikes and they would...erm...yeah I'm just rambling again anyway [Laughter] this is why I shouldn't talk [Laugh]

Interview Transcript - Gemma

Ryan:

So Gemma if youd just like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do

Gemma:

Okay, err, so I’m Gemma Jerome and erm, I was erm, one of the directors of Recycles when we first started. Erm, so I helped to found Recycles, erm, and then I was with them up until about a year ago, erm, at which point my PhD took over. Erm, but yeah erm, so myself and Luke and two other people, we entered a social enterprise competition, erm, I was new, erm, to the group, I did the three erm, well Luke and the other two guys they had the idea and I went along with the idea of wanting to do something to do with bikes; they put us together and, erm, a beautiful thing was born though we erm, we knew that we wanted to er, encourage more people to cycle in Liverpool and, erm, we were quite upset about the waste of bikes so when people didn’t use their bike anymore, just sitting in the yard, and a lot of them are going to landfill, erm, there wasn’t a recycling loop that could capture them. Erm and also I’ve lived in a couple of other cities and Liverpool is I think the least friendly in terms of erm, drivers understanding cyclists so we wanted to kind of create a critical mass of people who cycled so we could slowly but surely change the culture of er, cycling in Liverpool

Ryan:

Wow, that was a good answer

[Flirtatious laughing]

Erm, have you been a bike fanatic…

[Gemma laughs]

Gemma:

No [Laughs] erm, I erm, I’ve always had bikes like most children, errrm, I errm, I do remember my first bike it was a, it was neon pink and green er, as was the fashion in the ‘80s, erm, and it got stolen and I was- I was heartbroken but we drove around and we found it. Erm, so I-so I I’ve- I understand how people have a relationship with their bike erm, and I-I think that is something that erm, we, as an organization, understand and try and nurture in people because erm, yeah people-people love their bikes and erm, if-if they feel er, that they wanna take care of it then they start to think “well how can I actually fix it myself” instead of it being this thing that you erm, consume it becomes part of your life and then you can erm, have more autonomy if you know how to fix it so the kind of do it yourself aspect of the project started to grow erm, and we actually started to think “well how do we want people to feel about their bikes that they are using as a sustainable form of transport”. Erm, and i-yeah i… I probably.. I’ve been a-a… what get termed a utility cyclist so I go everywhere on my bike, I don’t drive erm, for about 10 years so erm… yeah I-I’ve just erm, I’ve just got my first erm, hand built bike er, which feels like a right of passage, erm, a good friend of mine who also is based in Liverpool started building frames so, I think Liverpool is getting a really interesting bike culture; people who… who erm, want to rekindle erm, maybe that craftsmanship that erm, we had in-in the UK with regards to bikes a long time ago and hopefully Liverpool can be a real kind of…erm, heartlands that erm, Recycles is a big part of it so… yeah… yeah.

Ryan:

Wow, that was really good

[Cheeky giggles]

Gemma:

I mean maybe, would you be interested in kind of, I don’t know I saw a question on there with regards to how we’re set up structurally or something about why we chose to be a voluntary organization

Ryan:

Yeah, yeah there’s one here about why you’re a voluntary based company

Gemma:

Yeah okay, I could say something about that

Ryan:

So er, Gemma what-what made you want to pursue a voluntary based company

Gemma:

Erm, okay well we erm, the c-the catalyst for Recycles becoming an organization erm, we were erm, awarded erm, a prize er, as part of a social enterprise competition and we were rewarded £1000 which er, was-was a great start erm, to us becoming erm, more of a-a formal-a formalized group. Erm, we weren’t allowed to spend it on ourselves erm, we wouldn’t have wanted to but, erm, it allowed us to kind of buy our first erm, materials for the workshop and we-we knew that we would always have to be erm, or at least for the first period, be erm, volunteers but we wanted to give other people erm, in-in the university but also in the local community a chance to volunteer in the workshop as well. Erm, we were really passionate, and st- and still are, Recycles are really passionate about how volunteering is something that gives you confidence in a way other things don’t so its not the same as a job and we quite quickly became erm, an organization that attracted people who maybe.. they… they were having a break from working, er, maybe they actually erm had erm, a condition that meant they were in long term unemployment… erm Recycles became a really important part of their life; they could come, volunteer, be really valued and erm, and contribute the skills and knowledge that they had but they weren’t able to erm, at that point share with anyone wider than family and friends…erm, so… and I think that there’s something really strong in voluntary organizations, erm, but probably about after a year we realized that its er, its hard work erm, running a voluntary organization that doesn’t have any erm, any revenue, er so we were able to track funding for capitol like so we could buy more, er, tools or make the workshop a-a yeah, more comfortable place to be. Erm, but then we took the step erm, that probably is intuitive for voluntary organizations to make where we decided to constitute as a-as a er, community interest company so that’s a, a way of erm, structuring yourself so people understand that what you do isn’t for profit its to erm, contribute to social change and, erm… yo-your, erm… very much focused on-on community assets and-and skills in the community, erm, but it meant that we could an-er-er-erm… and still can develop the project so that people can start getting reimbursed, er, for what their doing, and so in terms of sustainability that’s where we’re at…and…yeah, only good things can come of it, erm… yeah

What ty-what ki-part of a bike I would like to be, that’s a funny question isn’t it [Laugh] I don’t want to think about it [Laugh] Erm, let me just think if there’s anything else that is important about Recycles. Erm, Luke what-what else would you like me to say? What else do you want me to say?

[Mumbles]

Okay. Erm… do you think its interesting the fact that we were like based at a university, but now we’re not? You know because you guys are from a university is it interesting… [Can’t transcribe] … a partnership with the university but now we don’t or…

Ryan:

Yeah anything you can…

Gemma:

Oh sorry. Okay, I guess we’ll just get loads of stuff and then take little bits of it. Okay cool, probably too hot at the moment.

Luke:

Could you say about how the structure of… [Can’t transcribe] 

Gemma:

Yeah I just said like we started out as like just pure volunteers… [Can’t transcribe]

Luke:

…We were like opposites

Gemma:

Me and you?

Luke:

Well in like the structure

Gemma:

Okay. Okay we could-yeah we could…

Luke:

And like how it evolved and ended up being like… but like how erm, yeah I dunno… [Can’t transcribe]… the fact that we were kind of frugal…

Gemma: 

Yeah, yeah it’s a good point. So we could have a bit of, something a bit critical…[Can’t transcribe]

Luke:

…I don’t know to be honest nothings fucking perfect

Gemma:

Yeah, you mean like don-don’t spin it too much [Laugh] yeah I know, joking, joking. Okay I’ll-I’ll-I’ll, do ye… how’s the format gonna be, is it gonna be your voice saying, asking me something or should I give you the question? No its fine I can just say something [Laugh] Erm…okay… yep, that’s fine. Erm… do you wanna like count or something so I [Laugh] know when to start or It doesn’t matter [Laughing plus audible clap] Thanks clapper board.

Okay erm, yeah I think in terms of the er, how we started and our structure and governance its quite an interesting story…erm, in all of that which we feel if somebody else was wanting to start a similar project in their area, erm, maybe we could help them leapfrog some of the, the problems or issues that came to light for us. So, we were erm, we were a mixed group with different values, similar but different, erm, similar enough to, to work together but different to make it interesting, erm…and, erm, myself I-I had erm, a background which meant I was interested in how we structure the group so erm, we keep volunteers…erm…erm, informed and in a way organized so they know what they’re doing and they feel like the know how to contribute when they’re in the space, and we keep them safe and erm, we’re like transparent in how we do that erm, so for me its just always easy to have rules er, so then everyone can refer to the rules so erm, we agreed it as a-as a whole group that flat structure is important, but for me you can have a flat structure but you can have erm, specific responsibilities within that, and you can, you know, change who has those responsibilities but it is important to maybe have someone who like manages volunteers and someone who manages the accounts and someone who, like, creates a system so you know who’s opening up, erm, if something goes wrong who you go to, all of that, and we were… we, we did have some different opinions within the group about how and when those things were put in place, erm… I guess its fair to say I was in the mi-the minority erm, I felt wanting to make it quite structured erm, and I didn’t want to force the issue so probably for about 6 months or a year erm, we…we just were really adhoc and we just opened, sometimes didn’t open, erm, and people who came, and when they came they enjoyed it, but a few people were frustrated and would co-make complaints if we weren’t open when we said we were gonna be and… you know its-its… its human-sized problems but erm, it-it can develop into something if you get a reputation for not being kind of, erm…clear, erm. So erm, I think it slowly, we evolved and it’s the nature of working together as a group that people who maybe were against having structure started to slowly come round and erm, it also really erm, helped our relationship with the landlords where we were based erm, because they were er, quite a formal institution, they were the erm, well it’s a students union where we were based initially and they-they didn’t always understand like how relaxed we-they-well…we were and in a way we were misinterpreted sometimes as pe-like we were like-what the ideas er, and the concepts we were er, creating are fairly radical erm, but I think they, they interpreted our lack of organization as maybe, like the prodorative erm, form of radical like some people like “oh, we’re not sure how to, how to deal with you as an organization” so erm, I think when we implemented erm, kind of like a management team, but we were really clear that er, managers of each task, they didn’t have more say than anyone else but they were just the ones that are accountable for those things to happen like volunteering or erm, the workshop and how it-you know how it functions, and I think erm, in hindsight, yeah iii-we would’ve maybe sp-speeded up that process but erm, you learn, you learn a lot from your mistakes. [Laughs] and erm, yeah we ended up with a good relationship with the students union… mmmmmainly good? [Laughs] up and down. Okay you can tell the story after that. Erm, you-you can tell your version of that bit. Yeah?

Interview Transcript - Chris

Chris:

Yeah so I’m Chris, I’ve been working with recycles for about three years; how did I get involved in recycles? I don’t know. [Laugh]. It was, it was kind of a natural affair I guess. When I came to Liverpool I basically realized I couldn’t afford these bus passes that people were dishing out to students at three-four hundred quid, so I realized, get on eBay, find myself a second hand bike, and get it [Laugh]. That took about a week and then realized I’d bought myself a second hand bike that was broken, so I realize that I was going to have to learn how to fix this broken second hand bike so I-er-I started… reading on the internet and looking around to see who could teach me and really luckily bumped in to this group of people who’d set up this bike project, erm, called Recycles, erm, and started going down to their workshop and was just amazed, like, it-it was brilliant; they were letting you go down, use their tools, work-work on your bike or do whatever you wanted to your bike and just s-s..yeah just let you get on and do it, erm, so yeah that’s how I ending up kind of getting involved with the group and then after a year or two kind of found [Whilst laughing briefly] myself in the, in the position where I was helping the thing go along - at first I thought I was a customer but they kind of encouraged me along the way to get involved, and more involved, and come to the meetings, and do all the good stuff and we ended up, like I ended up like, I felt part of the-the group and it was, yeah it was absolutely amazing yeah, and at end of it I had a bike that worked as well which is important to me. [Laughs, can also briefly hear woman laughing] So… yeah, I don’t know, about a year after I started kind of feeling involved. Erm, we were-were starting to get shifted out of the students union, erm, and, yeah, moved on to different places, so err, we… when we moved out there we collected all of our stuff which was… basically spread across a nightclub, this.. ah bit [Laugh], a massive building that used to be a nightclub and, err, we compacted into.. our friends shed, after compacting it into a van [while laughing] a few times. So yeah we, for a couple months we worked out of this shed which was probably about, yea-yeahh, about half the sixe of this room. Erm, yeah we got-got all the bikes we had, all the tools we had, all the bits we had, all the wheels we had, all the tires we had, chucked them in and then on-on a day we’d be working we’d pull them all out again one by one - it would maybe take an hour to get the place open - and then we’d work in it for an hour and fill the place up again. Erm, so…yeah… after that we got offered a space in this massive yard which, er, is where we’re working out of at the minute, and, err, and basically we saw more space as a good thing, and, this yard turns out to have a lot of these grade two listed buildings, erm, but it-its all dilapidated, its falling apart. Erm, we work every Saturday out of that yard in-in the open sky; we’ve built ourselves a shed, quarter of the size of this room, erm, to stuff as much of our stuff as we can into, but it just doesn’t work any more so… we are working at the minute, still doing like a bicycle recycling project, still tryna like help people like fix their bikes, teach them like what’s goin- like how it works, try to get people involved in the community sense of it, but at the same time we’re working in the background tryna find some money to get this site back into use which is… I think its important as well yeah… erm. Alongside that we do, we do a number of bike doctors, so we, you know, we go out into community markets or, these er… like this dry bar that Luke was talking about erm, and we, er, yeah basically once a month go to each one of these places so we end up pretty busy over the we- like over the month erm, going to these places and, like err, might be like, underprivileged places where people might not have a lot of money so couldn’t afford to take their bike to a… a bike shop to get it fixed, we try and help like sh- fi- fix something for them or show them how to fix it, erm just, yeah try to get them involved all the time. So we work just down-just down the road; there’s a community market called Granbury market which erm, yeah opens, yeah once a month over the s-summer, erm, and they did a winter one this year it’s amazing actually, we were all freezing, erm, erm yeah basically yeah we set up, the whole market’s going on, and we get hundreds of people just [Bonks mic] flowing with the bikes, bikes, bikes, bikes, families, some, some families bring four bikes [laugh] we try and do what we can for them but, yeah yeah, we err, yeah, its-its just great so its-its definitely like a massive community thing that’s like we still try to work on doing, yeah, its, yeah its just a great project all around.

You got any question for me? [Laugh, clapping in background]

Ryan:

How did your…

Chris:

How did I learn to ride a bike? [Laugh] you wa-you want to know how I learnt to [Laughing more, woman is laughing/talking in background] you do, you really do [more laughing] okay erm [Yet more raucous laughter]

I remember [Laughs again] when I was about four years old [Laughing] my mum got me on this bmx bike that was made for about an eight year old, big hard plastic seat, pushed me down this hill, just got me rolling, kept me going down the hill and I-I thought I was cycling, cycling, cycling, and, realized I was peddling backwards [Women quietly laughing in background], I was told I was peddling backwards about a year later.

Interview Transcripts - Keith

Keith:

But I’ve learnt a lot off the guys here, things I’ve known what to do and not been able to do, and watching what they do and I thought I-I’ll do that but I wont tell ‘em how much [unrecognizable scouse]. I thought I could do that, but I didn’t know before they started taking these things to pieces, different bits and pieces, as I say. Thing is I took up repairing ‘em because I couldn’t ride ‘em, ‘cause I was half deaf, and I was interested, but once I started I thought okay, go get some lessons, they came up on the echo, advertised, cycle mechanic apprenticeship; well apprenticeships then, if you’re an apprentice you couldn’t get sacked, you’ve got a job, four year or four an a half year apprenticeship, I thought “well I’ve got a job for four and a half years”, and so I took it on…yeah, it worked good. And as I say it went on, I used to start repairing bikes between jobs, once I got to know recycles… great… and I still repair them now. Take bikes in, do roadside repairs, and go out anybody gives us a call, students, I go out and repair it for ‘em; got a bad job, come out, get me trailer on the back and go pick the bike up. But these are great to be with, fantastic. That (setup?) was a good thing, but, it had its downsides, it was dark, you could just-you had to have lights on your head or the light above to see anything you couldn’t see nothing, the smaller items you couldn’t see it. It was two or three sections I think had lights in, the rest you just sort of – where’s the bike? [Laughs] – it was good, but being with these they are good guys.

Ryan:

Right okay err, do you just wanna introduce yourself

Keith:

Yeah. You haven’t started yet I know.

Ryan:

We have now.

Keith:

You have started now yeah

[Chatter and laughter]

Well I’m Keith by the way

Ryan:

Right, I’ll count down

Keith:

Yeah

Ryan:

Three…Two…One…

Keith:

I’m Keith. I been with these students for what, 5-6 years now, repairing cycles. Err, got to know them through that critical mass, and through the critical mass I got to know what they were on about, and when I saw what they were capable - good fellas – I thought “yeah I like this, I’ll join them”, so therefore I been with them, do what I can for them, and even, you know, be there as often as possible. Once we lost the cellar, things sort of… went down, but they all kept together and we did bike doctors outside – cafes, restaurants, the campfairness(?), street markets, Gurn(?) Street… so yeah, from there it went on. I happy with them, they’re great guys, make me feel young anyway [Laugh] yeah they are good. And I say this place we got going down the road here, hopefully it can work out good. [Scouse] we’re working out in the open and during the winter time, with the weather, you’ve got no chance, erm, your hands are too cold. You lose a part on the floor, ‘mongst gravel and stuff, unless you’ve got a magnetic picker-upper or something or something to pick it up you’ve got no chance of finding your part unless it says here I am… so yeah, it is err, it is rough, but their good, they’re good guys.

Ryan:

Do er, do you bike yourself.

Keith:

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Ryan saying something]

Yeah started cycling about what 196…5, because when I got me ear fixed, I got perforated eardrum, got that fixed, I used to race, and it was over-even now its over 100 mile a week, approximately, up and down the roads, so you know shopping, bits-and-pieces, out and about; when I get a sort of “I’m fed up staying in”, get on your bike and get out, go somewhere, go down (somewhere)pool, promenade, pier head; what’s easiest way of travelling? Get on your bike. You can cycle down there, drift down there, you’ve permanently got a seat to sit on, you don’t look for a bench to sit on, even though you can put the bike to one side and sit down you’ve permanently got your own seat, your own gear… so yeah, yeah its good, been biking for years, ’64 say. Not saying me age, don’t ask me [Laugh]

More events coming up is there? Kernes-oh hello! Hiya nice to see ya [Laughing from Keith and background] more events coming up? (Lists some places, can’t decipher) [background chatter] Good, great, good, that’s what I want. You know about Bernards shop don’t ya down sm-down road? Ye-ya been down there haven’t ya? Or Sam has, Sam’s been down there, yeah ive told them about ya, they know all about ya, shown ‘em picture of ya, yeah [Laughs]. Not the crazy gang, you’re a good guy, you’re good guys, you’re very good

Ryan:

If there’s anything else you wanna…

Keith

Errr, not really, just that you know, I’m with the guys, bike repairing, I’m just hoping he can, we can make something of it this year.

Liverpool Group Meeting

Before going out to film the interview on Monday night we had a tutorial with Lee to discuss what we intended to get from the shoot that night. We talked through what we plan to do from start to finish and the time scale we expected everything to be finished by. We wanted to go in and talk to the guys first to get to know them and for them to get comfortable around us while the camera operator and director figures out the best place to put the camera. We also had a review of the questions that Ryan had come up with that he thought would leave the interviewee with a lot to say, and added anything that we thought would also give us an interesting response. It was also decided that since we didn't need 6 of us to stay in his house during the interview since it would be cramped and quite intimidating, that Olivier and Heather would go over to the yard where we would be filming the next day to see where we could get some interesting shots and how much space there was down there. 

Liverpool day 2

Today we had a full day of filming while the guys were at there workshop. We started off with getting some shots of Chris leaving his house and riding his bike to the workshop by using a steady cam for smoother shots. There were a lot of things in the yard where their workshop is that were interesting ad good to film. We all had a go at filming some shots of them all working on the bikes and we got a lot of footage from that. Jake and Olivier used a track and dolly to get some tracking shots of the yard, bikes and of them all filming. As sound editor i didn't really have too much to do apart from helping out when someone needed something and having a go taking some shots of one of the guys working. We got some cruising shots of Chris riding round on his bike and to film this Ryan had to sit on the back of a tandem holding the steady cam so he could get some shots riding next to Chris. I think that the filming went really well and we got some really good footage of them all at the workshop.