During this mid semester break week I have spent some time focusing on my plan regarding the larger assessment outcome we are about to begin for the second part of this semester. Focusing on creating a 3-10 minute short film relating to an observation I have been searching for ideas or stimuli to help in formulating an idea. Recommend to me by Robin, I watched the 1965 film The War Game (Peter Watkins) based on information I had told him about my interest in exploring narrative from a perspective of somewhere between fiction and fact in a dramatic way (such as a docu-drama). This particular film was a great insight into this area and while containing some very graphic content and themes it was a very enjoyable and unique film. I have began to narrow down my ideas and putting them to paper in preparation of next weeks task of presenting our ideas to our class in order to move forward.

With 2 students in our group out of action we approached our second filming day with a total of 6 cast and crew all together. While this didnt cause a large amount of hassel due to the filming requirements being much easier for this particular film recreation (Ma Vie Sexuelle) compared to Mad Men which was somewhat arduous in comparison. I took on the roll of Cameraman despite originally being assigned as an actor, I really wanted to work on camera as I had acted on the previous task and felt it would be prudent to have variance in roles between the two days. We didn’t encounter many other obstacles over the span of filming and I took particular attention to lighting with this specific film as the source material had an interesting lighting composition that I felt should be recreated accurately to capture the aesthetic feel of the original production. I believe we achieved this successfully and have now moved onto the post-production stage with Mad Men already edited together into a final product.

Sitting on what I assumed to be the last train (or close to it) out of the city on a Sunday night you are never short of interesting people around. As I sat yearning to be home to finally sleep after a long shift I spotted a man pacing himself up and down the carriage. A plastic back resting nearby an empty seat, the man continued to pace himself, pulling out a pencil and methodically trying to write on a window to no avail every few minutes. The man didn’t seem menacing or dangerous in any way but was clearly under the influence, the other patrons around me kept their distance, so did I. Half way through the trio the man moved onto the next carriage at almost the same time the Train PSOs walked through our carraige checking around for anything out of the ordinary, I alerted the PSOs to the mans presence as it seemed a better use of their time. They walked on to the next carriage to find him and never returned. There was no resolution to this yarn, as is life. People enter and exit as they do.

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