Week Two’s topic was ‘activism’. Although I definitely feel more comfortable with the idea of ‘covering a scene’, which implies having some distance from the social actors involved, talking to a few members of the Climate Rally gave me a greater understanding of the event, and it was fun to feel involved. Overall, filming among the crowd was great and I thought we each got great coverage of what was going on. Doing vox pops was uncomfortable as always. I’m still working on not being too intrusive, but coming across as engaged and like-minded, as well as having an encouraging presence.
In the editing room I was impressed with the amount of coverage that highlighted the atmosphere of the event. We managed to get some decent coverage of the speeches – which I could then cut up and use to different effects. I found it useful to print out a list of shots and highlight which edit they would be used for (I know there’s a name for this but I can’t remember – I think it might be contact sheet). This was time consuming but helped me organise my thoughts. I also transcribed each vox pop and speech, and gave timecodes for the dialogue I wanted to use.