Ollie Tristram

Tuesday 18th November

Picked up the camera at Waverley building at 11am. The sun was shining and the air was clear - a perfect day for filming.

Our aim for the day was to film creative and artistic shots around the city to represent an image of where Sam, the busker, plays his music. This would include shots of the architecture, the grimey parts, and also all the people that live in the city.

We started off by walking to John Lewis to buy a Mini DV tape because we forgot to provide our own (oops) and then set out onto the streets of Nottingham. As we walked around we got a shot of the Cornerhouse, down alley-ways and down Clumber Street to show all the people walking the busy street.

We experimented with the manual focus and the zoom throughout the day to really try and show-off Nottingham in a fresh and unique way.

Along our travels we came across a couple of other buskers: a violinist and saxophonist. Although not planned, we thought getting shots of these two other buskers would work well in the documentary as they will also show the audience that Nottingham and it's society has some personality to it and of course, mainly that it would run along the same theme of busking.

As the day came to a close and the sun began to set we had gathered a variety of interesting shots which I am personally proud of and looked forward to Thursday to gather more city shots and interview and film Sam.


Thursday 20th November

After Tuesdays rather successful day shooting we were all looking forward to today, especially because we would be filming our main section.

On our way down to where Sam usually plays (outside River Island) we took some more stock footage of the surroundings of Nottingham, keeping in mind all the rules of taking a well framed shot, such as rule of thirds.

As we got down to Sam we said hello and told him our plans for the day that involved him. These were to get some angles of him playing, do an interview using an Edirol R-09, and do an audio recording of him playing live.

Over the next hour or so we got as many interesting shots as we could, focusing on his face, hands and wide shots. We also filmed creative shots like of the money he'd earned on his guitar case and of his amp. All which we plan to use in a montage effect.

After we began conducting the interview. I asked him questions on his busking, on Nottingham and on the people. With the recording the plan was to cut out all the sections where I am asking questions and use only the bits of Sam talking as if to get him telling a story. The only problem with this approach is that doing it in the street leaves you with sudden cuts as the background noise drops out. We will see how it sounds in the edit otherwise we will have to go and record some more city ambience to fill in the gaps.

Finally, after buying Sam a cup of coffee and giving him some change for his time, I set about getting a live recording of him playing and did so by laying the mic close to his amp as to reduce background noise to a minimal and only pic up his playing.

With footage and audio in hand, it's off to the editing!