Week 17: Pre-Production Set- Individual Research

PRE-PRODUCTION SET

Week 17: Individual Research

By Ahmed Sofia

Team 10 - 

Sofia Ahmed - sa605

Shufi Sufana- ams64

Juriaan Van Linschoten- jlv7

James Totty- jt365

Ahad Talukder- at442

Module: EL342- Moving Image

UNIVERSITY OF KENT

Week 17 hit us with a slightly different taste than the past two weeks. It was project week, in university terms it would mean enjoy finishing off your deadlines for the next week and spending sleepless nights in the library or labs regardless of the week being off. I would love to add a twist and say, it would be something you would expect me to be doing but luckily, I was free and I enjoyed my project week catching up on sleep that I've been missing ever since I was born. Sadly, I'm going to burst everyone's bubble by mention here that the latter was something I could not do, I spent my project week working on project which were due the next week. I spent days and nights cringing and crying like any other student, the story of the protagonist in my Moving Image film now had my face printed right across it, I managed to procrastinate myself out of most things until the last minute and it managed to hit me during project week that I had limited and very little time left for work.

As a team we had agreed to meet up at least once every week and discuss our ideas and make progress in our film and script but that seemed impossible during Project week with all the inconvenience we had created for ourselves. Our team came up with the idea of using the social networking systems to our advantage, or what today's generation calls Facebook. We created a group for our team on it and decided to share our views, opinions and ideas on the group's page and upload files/drafts and documents, anything we felt was relevant or in our case even irrelevant considering we're a set of right goofballs. We decided that if it were impossible for even one of us to attend the meeting, we would share our day's work and progress on the page and let our peers be the better judge of whether it made sense or was absolute rubbish.

It was our very own Moodle but with a quicker feedback system because we seemed to spend half our lives on Facebook. We made considerable progress in Week 17 even though I was not able to meet the group for a meeting. The network seemed to connect us just fine and share our views perfectly. Few of us lived minutes away from each other so even though we were unsuccessful in meeting up as a complete group, I was able to drop into their places from time to time and discuss ideas and views in person as human beings and then upload up new ideas together to the rest of us.

I spent Week 17 reviewing most lecture notes and thinking about the events that would take place in the film and started to create the film in the blank canvas inside my head. I was able to visualize the various camera shots and potential locations we could use in the raw footage of our film. I'd keep a notepad or a digital device of sorts considering we're in a highly technological age and I'd scribble down the tiny musings that I've had at the most absurd times during the week.

Sofia Ahmed
Team 10.

Week 16: Pre-Production Set- Finalising Ideas

PRE-PRODUCTION SET

Week 16: Finalising The Idea Behind The Film

By Ahmed Sofia

Team 10 - 

Sofia Ahmed - sa605

Shufi Sufana- ams64

Juriaan Van Linschoten- jlv7

James Totty- jt365

Ahad Talukder- at442

Module: EL342- Moving Image

UNIVERSITY OF KENT

Week 16 started off with a rather familiar buzz as week 15 with exception that I had new faces in my life that I would be working closely with for the next month or so, that was the scenario work-wise. On a lighter note, I had made amazing new friends with a great sense of variety in their likes and dislikes which had me all riled up about things I had never noticed before or could have never been bothered to look into.

We took another look into the draft idea we had introduced ourselves to and realized that it felt a slight bit odd. All in all, I realized that the film did not have a strong enough link to the theme which assigned to us which was starting to worry me. I expressed my views to the group after which they began to see what I was trying to express and we had clearly enjoyed the idea of 'perception of time' which was introduced by James but just the follow up story of the two main protagonists.

We continued to think hard over and over about a follow up story or a main story line which clearly linked our film to the theme, at the same time we tried to keep in mind that we did not want something which would be expected of us. I began to research on the computer right away, Google being my best friend for years has never let me down and once again it reassured me and proved itself after coming to my rescue.

As I was reading and researching leads relating to the theme, I started thinking about time in general and how as a child my parents always spoke about these idioms and a very particular one in my childhood, the one phrase - 'A stitch in time saves nine'. They never said more or less right after and I was never tempted to ask my parents what it ever meant, somehow it was self explanatory to me at that age and in the given events in my life.

For some very odd reason I began to think harder on that phrase and before I knew it I was typing away on Google trying to find out it's origin, the actual meaning behind the phrase and what it's importance was. I came across an explanation saying - 'A timely effort will prevent more work later.' That was my eureka moment, the more I fiddled around with time and it's leads, it ended up leading me straight to 'Procrastination' and all its evils. Bingo, just what I needed. It was my code-breaker, procrastination was suddenly the most meaningful and useful phrase in my life. The theme just happened to break through with the strongest link to procrastination and running out of time. I presented the idea to the group who seemed relieved and absolutely enjoyed the idea.

Along with the importance of time, procrastination became it's other half like ying and yang.

Sofia Ahmed.
Team 10.

Week 15: Pre-Production Set - Ideology & Brainstorming

PRE-PRODUCTION SET

Week 15: Ideology & Brainstorming

By Ahmed Sofia

Team 10 - 

Sofia Ahmed - sa605

Shufi Sufana- ams64

Juriaan Van Linschoten- jlv7

James Totty- jt365

Ahad Talukder- at442

Module: EL342- Moving Image

UNIVERSITY OF KENT

Week 15 was spent in social interactions with my team mates, most of whom I had met for the first time. The original idea was to sit down and discuss the idea behind the film although most of our nights were spent in basic rapport building. Team 10 consists of James Totty, Ahad Talukder, Shufi Sufana, Juriaan Van Linschoten, Wonseok Choi and I.

I was unable to attend the workshop that day so we met up the next few days as we were off and we discussed our plans for our film. The first question that popped into our minds was what the theme 'Out of time' really meant and what were the various ways of perceiving the theme that was presented before. Our group had already decided to try our shot at creating something a little out of the box, a slight bit twisted and different than the usual understanding that would pop in someone's head after they hear or read the theme - 'Out of time'.

During one of the team's casual meet ups James brainstormed and came up with the idea of the 'perception of time' or in layman's term the manipulation of time or the idea of having alternate parallel universes being compared against each on a basic principle. In this case the principle was the theme - Out of time.

The basic ideology behind the script was that the film would cast two main protagonists and their lives would be revealed to the audience and how they went about their day-to-day activities. There would be a variation in their time frames, one of them would have a fast-paced whilst the other would have a rather slow and laid back lifestyle. This was the first basic draft was prepared in week 15.

The weekend of Week 15 was taken off to relax and have a good and eventful weekend.

Sofia Ahmed.