Summary of my contribution to the collaboration

During the course of this project I was involved with the research of our chosen location, Thamesmead and finding good locations for the filming process. Together, with others in the group we chose Southmere park and lake and the surrounding buildings to do a lot of the filming. I found the park very interesting because there where a lot of horses chained up all over the park. It seemed that the horses and been in the same spot for quite a while as they were standing in huge muddy circles the length of their chain. These circles created quite an interesting pattern on the grass when viewed from afar. We also chose to do some filming under the bridges that run next to a very busy road. This was where we drew the chalk drawings and found a lot of good footage of graffiti and staggering amounts of drug paraphernalia.

On day one of filming, I spent most of the time looking round corners, climbing the odd hill, venturing up scary stairwells in the hope of finding new things to shoot or a different angle on a building to make the shot more interesting. Although we weren't planning on doing much of the filming on the first day, the weather conditions were perfect and there were things around that wouldn't have been there the next day so we ended up shooting as stuff as it came, i.e. a balloon stuck in a bush or an airplane flying perfectly over a tower block.

During the second day of filming I took more of a back seat, having scouted around the areas the day before. The group split into three, people filming, some people doing chalk drawings and some people doing sound recording. I stuck with the film crew and helped to set up shots, like getting a horses attention and feeding it apples while someone else got the shot we needed.

When it came to editing the film, there was a smaller group of us working on it. Mainly the ones of us who are studying film. I found the editing process quite tricky as I find it harder to concentrate when staring at a computer screen all day long, but I had my input and it was heard and as a result I feel I contributed more towards the middle and end result of the collaboration than the beginning.

Although our group was very big, consisting of 10 people, I found it really fun and interesting to work with so many. It meant that there was never a dull moment, a lot of creative opinions were being passed around and everyone had there own role to play. Which I think has resulted in a great film.