Weather reports

I checked the weather reports for Monday and Tuesday:

Monday seems like good weather, tuesday seems okay but not as good, its going to rain in the evening but we'll have finished shooting for the day by then so it shouldnt matter.

Friday's weather report isnt up yet but im keeping my fingers crossed..

Parashoot

I filled out the Parashoot risk assessment form today and sent to Debbie, it hasnt got any additional forms submitted with it as we quite honestly havent got that far with the project yet, however the form is set up and I recieved some feeback from Debbie:
"You need to consdider health & safety issues around carrying equipment" -  because the location of the church is quite near to where we'll be staying, i think the risks to crew are pretty small and shouldnt be an issue
"You need to consider road safety and issues around working with the public" - As the church is on a main road but fenced off from it entirely, i also dont think there are any issues with this aspect of it




Hopefully ill get some shot lists etc to add to this form soon as it still seems a little bare

Rang USL

I rang Urban Strawberry Lunch today, Liz Carlisle, one of the band members there seems pretty happy to let us film at the church. She's happy to do an interview with us at the location when we're there on Tuesday too, and if we need to, she says we can use any footage of USL that we need for our project. They seem like a great bunch of people, it hink we've hit gold with this material. Hopefully the weather will be good.

Urban Strawberry Lunch

It turns out that St Luke's church has had 'artists in residence' since 2007. The band Urban Strawberry Lunch have presented exhibitions, poetry, performance art, and 'unplugged gigs' within the grounds of the bombed out church in an attempt to regenerate the church and raise funds to keep in open to the public. On days where events arent being held, the USLis opened as a Heritage tourist site, providing open access to the public.

Here's a Link to Urban Strawberry Lunch's website

The 'Bombed out Church'

We found an interesting looking old church, St Luke's that was blitzed in the war, its kept open to the public due to funding and is a registered charity, locals know it as the 'bombed out church'.

Its also quite near to where we'll be staying...

View Larger Map

Here's a Wiki link for St Luke's

Documentary Ideas

So todays research between me and Jess has gone a little better, we've got a couple of interesting possibles, plus a couple of other backups incase the others fall through:

• The Beatles

Its their 50th anniversary in August, they all grew up in Liverpool, there's bound to be museums and other locations that might be possible to film. There are lots of fans, so we might be able to find a few people willing to discuss them. there are also lots of other bands that have also got famous through gigging in the same venues so perhaps cover them too, possibly also cover upcoming bands (not sure how possible this will be). However this type of doc has been done soo many times before, possibly too dull and done to cover this..

beatles museum

• Reel Unknown

Basicly set as an antithesis to huge cimena complexes that overcharge and show generic hollywood films with little variation. There are interesting new events (unfortunately on Wednesday the 7th not the 5th or 6th, but if the group are willing to return to Liverpool - id be happy to drive- this might be an interesting subject matter) also linked to course well and could be fun, as its current people will want to discuss it. although it has been done before ( a similar event) its only been done in london, heres a link:

Reel Unknown

seven streets' review

• Banksy

The artist has lots of work around Liverpool, and has just donated a piece to the Walker Galleries, Liverpool. The newest piece within Liverpool has just been vandalised by a sympathiser of his rival. This may be slightly too 'local-news'-y. There's a possiblility of following the banksy vs. Robbo storyline (although ive no idea who we'd interview)

• Drinking Culture

Liverpool has the highest rate of emergency hospital admissions for alcohol related injuries in England. There are also many venues which hold 24 hour alcohol licensing. Maybe interview a health/charity worker (vox pops would be fairly easy to get, though not sure what conclusion to take, or how safe it would be to film as probably want some late night drinking shots) Could be a little too chiche'd and negative..

• St Lukes Church

An old church that was burnt to the ground in the war and spent a while being disused before a local band took up residency and opened it up for community events. could interview someone from Urban Strawberry Lunch (the band) about their history and what they do. also could get local historians to tell about history of church and have old pictures to compare with footage of the church now.

St Lukes Website

Wiki's St Lukes page

Meeting

Myself, Jess and Emma met up today to discuss the research findings so far (we're cutting it a bit fine but ive heard that noones really found anything particularly interesting yet), Id invited Owen and Alex but didnt realise they were both scheduled for a class then. We managed to get in touch with them briefly but didnt really get a chance to explain any project ideas. Ive organised a group meeting for tomorrow morning

so that we can organise the group properly. I attempted to book a conference room for us so that we can cover everything and no one gets distracted (by facebook and youtube particularly) and hopefully it will make the project seem like more of a professional operation to the rest of the group, as we're no longer working with just SHU students on our projects, we need to seem somewhat professional to everyone we come in contact with as a group. Unfortunately i left the booking too late and can only get 15 or 30 miute slots anywhere within the uni (i even checked collegiate campus) so instead we'll use a group area of adsetts and hope its not too noisey in there.

Research dead ends

Not had a lot of luck while researching over the past couple of days..

There seems to be a whole lot of deaths and shootings reported and way too much football covered in the news, aside from that, a lot of the cultural events i was hoping to find are hosted at the weekends, which is not helpful to us as we're travelling there for a monday and tuesday.

Im still looking for an interesting story though, hopefully ill find something mentioned on messageboards, im hoping the rest of the group have found something useful by the time we meet up tomorrow to decide on our chosen subject..

When the Levees broke

Recently i have watched Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke, which was origionally 4 one-hour episodes aired on HBO.

It is about how New Orleans was affected by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath and how the citizens struggled to survive the way in which the US government dealt with the emergency, focussing particularly on the lower 9th ward.

Its main body is heart-wrenching person-to-person interviews of people that survived and how they dealt with their situation.

It uses archive footage of New Orleans, both filmed recently before the disaster and historical footage, combined with news reports from the time of the disaster, footage that people took on their phones and cameras during the disaster's aftermath.






It ends in hope of eventual rebuilding and a return of all past citizens, using music from the local brass bands as a way of restoring some hope into the people

Watch When the Levees Broke Here