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Natasha Williams (201420609) Creative Practice Blog

Welcome to my Creative Practice blog. This blog shows the process, from start to finish, of making my documentary on Wharf Chambers. Mostly this blog is made up of updates on the production of the documentary but I have also compiled my research in the next blog post and I have included a short reflection on my work.

Please start at the bottom (First Blog Entry 7/02) and scroll up to read it in chronological order. Please make sure to click “keep reading” to see each full post.

Thank you!

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Research Compiled

For my research into Wharf itself please scroll down to “WC History”

 Documentary Making for Digital Humanists. (2021). Open Book Publishers.

https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44LEE_INST/11h5kh8/alma991019868548505181

Chatterton, & Hollands, R. (2003). Urban nightscapes : youth cultures, pleasure spaces and corporate power. Routledge.

https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44LEE_INST/13rlbcs/alma991014025779705181

Adam Curtis:

Century of the Self

HyperNormalisation

Bitter Lake

Lousi Theroux:

Weird Weekend series

The Most Hated Family in America

Choosing Death

Stacey Dooley:

Second Chance Sex Offenders

World's Worst Place For a Woman?

Werner Herzog:

Into the Abyss

Grizzly Man

Man with a Movie Camera

Grey Gardens

The Thin Blue Line

The Imposter

In watching all of these documentaries I better understood how to create a narrative in documentary. They taught me how revealing the truth about something at different points in the film can have completely different effects.

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18/05

Reflection

When I had finally cut the piece down as much as I could and it was still over 5 minutes I emailed Mick and he said that I wouldn’t be marked down for it bein over the limit but I should be aware it should be a teaser for a bigger documentary. I believe my doc could be seen as a trailer but that may be influenced by the fact I know all of the information I have left out/ haven’t been able to get.

I am pleased with how the documentary has turned out. I believe areas that the areas that are lacking are: 1) the sound - the talking head interviews have background noise, I didn’t have the right music to start or end it with

2) my interviewer skills - I have learned a lot from this prject and know in the future how hard it is to edit an interview were the interviewer can be heard in the background sporadically. I managed to cut this out almost entirely except for the end. This was a creative choice in some ways as I wanted the spectator to be reminded of the fact that this is a constructed film from a filmmaker’s perspective and therefore should not be taken as fact without critical thought. However, there are other points in the doc where I ave had to cut my voice out. 

3) the b roll - Ifeel as though I did not get an authentic representation of what events are common at Wharf Chambers by using the Kooky Ken as my main b roll. Although DJs often use the space, I believe using only this event skews the perception of the type of venue Wharf is. I did enquire into filming a punk, anti racist, feminist, anti homophobia/ transphobia slam poetry night but didn’t get a response in time. If I were to extend this into a full length doc, I would film a far greater variety of events as I feel that allowing space for experimentation is what makes Wharf such a special place.

4) my ability to cut footage down - as I edited I found it harder and harder to reduce the size of the doc. I woukd get attached to clips that weren’t necessary but I thought were interesting and this has made my project 2 minutes longer than it should be. I aim to improve these skills if I were to make it into a full length documentary.

There are many other things I would change about the film but overall I am happy with the result and if I were to extend the documentary I would be excited to see where more exploration into this topic would take me.

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13/05 - 17/05

Editing the documentary

Firstly, I wrote a brief edit plan. I made four sequences: “intro”, “what makes wc special”, “the common place” and “the common place to wharf chambers”.

I had several bins: “WC talking heads”, “Raino”, “The Kooky Ken”, “found footage” and “B roll”.

I first edited together some Kooky Ken footage to make a visually engaging introduction. I planned for this to play over the talking head interviews, however, I only ended up using some footage from that night at the very start as the things the interviewees discussed fit more with the b roll I had taken on that night and some other things I had found online (images from the Wharf Chambers site/ instgram for example).

I then used my labelled interview clips from Raino to piece together the “The Common Place” sequence where I added sections of the newsnight segment I had found and images etc. I had taken/ found online (all credited at the end of the doc).

Finally, I used more of Raino’s interview, plus some b roll I took and a bit of the Kooky Ken footage to end the piece as Raino explains how Wharf has gotten to where it is today.

I had to then cut down this draft massively. I took out pauses in people’s speech and covered it up by having other video play over it when I could. I had to remove a lot of the interview answers that I liked but didn’t have room for. I was sad to have to lose details I liked but understood it was better for the pace of the doc.

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12/05

Sorting through interview footage

Today I desected and labelled the entirety of Raino’s interview. I tried to compress the files but this unsynced the audio so instead I booked a portable drive to store my footage and project on.

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11/05

Interview with Raino

Today I had a meeting with Andy to set up for the interview, he helped me a lot with the things I should think about when setting up the studio.

When Raino got onto campus I met him and we got started with the questions after a coffee. His interview was incredibly informative and he gave me extensive answers to each question and extremely valuable insight.

I got around 25-30 minutes of footage that I will sort through tomorrow.

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09/05

Questions for Raino:

How long have you been involved with the club, and in what role? Why have you committed so much time to this group/ what makes it different from other social clubs/ venues in Leeds? Why are there not more places that are run like this? What makes it hard for places like this to survive? Can you please give me the complete history of the club, from the common place to now? Including the issues with undercover police. What are your opinions on the ethics of undercover policework? Were there any lasting effects of the police infiltration to the common place? Do you think that the shift to the right politically will have any impact on the ability for places like this to survive? Do you think the club is and always has been a safe space for everyone? How has the club changed over the years to what it is today?

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06/05

Making contact with Raino

Over the past week I have been talking to Raino, an original member of Wharf Chambers. He has very kindly agreed to an interview. We have scheduled for a TV Studio interview at 4:15 on 11th. In preparation I will write some questions, send them to him, book the studio, and have a meeting with Andy the studio manager.

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29/04

Sorting through footage

Today I looked through all the footage I have taken over the past few days and backed then clips I will use onto the P drive. I plan to finish my Short Film Production project (I am the editor) and then come back to this footage.

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28/04

second day of filming 

Today my main objective was to get enough b roll that I would have something visually stimulating to play during talking head interviews. I got to Wharf Chambers at 11:15 to film various DJs’ sets throughout the night (The Kooky Ken and Papanugs). I got a few shots of the events room with no one in it and then tried to replicate those shots when more people had arrived (to edit together a match cut).

There were some difficulties with having enough room to move around but in the end I am happy with the footage I got. I stayed until the last set ended at 3 and went home to offload the footage.

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27/04

first day of filming

I spent today preparing for my shoot (charging batteries, packing, deciding on questions and settings etc)

Unfortunately when I arrived at WC, despite the weeks of emails preapring for the shoot, the staff at WC didn’t know I was coming to shoot that day. They informed me that there were only two bar staff that night and therefore less people to interview. 

Before the venue opened I used the empty spaces as a chance to capture some footage of the different rooms. ere is where I realised I had chosen the wrong lens. The 35mm was far too tight for shooting in the small venue. Luckily today I was mostly focusing on interviews so it was fine.

I got 7 interviews and was instructed by one interviewee that if I wanted to learn about the common place I should find a man called Andrew and interview him. I have messaged WC on instagram in the hopes that they will reach out to him for me and will reply faster then email.

Throughout all the interviews there was loud music playing in the background that I knew would worsen the audio but couldn’t do anything about it. 

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10/05

Setting up for the interview

Today I worked with Andrew Irving to set up for the interview. I chose a grey background and three point lighting with a soft box as the key light. I have sent Raino my questions and have had a reply, we will meet at 4:00.

Questions:

Interview with RainoHow long have you been involved with the club, and in what role?

Why have you committed so much time to this group/ what makes it different from other social clubs/ venues in Leeds?

Why are there not more places that are run like this? What makes it hard for places like this to survive?

Can you please give me the complete history of the club, from the common place to now? Including the issues with undercover police.

What are your opinions on the ethics of undercover police work?Were there any lasting effects of the police infiltration to the common place?

Do you think that the UK's shift to the right politically will have any impact on the ability for places like this to survive?

Do you think the club is and always has been a safe space for everyone?

How has the club changed over the years to what it is today?

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04/05

Email response from Common Place core member

Today I got a response from Raino, a common place core member. We have agreed on a time and place to conduct the interview. I will now need to book the TV studio.

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29/04

Creative Practice seminar - presentation and investigative nature of the doc

Today Mick discussed the presentation part of the assessment. We talked through how my doc takes an investigative stand point and if I don’t get a key interview with someone I could use this to my advantage as people’s reluctance to speak is a point of interest in itself.

I wanted to avoid using voice over but it may be necessary to show the doc is unfinished but needs more investigation. This could be my angle in the pitch to make a longer documentary.

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29/04

Filming the gig at Wharf Chambers

Last night I filmed from 11-3 in the WC venue room. I used the BM6k, 35mm cine lens and the 11-16mm canon lens. The filming went well and I managed to secure a lot of b roll of the space.

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27/04

Update from the past week

In the past week I have been in further communication with The Kooky Ken and have agreed to film the entire event. This will give me ample footage to choose from. 

I emailed Wharf Chambers a week ago to remind them of me shooting tonight, tomorrow night and asked them whether I could film their slam poetry night saying that I would only film individual poet’s performances if they gave individual consent. I have not recieved a reply from this email but will discuss it with them tonight hopefully.

I also retrieved, tested and practised with my equipment. I have decided to shoot in 4k as I only have a 1tb ssd and therefor have around 175 minutes but in 6k would have under an hour of storage.

I have written out questions and a plan as to what I will film.

Questions:

Name, pronouns, how long they have been involved with WC and their role (if they are an employee)

What WC is to them/ why it is special/ different from other social clubs in Leeds.

Why are there not more clubs like WC (co operative, not for profit etc.)? What do you think makes it hard for places like this to survive?

Can you tell me about the history of this club? What sorts of obstacles has it faced and overcome in the past? How has it had to adapt/ change to do this?

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Tonight I plan on filming the rooms of WC empty and then as many interviews as I can.

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14/04

Update from the last week

Booking out equipment:

After checking the list with Peter North, I booked out this list of equipment:

6 NP-F570 (Small Battery) Manfrotto 504HD Tripod Radio Mic Kit Radio Mic Manual Black Magic Pocket 6K Pro F7 RGB Portable LED Light

from 25/04 - 05/05

Correspondance with Wharf Chambers and The Kooky Ken:

I emailed WC again as I had no reply to my last email. I wanted to solidify the date of the 27th. I recieved an apologetic email back about the lack of reply but fortunately they said that no one in the bar staff seemed to have any issues with the idea of an interview. I thanked them for their response and reiterated I would book equipment for the 27th. I chose the 27th as it is a wednesday with no scheduled event and therefore, assumedly, a quiet night where the bar would not be so busy that they couldn’t spare one person at a time.

I saw that the next night (28th) WC had an event scheduled with a group called “The Kooky Ken”. I recognised this name as I follow this group on social media. As I looked on their instagram page I saw that they were looking for videographers. I sent them a message explaining my documentary on WC and asking if I could video their event to use in my documentary if I provided them with the footage afterwards. I recieved a very nice message back agreeing and saying that they are enquiring into WC’s photography policy.

Now I have two events to film I feel much more confident. I would like to film another event (they have a punk feminist slam potery night that I unfortunately cannot attend but an event similar to this.)