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Risk Assessment for Mind

Risk Assessment for Advert

Cameraman: Lidia

Director: Robin

Soundman: Cameron & Kodou

Lighting: Kayleigh

Location: DGS Mind, Dartford, Kent

Risk: Tripping over stairs

Effects: Crew and cast

Precautions: 1

People could trip over the stairs if they weren’t paying attention.  Put up a caution sign so people are aware of the stairs.

Risk: Caution of wet floors

Effects: Crew and cast

Precautions: 2

People could slip over the spillage if we do anything about it. We’ll  put up signs and a caution over the spillage or we’ll just dry it so no risks  occur.

Risk: Wires

Effects: Crew, Cast & Students

Precautions: 3

This equipment has a lot of wires attached to it so someone could  trip over by accident, which could be very dangerous. We’ll tape the wires  down to the ground to prevent anyone tripping over.

Risk: Lighting

Effects:Crew, Cast & Students

Precautions: 2

If the light is left on for too long you could burn yourself or it  could possibly start a fire. We’ll make sure that all the wires from the  lighting are taped down. We’ll make sure the light isn’t left on for too long  so it doesn’t get to hot and it doesn’t go to waste and that the wires are  taped down.

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Background research on subject matter

Here is some early research we put together about mental health and the history of it. 

Pre 1960's

Autism     thought to be psychodynamic i.e. caused by the mother's emotional coldness

Autism     poorly defined: little or no differentiation

Few     specialist approaches

Autism     regarded as a variant of schizophrenia

Post 1960's

Biomedical      factors e.g. GI or allergies

 Environmental      factors e.g. toxins

 Vaccines

 Genetic      factors

 Predisposition

1970's

Growth     of interest in biomedical treatments

Specialist     'autism specific' education established

Growth     in use of behavioural treatments

Growth     in use of drugs

1980's

Growing     sophistication of behavioural treatments

Interest     in autism specific approaches e.g. TEACCH imported from USA

Emergence     of alternative approaches

More     drugs

1990's

Resurgence     of interest in biomedical treatments

Generic     application of structured autism specific approaches (e.g. growth of     TEACCH )

Changes     in way autism diagnosed

Growth     of cognitive behavioural approaches

More     drugs

Current situation

Renewed     interest in biomedical explanations and treatments

Behavioural     interventions (ABA) remain popular

No     shortage of new approaches: compelling anecdotal evidence-mostly     unsupported

No     drug for autism but some medications for secondary effects or co     morbidities may be useful

Growing     application of cognitive behavioural approaches

Here are some facts and statistics about autism, and how it can affect children, adults and their families.  

The term 'autism' is used here to describe all diagnoses on the autism spectrum including classic autism, Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism.

·         Autism is a serious, lifelong and disabling condition. Without the right support, it can have a profound - sometimes devastating - effect on individuals and families1.

·         Autism is much more common than many people think. There are around 700,000 people in the UK with autism - that's more than 1 in 1002. If you include their families, autism touches the lives of 2.7 million people every day. For further information, read How many people have autism spectrum disorders?

·         Autism doesn't just affect children. Children with autism grow up to be adults with autism3.

·         Autism is a hidden disability - you can't always tell if someone has it4.

·         While autism is incurable, the right support at the right time can make an enormous difference to people's lives5.

·         Over 40% of children with autism have been bullied at school6.

·         Over 50% of children with autism are not in the kind of school their parents believe would best support them7.

·         One in five children with autism has been excluded from school, many more than once8.

·         Nearly two-thirds of adults with autism in England do not have enough support to meet their needs9.

·         At least one in three adults with autism are experiencing severe mental health difficulties due to a lack of support10.

·         Only 15% of adults with autism in the UK are in full-time paid employment11.

·         51% of adults with autism in the UK have spent time with neither a job, nor access to benefits, 10% of those having been in this position for a decade or more12.

·         61% of those out of work say they want to work13.

·         79% of those on Incapacity Benefit say they want to work14.

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Questions for Mind

Here is a list of the questions we asked the interviewees at Mind. 

What is your name and what are your roles within MIND?

What is the most memorable thing that has happened to you while running this organisation?

MIND Began in 1997, since then how much progress do you feel the organisation has made in the years since inception?

How do you personally feel about the discrimination people receive because of their mental illness?

Do you think those with mental illnesses are treated with enough compassion and understanding from the public?

What about the government and media, do you feel they have some kind of effect?

What improvements do you think can be made?

Explain what you do for Mind?

What mental health issues are the most common among your service users?

Talk about the social challenges involved with someone with schizophrenia, OCD, bipolar?

What’s your worst experience with a patient/ service user?

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Research about Mind

Mind provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. They campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding. They won't give up until everyone experiencing a mental health problem gets support and respect.

Mind provides help and support directly to those who need it most. There network of more than 140 local Minds offer specialized support and care based on the needs of the communities they support.

Mind are developing national and local support networks for anyone experiencing a mental health problem.

They have a Facebook and Twitter page to keep up to date with what There doing - and how you can take part.

In 2014, local Minds worked with more than 400,000 people running services across England and Wales. Services include supported housing, crisis helplines, drop-in centers, employment and training schemes, counseling and befriending.

Each local Mind is an independent charity run by local people, for local people. Each is responsible for its own funding and the services it provides, but all are affiliated to Mind.

Mind is a charity therefore they rely on donations and raising money. You can run, trek, swim, cycle or skydive as ways to raise money and support them

They hold social events such as a recycling ‘trashion’ catwalk show during London Fashion Week. Or Hold your own Eurovision karaoke competition and much more

Mind shops are supported by a dedicated band of volunteers since 1961.

Over 1,700 volunteers give up some of their spare time every week to help with all the jobs that need to be done in our shops such as sorting goods, steaming and pricing clothing and making sales.

Their achievements

Over more than 65 years Mind has been committed to make sure that everyone experiencing a mental health problem can access the support they need and is treated with the respect they deserve.

Through public campaigns, influencing decision makers and the services our local Minds deliver in communities across England and Wales, we have touched millions of lives.

2013

Mental Health (Discrimination) Act 2013: After many years of campaigning, this Act removed the last significant forms of discrimination from law. It repeals legislation that prevented people with mental health problems from serving on a jury, being a Director of a company or serving as an MP.

2012

Parity of esteem: An amendment was put forward to the Health and Social Care Bill by Mind, Rethink Mental Illness and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Centre for Mental Health and the Mental Health Foundation. This was passed in February 2012 and clarified that mental health should be treated on an equal footing with physical Health.

2011

Time to Change Phase 2: Along with our Partners, Rethink Mental Illness, we secured funding from Comic Relief and the Department of Health to continue our Time to change anti-stigma campaign into 2015.

2010

Equality Act: Mind secured our key aim for the Equality Bill when an amendment introducing a ban on the use of pre-employment health questionnaires was passed successfully, after months of campaigning in parliament. Employers are longer be able to ‘weed out’ job applicants by requiring them to disclose their mental health history on an application form or at interview.

2009

Time to Change: Mind partnered with Rethink to launch the groundbreaking Time to Change campaign to challenge stigma and discrimination. The first stage of the awareness-raising campaign – an England-wide media blitz – was a staggering success. Millions of people in England saw our broadcast, print and tube ads.

Mental Health Media: Mind joined forces with the respected charity Mental Health Media at the start of 2009. When they joined Mind, MHM brought their prestigious Mental Health Media Awards.

2008

Seroxat ban for under-18s: As a result of our campaigning and evidence pulled together with the BBC current affairs programme Panorama, changes were made to prohibit the prescription of this medication to people aged under 18. It was proved there was an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and acts of self-harm in those who took it.

2007

We need to talk: This campaign was hugely successful in terms of raising the need to invest in psychological therapies in the NHS. As part of a coalition with four other leading mental health charities, Mind argued for a range of psychological therapies to be made available to everyone. In October 2007 the Government announced £170 million of investment in psychological therapies. This will greatly improve access and means that people experiencing distress have greater choice and control over the services they need.

2006

Ward watch: Mind's Ward watch campaign raised issues about hospital inpatient conditions. As a result, Mind influenced positive developments such as improving hospital inspection arrangements, and better training for nurses. Our persistent campaigning on the impact of environment on mental health led the Department of Health to commit £30 million on measures to improve safety on inpatient wards.

1997

Rural Minds: Mind’s project to address the challenges and stigma faced by those living in rural communities who also experience mental health problems. A national resource centre was established and information and training provided to a network of professionals, volunteers, organisations and individuals. In 2004 the project was integrated into Mind’s core activities.

Diverse Minds: The Diverse Minds project was established to ensure that Mind’s policies and work was inclusive and addressed the particular issues faced by those in BMER communities.

1971

MIND campaign: On its 25th anniversary, the National Association for Mental Health (NAMH) launched its first major public information and fundraising campaign. The MIND campaign aimed to address the ignorance that surrounded mental health problems, and to improve services.

The campaign was so successful that, the following year, NAMH rebranded itself as MIND.

In the 1990s the name was then changed to its current Mind.

1946

The National Association for Mental Health was established when three major mental health organisations merged. These were:

•    the Central Association for Mental Welfare (established in 1913)  led by the pioneering Dame Evelyn Fox, this organisation worked through local groups of volunteers to help mentally handicapped people

•    the National Council for Mental Hygiene (established in 1922), which had a strong educational bias and stressed the social causes of mental illness

the Child Guidance Council (established in 1927), which set up the first child guidance clinics and launched training courses for their staff.

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Mind Proposal

Title: Mind

Audience: Teenagers and adults

Resume: Over the last century, society’s attitude of mental health and mental health problems has changed dramatically. Where it was once believed that mental disorders could be cured with brain lesioning and praying, it is now appropriate to treat them with drug and behavioural therapies and so much more is being understood about how a person’s brain works.  

A recent statistic claims that one in four people in the UK will at some point suffer from one form of mental illness or another. It is; therefore, appropriate to ask the question “are we doing enough to care for the mentally challenged among us?”

Mind is a charity that caters to this minority. They offer a range of services from support groups to housing for those that are homeless and have mental problems. Through fundraisers, they gain money needed to support those affected by mental health issues, whether that is patients, friends or family; Mind offers care and aims to raise awareness about mental health.

We have chosen to focus our documentary on what Mind does because we’d like to extend their message to our audience. We believe that we can create a good story and documentary from focusing on this because it’s a topic that isn’t talked about enough and there are so many misconceptions surrounding it. There isn’t a very clear understanding on mental health and people don’t really know a lot about it. There are many myths about mental health that could be cleared up. By talking too Mind we can get a better understanding of what mental health is, who is affected, why it happens and how to overcome it, we aim to get the message across to our viewers. We will talk to the staff in Mind who can answer a lot of questions on the topic of mental health and can talk to us about a lot of things that the viewers and our group do not know.

Supporting materials: Mental health websites, including the NHS website; mental health journals

Shooting days: 1 day

Budget: £3,550

Programme publicity and follow-up: Shown to staff and students of North West Kent College, uploaded as unlisted video on YouTube and Tumblr.

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Mind Treatment

To introduce the topic of our documentary, we will be using actors to dramatize the way having a mental illness might feel. To show this, actors will be wearing black and holding a variety a variety of instruments, seen by themselves, doing something upsetting such as destroying something. As well as this, we are also considering having people hold signs conveying feelings they wouldn’t normally say.

Soon after the first few cutaways are shown, the audio for the first interviewee will be played and the edit will then cut to them speaking. There will be a total of three interviewees of staff members from Mind and these will intercut with the cutaways.

We will then include short interviews of young people talking about what they know about mental health. This will hopefully include someone slightly educated, someone who admits they are not educated and someone with interest in mental health. We will intercut this to where staff from Mind talk about similar things to show a contrast between professional and public opinion. These interview shots also link to the cutaway shots we will be taking.

As the film concludes, the cutaways that were shown are shown again but expanded. A hand cups the person holding a knife, someone hugs the person in a foetal position – all the highlight the positivity and reinforce that there is help available for people.

Cutaway shots will include

·         Dark empty rooms

·         People holding dangerous objects, someone in a foetal position

·         Mental health posters

·         The mind building

·         Mind paraphernalia

·         Stop motion animation of upsetting words appearing on a white board

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Evaluation of The Fragile

This is an evaluation of the short drama film I made. 

In the pre-production stage, I was pushing for one idea that the rest of my team-mates did not think we could make very well so instead, we went with the idea of a girl who receives a book that she can use to change history. One team mate wrote the script and I then rewrote it with corrections and drew up a story board. 

Looking for actors was difficult. We managed to find one then asked our class mates to play the other roles. However, we could not give any equipment for the time we wanted and so the shooting day had to be postponed.

When it came to filming the drama, we had lost all of our actors and so we had to act in it ourselves. I played the main character and we simply cut out the scene that involved a mother and father, going with a quick visit from a friend and a short apprerence of the person who gave me character the book. 

In the post-production stage,  I did the editing while another team mate provided music. 

if I could do the project again, I would have chosen to ask actors with more experience and actually have an interest in acting because they will be much more likely to commit to the role. I would have also liked to experiment more with the camera and the camera techniques I used, to make the drama more interesting. I would have only liked to be more familiar with the camera so that some shots didn't come out lighter than others. 

I would have preferred to go with our original idea as we only needed one location and very few actors. However our end product was good because there was a coherent enough transition from A to B and the music that we used strengthened that. 

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The first interview shot is adequate but there are lot of problems with it. it has a pure black background, meaning the interviewee is the only focal point of the shot. This makes the shot look a little dull and rushed. 

The second interview shot is bad for a number of reasons. The first being that the camera is not at eye level with the interviewee and because of this, the audience will feel a little detached from what he is saying. Secondly, the shadow of the boom pole and his own can be seen in the frame. This could have been prevented by simply tightening the frame. 

The third interview shot, is bad like the first one because there is nothing in the background. While it was not shot against a wall, the white wall gives away the shadow of the boom operator which again could have been avoided by tightening the frame. 

The fourth interview shot is okay but a little dark. There is also dead space on the left of the frame that offers not support to what she’s saying. 

In the last interview shot, the light source is too obvious as it reflects on the object in the frame. It is good that there is Mind paraphernalia within the frame to support what the speaker is talking about but like the previous one, this frame is also too dark. 

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Interview Techniques

To make an interview shot look interesting, it is not advisable to shot against a wall, a white wall in particular because it makes the shot look dull and the audience will lose their focus of the film whole film because the shot bores them.  A good shot will have a 3D like effect, shot at a certain angle to feel more aesthetically pleasing. The person speaking should only take up the majority of the frame and not the whole of it because, otherwise, the shot is an extreme close up and it is often inappropriate. If the interviewee is looking towards the right of the frame, so they are in the left side, there should be something within that space that doesn’t distraction the audience but at the same time assumes them. This is done to eliminate dead space within the frame. The ‘something’ in the background that eliminates the dead space should be something relevant to the speaker and/or what they are saying. For example, if a musician was being interviewed, a musical instrument would be an appropriate thing to put in the background. Not only does it eliminate dead space but it also supports the strength of the interviewee.

The camera should be positioned at eye level with the interviewee (and interviewer in some cases) because as the audience is watching them, they feel as though they another person within the room listening to them. It establishes a common ground between the speaker and the audience and it feels aesthetically pleasing.

Audio is very important in film and producers must be sure that the location that they wish to film in has the right acoustics to provide good quality audio. If a location does not produce good quality sound, then the location cannot be used for filming the interview.

Cover shots and cutaways are very good for a documentary because they can strengthen what the filmmaker is trying to say. Cover shots are used to introduce a new person and or topic and cutaways are what the camera will cut to when the interviewee has been on screen for too long and they offer the audience some relief.  Cutaways and B-roll are also used to cover up inappropriate jump cuts. When the interviewee stutters or pauses, a cutaway or some B-roll will be added to make what they’re saying more coherent and the audience will never know that the interviewee paused or used filler words.

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These are the five interview shots I used in the mains documentary.

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The link for our main documentary about mental health and Mind.

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Factual Production Essay

The documentary that I will be analysing for this essay is called 'Suicide Forest in Japan'. The documentary is about the Aokigahara Forest , an area underneath Mount Fuji in Japan, which happens to be a famous suicide destination. It's hard to determine what type of documentary it is because it has conventions of different types. The film itself is very simplistic - the audience follows a man, local geologist Azusa Hayano whose on "suicide patrol" and travels through the forest, examing evidence left be people though to have killed themselves in the forest. There is only one interview, mixed with cover shots, cutaways and footage of Hayano travelling through the forest. Hehe film has a very strong narrative structure and Hayano's interview narrates the film crews journey through the forest. A technique that has been used in this documentary is archive footage of people that have killed themsleves. Their faces have been censored but their bodies were completely undistubred, meaning they were still hanging and such. This has been used to highlight the severity of the issue. Another technique used is the interview. Hayano is placed to the left of the frame, exposing more of the forest behind him. He also analyses the paraphenalja left in the forest, determining the profile of the person who left it there. He makes educated assumptions based on what he finds; for example, an abandoned tent suggest that the owner gave serious though in whether to end their life or not. The camera doesn't appear to be on a tripod. Instead of being steady and stationary, it's shaky and is probably resting on someone's shoulders. This is very effective because the shots look a little frenzied and unorganised, as if it was the eyesight of someone with a mental health problems, walking through the forest. This works well with the theme of suicide and the style of the documentary. The eerie music and pacing create an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue but also establishes an uncertainitu about what is to happen next. In a way, it is thrilling to watch because it works similar to the filmmaking of a horror film. Some of the issue involved with the production of this documentary are that is a very sensitive subject. In the film, Hayano takes the films crew through the first where he analyses what he sees. He suggests that the owner of the car at the enternce of the forest went in and is now dead. He find s a puppet nailed to a tree and hypothesized that whoever nailed it has a deep interval struggle with society. He even find the skeleton of someone who h calculates has been dead for about two years. These brutal discoveries are hard to witness and its impossible not to wonder how the crew were affected by this, whether their protection from mental or physical harm was considered and how they felt upon walking through the forest. There is also no mention of what is done about the parapehenalia left in the forest. They find the skeleton but seem to just keav it therem they also find a camper who Hayano beloved has come to the forest to contemplate suicide and they talk to him. It isn't clear whether or not the camper knows he's being filmed.

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Research Essay

Part One

Research is defined as an investigation into something to gather information and it is useful for a number of things. There are many different types of research methods and different ways they can be utilised. The most common types of data are primary and secondary and they usually fall into two further groups: qualitative and quantitative.

Information in regards to research can be split into two main types: primary and secondary. Primary information refers to information that hasn't been collected before. The researcher has used methods of gathering information on what they are studying. A primary source is a source credible to the topic because it offers a first-hand experience; for example, The Diary of Ann Frank is a primary source of information about the reign of the Nazi Party. A negative of primary source is that they are subject to bias.

Secondary information is any information that compiles data that already exists, meaning the researcher is using other people's research. Some secondary source include the internet, newspapers and textbooks. While they offer objectivity, when it comes to certain subjects like history, they can be inaccurate due to being made after events have happened.

There are different ways to present data. Quantitative data refers to numbers, obtained through surveys, questionnaires and studies and the results are presented in ratios, percentages and statistics. The benefit of quantitative data is that it Is factual; however it can sometimes bee vague. Qualitative data is, however, more concerned with descriptions and involves data that is hard to scientifically measure because it is subjective. However, a positive of qualitative data is that it is rich.

Part Two

In preparation for this documentary, we researched three main things: Mind, the charity we are focusing on, the history of specific mental illness and society's relationship with mental health throughout the years. The research we carried out on Mind greatly influenced the path of our documentary as we hadn't anticipated focusing it on Mind but mental health in general. However, we decided that what Mind does for people is a good topic for our documentary. There research we carried out on specific mental illnesses was really helpful because we were able to understand more of the types of problems that people go through and this made it easier to communicate with the workers at Mind, because we had a shared and basic understanding of mental health.

For society's relationship with mental health, we looked at a lot of different areas. To name a few: the history of mental health institutions and treatments, religious views of mental health and how they affected treatment, early understandings of mental and physical health, pioneers of psychology and literature and the media's portrayal of mental health issues.

Through learning all of these different things, we became more aware of where we wanted the documentary to go and the visual style of it. We wanted to place an empathise on the dark side of mental health and the severity of what it can lead to and we did that by taking sensitive cover and asking the interviewees sensitive and leading questions. Some of the questions that we asked were related to specific mental health problems that are attacked by the media. Through asking these questions to a professional, we are exposing the true nature of these conditions and, in effect, making the documentary educational and factual.

Our agenda switched from an informative film about a charity to an expository piece on a growing subject of conversation. Through the research, we understood the misconceptions surrounding mental health and used the negativity to make our documentary more effective.

Bibliography

Mind website -  http://dgsmind.co.uk/ 

A Timeline of the History of Autism - http://www.parents.com/health/autism/history-of-autism/ 

Famous Psychologists -

http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/tp/psychologists.02.htm

 History of Mental Health Treatment -  http://www.dualdiagnosis.org/mental-health-and-addiction/history/

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Frijj Advert Evaluation

When we were given the project, they were three products that we were considering doing: tamagothci’s, vintage clothing and milkshakes. As tamagotchi’s were are children’s toys, it wasn’t feasible to get children to be in our advert and getting models to wear the clothing would have been a problem so we decided to go with the milkshakes because they were easy to obtain and there were many ways we could advertise them.

We decided upon Frijj milkshakes because there hasn’t been a big advertising campaign for the product. Our first duties were to research the history of Frijj and start on the pre-production work which included writing up a proposal, treatment, shooting script and finding a location to film.

Our initial idea for the advert was to have a customer walk into a shop and see the Frijj drink. As they do so, euphoric music would start playing and people would randomly appear in the background and start dancing. The twist would be that when the customer looks around to see what’s happening, the music abruptly stops and there is no one around them. The customer then buys the drink, drinks and the music starts up again. People are dancing crazily in front of funky colours and the customer is among them.  This is a surreal advert because it does not depict any real life event or an event that could actually happen. However, there were problems when it came to shooting.

As we needed bright background colours,  the second part of our advert had to have been shot in front of a green screen and it was impossible to get the creases out of the sheet and set in the lighting in  a way that eliminates all of the shadows. So instead of doing that idea, we changed it last minute and, instead, utilised the studio setting that we had to make an advert of someone making an advert.

This was a much better idea because it was simple and had the light-heartedness and hilarity that we were going for in the initial idea. My role was to film the advert while the rest of our group participated in it and edited the cut that was shown to the rest of the classes.

With this project, I learnt not be lazy with deadlines and to get the pre-production work done quickly. I also learnt that simple ideas can be just as effective as elaborate ones and hope to make use of this one later projects. If I could change anything, it would be to film the second idea first instead of wasting time with a more difficult advert and being stricter with when to complete pre-production assignments.