News papers

Pages from the Times

I took my self of to the local library to look at the Times digital archives. This gave me acess to Times news paper covering the events in Nelson Mandela's life . I was able to download the pages reporting the trial and the speech. I wanted to include the image of the news paper. I did not want just to shoot the paper straight on a board. At the moment the garden is full of leaves so I printed out the paper to A3 an covered the news paper with leaves leaving a gap to show the headline about the trial. 

I think the result is ok but I would prefer to be able read the paper.

Times Digital Archives

Moving lights

Technical idea

I want to have the feeling of movement and was thinking of putting the camera on the passenger seat of the car and hopefully with the sun in the right direction I would get the effect of flicker light on the window of the car. As luck would have it the weather has been over cast so I am trying to recreate the same feeling at home by shining a light through a back card with slots cut out of it and the stripes projecting on to a back ground. I have used a deck light and shot this at night.

As you can see the idea hasn't worked so I need to try another idea.

Red sea and other grafic ideas

I suddenly had a thought about an image I wanted to include in the video. It is of blood flowing across a white background like the sea coming in and out, so I have made a mock up in Photoshop and have animated it a part of my development for the video.

When I first came up with the idea for the moving light I did a mock up with Photoshop thinking that this would work as a cartoon type of image. As you can see the mock up was heading in the right direction but it need to be video.

Moving story board

I have shot a couple version of the swinging light, as well as the white wall trying to give that feeling of prison. I have also shot some images of the sea. I want to add this as part of the dream, life going on and the sound of the sea on Robenn Island where Nelson was imprisoned. To help me see this as a whole and to understand how to use Final cut pro x I have created a working video. It contains still images of Nelson Mandela, and as luck would have it there was a program on BBC4 about apartheid and the boycott of South African sport. Just for effect I video the images off the screen with my video camera. I have also added some still of the burning of tires and necking, this where someone was killed by having a tyre placed over their neck and set fire to. This is also there to help me , I want to evoke the feeling of some of the bad things that happened with out using original footage or images. I have also kept a rough edit with the sound track so I get a better understanding of the feel I want to create.

Video Timeline

First shot

I Set my camera up in the utility room and set the exposure to -3 so the light would not over power the image and it would show me some detail of the bulb. I shot in short bust because I knew I would only use it for a few seconds.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

For this piratical brief we only have to produce a standard quality 720 x576 in the class discussion we talked about for this project we could use camera phones or ipads depending on there quality. I don't have a video camera and at this present time don't want in invest in expensive one. Looking around I saw on line a Vivitar 648hd a mere snip at £50 shots in high definition 720p looked and had reasonable reviews.

I have used this camera for this project. In retrospect this camera is ok for fun but any serious filming it's no good for nothing. There is very little control over the exposure and focus. It's impossible to see the screen when filming in strong daylight. At best it only shoots 16 fps. On the plus side it will film up an hour plus video. I remember filming on super 8 as a child and only having 5 mins of filming. If and when I buy a video camera in the future it will have a view finder, a way of adjusting the focus and exposure. As they say you get what you pay for.

The wonderful DVR 648HD

Music

 Some times when start a new project you come across some thing by accident after seeing the examples when we were introduced to the project I felt the natural direction the music might take would be one using African drums or something very rhythmical more up beat to counter the style of the speech. But there seems to be a danger in this that it takes something away from the speech, it becomes a distraction. I knew what I wanted was some thing in the back ground just to create a mood a feeling underlying the speech. As luck would have it my daughter left her ipod and liserning to it I soon came across a group called “Apocalyptica” after the first few bars I knew that this was what I needed to set the mood in the background. I believe th original pice of music is by Metallica and is called “One”.  

Time to start

 I have listened to the speech over and over, and in the process I have just let my mind wander. I felt I was on a journey and had the feeling that I was listening to the speech on the radio in a car or on a train and that light flickers a cross your eye throwing up random images not necessary related to the speech you're listen too. I then took a step back I know I can't use a literal interpolation of the speech and have to generate all original images for the project. I have felt in the past that I have been to straight and rigid with the type of images I have generated. I want to move into a looser type of feel and believe this project allows me to move in that direction.

Light and wall 1st shoots

I believe that this journey dream like state must have some structure and narrative. I began to free form images as if I was seeing the movie in my head. I thought about what could have happened from the point after Nelson Mandela is sentence to life in prison. All the thing that may have happen to him and all the things he would not see but went on. The first image in my head was a swinging light and a dirty wall representing the cell and imprisonment. I looked around where I live to find suitable places to shoot, luckily I have and old brick build shed in the garden and felt the wall would be ideal for that image and we have a utility room in the house in need of some redecoration with an old fashion light fitting ideal for the swinging light. I have started.

Apartheid in South Africa

 I want to briefly give you some information about apartheid in South Africa. As this put Nelson Mandela's speech in to some kind of context. I also feel that it is important regarding what decision I might make when it come to making my video.

Segregation in every area of life

 Apartheid was a system of official racial segregation introduced by the National party after it won the elections in 1948. The rights of the Non White majority were curtailed and the White and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained. The Afrikaans being the descendent of the Dutch settlers and the white being the descends of the British and European descendent. Legislation classified people in to four racial groups “Natives”, “Whites”, “Coloureds”, and “Asians”. This has strong overtone with the events that happened in Germany in the 30's and 40's with rise of the Nazi. With introduction of new laws Mixed race marriage were prohibited, people could only live in segregated residential areas. Non white did not have the right to vote. This is only part of the discrimination brought against the non whites, and it is against this back ground that Nelson Mandela and others started at first with non violent protest to try and regain they rights and equality in South Africa.


Source :-Wikipedia

Brief out line of Nelson Mandela life.

18 July 1918

Rolihlahla Mandela is born in a small South African village called Mvezo, a small village located in

the district of Umtata.

1925

Mandela becomes the first person in his family to go to school. His teacher, Miss Mdingane gives him the name Nelson after having difficulty pronouncing his real name.

1937

Having passed his Junior Certificate in two years at Clarkebury Boarding Institute Mandela joins Healdtown, a college in Fort Beaufort.

1941

Mandela flees to Johannesburg, to avoid an arranged marriage. There he meets Walter Sisulu and begins work at his law firm as an articled clerk. He completed his B.A. degree at the University of South Africa via correspondence, after which he began law studies at the University of Witwatersrand.

1944

Two years after joining the African National Congress (ANC), Mandela and 60 other young members form the ANC Youth League.

1948

The National Party comes to power which supported the apartheid policy of racial segregation. The ANC launch a campaign of passive resistance against the laws. They later begin the Campaign for the Defence of Unjust Laws.

1952

Mandela sets up the country's first black law firm with Oliver Tambo. They provide legal services to those who would have normally had no representation.

1952

1953

The ANC is concerned that it will be banned so Mandela is tasked with ensuring the party can work underground.

1956

Initially committed to nonviolent resistance, along with 155 others Mandela is arrested and charged with treason. After a four-year trial, the charges are dropped.

1956

1960 21 March

Police kill 69 people, including women and children, as black people protest in Sharpeville against restrictions on their freedom of movement. A state of emergency is declared, amid fears of retaliation, and the ANC is banned.

Sharpeville massacre

1961

The ANC concludes that peaceful protest is not enough to combat apartheid and forms an underground military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). Mandela, now vice-president of the ANC, is appointed as the group's first leader.

1962

Having spent a year underground, Mandela is arrested for leaving the country illegally. He is sentenced to five years in jail.

1963

While Mandela is in prison, fellow ANC members are arrested. They are charged with sabotage and treason, along with Mandela. The men appear in court in Rivonia.

1964 12 june.

In his statement from the dock at the opening of the defence case in the trial on 20 April 1964 at Pretoria Supreme Court, Mandela laid out the reasoning in the ANC's choice to use violence as a tactic. His statement described how the ANC had used peaceful means to resist apartheid for years until the Sharpeville Massacre. At the end of the eight-month trial, Mandela and seven other defendants are given life sentences and taken to prison on Robben Island.

1982 March

Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island where he remained for the next eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison. Mandela and fellow ANC leaders are transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in 1982.

11 February 1990

Mandela is freed after 27 years, as a result of a relaxation of apartheid laws and the lifting of the ban on the ANC. He is greeted by large crowds as he and wife Winnie leave the prison grounds.

1991

At the ANC's first national conference in South Africa, Mandela is elected president of the party.

1993

Mandela, along with South African President FW De Klerk, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to bring stability to South Africa. Accepting the award, Mandela

says: "We will do what we can to contribute to the renewal of our world."

Nelson Mandela and F W De Klerk

27 April 1994

South Africans, including Nelson Mandela, vote in the country's first democratic election. Mandela, leader of the ANC, is elected as the country's first black president.

10 May 1994

Nelson Mandela addresses the crowds at his inauguration, saying: "Let freedom reign, God bless Africa!" Thabo Mbeki, Mandela's deputy, takes over the day-to-day running of government, leaving Mandela to promote the country around the world.

1995 February

To mark the fifth anniversary of his release, Nelson Mandela visits Robben Island, the prison he was held in for 18 years.

1999

Thabo Mbeki takes over from Mandela as president of South Africa and goes on to win the 1999 presidential election.

2001

Mandela is diagnosed with prostate cancer and begins a course of radiation.

2004

Announcing his retirement from public life, Mandela says he plans to enjoy a quieter life and spend more time with his family. Joking with reporters, he says: "The appeal therefore is don't call me, I'll call you."

2007

Despite his retirement, Mandela forms The Elders. The group, which includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other statesmen and women, aims to help tackle the world's problems.

2008 
Musicians, film stars and politicians join Mandela at a concert in London's Hyde Park to celebrate his 90th birthday. Speaking to the crowd he says "It is time for new hands to lift the burdens, it is in your hands now."

Sources -: BBC

                  Wikipedia 

Choosing a speech

 After careful consideration I decided to base my work on the Nelson Mandela speech. Having lived through the time of the events in South Africa and I remember the protest outside of the SA embassy for years in london, I felt I had some connection with it. The first thing I did was to cut the speech into one minute length ending with the line “it is an idea for which I am prepared to die.” I listened over and over and soon realised that having the speech running exactly to one minute gave me no space. This meant I would have to include it from the start of the video to the end. I was able to cut out a few words and still retain the sense of the speech.

Word cloud

 

The extract now contains only 94 words considerably fewer than the whole speech which lasted three and a half hours. I had seen some of my colleagues make a word cloud. I had never seen this before so I found a web site that created them and here are the results. I find it interesting that the word want and idea are the biggest. 

Here is the full text that I will incorporate into my video I had to add a few words from published copies as they where different from what he actually said -:

 

We want to be allowed to travel in own country and to seek work where want to when we want to and not where the labour bureau tells us to. We want a just share in the whole of South Africa. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live to together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for. But my lord if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Word cloud

Time based media

 The Brief (general description of the course work requirements)

BBC channels are increasingly cross promoting their programme content and for this assignment you will be producing a TV trailer for a series of radio programmes on Radio 4 called ‘Speeches’, about a selection of great speeches of the 20^th Century.

Radio 4 will be running this series of programmes, each focusing on an individual speech from the following list:-

Franklin D Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

Winston Churchill: We shall fight them on the beaches

Harold Macmillan: The wind of change

Nelson Mandela: An ideal for which I’m prepared to die

Jawahharal Nahru: A tryst with destiny

John F Kennedy: Ask not what your country can do for you

Martin Luther King: I have a dream

Margaret Thatcher: The lady’s not for turning

Earl Spencer: The most hunted person of the modern age

The TV trailers will act as ‘teasers’ about the speeches by creating short films which use a combination of an excerpt of the speech accompanied by atmospheric, original footage and text graphics. These films need to be 1 minute long (with a 5 second leeway in each direction). I am not searching for original footage of the speech being delivered, and nor am I trying to film literal interpretations of what is being said, but rather I will devise, shoot edit and post produce a sequence of shots which add visual accompaniment to the words being spoken. This film will also feature text elements which are used to highlight words being spoken in the speech. You can also use music and/or sound effects in your film.

I must use research to find out more about these speeches, their importance and historical context, and a useful starting point is http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/series/greatspeeches. I will also need to look at and analyse films which will help inspire you. Use this research to devise your ideas, develop sketches and/or photographs to help you choose styles and locations. Fully storyboard your sequence, then keep a log of your progress on shooting, editing and post-production in my blog.

The film must be finished by crit, then I can make any suggested changes between crit and submission. Crit and an evaluation must be written up in this blog.