Song recommendation for this https://open.spotify.com/track/7N0g2MNvN4pA5cK1grWbiG?si=3Vz0B9m3Qw6Xfha8zR37Cg
Over the summer I had been planning my graduation project, due to some complications I could see it changing quite drastically from the original concept. However, I thought that this could be for the better.
I felt that it would be a good idea to attend a climate strike to see what kind of atmosphere that these events have to see if it would be possible to take a crew to one of these events. I already know that many people do film these events, but at this stage I didn’t know my crew for third year very well so its more a test for how well I thought that I could cope with managing a team at an event like this.
I asked Natalia and Rebecca if they wanted to come along, they did. We originally looked at going to London, however we decided that it was too far and expensive to do at this late stage, so we decided to go to Bristol instead. This was because we could do it in one day if we had to. I phoned my family in Bristol and asked if it would be okay if we camped in their garden. They were happy to accommodate us, so we broke the journey there, deciding to drive to Bristol on the day of the strike and stay the night before coming home the following day.
I decided to take my DSLR to capture images for my research. A couple days before we were supposed to leave, I had the idea to shoot a role of super 8. I looked around and phoned my uncle in Bristol to see if he knew of anywhere, he didn’t. I looked online and couldn’t find anything that would arrive before we left, as a last resort I messaged the group chat from the Experimental module at Uni the night before leaving. Luckily someone had a roll that they were willing to sell me, coincidentally they were going surfing early the same morning we left for Bristol so on my way to pick up my pals (Natalia and Rebecca), I picked up the super8 (at 5.50am ish, thanks Khilan!).
It turned out to be a roll of Kodak Vision 3 500T (Super 8). Having only shot one roll of film previously (Kodak TRI-X (Super 8) reversal film) on my own camera (found for approx. a tenner on ebay) which didn’t turn out so well, I asked to borrow Rebecca’s camera knowing that she had good results with hers in the past. Between us we worked out the best settings in the car on the way to Bristol, and once arriving at the march I alternated between shooting on my DSLR (Nikon D5300) and the Super 8 cam (Canon 514xl) throughout the day.
We left the car at my family’s house on the outskirts and got the bus in with out cameras and sign (a double-sided masterpiece haha). The weather was sunny, and the atmosphere was fantastic at the strike, there were so many young families what with it being the Skolstrejk för klimatet. At first, we gathered with the big group of people listening to the speakers. Then we wandered around taking in the event. I had printed off some contributor release forms just incase I wanted to film anyone for the film.
The vibe was good, people were sensible. The craziest thing I saw was kids on bus stops waving skateboards which was pretty cool. We followed the march and during this time Rebecca took some great photos along the way. Once we returned to College Green we approached some people to ask if we could take their portraits.
(an amazing photo of me with my eyes closed hahaha but proof of two cameras)
Photo by Rebecca Algeo
Overall, I really enjoyed the day and I'm pretty sure the others did too. I felt like I had managed to capture some promising footage, although I had to wait until October to see what the super 8 actually looked like.
October came round faster than anything and since attending this Skolstrejk för klimatet we had attended a couple more actions for documentary research.
The footage was even better than I had hoped for and I can't wait to show it to you in the final documentary.
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