Filmmaking 101

Hello everyone,

After yesterday's visit at the Yorkshire Museum, we are now back to filmmaking. We started the day by learning more about Windows Movie Maker and Audacity, as we had the chance to ask questions to Simon Davis. These are the two main tools we are using for our film, so it was really helpful to learn some of the more advanced settings, and also the limitations of the programs. We discovered that some of the elements we wanted to add were impossible, but we believe we can work around them. We have learned that in filmmaking it is important to be able to improvise, so this is good practice.

We also continued with the planning process, including preparing the interviews we will do with people associated with Star Carr. We discussed who will be responsible for the different tasks, and started to think of backup plans in case something goes wrong on the day of filming. In addition to this, we also worked on the narrative of our storyboard, in order to help us prepare interview questions. We do not want our film to be simply a factual report on flint, so we need to ask questions that will prompt a more emotional response, and show how amazing archaeology can be when it is told by enthusiastic people.

Following this, Lizzie kept working on the drawings, trying to add some animation. Very basic animation turned out to be possible even with the limitations of Movie Maker, and we think that even a small amount of motion makes a difference.

This is a new version of the video from the first blog post, with animated light effects

Lizzie using a drawing tablet to make the illustrations

While Lizzie was working on the animations, Astrid recorded a test of what our introduction might end up like. The video will be replaced with footage that includes people, as one of our goals was to show how people interact with the exhibits today. As we are aiming for a general audience, we wanted to make an introduction that engages people. We decided that the best approach would be something between dramatic and factual. Hopefully people will find this entertaining, while also actually learning things about the Mesolithic. 

A test introduction for our film, showing the artefacts in the museum, and explaining the concept for the video 

Over the weekend Lizzie will continue with the animations and drawings, and Astrid will continue with the storyboard narrative. With that as a starting point, we will both make questions that we can use in our interviews on Monday. It will be nice to have some actual footage to work with, and to see our film starting to come together. 

Handle With Care

Our finished display

Today we spent the day at Yorkshire Museum learning how to put together a mock exhibit. We were split into different groups from the groups we have been working in on the films so today I was working with Lizzie and Katrina worked with Astrid.

Close up of our axe head display

A Bronze-age spear head

Our group was given a selection of Bronze Age objects. We got to handle everything from axe heads to pots. It was rather terrifying handling such delicate objects (especially the pots!). But, after getting over our initial fear we were left in awe of the craftsmanship and age of all the objects.

A work in progress

With our exhibit we chose to focus on the development of technology in the Bronze Age using the axes and spear heads as examples. This is because the range of items we had represented the change that took place during this period; from flat heavy axes to more advanced 3-D spearheads. We thought this would be an interesting approach to take to show the fact that change took place during one period, instead of from Bronze age to Iron age, for example. To make it more relevant and understandable we used mobile phones as a comparison. In both cases technology has changed so much!

A close up of the pottery

Following on a similar theme from the axe and spear heads we used a computer and a tablet to illustrate the differences between the two pots. The larger pot we found to be less portable but had more storage (like a desktop computer) and the smaller pygmy cup to have less storage but more portability (like a tablet). See where we were going with this...

Lexi having fun

While coming up with the idea of a theme was fairly easy actually writing the labels was challenging. They had to provide some information while being engaging all in 40 words or less. While we found the depth of information we gained interesting, the general public may not have, so we chose to write only very short descriptions of the artefacts, with an informal feel.

Lizzie having fun

Needless to say, we had so much fun.

Cross-posted from Head Over Heels Into Heritage

The Joyous Challenge of Curating Displays

Hi everyone,

We're messing with your heads a little bit today because we've changed groups. But don't worry, this was only for today! Our heritage challenge today was to curate a display cabinet at the Yorkshire Museum - so much fun! We, Katrina and Astrid, were given artefacts from the Neolithic... exciting and scary! It was amazing to be able to handle such incredibly old objects, especially when you hear the stories behind them. We had the chance to work with objects from the York Hoard, found near the railway station, which for a long time was considered to be the oldest evidence of human occupation in York. Another artefact we got to handle was a Langdale Axe from Cumbria (Katrina's a little bit obsessed!); it was amazing to see how well made it was and see where the handle would have been attached. We chose these as some of the centrepieces for our display.

Hard at work

An example of our wonderful illustrations.

With the help of the museum's curator, Natalie McCaul, we set about trying to arrange our artefacts in a way which would engage the viewer and tell a story. We decided upon a theme that would have linked the artefacts together in the Neolithic, which also related to the developments in farming and domestic life. This theme was cooking (everybody loves food!). We wanted to appeal to all age ranges, so we decided to do illustrations along with the textual information. We had one introduction label which introduced the Neolithic and our theme, and then tried to reduce the amount of text on the other labels. More than forty words were not allowed on each label, therefore  it was a challenge to be concise and creative at the same time. However, we think we managed to work around this, as the illustrations demonstrated the use of the objects.

For our labels, we decided it would be effective to use 'quotes' from a Neolithic man to explain what the objects would have been used for in the cooking process. We thought this would be a more interesting way of putting across facts which were more conversational and relatable for the viewers. Take a look at our photos and let us know what you think...

Our finished result!

We learned a lot about how to make an exhibit visually interesting whilst trying to put across all the factual information required. It was definitely a challenge and we'll never take museum labels for granted ever again!

Ideas Taking Shape

Today we have continued working on our storyboard, which now is almost finished. We now have the scene-by-scene plan for our film, with a rough idea of what each scene will contain, including narration. For the first time we also used the cameras to produce some real footage that might end up in our film. We filmed both outside and inside the Yorkshire Museum, and this footage we were thinking of using as an introduction and an end to our film. We were hoping to film both close-up shots of the exhibit, and people interacting with it. Unfortunately there were no people there when we were filming, meaning we might go back later to get some more footage.

This is a test clip, using some of the footage we took at the museum. While this probably won't end up in the final film, it helped us understand the workings and limitations of Windows Movie Maker.

In the afternoon we had a visit from Colleen Morgan, who is currently producing archaeological films. She gave us helpful advice on different aspects of film production, such as camera angles and sound editing. In the next couple of days we will plan our interview questions for filming next week, continue the drawings, and finalise our storyboard. When we meet on Thursday we will pitch our ideas for the museum, so we will also have to think about how to present it, to make people as excited about it as we are.

Our developing storyboard

The Beginning

Hello, and welcome to our blog. Our names are Lizzie and Astrid, and we are students at the University of York. We are currently doing a module on Heritage Practice, where we will create a short video based on the Mesolithic site of Star Carr. This blog will follow the process of planning, making and installing this video in the Yorkshire Museum.

Our general brief is to create a video that can be used as part of the museum's Star Carr exhibit. We have chosen to focus on one specific artefact type, which may not get the attention it deserves as part of a museum exhibit. We have chosen flint, which in our opinion is overshadowed by artefacts such as the antler frontlets. These headdresses obviously deserve the attention they get, however, we think it might be interesting to bring some of the other artefacts into the spotlight for a while. We have decided to follow the flint artefact from its creation until it ends up in the museum, and through that we hope to add a human element to this part of the past. This concerns both how it was used in the Mesolithic, and how we interact with it today.

Earlier this week we visited the museum to examine the Star Carr exhibition and the area our video will be shown in. We also had the opportunity to get a closer look at some of the artefacts from Star Carr, as well as other prehistoric sites. We saw different types of flint artefacts, which helped us decide to use this type of material as the focal point for our video. We were also talking about different types of audiences, which is one of the things we will have to keep in mind, to make our film interesting for, hopefully, as many museum visitors as possible.

Listening to curator Natalie McCaul talk about the prehistoric exhibit
Photo: Sara Perry

We also began to plan how our video should look. We discussed the audience we wanted to present our video to, as well as the messages we wanted to convey. We have started to plan the structure of our video using a storyboard, and we have discussed what visual elements we want to include. So far, we have decided to use shots from the museum, animation and drawing, and interviews/voice-overs. We are trying to avoid using the 'talking head' approach and rather focus on other types of narration, based around artwork by Lizzie. We think this will engage the viewers in a better way.

In the next few days Lizzie will continue experimenting with drawing and animation, and Astrid will develop the storyboard. We have lots of ideas for this project, and we are excited to share them with you.

Part of our storyboard, with a temporary working title

This video is an example of how we plan to incorporate Lizzie's drawings into our film. We might include simple animations later.