Final overview

I thoroughly enjoyed this module as it gave me the opportunity to be creative and create something of my own in a large space. It was also extremely rewarding to see such a sense of community in the library and see everyone coming together and joining in. We had a one hour session with Clare and the rest of the class today and we discussed all of the performances. All of our class members said they were shocked at how well our performance was received and that they really enjoyed taking part and experiencing the applause. The library staff are very happy with how the performance went, as are our fellow students. So it appears that everyone is happy... Mission accomplished.

Reflection of the performance

On the 10th May we had our final performance, and we all arrived at 9am to begin with a short briefing with Clare and to organize what we would need to do in the lead up to the performance. This only lasted a few minutes and myself and Anouchka then took the next few hours to set up. Clare had already set up two screens on the ground and third floors for our documentary to be shown so with the video already sorted- we focused most of our time on setting up for the applause. During the briefing we told the whole class what our project was about and asked that they help us by participating in the applause. The class all seemed very excited- admittedly this was probably at the prospect of being able to make a lot of noise in an otherwise quiet space, however everyone was happy to help.

Between 9:30 and 11am myself and Anouchka recruited a few of our friends and colleagues to help us give out the flyers. We printed 100 flyers and walked around the library handing them out to people and explaining what the applause was about. We advised them to go and watch the video beforehand which a lot of people did. We also put some flyers around the entrance of the library so people could pick them up as they entered.

The documentary turned out to be very successful and a lot of people came to watch. The staff were all very excited to see the final video as they had been a part of making it. One of the participants (Lisa peace) actually watched the video several times as she enjoyed it so much. We were thanked by many staff members for bringing to light what they do and giving them some appreciation. We were also told by Clare that our documentary had a heartfelt reason behind it that she found to be quite touching.

At around 12:30 the applause was drawing close and we decided to ask some of our colleagues to stand in different places around the library on different floors. This is so we would have a definite clap coming from spaces all throughout the library and hopefully this would make people join in. It also meant that we could all see each other. We decided that the applause would begin with a hand signal from myself and Anouchka that was a count down from 5.

The applause itself turned out extremely well and went a lot better than expected. The sound was thunderous and there was also people cheering and whistling as well as just clapping. It could be heard throughout the entire library and we had a vast amount of people joining in outside of the Theatre Studies community.

Video of the applause

Performance day reviews

Today was performance day in the library and I have written three reviews about three different performances that I witnessed.

The first performance I saw was "The tree of stories" by Sherelle and Georgina. Here is a video of the performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Pe_dg9ZhPCk#!

I thought that this performance was very interesting in its presentation. The cardboard tree stood out and seemed to grab the attention of a lot of people. I liked the idea that the tree represented the body of the UEL library and each leaf showed a story or an opinion about the library. I personally participated in the creation of this in that Sherelle gave me a paper leaf and asked me to write my favorite place in the library on it. People seemed to be very willing to write down their favorite places and add them to the tree of stories and I think Georgina and Sherelle did well in finding participants and actively asking people to join in. This performance ran throughout the day which meant that people could keep adding to the tree and by the end of the day they had a very impressive amount of stories written on it. Overall this was a creative and interactive performance that utilized the library space effectively and was enjoyable for people.

The second performance I witnessed was Fitness Geek by Shanice, Shanice, Hande and Yughiny. Here is a video of the performance: http://publicproject1.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/fitness-geek/

This was a two-part performance in that it included a video running throughout the day as well as a live work out routine that was performed in front of everyone in the library. This idea was very creative in that they took certain movements you would see in the library on a daily basis such as a reading a book or sitting in a chair and turned them in to a workout routine encouraging people to be more active while studying. The video was played at the same time as the live performance which made it eye catching and interesting to watch. A few students did join in with the work out routine and a lot of people stood around to watch. The group also shouted instructions as they performed the routine so that people could remember the steps that they were doing if they wanted to join in. This was a very creative use of library space and certainly caught peoples attention. I think this performance was very successful

The final performance I witnessed was "We are the world" by Simona. This performance was a creative art display on the ground floor of the library that showed the multi-cultural aspect of the UEL library. Simona had gone round the library and asked people about their nationality, also taking some photos, and she then displayed them as an art form on a large poster board. The display was easy to view and she had included some statistics about the percentage of people from each different country which was very interesting to learn about. She also included some information about the different languages UEL library users speak. While viewing the performance she also explained a bit about her own culture as she is originally from Lithuania. She explained that UEL is such a global university and she wanted to raise awareness of how many nationalities and races of people enter the library each day. This was an educational piece and seemed to engage peoples interest, especially overseas students.

Today has gone very well overall.

It's almost show time

Anouchka and myself have given our finished documentary to Clare via external hard drive and she will be organizing large screens that we will be used to play our documentary in the library on the 10th May. At this point we are starting to notify other students about the performance. We have told our class about the aims of the project and what our hopes are for the day of the performance. We are also asking friends around the university campus to spread the word and invite people to come and participate in the mass applause on the day. We have now created the flyers that we will be handing out to people and placing around the library asking for participants. The text that will be featured on the flyer is as follows:

THERE WILL BE A MASS APPLAUSE HERE IN THE LIBRARY AT 1PM. WE ARE FIRST YEAR THEATRE STUDIES AND YOUR HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. THIS IS TO SHOW APPRECIATION FOR UEL LIBRARY STAFF AND YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CAUSE BY VIEWING A SHORT VIDEO ON THE GROUND AND THIRD FLOORS WHICH WILL BE PLAYING FROM 11AM TO 3PM. EVERY PAIR OF HANDS COUNTS.

And now we wait...

Editing: Solving the issues

After meeting with Peter today we have managed to solve all of the issues we first encountered. This enabled us to continue editing for a few days and the finished documentary is now finally complete. Below is a list of how we solved each issue we originally encountered.

Background noise: Unfortunately some of the clips had to be completely cut from the documentary as the background noise was too overpowering. However Peter showed us that we could change the volume levels of a piece of footage in final cut pro so after playing around with this for a while we have managed to make the majority of background noise very minimal, and it is now hardly noticeable.

Jumpy cuts: By using the T (Transition) tool in Final Cut Pro we were able to make a much smoother transition between our shots and our documentary as a whole now flows much better.

Music: We were able to decrease the volume levels of certain points of the song in order to allow the participants to be properly heard. We were able to fade the music gradually using the fade tool for more important points of the documentary and make it slightly louder at times when we show still images or shots of staff working where no extraneous sound is involved.

Now that our documentary is edited and saved on a hard drive which we will be giving to Clare, our next point of focus is the live performance which will be happening on the 10th May. We will be meeting again this week to talk about the preparations for this and we will then establish exactly what we need to do.

Editing: Problems we have encountered

We have spent a few days editing the documentary and making it in to one flowing piece rather than short clips of interviews. It is going very well and we have a concrete order for which shots we will use in which places. However we have encountered a few problems with the editing process and some of the footage that we will need to be amend for the documentary. Here are the issues we are currently facing:

Background noise: Some of the student interviews are filmed at busy times of the day which unfortunately means there is a lot of background noise and the students cannot be heard as much as we would like.

Jumpy cuts: Although we have managed to cut the interviews down to just the "important" pieces, we are experiencing some very rigid and jumpy cuts from one shot to another. We will need to make this a smoother transition so that the documentary flows better as a whole and appears more professional.

Music: We have chosen an instrumental track played on acoustic guitar that we found on YouTube for the music. However when we played this with our documentary, some of the voices are drowned out and the volume is not quite correct. We will need to find a way to fade the music properly so that it can be heard in the background but the main focus is on the interviews and dialogue.

We will be meeting with Peter who is a member of technical staff at UEL who will be helping us to correct these issues before our next editing day.