January 30th 2002

Time is pressing on and I think the group is now at the stage where they are "creatively" confident in how the film is going to look and what it is going to say. Dearbhla and myself were convinced that plenty of preparatory discussion work rather than too much hands on work would be more beneficial to the film and we were proved right by the great creative and imaginative input the group was having.
The ideas, imaginations and real life experiences were scripted as well as the visual look of the film. The group was delighted with how it all shaped up. We plan to have approx. 3-4 more technical workshops before we proceed on to a concentrated 5-day shoot.
Gerard

Wed Feb 6th
Today we discussed the merits of the script with the group. The script was put together by myself and Dearbhla with information gathered from discussion workshops earlier in the project. Today we decided to film some of the easier scenes that did not need dressed or set designed in anyway. The scene involves one of the group members in their wheelchair with driving POV shots of the school corridor. This was another chance to check out the use of the "magic arm" for mounting the camera on the chair. This has proved vital for the wheelchair users in the group in order for them to have almost full control over the camera. The group seem to be getting more impatient however waiting for the film to happen but I believe they do need more practice, as the bulk of our work has been fact-finding as opposed to technical training. We also tried some blue screen shots.
Gerard

Open Arts/Fleming Fulton Wed 27th Feb
Nothing much was achieved today. The group seemed to be in mid term break mode and were not feeling like doing much. We decided to put definite dates on the shoot today to up the spirit a little bit and this seemed to do the trick. We worked out a shooting schedule and agreed that the shoot should be a full 5 days and would begin 2 weeks from now. We also put together some picture collages reflecting the group's hopes and aspirations for the future. These would be used in the actual film.
Gerard