2nd Year - World War 2 Project

I haven't blogged for a while now so I will try to catch up.

My second year has now begun and we started of with some work with the first years. We looked at how the James Bond films have changed over time and how the series had been revived with Daniel Craig's first outing in Casino Royale. We also were tasked to write a plot for the next Bond film. Mine was set in Japan and featured Q and many futuristic weaponry and gadgets (which would now seem more believable now as technology like that is nearly here).

Afterwards we were tasked with writing a brief for a revival of an old television show. We were given 'Love thy Neighbour'. Our group worked well with this. We decided to change it to an animated show, and we also changed character stereotypes so it would make more sense today.

Right now we are working on a project which revolves around World War 2. Our first task was to find out as much as we could about the war. I produced digital sheets about different areas and aspects of the war (e.g. warfare, allies, axis powers). We were also tasked to create a moodboard (a collection of images put together to represent the mood of something). For practice, we created one which represented ourselves. I included images of my favourite hobbies, shows and other things which I thought told people all about me. After this we started on our World War 2 versions. I made mine in monotone, but at the expense of showing off a bit, I decided to include the girl from Schindler's List in the moodboard. The girl's red coat is the only thing in the movie you see in colour, so I did the same thing. Fellow students seemed to like the idea.

We now have been put in groups for an event we now have to organise and set up. The groups were:

- Management of the Public

- Costume and Make-Up

- Entertainment

- Curation

I decided to go in the Entertainment group as the Entertainment industry is where I want to go. Our team is responsible for managing acts to come up on stage and perform. We want to get singers, dancers and maybe drama acts, but we haven't decided that yet. We also have to get music to play during the event and to do this we need permission to play it. Each member of our group has no particular responsibility. We all just have to make sure we turn up, contribute and work hard. We are planning to work together as much as possible and not deviate ourselves to work on separate aspects of the project.

Myself and Luke were tasked to interview a war survivor. We interviewed a fascinating lady called Veronica who had a lot to say about her years as a schoolgirl in the war. We have processed her interview and edited it down to roughly 5 minutes. We have also added a music bed in the background. We decided to use Vera Lynn's 'They'll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover'. We used this song because it was very popular during the war years and since the music is so soothing to listen to, it was suitable to use as a music bed.

There were numerous things we thought of to have at the Tea Dance, but we have restraints. Such things we wanted to do included:

- A big band, but due to a limited budget, we couldn't afford one

- A kids corner so they can play and watch old World War 2 cartoons, but since this event will be held during school time, we decided this was pointless to organise

- A big TV showing old archive footage, but a TV would be too expensive and heavy to carry around

- A short movie advert to advertise the event, but due to time restraints we can't

Next week we are planning to contact different groups who may be interested in performing on stage at this event. We will be contacting course tutors mainly, as we want Bradford College students to do most of the performing. We plan to meet with these tutors and their students to organise what they want to do and how they would do it. We would organise any music they would need and we would also hope to get a pre-taste of their performance before they actually perform. We aren't choreographers so they would have to choreograph their performances themselves. This is something I'm worried about, as I don't know how good these students actually are. Another thing I'm concerned about is, would they actually be willing to perform for free?

Our time is limiting but I feel we will get things done on time. We may need to do some work at home too, but we will get it done.

Some more challenges we will face include:

- Copyright - If we were to ask permission to use certain music or videos, would we actually get a response in time and would we be actually granted it? Also, would it cost money?

- Absence - I'm worried my group might not show up as often as I would hope. A bug is going around right now and I know one member of my group is certainly not feeling well.

- Time - Three weeks to do this? Other projects we have had, we have had months to do them.

- What to Do - Sometimes I worry if we actually will know what to do. We might ask permission for copyright, ask people to perform, but as we wait for a repsonse, we might not know what to do.

I'm most looking forward to the event itself. I'm looking forward getting dressed in World War 2 attire and having a good time. Due to myself being in the Entertainment group, I won't be doing much else other than telling people when to go on stage. I may be doing a bit of announcing at the event (i.e. introducing acts on stage). I'm looking forward to the challenge of that the most.