Week 2 – concluded

Week 2 has come to an end and so has events. This week was a very intense and productive week with a lot of blood, sweat and tears mainly due to Jim's laptop dying, however, progress was made, and the film was completed. Both teams came together to work on the Film to make sure that 100% of the possible work effort could be directed towards the final outcome. The 1st and 2nd years gave their all to make sure that the tasks they had been working on were completed before Thursday's test screening at the Cornerhouse theatre.

The MMU Student booklet on how to use the North West Film Archive was near completion and had been sent to our collaborator Geoff Senior for final comments. The comments and feedback received were beneficial in providing more in-depth input into the guide before being finalised.

With everything completed, it was finally time for the debut of Manchester Town Hall: On Screen. This couldn’t have happened without everyone’s help and valuable effort over the past two weeks. The premiere was a massive success with both the public and our collaborator enjoying the final outcome. In the end, the premiere concluded without a single problem, and we even got to enjoy the film with popcorn.

Week 2 - Day 05

Here is a poster showing each page within the completed booklet on 'How to use the North West Film Archive' which will be used to highlight the facilities and steps required for students to request footage from the Archive.

Week 2 – Day 05
Town Hall On-Screen Premiere

Friday marked the last day of Events. It was also the make or break day in regards to the Film premiere. However, thanks to everyone’s valuable effort, careful planning and thorough checks throughout the two weeks of the events. We were very optimistic that everything was going to work out, which it did.

We started the morning by meeting at the Cornerhouse theatre at no. 70 Oxford Road. We had a look at the venue space to make sure that everything was ready. All equipment was set up to allow for everything to transition smoothly with this done we carried out a test premiere before members of the public arrived. We already knew that the film was already going to be formatted correctly with both sounds and visuals being at the optimum levels, but it’s always good to double check.

At 1 pm, it was time to premiere the Film. Everything went exactly as planned with the master students providing a brief introduction to the Event and the archive guide booklet. Finally, the Film was shown to the public and our collaborator Geoff Senior. The overall reception was great, and our collaborator was also pleased with the outcome and mentioned that both the film and guide booklet would be great additions to the archive to further advocate the uses of the archive to Higher Education Students.

We want to thank everyone who attended the premier to view Manchester Town Hall: On-Screen. We would like to especially thank the 1st and 2nd years for the valuable contributions and engagement over the past two weeks, without you it would not have been possible and to such a high standard, thank you. We want to thank, Geoff Senior and all the members at the North West Film Archive and Sam Heitzman from the Digital Media+ team for providing the information and skills necessary to make the film and booklet and we hope you enjoy the final outcomes as much as we did making them.

Thank you,
Group D

Week 2 - Day 03

This morning, we continued to finalise the edits required for the transition between existing and new footage for the film. Some members of the team returned to the town hall to record additional footage which was required for the film, to compliment the footage from the Archive.

The 1st and 2nd years began searching for sounds which could be overlaid and embedded within the footage, to provide alternative emotional responses. Adding sounds to the footage was the final stage of the editing process and for the overall film production.

Throughout the production and editing of the film, we have come across some issues regarding the transferring of footage, data and processing power required to edit footage.

• During the event, not everyone had access to high-powered laptops, which hindered our decision on which tasks should be given to the first and second years.
• The low processing power of laptops affected even the high-powered laptops owned by master’s students. They started to become less responsive and began to crash due to file sizes becoming too large.
• Backward compatibility was also an issue, this was because some students had access to Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 and other used Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018. This created problems when we began to transfer files of the edited footage to the person-in-charge of the Master file.

The ‘How to use the North West Film Archive’ booklet has been completed and we will be sending it tomorrow morning to Geoff Senior at the North West Film Archive for final amendments and to be signed off. Over the past 2 weeks of the events, we have also been able to create 3 videos alongside the booklet which have been implemented into the booklet using QR codes. These can be viewed by students if they require further assistance on how to use the Archive.

Students have also printed out posters, which have been placed around the Manchester School of Arts building to advertise the Film Premiere at the Cornerhouse Theatre on Oxford Road – 05/04/2019.

Tomorrow, we will be sending the Final booklet to Geoff Senior and we will be testing the Film at the Cornerhouse Theatre before it is shown on Friday. This will allow us to make any final sound or footage resolution adjustment before the Premiere on Friday.

Week 1 - Concluded

Week 1 has come to an end. This week has been quite a productive and informative week from the start, with presentations to meeting collaborators and visiting the North West Film Archive. Both teams have come together to collectively work on both outcomes to achieve the best results, with surprising talent being shown from both the 1st and 2nd years.

The Film team have been progressing through the storyboard they created throughout the week, with steps being undertaken to tackle each scene. Footage housed at the Archive is currently being edited frame by frame before being incorporated into the 3-minute film.

The Leaflet and Promotion team have come together to work on producing an in-depth guide on using the Archive and how to best promote and communicate the benefits of the North West Film Archive to students, by showcasing the accessibility, facilities, and means to request footage from the Archive.

Week 2 - will commence with both teams moving closer towards each of the outcomes for the Films Premiere at the Cornerhouse Theatre, Oxford Street on April 5th.

Today, we began to break down each of the tasks required to make the booklet on how to use the North West Film Archive. The key points of focus had been highlighted in a previous blog post which provided us with a break down of the relevant information required for the guide.

Each key focus point was given to a 1st and 2nd year student. With this they can now move forward to produce 2 pages for the booklet explaining these Key points, as follows;

- Pages 1 & 2: Location of the Archive, how to arrive and transport links for access (QR Video)
- Pages 3 & 4: Internal plan of the Central Library highlighting the Archive and the other available facilities in the library
- Pages 5 & 6: The facilities which are available at the Archive.
- Pages 7 & 8: How to use the Website and how to use the Archive viewing pods (QR videos) and how to request the footage and seek approval
- Pages 9 & 10: A step by step timeline of the whole procedure and the format which the file will arrive and the different safety methods to work with for safe data handling, since this is for students.

After the tasks had been given out, we then proceeded with a tutorial on how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign to prepare the 1st and 2nd year students, so that they could design the pages for the guide.

The Second Day was marked with a visit to the North West Film Archive to allow the 1st and 2nd years with first-hand experience using the archive. We began by taking a tour around the NWFA viewing pods and towards the viewing rooms, which was followed by a tour across the other facilities housed at the Central Library.

During the morning presentation by Master students, Geoff referred to a film at the archive called ‘A City Speaks’ which is regarding the redevelopment of Manchester in the post-war era. This was a great opportunity to test students to see if they remembered how to use the archive from the morning presentation.

Even though this was a task given to the 1st and 2nd year students to better understand the archive and how we could transfer this knowledge into the leaflet. We ended up learning about a lot of new information which previously was unknown regarding the archive.

- The viewing pods are split in local footage viewing pods which contain footage which is local. These can be viewed without any prior permission, these are pods 1 & 2 (each pod has a large number printed on the side)
- Viewing pods 3–8 provide national footage however to access these pods, you must go over to the information desk and request a ticket. Each ticket allows a maximum of 2.5 hours of viewing time and each ticket is inputted into the system similar to a password to gain access to the collection.
- If you are struggling to find footage from the words you are searching, you could try to add an ‘s’ to the end of the word to prompt the search engine to find more films. This is due to the system index having multiple keywords which are cross-referenced and if you continue to struggle it’s always a good idea to approach the help desk.

Another task which we undertook while touring the Archive was to document a storyboard which we could use to create how to navigate the archive video for the QR codes inside the leaflet. We collectively thought about a progressive route to highlight each of the relevant steps required to find, locate and request footage at the North West Film Archive. We hope to use the recorded video footage at Wednesday's lesson where we will be learning how to use Adobe Premiere Pro with Sam Heitzman (Technical officer – Media Team).

DAY 01 – How to use the Archive.

By the afternoon, 1st and 2nd year students had decided on which outcome (Leaflet or Film) they would prefer to work on over the next 2 weeks of the events. Once the teams had been selected we split up into teams to start gathering and pooling ideas between each other to formulate a plan of action on how to work towards each of the final outcomes.

Team Abbas (not the best team name) are in charge of producing a leaflet which will promote how to use the North West Film Archive as well as highlighting the benefits and uses of the Archive, particularly for students. A short introduction was given on our first-hand experiences of using the archive to search, view, request and obtain permission for footage at the archive. We then created a mind map of all the possible ideas which could be documented within the leaflet;

- Location, how to access the archive (map) - contact information.
- What the archive has to offer – high quality repaired footage to modern formats – Extensive catalog of amateur and professional footage – Footage from the 1890s to the present-day footage – exclusive BBC footage and documentaries otherwise not viewable – viewing pods, viewing rooms and lockers for comfortable viewing experiences.
- Background and history
- How to navigate the Website and Archive - how to conduct searches and how to optimise search results.
- Limitation/constraints or preparation required for consent and copyright
- Timescale, processing – it could require 5-6 weeks to process footage.
- How is footage requested and how to fill out forms to request footage (codes)
- Timeline – how long do you have access to the footage – how are you provided the footage and in what format – also limits on how footage can be shared.

These are some of the ideas which we think would be useful to address in the leaflet. To promote and showcase how to use the archive for students. We will be producing the leaflet using a range of tools from hand sketches to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Also, the students came up with a great idea of using QR codes which could be used to link the leaflet to the blog and videos on how to use the archive.

Day 01 - was an eventful and progressive day with valuable input given on both teams. Day 02 - we will be going to the North West Film Archive to provide the 1st and 2nd years with a hands-on experience of the Archive and to see if they can find new ideas for the leaflet.

What is the North West Film Archive? The NWFA contains a wide collection of recorded footage dating back to the pioneering days of the moving image in the 1890s to present day video production. Housing an extensive catalog of around 50,000 items from documentaries to home movies, both professional and amateur. We had the pleasure of viewing some footage within the Archives’ circular viewing pods, during our visit. One thing for certain is that the NWFA viewing pods are perfect for both general curious viewing or more concentrated research intents purposes.

‘On Screen’ is a collaborative project that will bring together students from the Manchester School of Architecture with our collaborators the NWFA. (North West Film Archive). Using our creative skills, we plan to promote and raise awareness of the archive and its available resources to us as students. We aim to engage future and existing students by developing an instructional guide representing how to use the archive. Manchester town hall is an iconic landmark of the city. The town hall has been a stage for many events throughout history, ranging from film sets to political rallies. We wish to shed light on the significance of the town hall and demonstrate how it is a fundamental piece of the city’s history. By collating clips of NWFA footage, we hope to convey the story of the town hall.

Our initial group visit to the North West Film Archive at Manchester Central Library. Group D has been given the opportunity to document and research for footage regarding Manchester townhall by looking through the North West Film Archives (NWFA) extensive collection of moving images and video footage.

During our group visit, we met with Geoff Senior from the NWFA who is one of our event collaborators. We were given a tour around the amazing facilities that are housed at the NWFA which are provided free to both the public and academic researchers.

Although this was our initial visit, we will be uploading an in-depth guide into how to access all the resources available at the NWFA. Also, individual group member introductions will be uploaded at some point, once some of us have haircuts.