Straw House Animation

Whilst editting our film of Ben and Ian we realised that we needed a way of setting the scene for the documentary and also a way to finish it. We decided to construct an animation using the animation sweet at uni. We had never used the programme or editing sweet before but we gave it our best shot and we learnt a lot in the process!

Here are some shots of us in action:

The animation is a stop motion animation where by photos are taken in between each time I draw a small part of it. It was drawn in charcoal on white paper, we wanted to keep it simple but we thought the charcoal would add an earthy touch. First the ordinary terraced houses appear, like the many you see in brighton and we thought they were relevant to what Ian sais about current living conditions in Brighton. The straw house then magically appears being inspired by ben's house it has rounded windows and an organic shape. A seagull then glides down and sits on the roof of the straw house as the title of the doccy appear below and then our names.

All we need to do know is fit it into Final Cut pro and put music to it! 

Plan for doccy

Plan for Documentary in Community:

List of People to interview:

Ben Mcmullian- student who built his house out of straw

Questions to ask him:

• What was the motivation for building his own house?
• What are his values in life?
• What does being green mean to him?
• Who was involved in the project?
• What is it made from?
• How long did it take?
• What is it going to be used for?

Camera shots to consider:

• Shot of Ben in front of his house
• a tour of the inside
• Close up of the materials it is made from
• The surroundings in his garden
• inside his permanent house

Ian Brown- Teacher at City College and builder of straw bale houses

Questions to ask him:

• What is his role in City College?
• What is his role outside the college when teaching to build with straw bales?
• Why does he think straw is an important material for building?
• How did he become interested in building/carpentry/Straw?
• Why does he think it is important to teach younger generations about traditional ways of building?
• Does he have any iconic buildings that inspire him?

Camera shots to consider:

• Interview him in the workshop, upper body shot and close ups
• student working in the workshop
• Close up of wood and other materials
• the surroundings pan of the workshop
• time lapse of workers

Duncan Baker- Brown - Designer of Waste House and builder of his own straw house.

Questions to ask him:

• Why he is building the waste house?
• Explanations of his straw house?
• Does he think straw has potential to be used more widely?
• Could it be used in urban areas?
• What are his favorite examples of well designed/ sustainable buildings?
• What are the good and bad qualities of straw?

Camera shots to consider:

• Interview outside his straw house/ waste house
• Up close and far away shots of the house
• Mithras house, his teaching environment, architecture student working

Straw Animation:

We plan to make a short animation using straw to add to our documentary. It could act as a transitory between interviews from ben, Ian or Duncan, growing each time and changing. 

We could also use it to show text. e.g subtitles of the people we were interviewing instead of adding text from the computer fonts. It would set the introduction to the documentary in a direct and clever way and also conclude it at the end. 

Doccy so far...

It is now week 4 of our documentary and I am very happy working with Lauren and Annahita in a group. Over the past 4 weeks we have compiled a list of people to interview, practiced using the cameras and also created some music for our documentary.

The first person me and Lauren interviewed was Ben, a student at Sussex who had built his own house made of a mixture of lime, straw and sand in his back garden. He let us interview him as well as giving us a tour of the small House. After we finished the interview we continue to play around with shots to fill the documentary and convey the atmosphere of the house.

Here are a few shots of me in action:

Ben was really inspiring because of his motivation and enthusiasm to teach others about sustainable building and the use of straw, so much so that we decided to base the whole project on Straw as a material. Some of the main problems we encountered from our first filming session were 1; the light faded quickly and we were filming a lot of it in the dark, and 2; we didn't have the sound turned on and had to repeat the interview. However we learned from this and got the camera man at uni to show us how to operate them properly before we went an filmed again.

The second man on our list was Ian Brown. After doing a bit of research on the internet for places that supply Straw in Brighton I managed to find Ian who runs courses on building Houses out of Straw Bales. He also is a tutor for carpentry at City College teaching young apprentices and has a direct link to the Waste House project so he was a perfect person to interview!

Some of the main problems I encountered were that some of the apprentices at City College were naturally quite curious as to why I was there and tried to show off in front of the camera by swearing. It was quite hectic trying to film Ian whilst he was trying to keep everything under controle. There was also a lot of background noise whilst filming and we had to conduct the interview outside in a not as picturesque setting as the bustling workshops inside. However I did get some good shots of the group building thing for the waste house and Ian made some very interesting points.


Next on our list is Duncan Baker Brown the designer of the Waste House. We were informed that he too had in fact built his own House out of Straw and we aim to find out more about why, and could we see it for ourselves?

We have also been very busy in the editing sweet. These are some screen shots from our filming at Ben's House which we have almost finished putting in to a sequence for the documentary. As I have never used Final Cut Pro before Lauren had to teach me a lot about how to use it. But after sitting in with her after a few sessions I have started to get the gist of it.

Here are some pictures of us in a sound proof room at Uni which we hired out and recorded some music for the soundtrack. We embraced the fact that we had to create our own sound as not to copyright anything so we mainly used old folk tunes and songs that are well over 50 years old. Lauren taught me a song in welsh and I managed to harmonise with her. I also played some Irish and American Fiddle tunes as well as guitar to accompany Lauren singing.  I think that the folk style will suit the motion picture because its very organic and rustic. I think one thing the people in out documentary have in common is that they all share a love for straw and a love for old and traditional ways of working which hopefully will come across in our sound as well.

Ben's Straw House

On tuesday we had our first day of filming. Me and Lauren went to see a man about a straw house he had built in the bottom of his garden. We thought it would be intersting to ask him his motivations for building the house, who his inspirations were, what he planned to use it for in the future. It was made from a mixture of lime, sand and straw, with the inside furnished with reclained wood. The roof was also made into a green roof.

These are some of the pictures we took whilst filming. When filming we were stuck a bit for time because we were loosing the light so some of the shots were quite dark. We manged to get some good sunset shots of the houses and did a quick interview with Ben with the camera on a tripod. Then as he gave us a tour of the house we decided to put some moving shots in where I held the camera and followed him around filming specific things he was explaining. We then made sure to go back and do up close shots of for example the lime material and the starw walls to get more detail. When we finally lost the light we decided to take advantage of this by lighting a candle inside the house to create some atmosphere and create a cpsy warm feeling that you get from the house anyway when you look at it. We filmed the candle flickering in the wondow and then blew it out to add a final shot to the sequence. 

Overall I think I learnt how to cope with time constraints when filming , due to light fading and also Ben had to get back to studying so we had to think carefully about what we asked him. I think I learned how to use the camera appropriately and how to use a tripod. I feel like the trip was very successful and next week we will be editing the tape. 

Research on stories in the news

http://www.theargus.co.uk/archive/2006/02/23/The+Argus+Archive/6809914._Green__houses_plan_for_marina/

This is a link to an article I found in the Argus newspaper from 2006 about the story of an eco village ( or earthships )planned to be built at Brighton Marina.The designer Michael Reynolds built the first example in Taos, New Mexico, in 1988, and still lives in it.The main exterior is made up of the waste materials of car tires and beer cans.

"Heating is via large, south-facing windows and extra-thick walls made of worn tyres and discarded beer bottles or cans which capture the sun's energy then release it as the rooms cool, using the same principle as a storage heater.
From the roof, rainwater runs into 20,000 litre storage units, where it is filtered for tap water, before being used in "planters" to water home-grown vegetables and then being recycled into the toilets.
Electricity comes from solar panels and wind turbines. Even human waste is sent from a septic tank into a reed bed, which converts it into fertiliser for a nearby tree nursery."

It would be interesting to see if the plans ever went ahead, if not then why? What problems did they encounter? And also what they think of the new waste house being built in Brighton. 

http://transitionculture.org/2006/02/27/eco-build-%E2%80%9906-three-beacons-of-sanity/

this website commented on the building of one of the earthships in Brighton so I could explore how to go there visit it and its designers, people living in it?

These are pictures of Mike Reynolds house in Mexico, it was built in layers of tires and empty cans and bottles which you can see in the wall decoration, similar to that of "Kenvin's house" in London.

I could also contact the local council about the waste problem in Brighton. I live around the Lewes Road area and there is always heaps of rubbish and open bin bags on the street. It would be interesting to get their opinion on how they think the house might chnage people habbits about throwing things away.
http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1231057 CITY COUNCIL WEBSITE

I also am keen to talk to Kat Fletcher who I know is the coordinator for reseources for the whole project so to get info on materials I could interview her.