Evaluation Of Diploma Festival

The Diploma Festival proved a success. Finally, people could appreciate our two years of solid hard work, and I got the impression that all the visitors thoroughly enjoyed viewing our displays.

Diploma Festival Photos

Below are some photos of the second day of our Diploma festival.

Festival Advert Poster

Above is one of the planning stages for my Diploma Festival Advertisement Poster. I added various images off the internet, relating to creative aspects including a paintbrush representing art, film reel, Bottom's Head for the Performance Unit, and a photo of Salford Quays at night for the Scene Unit. I added an explosion in the centre for dramatic effect.

 

Above is my final poster to advertise our Diploma Festival. I added a tint to make it more extravagant and stand out.   

LO1: Tmac Diploma Festival

Artistic Policy: The work of Diploma students, as a celebration of what we have achieved over the course of two years.

Funding: £130 for large cardboard sheets, refreshments etc.

LO1: Research Into 5 Festivals

LO1: Research Into Various Festivals

Preston Guild:

·        Historic celebration since 1179 when King Henry II gave Preston the right to have a Guild Merchant.

·        Unique- only guild still celebrated in whole of UK

·        Once every twenty years

·        2012 next festival

·        Each Guild- own identity/ over 800 year heritage

·        Lots of people get involved including artist/ businesses, athletes and performers.

·        Evolved over centuries.

·        Always been about people including those who plan, participate in and promote it.

·        Will be known as an ongoing thing and previous Preston Guild festivals not forgotten as stories are passed on from grandparent to their children and grandchildren.

·        Traditionally carried banners/ trade emblems, and wore colourful costumes.

·        18^th century- increasingly elaborate with decorated platforms.

·        Various trades involved, some always involved (carpenters, butchers), cotton industry (first time 1802), then new trades such as nuclear power, male order catalogues, electronics and aircraft building more recently (1972/1992).

·        Always drawn large crowds of visitors.

·        Balloon ascents, feasts etc.

Target Audience:

Everyone can take part as there is something for everybody, not just people of Preston.

Artistic Policy:

·        Something for everyone

·        Floats, walking groups, musical accompaniments.  

·        Costumes

·        Bands/ marching processions representing schools, the voluntary sector, communities, charities, youth groups, sports clubs etc.

·        Any kinds of trade

·        Imaginative

Funding:

·        Council funding

Kumbh Mela:

·        Hindu pilgramage

·        Largest gathering of people for religious purposes in the world

·        Gather at the Ganges River

·        3 types- Normal Kumbh Mela every three years, Ardh (half) Kumbh Mela every six years and Purna (complete) Kumbh Mela every 12 years.

·        In addition to the three above, the Maha (great) Kumbh Mela is held every 144 years and is held at Allahabad, previously attended by more than 60 million people in 2001, largest gathering ever recorded at time.

·        Last Ardh Kumbh Mela held over 45 day period, with 70 million Hindus partaking in 2007.

·        Bathe in River Ganges, to become free from their past sins (Karma), with a pure lifestyle required afterwards

·        Any Hindu can attend, young or old, rich or poor

·        Market areas, entirely vegetarian food, snake charmers, singing, religious discussions.

·        Dates back to India’s Vedic period where River Festivals first organised.

·        Hindus believe that after a fight involving the Gods and Demons for the pot of amrita (nectar of immortality), Lord Vishnu flew away with the Kumbha Urn, causing drops of this to be spilt in four places Prayag, Hardiwar, Ujjain and Nashik, where the Kumbh Mela are held.

·        Kumbha- Sanskrit for Pitcher (round pot with no handles), and Mela means a gathering.

·        Kumbha- zodiac sign for Aquarius in Indian Astrology for Aquarius.

Target Audience:

Hindus

Artistic Policy:

·        Some unusual things such as snake charmers, elephants, camels etc.

·        Market stalls- but strictly vegetarian food

·        Believe in bringing Hindus together as a group for activities, as that is what the Gods would want.

Funding:

One Big Weekend:

·        Held in Bolton, at Leverhulme Park

·        Thursday 16^th September 2010 and lasted four days.

·        Over 4500 visitors.

·        Events included Tower FM Live Show, Big Foot Monster truck show, Emmerdale Celebrity Support etc.

·        For the whole family, bringing the people of Bolton together.

·        Amir Khan, the Mayor, and Paddy and Marlon from Emmerdale started proceedings at 5pm on the first day.

·        Organised by Henry Hill- Bolton Northwest Funfairs.

·        Money raised from the event to go to Mayor’s Charity, Royal Manchester Hospital and to help victims of the floods in Pakistan.

·        Included two firework displays, Bolton’s very own beach complete with sand, as well as things to appeal to youngsters such as a Children’s Inflatable Play Area and a huge funfair.

Target Audience:

Mainly people from Bolton.

Artistic Policy:

·        Radio stations such as Tower FM live show.

·        A few celebrities such as Amir Khan and people from Eastenders.

Funding:

·        Officially sponsored by Metro Salvage- Scrap Removal Specialist

Cannes Film Festival:

Established to rival the Venice Film Festival, by Jean Zay, Minister of Education And Fine Arts

First edition originally set for 1939, but put back to 20^th September 1946 due to the war.

Held every September from then on (excluding 1948 and 1950), and every May from 1952 onwards.

Lots of various sections including:

The Official Section: the festival's main event

Parallel Sections: dedicated to discovering other aspects of cinema and non-competitive

as well as other Sections and events.

Juries are chosen prior to the beginning of each event and appointed by the festival's board of Directors. They are chosen from an internationally wide range of artists, based on their work and respect from peers. They are solely responsible for choosing which films will receive Cannes awards. There are juries for various sections such as Feature Films, short Film etc.

There are many awards awarded at the festival, the highest being the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for best film.

Target Audience:

Strictly film professionals only and those who are invited.

Artistic Policy:

Both feature length and shirt films, with arthouse cinema as well as the more conventional. 

Directed just at film professionals.

Glastonbury:

Best known for music, but features dance, comedy, circus, theatre and cabaret among others. 

Largest greenfield music/ performing arts festival in the world- more than a mile and a half across with an eight and a half mile perimeter.

Accommodates all musical tastes with acoustic and Jazzworld for the more laid back listeners as well as more heavy rock music.

Lots of different areas and stages like the two mentioned above, Dance Vllage, Pyramid Stage etc.

Festival began 1970, the day after the death of Jimi Hendrix.

Target Audience:

Try to make it appeal to both younger and older people with different sections for each

Fans of music in particular, but also a wide range of performing arts including dance and theatre.

Artistic Policy:

Music- all different types of genres

Theatre

Dance

Circus

Theatre carabet

Funding:

All money raised goes to charities, with over one million pounds each year been given to them. 

Patrick Johnson 11S1

LO4: Role During Festival

LO4: Role During Evening Festival

Just before the evening festival began I was asked by one of my fellow Diploma classmates if I could transfer his film onto my pendrive and put it onto a spare computer in the library. Unfortunately, this took rather a long time to do, between ten and twenty minutes, so I missed the start of the Festival. Once I had transferred his film from my pendrive onto the computer, I headed downstairs in the hope that I could welcome people in as they arrived.

It was then that I had the brilliant idea of getting my trumpet and playing it as the arriving guests made their entrances, which was, unfortunately not approved by one of the Diploma teachers Mr Bigland.

However, I was not dispirited, and had another idea of singing when people came through the main entrance with the lyrics:

Welcome to Turton,

Turn left by the sign,

And you’re sure to have,

A wonderful time

This, with the addition of a few kind words informing them that they would need to go up the stairs and that there would be refreshments at the top proved a warm welcome which served to astonish, bewilder and thoroughly entertain our arriving guests. I also had company from fellow students with different people popping down at different times.

After Liz went home about half an hour before the end, I took over the role of interviewing parents with a video camera about what they thought of our festival. Although rather stuck for what to ask at first, I soon got the hang of it, asking parents questions such as “What did you think about our festival as a whole?” “Did you realise how much work was involved as a whole for the Diploma course?” and “What Did You Think About The Layout Of Our Festival?”, amongst others, as guests left.

Patrick Johnson 11S1 

LO4: Preparation Role

Festival- Preparation Role

Another role I had to fulfil in Festival was to collect all the group’s documentaries together and set them up on separate computers dotted around the library. As I had recently bought two 8GB pendrives, it seemed the obvious choice to use them to transport the documentaries from the computers in the diploma rooms to the ones in the library.

The first thing I did was to see Mr Bennett, one of Turton’s media technicians who already had about four of the existing documentaries. Together with the addition of Ben Sofield, we went down to L12, one of the Diploma rooms, where Mr Bennett logged in to the computers, as an Administrator. This meant that he could access any work which had been saved onto these computers by any user.

As I knew quite a bit about how to use iMovie and iMovie HD6, I set to work converting the files from their existing format to Quicktime, which meant that they could be played using media players on the library computers. To do this I clicked “Share” on the bar at the top of the screen, and clicked “Export Using Quicktime”, then “Full quality”. I did this for all the computers Mr Bennett had logged onto in the room. Once they had finished converting to Quicktime, all the documentaries needed to be put on my pendrives and then either given to Mr Bennett or taken up to the library.

A problem then surfaced- I had only brought one pendrive to school, which meant that we could only transfer one film at a time. However, as we could still carry on doing it for a few hours at least, and as it did not slow down the time taken to convert each documentary into Quicktime format, it didn’t prove too serious. Once one of the documentaries had finished converting, I put my pendrive into the computer and started copying the file.

Each of the documentaries took between ten to fifteen minutes to convert into quicktime, and about six to twelve minutes to copy onto my pendrive. As I was just waiting and doing nothing else whilst I was waiting for each film to copy to my pendrive individually, I decided to go with Ben to help out with any other jobs which needed doing. As Ben had offered to help me in my role, I helped him in his, which was transporting props from the Record Unit up to the Library, each time going back every ten minutes or so to set the next documentary up on my pendrive and so on. I also helped transport other things such as large cardboard boards which needed two people to carry each up to the library.

After a while, I found that another problem had arisen. Each film took up between the space of 1 and 2 GB on my pendrive, and after five films the space ran out. However, I went over to Mr Bennett’s office where he removed the documentaries from my pendrive and stored them on his computer, ready for me to get going with another five or so more.

After I had got all the documentaries off the computers in L12, I moved over to L10, where there were four or five more for me to copy. However, by this time I was running out of time, as three and a half hours had already passed and I wanted to get everything finished in the day. Furthermore Mrs Kearns set us a challenge of having everything completely ready by half past seven, which gave me an hour to complete my task.

However, when I had completed my second to last lot of documentaries, I went to find Mr Bennett to create more free space on my pendrives and discovered that he was nowhere to be found.

Of course, I didn’t know if he was coming back to school or not, so I prepared for the worst, and remembered that he still had at least five documentaries on the computer in his office which was still locked. It was then that I had the notion of copying the original five films I had done in L10 to a second pendrive while I took the other pendrive up to the library to get them deposited there instead.

First, I needed to free up my existing pendrive, so went up to the library where Mr Bigland transferred all the documentaries off there onto the reference drive, which meant they could be accessed on any computer.

Secondly, I needed another pendrive, so I dashed home to get one, and back to school again. However, the moment I got back, to my relief, I passed Mr Bennett in the corridor, so I didn’t need to copy those films again after all. I then went back to L10 and, using the other pendrive, copied the remainder of the films.

Once all the remaining documentaries had been copied onto the reference drive, myself, with the help of Mr Bigland and Shaun logged in to the computers in the library, and set up the documentaries on each one using VLC, as Windows Media Player and Quicketime Player proved rather jumpy when playing.

I fully completed my role just five minutes before half seven.

Patrick Johnson 11S1   

LO3- Script For Assembly Performance

Diploma Script To Year 11 Assembly

Paddy: Good morning everyone,

You may well have heard of the Creative and Media Diploma Course, which students in both Year 11 and the year below are currently working towards. This Diploma is designed to combine academic theory with practical learning, and is taken in place of two GSCE subjects. However, I’m not sure that you realise the phenomenal amount of effort which everyone involved has put into the course, working individually or collectively in groups.

Kira: As the course is worth a total of seven GCSEs, it was never going to be an easy task to complete successfully. Despite this, we have managed to finally beat all the deadlines, and now the work of the whole group will be on public view in the library on Friday 20^th May.

Paddy: We would be very grateful if you could take the time to come along and have a look around, to see and fully appreciate just what we have achieved over the course of two long years. The films we have created will be shown on a non-stop loop, our clay animal artefacts will be on display, alongside wonderful costumes designed for our production of “A Midsummer Nights Dream”. There’ll be plenty of other works of art to ponder over, and cool, helpful diploma students to talk to.

Kira: If that’s not enough to entice you, we’re further offering free refreshments! Please come along from 5-7 pm, and you’ll be assured of a warm welcome from everyone involved.

Thanks for your time and see you soon.

By Patrick Johnson 11S1

LO4: Fourth Meeting

Fourth Meeting- LO4:

Today was our fourth meeting in which we decided upon the venue for our festival. There were three main venues mentioned:

The Sixth Form Study Area which had computers and a large screen, but would be unusable if exams were on.

Library- A large screen and more computers than the Study Area. Also had more space further down to exhibit other more space consuming works.

Arts Theatre- Large screen, and seating facilities, but only one other computer and not much space apart from seating.

The notion of recording all the media including films, documentaries, animations etc onto a DVD and showing this in the Arts Theatre was mentioned, but discarded as this may prove rather lengthy and boring, with only certain parts being of interest to certain people.

We therefore chose to host our festival in the Library, which Ben Sofield was going to book for the agreed times.

As everyone doing the Diploma had an English exam from 1:00-2:30 pm on Wednesday 18^th May, we agreed to meet at 3:00 outside the Library in order to set everything up and fully prepare for the two sessions.

It was further agreed for Nikki to get the video cameras from the school’s media technician to film the event and act as a time lapse.

Health and Safety was then discussed, and included being careful and sensible at all times when moving objects from the Diploma rooms over to the library, and making sure that the layout of our work in the Library didn’t allow any hazards such as tripping over/ people injuring themselves on sticking out objects.

Patrick Johnson 11S1

LO3: Third Meeting

Third Meeting- LO3:

Today we had another group meeting and discussed the target audiences for different elements of the festival.

Suggestions were made including a daytime audience from 10am- 2pm, and an evening audience from 5pm- 7pm. This meant that we did not need to put the performance on for two days in a row, as this would cover two sessions/ viewings.

It was then suggested that, as it would be best to show our work to a wide range of different age audiences, we decided that the Year 6’s could come along in the daytime, and adults (which were made up of diploma student parents) in the evening.

Further roles were also discussed including:

Myself- Creating a script for a Group Assembly performance making the evening performance known to my own year group and asking them to come along, which I will perform in front of the year group along with Kira.

It was then stated by Mrs Kearns that we could choose from one of the following posters:

Lower School Poster- specifically aimed for Year 6’s persuading them to attend the daytime performance

Eagley Poster- Specifically aimed for students at Eagley Junior School which is just a two minute walk away from Turton and the school with the easiest route to our school.

Adult Poster- Specifically aimed towards adults (mainly parents) and other Year 11 students persuading them to attend our evening session of the festival.

However, as I was doing the script and performance in assembly, it was agreed that I did not have to create a poster as I was fulfilling another role instead.

Finally, it was suggested and agreed that we should use the ticket design from A Midsummer Nights Dream with a few title alterations to act as admission tickets for entrance to our festival. At the very end of the meeting, it was noted down exactly how many of their parents or other relatives each diploma pupil would want to invite to the festival, in order for further arrangements to be made.

Patrick Johnson 11S1

LO2: Second Meeting

Second Meeting- LO2:

Today we had another group/ class meeting.

Firstly, we discussed what we should exhibit in the festival and came to the conclusion that we should try and show as much of our work as possible both as individuals and as part of groups. We would:

·        Show the films for record, documentaries and animations.

·        Exhibit performance costumes

·        Exhibit props for record and performance.

·        Exhibit artefacts

·        Exhibit banners

·        Sample range- planning/ research sheets

·        Sketch books/ blogs on computers

·        Animation sets/ props

·        Everything done and made

We then outlined the resources we would need to use including computers, the large screen, a small number of display boards, paper, card, manikins, photoshop.

We discussed how we would collectively organise a festival by splitting up the roles evenly. Each, or a small group of people would be in charge of a certain role, as shown below:

Myself- Collect documentaries

Melissa/ Katie/ Lucy- Collecting artefacts

Gabriel- Collect animations

Charlotte/ Alex- Sketchbook/ sample sheets

Nikki- Gather Record Unit films

Laura- Costumes

Ben Sofield- Record props

Beth/ Liz- Collect props for Performance unit

Kira- Animation sets

We debated the length of time for which the festival should be shown, with original suggestions of just one day. However, it was also mentioned that this was not enough to exhibit our full works to a large enough audience possible, so three days was mentioned instead. After a class vote, it was decided to split the difference an go for two days instead.

We them discussed what time to put the festival on, and two hours was suggested and passed forward from 5-7 pm.

Then we discussed how we would showcase our work, and it was suggested and agreed that our films for the Record Unit should be shown on a loop on the screen, as people would find them more interesting than the documentaries and longer than the animations. However, we would still have the others on clear display with each documentary being shown on a separate computer in the library, and each animation being shown on a separate computer in the link corridor. The problem of the audio of the films being played in the background overpowering or clashing with the audio from the documentaries was brought up, but then it was also mentioned that the surrounding computers cannot be play sound out loud. We decided that the best option would be to supply a pair of headphones next to each computer, which would hopefully, when put on, drown out the backing noise of the film loop. Headphones would also be supplied for those computers in the link corridor, where fortunately the sound of the film loop in the library could not be heard.

Sheets and sketchbooks would also be on display, being laid on a pile on top of a table, possibly with the top one open, giving an example. The artefacts would also be on display on another set of tables.

Cameras would be set up in different places around the room to record at least one of the two evenings.

To finish off the meeting, we further discussed other roles people in the class should have such as Iona doing a schedule for the event, Courtney in charge of refreshments, Ben Woods doing both a plan of the library and counting the amount of computers there.

I suggested that my soundtrack to A Midsummer Night Dream should be available to listen to, and Mrs Kearns said that that was a good idea and suggestion. She also said that she would be in charge of Laminated Name Badges to make us seem more friendly and approachable to our guests, and ideas for refreshments were mentioned including crisps, cheese crackers, sausage rolls etc.

Patrick Johnson 11S1

LO1: First Meeting

First Meeting- LO1:

Today we held our first meeting collectively as a full Diploma group and had a discussion. This was an introduction to the Festival Unit, and we discussed and mentioned many different types of festivals including:

·        Glastonbury- for music enthusiasts

·        Preston Guild- Families, council funding

·        Biennales- Arts, something for everyone

·        Kumbh Mela- Hindu festivals, Ganges

·        One Big Weekend

·        London Festival Week- Fashion

·        Cannes Film Festival

·        Cawes Week

We also discussed different types of funding such as Art Council Funding and Local Council Funding.

Patrick Johnson 11S1