06/02/07 Tuesday Tutorial
In today's class we had to pitch for a documentary/mockumentary. Each person had three minutes to pitch in front class for Sarah. In the pitch we had to explain the main idea, resources of use, how to access the resources and the importance of making it. After the pitch, we had to vote top four in the class. Laura's mocukmentary was a spoof on Morgan Spurlock documentary Super Size Me, involving crème eggs. It was one of the top four mockumentaries that is the project we are going to work on later this semester.

14/02/07 Wednesday Lecture
In today's class we looked at the German director Leni Riefenstahl. We looked at her film Triumph des Willens/Triumph of the Will (1935) is about Nazi Party Rally. This film was beautifully shot. We also learned about her film about the German Olympics whereby she released rolling cameras on balloons showing her creativeness as a director.

20/02/07 Tuesday Tutorial
In today's tutorial we were given an essay for documentary production. It is a 1,500 words writing about three documentary makers from a prescribed list. Then we watched the documentary of one of those documentary makers from the listNeasa Ni Chianain's No Mans Land.

21/02/07 Wednesday Lecture
In today's class we had a guest lecture by the documentary maker Neasa Ni Chianain and producer David Rane. They talked about making documentaries and what projects their production company “Soilse Films” makes. They also talked about you need 20 pages for up to six months for an low budget €50,000 to develop your project. They gave a budget breakdown of “Today is Better Than Tomorrow” directed by Anna Rodgers. Then they showed us their EURODOC script programme. Then we watched trailer of both “Today is Better Than Tomorrow” and “Artic Doomsday Vault”. They also gave advice about the documentaries that were being made by people in our class. It was a good talk.

13/03/07 Tuesday Tutorial
In today's class we watched the film Roger and Me made by Michael Moore. In this film he talked about how the General Motors factory was closed down leading to a major loss of jobs in his hometown Flint. He argued with General Motors chairman Roger Smith then he decided to close down the plant when the company had been making profits.

20/03/07 Tuesday Tutorial
In today's class we watched documentary Tell them who you are. This documentary was made by the son of the cinematographer Haskell Weckler about the career of the cinematographer Haskell Weckler. It showed clips of his films and included interviews with the people he had worked with over years.The documentary showed the conflict between Haskell as filmmaker and his son trying to make his identity as a filmmaker.

25/04/07 Wednesday Lecture
In today's lecture, we looked at Documentary future. We talked about documentary's theartrical release, Digital Era and some delivery platforms. Then we had a case study on Loose Change, directed by Dylan Avery. Then we talked about Interactive documentary. At the end of class, people had a argument over the film Sarah showed us, it was interesting.

27/03/07 Tuesday Tutorial
In today's class we watched documentary maker Nick Broomfield's two films about the serial killer Aileen Wuornose. Then we discussed the differences between the two documentaries. His first documentary Selling of a Serial Killer is about the story of Aileen and focuses on how her story is being sold being by her friends and family in order to get money. The second documentary Life and Death Of a Serial Killer focuses more on Aileen Wuornose. These two films we watched showed us Nick Broomfield has a distinctive style through his work by useing of voice over narration when driving his car.
28/03/07 Wednesday Lecture
In today's lecture we looked at Nick Broomfield. We talked about his background and his Fetishes, released in 1996; Kurt & Courtney, released in 1997 and Biggie & Tupac, released in 2001... Then we looked his new feature-Ghosts which based on deaths of Chinese workers in Morecambe Bay. Then we talked about his quotes.

28/02/07 Wednesday Lecture
In today's lecture, we talked about documentary in Ireland. Irish goverment sponsored Irish documentaries through National Film Institute. In 1946, goverment sponsored historical documentary A Nation Once Again. It proofs Irish's goverment's belief in power of documentary film. Then we looked at Mise Eire, pruduced by Gael Linn in 1959. It contains archive footage and deals with the period of 1896-1918 in Irish history. Then we looked Rocky Road to Dublin, directed by Peter Lennon in 1968. This film looks at the state of the church in Ireland. It filmed in the style of the French New wave.

31/01/07 Wednesday Lecture
In today's lecture, we talked about the begginings of the documentary film. We looked Pioneers of documentary and watched Muybridge sequences. Then Sarah talked about the explorer of documentary Robert J Flaherty and his documentaries have been made.

18/04/07 Wednesday Lecture
In Today's lecture, we watched Louis Theroux's documentary about Louis meets the most hated family in America for the first hour. After watching it, we discussed the subject matter of the documentary; the style of the documentary; the interviewing technique of the documentary and Louis' on screen presence... Louis Theroux's subject matter like he deals with unusual things. His style were like Nick Broomfields in regards to voice over narration. He always had a very funny apperance on the screen as a film maker, if Nick Broomfield made this documentary it would be quite serious and shock. His interviewing technique was he asked quite bold questions, but he was nice. His on screen presence in this documentary is quite interesting
Then we got into our creme egg mokumentary group to refresh the idea then talked to Sarah about it.

27/02/07 Tuesday Tutourial
We were given our documentary/mocumentary project in class and Sarah talked through the stuff what we need to do for it. Then we watched Alan Gilson's documentary about people who are suffering with cancer and are going to die in Ireland.
I've seen many many documentaries either Chinese or English like this one talking about people are dying. Yeah it is bad even cruel for their families and friends to rewatch it, but as a director Alan Gilson wanted to show his personal feeling.

07/02/07 Wednesday Lecture
In today's lecture, we talked about John Grierson who saw the documentary as an instrument for social instruction and change. He also had a love-hate relationship with Robert Flaherty. He was to Russian cinema and Eisenstein. 'Drifters' in 1929 was his first time documentary just about man. He led his film unit at the Empire Marketing Board, the goverment first time named their own market. We also looked the differences between the Flaherty documentary and the Grierson documentary. Then we looked Dziga Vertov, we didn't talk much about him because we had handouts missing...