Jordan, UNICEF, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson
When you work freelance, you are often waiting for the phone to ring and to get your next job. And when it does, you’re often least expecting it and busy doing something completely different.
So as I was busy sorting out the laundry basket and dashing around doing the washing, the phone rang and I was asked if I could ‘go to The Jordan next week’! Wasn’t expecting that.
I was to record the visit of Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson to the launch of an Olympic initiative called ‘International Inspiration’. I was filming for UNICEF who are also supporting International Inspiration.
I had the pleasure of hooking up with a Sky News Olympic team and we followed Tanni around during her visit.
Of note during the visit was that we stayed in the Hyatt Grand Hotel. It was bombed by a suicide bomber in 2005. During the night, there was a car crash outside my hotel window – got us all a little jumpy…
We also visited the Souf refugee camp. Not so much a tented camp, but now a small concrete town because it has been there since 1967. Crazy middle east politics.
Loving your Local
I live in Hull and near the University there is a great street called Newland Avenue. Local legend has it that you can buy anything on Newland Avenue. A bit like Harrods I suppose.
It’s an amazing community, full of friendly people who live together and shop together in a, I suppose, old fashioned style. They’re keen to protect what they have and the local church (Hull Community Church) has set up a brilliant initiative called Love Local. A scheme to encourage people to shop locally and this keeps the local commerce going and protects this special place. Like a loyalty discount scheme amongst all the shops, a directory and a cool web site.
Here’s a film I made about the Launch Day event
A Messy Church
This is a little promo film about an initiative that currently going on in our church. It’s called Messy Church. An idea to include families into the worship. These guys thought of it www.messychurch.org.uk
So what’s all this Fairtrade stuff about?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard a bit about Fairtrade, but I’ve not really understood it or even been bothered about it. One thing I did have experience of and that’s the Fairtrade coffee. I was given some once and it tasted awful. It was quite a few years ago and I’m assured that it has got a lot better.
Set against this very limited experience of Fairtrade, I was asked by the Co-op to cover their Fairtrade Fortnight event at the end of February. This is a nationwide attempt at increasing the awareness of fairly traded goods and every region in the country has their own ideas. Greater Manchester decided to bring over a ‘real live’ coffee producer from Columbia as their centre piece to a series of visits, talks and events promoting Fairtrade in the power bases of Manchester. The idea is to promote the purchasing of Fairtrade goods in the local government, schools and large companies within the area. This way the overall quantity of produce purchased should increase substantially.
Now this, potentially, all sounds terminally boring. On the surface, it is only for the devotee of Fairtrade and for the green eco-warriors and tree huggers. So, my challenge is to make a 20min short documentary which covers the events and keeps the pace up so I don’t lose everyone’s interest. Should be interesting. Hopefully.
I’ve made a start on the edit, and you can see it here. My brief was to cover the events and to, literally, document what happened. It’s been quite a challenge so far and one of the most difficult edits I’ve undertaken. I hope it’s light enough to keep you interested and detailed enough to satisfy my client. I have to say, I’ve been very impressed by what the Fairtrade Foundation has accomplished and the real difference it’s made to people’s lives. So, I fully expect you all to look out for the logo and buy Fairtrade when you can. The Co-op is a good place to buy it as well!
Here’s a few pictures to excite you…
Mifunya Co-operative Society in Uganda
I’ve not long popped out of the other side of a lengthy edit of my latest short documentary. It’s amazing how much energy one expends when you edit for a week straight, day and night. Anyway. I think the results are good.
I’ll explain. I was recently asked to make a short film about a farming co-operative society in Nakaseke, Uganda. Proper, up country stuff with mud huts etc. I went with my photographer friend, Mark Kensett (hence the nice pictures here – thanks Mark), and our assignment was to document how the co-operative is getting on. It’s been about 2 or 3 years since they started and they seem to be making great progress. But you can see all this for yourself in the film.
It was quite a challenge. We had to leave at short notice and jet in and out of the country in just a few days. I shot it all on my Z7 (as you can see in the picture above) and was pretty pleased with the results.
The guy who runs the co-operative is called David Sseruwagi. An amazing guy that no only runs the co-operative, but also runs an orphanage, a secondary school and is the Pastor of a very lively church called the Uganda Gospel and Rehabilitation Centre. We had to make a couple of other little films which looked at the schools whilst we were there as well.
All in all, a hectic time. The equipment performed perfectly (got to love that Sony build quality) and we got back all in one piece. I hope you like the film…
Mifunya Co-operative Society, Nakaseke, Uganda from Jonathan Richards on Vimeo
Here’s a selection of the great pictures by Mark Kensett
Doing the Lambeth walk
I was approached through my church connections in May 2008 to make a short film for the Church of England. It is to be used to start a dialogue between certain factions in the congregations of the Church. Between those who approve of gay and lesbian relationships and those who do not. A sensitive area full of political indecision, as you can imagine.
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, wants this film to be watched by all the parishes in the Diocese of York in the format of a discussion evening. It will be accompanied by printed notes to help a ‘balanced’ discussion to take place. There can be a few militant, hard line members of the Church that talking about this sort of thing would be difficult thing for them to do.
Here is the background to this film:
The Lambeth Conference of 1998 resolved to listen to the experience of gays and lesbians within the Church. The resolution was called “Resolution 1.10″.
Resolution 1.10, Human Sexuality
This Conference: commends to the Church the subsection report on human sexuality;
In view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage.
Recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God’s transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ;
While rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;
Cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions;
Requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us;
As you may imagine, making of the film was relatively easy. The interviews were all fixed up and it was just a case of showing up, getting the shots and asking the correct questions in the correct manner.
The edit however, that was a completely different matter. It was a delicate procedure that required the necessary time and space for everyone to express their opinions, re-edit and then submit the changes for approval. In the end though, we arrived at an edit that got the message over and still retained your interest.
Technically, this was shot with my Z7, IDX X3 light, radio mics. Editing was in Final Cut Pro and the DVD authoring was done in DVD Studio Pro.