Thursday, March 26, 2009

Post #7 - I'm on a boat

1pm-8pm
7 hours
For this day we decided to go film Marlena at her WLE on the Balclutha. After making our day down to Hyde Street Pier and taking a look at the Argonaut, where prom is going to be held, we tried to find Marlena. Marlena told us to look for a guy named "Tar Rush", who we couldn't find. Raymond and I wandered for a while, looking for people who looked like they would be called "Tar Rush", but to no avail. We didn't know what to do, until I thought to call Gina. Gina was kind enough to remind us we had forgotten to tell her where we were going to be for the day and then tell us the information we asked for. Apparently Marlena was working on the Balclutha. We found the ship, boarded and proceeded to look for our recordees. We eventually found them, in a closed off part of the ship, making a diddy bag(sailors work bag). There we proceeded to film the making of a diddy bag. During that time, "Tar Brush" (We found out it his name wasn't actually 'Tar Rush') explained to us the differences between ships, boats, etc. We then decided to take a rain check and come back another day, as the footage we wre getting was quite boring. We were given a tour of the ship and a few other points. Our camera died just at the beginning of our tour. After this we found our way off the boat and went to look at the Argonaut again. We then went to my house and reviewed all the footage we had taken.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Post #6 -Bike Coalition

12:00pm - 4:00pm
4 hours
Raymond and I met Kevin and Andrew Casteel at a restaurant. There we had some good Chinese food(I got Mango Beef which was the best I've had in a while) and discussed the day. Andrew had decided to tailor his whole day around our filming and was very helpful. We set out a loose schedule to follow and wrote down some specific scenes we wanted. Once that was done we talked about the our usual things: Being on boats, comics, bikes, etc.
The walk to Andrew's workplace was easy and only took five minutes. He works out of his own home for the BABC, The Bay Area Bike Coalition. Immediately when we got to his house, I realized how enormous it was. I had no idea how he could afford a house of this size with a teachers salary(his former job) and his new job for the BABC, which is a non-profit. He told us: "Hah, well my wife works too." And all we could say was "Woah". The house even had an elevator!
Anyways, the first thing we did was take and interview with both Kevin and Andrew. This was possibly the best quality interview we have had. It also had the most proffesional look of all our recordings. After that we tried to get Andrew making a business call, but were unsuccessful. Once that was done, we allowed and Andrew to get back to work and hung out with kevin in his own office. There he was translating BABC literature into Spanish and we got a good interview with just him.
At this point our camera battery died and we had to wait for it to charge. We hung out with Kevin for a while and when it was finally done, went outside to film Andrew and Kevin biking. It was a nice day and the lighting wasn't to bright. We got a few shots of them going down and around a hill next to Andrew's house and we got a few shots of some track stands.
After this we were basically done with our day and left.

Post #5 - The Boys and Girls Club

2:00pm-6:00pm
4 hours

Raymond and I were told by Ronnie and Jahlil that we could go and film their WLE at the Boys and Girls Club. Kevin had also tagged along with us that day because he didn't have a WLE that week. When we arrived, we found that Jahlil was not there yet so we waited around. After waiting for more than a half hour we decided to wonder around on Mission street. People were staring at us because we had the nice camera with us so we decided to interview random people. We asked, "What do you think of women's suffrage?" and "Do you know what womens Suffrage is?"
Sadly, most of the people we interviewed had no idea what womens suffrage is.
Anyways, after thats Jahlil and Ronnie finally showed up and we were introduced to Papa Joe. Papa Joe, who was Jahlil's mentor, was really happy to have us filming at the studio. We watched Jahlil and Ronnie learn to use all the sound equipment. After that we interviewed Papa Joe. Apparently as a kid, Joe had been in multiple bands and had, at one point, hung out with the members of Korn. He encouraged us to come back and bring in our own project to the studio. I told him of my band and he got even more excited and said that I should definitely come in and record with the band. As our interview with Papa Joe came to an end we said goodbye and left. Out on the street we could still hear the music playing from the studio.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Post #4 The Second Day

9:00am - 1:00pm
4 hours
At the start of the second day I set out to meet up with Raymond and Angelica at the corner of Florida and 24th. Whilst I waited I wonder around Mission and found some cool shops. Finally Angelica arrived, but we still had to wait for Raymond. While we waited we discussed the day. I was told that we would most likely not be filming her work that day an would only be talking with the principal. Finally Raymond arrived and we walked around the block to the school Apparently Angelica had attended the school when she was younger and still had a younger sibling attending there. We tlaked to the principal who told us that she would only allow Angelica to do 4 lessons, each only 1 hour long. She also said she would need to get approval from the Arch Diocese(its a Catholic School). At this point we all knew that this wasn't going to work so we decided to leave.
Angelica left us and RAymond and I were left with nothing to do. Deciding that we didn't want to waste our first real day out filming we called my father, who is letting Rachel Schwager-Datz intern at his restaurant. We got the okay, got a ride from my dad, and started filming. We filmed Rachels experience and what she had learned so far from her intership. We also interviewed her during her break. Raymond, acting as show host, joined in with Rachel for a while. When we were finished we thanked everyone and left.