Here are the minutes from the first two film-making workshops, they are probably easier to read as a word/pdf document so if you would like that let me know and I shall send it to you! x x x

ARRG-UMENTARY Film Making Project

Ideas & Brainstorming Key Points

What is this?
This document contains the main points of discussion that came up in the first two workshops. The point of these workshops was to think up ideas for what the film should be like, who the audience should be and what should the film be about. These ideas are summarised below under the following headings:

1. Genre… what kind of film should it be?
2. Audience… who is the film for? Who is it aimed at?
3. Effect on the Audience… what should the film make viewers feel/think?
4. Themes… what is the general topic of the film?
5. Potential Things to Focus On… what should feature in the film?
6. Things to Leave Out…

Genre:
An “imaginative” or “magical” documentary. Loosely a documentary, but with the potential for ‘extra’ bits and not limited to straight interviews and action shots, more creative and artistic interpretation. So for example could include animation sequences, scripted dialogue, internal monologues, metaphors being interpreted literally, sock puppets or puppets made from wooden spoons, power animals, elements of a musical and things that are ‘made up’ but still convey the key themes and message. The film should show people rather than just tell them what ARRG and derby are like. It would be good if the film was new and made in a way never done before. We can use the style and structure of the film to convey something about ARRG.

Audience:
Us as a league, and more broadly for the ‘roller derby community’ or people who are involved in roller derby already and familiar with it. It should be accessible to people who aren’t familiar with derby but not catering specifically to them by for example explaining the rules or the history of the sport.

Effect on the Audience:
The film should make people want to skate and get them excited and inspired, and it should show roller derby as a sport. It would be good if the film made the audience feel like they can make things and change things by working with people, if it gave viewers ambition or if it showed how passion and commitment lead to achievement and if it conveyed our enthusiasm for something we love – derby.

Themes:
• Community, working together, by the skaters for the skaters.
• Roller derby is a serious sport and ridiculous fun at the same time.
• The growth and development of the league over the years.
• Hard work and commitment of running a DIY league.
• Conveying what ARRG *is*.
• ARRG is amazing/wonderful and challenging/hard.
• ARRG contains many different voices and experiences, the themes can emerge from a collection of different stories and experiences.

Potential things to focus on:
Organisation & Structure, Doing it Ourselves…
• ARRG as an organisation, the structure of the league.
• Hard work, time and effort put into skating and organising the league.
• Committees, and what they actually do.
• Policies, procedures, meetings, emails, forum.
• Democracy and voting [especially voting on how to vote]
Feelings…
• Personal anecdotes, stories, experiences.
• Achieving goals.
• What keeps us coming back, what makes us want to do it all.
• Friendships and amazing wives.
• The journey from fresh meat to bouting.
• How roller derby makes you feel.
• Rocky-style montages
*Approaches*
• Bout footage
• Interviews
• Possibility of re-interpreting footage with the people in it, overlaying internal monologues or personal narratives over bout footage
• Creative interpretations of anecdotes, e.g. an animation of Danger Mouth as a bowling ball smashing through a pack of bowling pins…. Or having sock/wooden-spoon puppets
Events/Things/People…
• In the future getting to the point where we can compete with Brawling or US teams…
• One-on-one sessions to get folks to pass their minimums…
• Flyering on the Royal Mile on skates…
• Mums watching boutcasts…
• The recent Q&A session, how everyone has a chance to contribute…
• Fresh meat sessions…
• Home teams…
• Social events and getting to know people…
• Specific bouts e.g. LRR and everyone playing as a team…
• Derby wives
• Wftda, world wide recognition, European rankings, global identity
• Roll Britannia as introducing roller derby to the world, coming 4th was a huge achievement, being kind of a big deal in Europe
• First time watching a bout
• Belles vs lrr when score was announced & thistles run over and made one big screaming hug
Ch-ch-changes…
• Professionalisation – becoming like a job?
• How when ARRG started it wasn’t as slick, with less structures and less big ambitions
• As we get bigger how that makes it more challenging to maintain inclusivity and focus on fairness
• Different skill levels
• Rec League
• Harder and faster sport in the future
• Learning experiences, trial and error, advancing together with baby steps
• Friends got together and wanted to start a roller derby league and did with word of mouth it grew
• Future will keep growing and growing
• Training and teaching ourselves ‘in the beginning’, starting a league from scratch…
• How the league has progressed and moved towards being more like a sport…

Leave out?
• Descriptions of clothes, rules, injuries, day-jobs, clichés…
• Not a generic/boring/standard/cliché “derby 101” …
• Doesn’t have to be about feminism or gender…

Ridiculously excited.

Slightly gutted I wont be in arrg when there is a wooden spoon based puppet show.


I think I am coming to LRD double header with Rikkter Scale!

I might make a wooden spoon puppet of you frau, not for film, just for company.

here are the notes form workshop 3, again better in a word doc so let me know if you like and i can send it to you!

the notes below are on the proposed 'segments' that could make up the film, grouped according to theme, and some ideas about how we could link them all together. in the next workshop [tonight - come!] we'll be reviewing these and making storyboards and more detailed plans.

Theme & Segment Summaries from Workshop 3 20-09-2011

Anchoring it all together:

Starting with a jammer on the jam line, heart beating loudly, or using one piece of bout or practice footage repeatedly but for multiple purposes/interpretations and keeping coming back to that same piece of footage after/between other segments. For instance, starting from a quite distanced perspective, just watching the footage but then coming back to it to hear tactical perspectives, thoughts of the skaters involved, what was going through the jammer’s heat etc. to present the footage in more depth. The segments that are interspersed with the ‘anchor’ footage provide the viewer with the story of all the things that have gone into getting that far, so committees, hard work, community, road trips, practices, how difficult it is to start to skate, so building up a more whole picture from one moment.

AND/OR: Linking segments together with footage of us making the film…

Theme 1: Community, working together, by the skaters for the skaters…
1.1. A spokesies meeting acted out by sock puppets, for instance a finance spoon puppet with a hat like a banker…
1.2. Footage of a road trip including being on the train/bus, the social aspect, ‘pep talks in pyjamas’, hilarious chat, actually getting ready for the bout, showing skaters being pals and hanging out, spending all our time together…
1.3. Audience interviews and sound-bites over live bout footage…

Theme 2: Roller derby is a serious sport and ridiculous fun…
2.1. Footage of a training session with voice-overs, people saying what they’re actually thinking while we’re training, adding in fun things for instance power animals…
2.2. Editing together training and bout footage to include things like skate outs and also seriously tense and stressful moments like waiting to hear the score announced, pile ons, and including footage of everyone turning up the next day at practice after the after party, and using manipulated footage e.g. slowing it down, including animations and voice-overs…
2.3. Footage of live practices/bouts and/or set up/staged plays to capture tactics in action, slowing down the footage when the jammer comes through and then showing blockers going ‘yeah’ when a tactic works, with interviews over the footage talking about how many hours we train, how hard it is to show up after a busy week…
2.4. A rocky-style montage with clips of serious training like fast shots of people doing push-ups, sweating loads, being shouted at, sprinting, on skates and off-skates training, tactics being explained, being hit really hard, all interspersed with things like paying for halls with cheques, doing strength training in the Jack Kane playground e.g. pull ups on the monkey bars with Queenie shouting…
2.5. Another rocky-style montage with a jammer coming up against a 10ft blocker, a shot of blaze skating around the track and then it bursting into [tissue paper?!] flames or showing go-faster stripes, narrative over the footage, if the narrative uses colourful metaphors then interpret them literally with e.g. drawings…

Theme 3: Growth & Development of the League…
3.1. Old photos of meetings and Roll Britannia, putting effects over the photos with sound-bites and interviews with skaters who started the league about hard work, changes and where the league is going…
3.2. Footage of the fans, sound recordings of a cheering crowd e.g. when an ARRG jammer gets through, massive queue to get into Meadowbank, queues to buy merchandise, old school logos on shirts coming out of the wash, including original ‘Primark’ team shirts to now, Roll Britannia hoodies….

Theme 4: The Hard Work and Commitment of Running a DIY league…
4.1. Shot of someone trying to sleep but keeps getting woken up by the ‘bleeps’ ‘ting ting ting’ of emails coming through, the person sleeping is dreaming about e.g. what team shirt to vote for and thrashing around, making noises in their sleep, dream-thoughts could be on visible wires, spliced with footage of doing ARRG emails and photocopying at work, on coffee breaks, on the phone when walking to work, getting in trouble at work for being on the forum too much…
4.2. Having someone [possibly Jazz] ‘chairing’ a selection of footage to include; time-lapse footage of someone doing their derby homework on the forum for ages [so long as not confidential] or refreshing the ‘new posts’ page; along with clips from three or four different e.g. Spokesies meetings over time, edited together to show the same people over time…
4.3. Cuts of emails and forum topics, sentences from nagging emails about training and attendance flying across the screen and extracts from policies and procedures, votes and re-votes, travel packs, getting counted on road trips and ticked off on a list…
4.4. A rocky-style committee montage, with extracts from minutes, footage of meetings, nightmare inboxes spliced with a giant blocker, seeing how many emails you’ve got then shutting the laptop down and going skating…
4.5. Showing the skills differences in the league and the contrast between people who are at different levels, showing hard work and progression…
4.6. A spoof deodorant/body spray advert comparing the smell of elbows to asses/guinea pigs, describing the smell…

ha u ttly should frau

I have started a picasa album to 'document' the workshops and film-making plans.

You can see the storyboards and segments that everyone came up with at the 4th workshop on Tuesday 27th Sept here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/1014272994 ... hop427Sept