1940's shoot

Today we filmed the first part of our 1940's bomb shelter scene. We wanted to use two locations for this particular section of our film, (creating an almost reverse tardis like effect) in order to include both, exterior authenticity - using a real 1940's bunker (for stylistic purposes), and also keep the shot cramped and atmospheric - using a 'cubed under the stairs' to show to mimmic war-time 'make do and mend' spirit -using this smaller space, more intimate space would thus enable us to stress the difficulty of living in Blitzed London Town. We felt that spending a lot of time discussing and debating the finer contextual details of each scene was really important - for a production like our own skimping on mis en scene & historical accuracy would deter from our post modern style, and also weaken our narrative's strength & clarity. Both props & performance ability were extremely key for this scene. As we were using a very limited space we needed the actors attire to look passable (for 40's wear) and the actors themselves to be confident & believable in their actions. Thus we decided to use x2 year 10 drama students as our 'air raid children', hoping that by acquiring capable & experienced actors that we would be able to obtain and mutual relationship between actor & director, rather than wasting shooting time overly coaching our cast. Over all the shoot went really well; we faced a one easily avoidable problem, but it was quickly resolved - for example : we couldn't use the tripod due to the fact that the support was missing. Therefore we had to 'keep calm and carry on' and just make do with hand held footage, keeping our grip stead, and making our shots longer & more varied in order to get all of the necessary footage. The actors all worked together really comfortably & effectively, having a high standard of acting & concentrated work will make the editing process so much easier, in that we will only have to rely upon our own motivation & efforts & skill in order to create a high quality final piece. Due to our minimalistic set and cramped filming space I feel that the footage we captured today  is probably (so far) some of the most authentic - we didn't need to dress / rely upon a vast set to make it look perceivable and we avoided (& saved time) spending shooting time moving lots of objects which wouldn't contextually fit in the era - for example on our 1920's shoot, we had to exclude the plastic table cloth & coloured photographs. 

SHOOT COSTUMES & PROPS & EQUIPMENT 
Rhianna - Navy-Blue dress, white knitted cardigan, long grey cotton socks, hair plaited.
Esme - Sky-Blue floral dress, custard yellow knitted cardigan, long black socks, red hair ribbon, hair in plaits. 
Laura - Floral cream / peachy coloured dress, green knitted jumper, long grey socks, hair in bunches.
WW2 gas mask box
Blankets
Camera
Tripod 
Bible - entertainment during the air-raid 
Matches 
Candles 
Teddy bear & Rag Doll 


RISK ASSESSMENTS 
Because we were using matches in a small annex space, we had to be extremely careful that none of our cast & crew got burned or acted irresponsibly around the flames. We secured a set place that any used matches would be placed - a wooden surface away from flammable materials, and we made sure the candles only stayed lit for a short period of time & that they were properly extinguished after use (and later disposed of carefully and properly). Most of our over shoots have been relatively low risk & sitting down and going over safety precautions has not been a necessity, but today it was vital!

  - InteriorShooting

        - 1940's authenticity

         - Costumes & Props

 Hair & Makeup

Institutional information - COLUMBIA RECORDS

*COLUMBIA RECORDS* (who manage 'The Vaccines') 

Columbia Records is US record label who is part of the Conglomerate company Song Music Entertainment (operating under the Columbia Music Group). The Record label was created in 1888 as an evolutionary development an American Graphophone Company. Columbia Records is leaking with history as the oldest brand name in pre-recorded sounds and the primary company to produce pre-recorded records instead of black cylinders ( records - earliest commercial medium for the recording & reproducing of sound) Columbia Records progressed to release records for a notable array of solo artists, instrumentalists, and bands.

Arista (an American record label subsidiary of Sony) is now a sister label to Columbia Records through Sony Music; both are connected to Columbia Pictures through Sony Corporation of America, who are the worldwide parents of both the music and motion picture arms of Sony.

Columbia Records has been passed around, co-shared and developed over the years, but (as it is today) was finally (for now) sold to Sony in the 1980’s. In 1988 in fact (100 years since it began!) the CBS Records Group (including Columbia Records) became part of Sony and was renamed as ‘Columbia Records’ in 1991 worldwide.  The label is now headed by chairman Rob Stringer along with co-presidents Rick Rubin and Steve Barnett. As of October 2012, there are currently 83 recording artists signed to Columbia Records. It is the largest of the three flagship labels owned by Sony Music (followed by RCA Records with 77 artists and Epic Records with 43 artists)

(sony corporations) 

A Brief History

The Columbia Phonograph Company was originally a local company (run by a man named Edward Easton) which distributed and sold Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Delaware (and derives its name from the District of Columbia, which was where its headquarters were located) Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. They began with black wax records, moving onto "black wax" records in 1903. They began selling disc records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901. By 1912 they were however now only concentrating on disc records (moving with the times) In late 1923, Columbia went into receivership (the ownership rights changed). The company was bought by their English subsidiary, the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1925 and the label, record numbering system, and recording process changed completely. They then began recording with the new electric recording process licensed from Western Electric. The new "Viva-tonal" records set a benchmark in tone and clarity unequaled on commercial discs during the "78-rpm" era (Gramophone’s). The first electrical recordings were made by Art Gillham, the popular "Whispering Pianist". 

In 1926, Columbia acquired Okeh Records and its growing stable of jazz and blues artists, including Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams. In 1931 the British company merged with the Gramophone Company to form Electric & Musical Industries Ltd. (EMI). EMI was forced to sell its American Columbia operations (because of anti-trust concerns). In 1938 ARC, including the Columbia label in the USA, was bought by the Columbia Broadcasting System . CBS revived the Columbia label renamed the company Columbia Recording Corporation retaining control of all of ARC's past masters, but in a complicated move, the pre-1931 Brunswick and Vocalion masters, as well as trademarks of Brunswick and Vocalion, reverted back to Warner Brothers (who had leased their whole recording operation to ARC in early 1932) and Warners sold the lot to Decca Records in 1941. Columbia became the most successful non-rock record company in the 1950s when they lured impresario Mitch Miller away from the Mercury label. 

Moving onto the 1960’s Perhaps their most commercially successful pop act of this period was Simon & Garfunkel, though of course during the 1960s, Bob Dylan achieved a prominent position in Columbia as well. During the early 1970s, Columbia began recording in a four-channel process called quadraphonic ( which uses four channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of the listening space, reproducing signals that are independent of one another. Quadraphonic audio was the earliest consumer offering in surround sound. It was a commercial failure due to many technical problems and format incompatibilities. Quadraphonic audio formats were more expensive to produce than standard two-channel stereo.) Quadraphonic recordings were used by both classical artists, including Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez, and popular artists such as Electric Light Orchestra, Billy Joel, Pink Floyd, Barbra Streisand, Carlos Santana, and Blue Öyster Cult. Columbia even went on to release a soundtrack album of the movie version of Funny Girl in quadraphonic.