Planning: Second draft of narration

Following the feedback I receieved from my classmates about my footage and what they would like to know about Matthew, I decided to do a second draft of my narration. I think it needs to have more information about how it effects our daily lives... somethings that I would consider quite mundane seemed to interest them!

It's hard to explain to people what Matthew's like and how severe his special needs really are. Basically his autism means he can't communicate or more accurately doesn't see the necessity... It's strange really, because there's so many times throughout the day where Matthew's trying to tell us something, but he's just pointing, making noises and we don't know what he means... so he gets angry which makes us frustrated... sometimes I feel like shouting at him 'this would be so much easier if you could just talk! Can't you see you need to?!' But I guess his brain just doesn't work that way... His learning difficulties mean he'll probably never learn to communicate like other people his age. Right now, aged 14, Matthew can only say single words. This doesn't mean he's quiet though, he's always making noise, but not anything that resembles a sentence. It's hard to put a sort of 'mental age' on him because, admittedly he can't read or write or count to ten, but he's clever in other ways... I think he's got more intelligence than we give him credit for. His ADHD is the simplest one to describe, it just means he's hyperactive; can't stay focused on one task for more than 5 minutes... if that.

Living with Matthew isn't easy. He's very challenging in lots of ways. His behaviour is quite unpredictable... it can make going out in public quite a difficult and embarassing experience as he just has no idea about what is and what isn't socially acceptable. Because he doesn't like change, his days have to be very structured... he has a clear routine and we can't just randomly decide to go out as chances are he'll just refuse to co operate. If he feels disturbed by something he tries to maintain a sense of order, so he'll start trying to boss me and my parents around.
He's become much more controlling... I think that's what I resent the most, how much control he has over everyone in the house... We either do it his way, or we don't do it at all! Most of the time it's just easier to let him have it his way than to suffer the consequences.

When Matthew gets anrgy, his tantrums are horrendous. He doesn't have them all the time, but he goes through phases where he'll have an outburst at least once a day. Those times are the hardest.. for everyone. We don't even always know what's brought it on because obviously, he can't tell us. I just feel so helpless. I normally just hide up in my room while my mum and dad deal with it. I wish I could help but they say they'd rather I didn't get involved because I'd just end up getting hurt. When he's in that sort of state he just sort of destroys everything in his path; he'll break furniture, lash out at me or my parents; he gets really violent. He's violent towards himself as well... it's almost like he realises that something's wrong with him and that's why he feels this way so he takes it out on himself. It's horrible to see Matthew like that.

He makes me really angry, sometimes. I know he can't help it, but I don't want to always excuse him as some of the things he does are just so out of order, but at the same time he's my brother... he's my only brother and I love him. Underneath all the anger and frustration that he directs at us is vulnerability, he needs us. I do feel very protective towards him because he can't fight his own battles, he needs people to fight for him. And that's me, that's my job. I'll always look after him, always be there for him. Always.

Production: Editing my footage

This is the second half of all the footage I have edited for my short film

I am slightly concerned about the grainy quality of my footage on the YouTube videos, as my footage does not look like that in iMovie. However, I am hoping that the low picture quality is due to the fact that I chose the option 'share for web streaming.' After putting all my footage together I realised that I do not need to film anymore footage as I already have 17 minutes worth and the recommended maximum length for my short film is 5 minutes. Therefore I need to cut down my footage to the most interesting parts, or the parts that I think best show what Matthew is really like. During the lesson I showed my footage so far to my classmates and they gave some great feedback about what they would like to see in my film. They thought that it would be good if I had narration over some of the slower pieces of footage, but leaving the sound on for some of them could be quite poignant. They also suggested that I included footage of myself or my parents talking, as this would give the narration a more personal feel, as the viewer would be able to see my expressions and reactions. They also asked me lots of questions about Matthew which gave me an idea of what people wanted to know, which will help me in my editing process and when writing my narration.

Production: Editing my footage

Today I finished editing all of the clips I had of Matthew into the bits I potentially want to use in my short film. Whilst I am still undecided on what order these clips will go in, or whether I will use all the footage, I put all of the clips together and used the 'Share' option in iMovie to upload the video to YouTube. I compressed the movie for web streaming, then tried to upload it to YouTube, however, the film was rejected because the length of the film was too long (17 minutes.) I therefore had to split the clip in half so only managed to upload half of the footage to YouTube this lesson. I will continue to upload the rest of the footage next lesson. I have included annotations over the various clips giving my opinion on them and detailing my decision making process in terms of whether or not I will use them in my final project.

Extra research: Nick Hornby's writing on Autism

Ms Casson recommended that I looked at the author Nick Hornby's writing about his child with autism. I found an article on the Guardian website. The part I found the most interesting was the introduction he had written to a book of short stories which he had editing called 'Speaking with the Angel' where he describes a day in the life of a family with an autistic child;

''He sleeps five or six hours every night, in fact, which means that if he can be kept awake until, say, nine, then he will wake up at two or three. He is upset and frustrated, so he screams, and his parents, who have maybe slept three or four hours, feel a mixture of exhaustion and depression and panic - they live in a small flat, and the walls are thin, and they know that they are not the only ones who are disturbed on a nightly basis . . . It is six hours until one of them starts work (the other would like to work, but in the absence of any suitable school place for the child, it is not possible), by which time the child will have attempted to hurt himself by hitting himself hard and repeatedly on the head, and maybe thrown some food around, and refused to use the toilet and ended up soiling a carpet, and demanded in the only language he has at his disposal (one word, repeated with increasing force and volume) to go out to the park, even though it's pitch black outside . . ."

This gave me some inspiration into what to write for my narration and made me think about what parts of Matthew's daily routine my audience would find the most interesting.

Production: Tripod footage

Over the weekend I filmed some more footage of Matthew this time using a tripod./ I found this filming technique a lot more effective, as not only did the tripod encourage Matthew to interact with the camera more but it also meant that I could leave it running for longer and also keep filming even when I had to help Matthew do things. Capturing this sort of interaction could be very useful for my short film and I found that Matthew responded a lot better when being filmed using the tripod. I originally thought that I would film some more footage of him using this, but I believe that I already have enough footage for my film, therefore this will not be necessary.

Production: Reviewing my footage

After looking and editing my footage this past week, I have had to reconsider some of my original ideas. I originally planned to have my narration over the top of action of Matthew. However, after looking at my clips, I think some of them would be more effective if I kept the sound in it. Therefore, this may mean that I need to cut down on my narration, or film more footage of Matthew. I also want to review my narration again and complete a final draft of it. Over the weekend, I plan to film more footage of Matthew as I have managed to borrow a tripod.

Production: Editing in iMovie

This week I began to edit my footage using iMovie HD. At first, I found this challenging, as I have only used video editing software once and I've never used this version of iMovie before. However, I soon managed to get to grips with it and I have now discovered how to split clips and cut out footage I no longer need. AT the moment I am in the process of watching each individual clip and cutting out any parts that cannot be used (because he isn't looking at the camera etc.)