London

George, Calum and myself went to London to film the opening shots and fill shots of our documentary. We filmed outside Parliament and on South bank with the Houses of Parliament in the background. We felt that this linked well to the theme of governments that is predominant in our documentary.



I was in front of the camera and asked passers by questions about the Wikileaks news story. These questions included:

What do you know about the Wikileaks news story?
What do you know about the sexual assault charges that Julian Assange faces?
Do you agree with these charges or do you think governments may be making these up to keep Julian silenced?
Do you think the Wikileaks news story shows that the government has lost control?
What effect do you think these leaks have had?

Calum and George filmed these questions being asked. George filmed the main interview whilst Calum used another camera to film some fill shots such as long shots and close ups of hands.



After the interviews, we filmed the opening of our documentary. The script for this part of the documentary can be found below:

With over 1 billion people exposed to the internet world wide and a massive 79% of all websites being created by the public, it is no wonder that governments' control over the world wide web has been questioned.
Take a look at one of the most prominent stories in the news today; with over 600 000 followers on twitter, 250 000 leaked cables and 40 million unique hits a month, it is no wonder that Wikileaks has shaken the foundations of governments' world wide. But have these recent breaches finally caused governments to loose control over the internet and its users?

Whilst filming this section of the documentary, Alistair Darling walked past us. As our documentary was about governments, we took the opportunity to try to ask him some questions. Unfortunately, Darling was not willing to give us an interview and we were unable to film the encounter.

Wikileaks Documentary

This week, a Wikileaks documentary was shown on BBC's Panorama. I watched this documentary in order to see some of the techniques that had been used for a documentary using the same topic as ours.

The link to this documentary can be seen below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00yl1ng/Panorama_WikiLeaks_The_Secret_Story/

Storyboard for our documentary

Here is the storyboard for our documentary:

Background Information on Wikileaks

Here is some research that I have done in relation to Wikileaks and the government's control over the internet:

Media: The Internet lost control? Wikileaks

Julian Assange – History
• Founder, spokesperson and editor and chief of wikileaks
• In his youth hacked under the name of ‘Mendax’
• Believes in Freedom of press, censorship and investigative journalism
• US considered charges to do with the leaks however were told it would be hard to prosecute him
• Arrested on 7th December 2010 for alleged sexual offences

Wikileaks Story
• Founded in 2006
• Documents leaked onto the site include: extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the African coast, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike video
• Approximately 251 000 American cables only 1295 released
• Temporary suspension of the site after information was released

Twitter
• Subpoena received by Twitter to effectively entailed the collection for criminal prosecution of the personal identifying information of over 600 000 followers of Wikileaks


Sexual Assault allegations
• In June 2010 pentagon officials were looking for Assange because what he was about to release could "puts his well-being, his physical life, in some danger now."
• 20th August 2010 Swedish police open investigation about Assange alleged sexual offences against two women aged 31 and 26
• Daily telegraph report: Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, could be sent to the Guantánamo Bay detention camp or even executed in the US if he is extradited to Sweden, his lawyers have warned.
• Stockholm's chief prosecutor Eva Finne reviewed the case and dropped the rape investigation, saying there was insufficient evidence to suggest rape
• On 6 December 2010 European arrest warrant is released
• 7th December handed himself in to met police
• Granted bail on 16th and placed under house arrest with bail set at £240 000
• No charges against him have been filed by Swedish authories… yet!


Julian Assange death penalties – many people in America have implied that Julian Assange should face the death penalty for releasing American government information. Footage of this would be good to use as part of our archive footage.

Global Warming Introduction

This is some of the opening scene of our Global Warming documentary. We filmed me introducing the documentary whilst walking in a circle. To make this more interesting we wanted to have the seasons change as I walk around showing fog, as seen above, as well as snow rain and sun. This directly relates to global warming as it shows the changing weather as well as creating a more interesting introduction that engages the audience more.

New Idea

Before coming up with the idea of The Internet and Wikileaks Calum, George and myself had decided on a documentary on Phobias. At first I agreed with this idea, however, as we discussed our ideas for it in more depth I saw that Calum and George were leaning towards more of a mockumentary style which is one that I was keen to avoid. Our group didn't see eye to eye and the lack of unity with the idea put pressure on us. For this reason we decided to come up with an idea that we could all work with and agree on; the Internet and Wikileaks.

George



George's main focus was a documentary that wasn't boring to the audience. He wanted a topic that would engage the audience and for this reason leaned towards something that would make the audience laugh.

Calum



Calum's main focus was a documentary that was slightly less conventional. He wanted a style that would make the documentary stand out from others in order to engage the audience.

Me



My main focus was a documentary that dealt with a strong, up to date issue. I wanted a topic that would be serious and hard hitting as well as coming from a story that was current in the news at the time. I felt that this would be most engaging for the audience as it dealt with up to date issues.

When we sat down together and discussed what we all wanted from the documentary we were able to come up with the Internet and Wikileaks. This fitted into everyone's main focus as the topic chosen interested all three of us and, filmed in the right way, could potentially gain interest from all types of audiences; the topic allowed us to use unconventional editing techniques in order to create an original style of documentary that would engage the audience; finally, it is an up to date topic that has been all over the news in recent weeks, which means it is a topic that would naturally provoke a lot of interest within the audience.

New Documentary Idea

Today Calum, George and myself decided to change our project again. We feel that we have finally come to a decision that we all agree on and that will produce and interesting and engaging documentary.