My day making a film... well let's start. Erm... people I cannot act so if you see emotion, that it is real, so me acting, well.......

Had a good start - learnt the theory and I can do that so I learnt about the names of the shots - hooray something I am used to. Wait hold up. HE HANDS ME THE CAMERA!!! ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!! I don't know what to do - bunser burners, yes, I've mixed a few chemicals maybe, a playstation I know what to do with, but film making oh please help me. First I learnt if I was left eyed or right eyed which was not too hard, it just involved me looking in the camera. Now we had to find the plot of our story and finish it in only 5 hours. So I think Me and Alex thought yep this is going to be easy I mean this is Tony's and Ciarra's element. Thats what we thought! Until Tony was like he is leaving it up to the girls. WHY???? The last film I made was in secondary school for my English lessons that the only people who saw it were my class who realisically would have thought anything was a laugh. So after a good hour of going over ideas and a lot of silent moments, we came up with a good idea. Want to know what it is? Then turn up to the launch day. 

Then started the actually film making, so I am trying to do this like a class experiment, aim- check, instructions- check, equipment- check, deadline- check, my acting skills- ????????. So we ended up getting our roles with Tony & Ciarra jumping at the chance to get in the film I thought yes I can be an extra, (unknowingly thats what Alex thought as well). To make it fair for me and Alex we both decided that we had to have the same sort of roles (no one's getting out of acting; no matter how hard we might have tried).  So hear we are on Tower Bridge, ready to do our acting. It was going really well, Alex's walk went fine (natural walker), Ciarra did her rap ( Go Girl). Makes you wanna see the film now! Then I heard 'Vanessa you ready?'. err yeah? SO it started fine Tony was in his element directing away. So I did my walk also. Afterwards talks of my lines. My lines, sorry, when did that happen? Yeah nessa dont you remember. Me thinking they forgot I was fine no need to worry. So after about 5 minutes of me trying to remember my 3 lines I was finally ready, 2 takes and done. Hollywood here I come! Maybe not when I heard " now nessa we have to hear you?" That was a fall back down to earth.

So the scenes went by, nearly finished wrapping up the day which was good. I have to admit film making was fun. I learnt how to hold the camera, which I know doesn't sound like a lot but believe me when you have no idea what you are doing, I felt like running screaming. Obviously I didn't! For the last scenes we needed extras as we only had a 5 of us. We had a lovely lady play Ciarra's mum she was such a good actor. I mean what happened to my acting skills. We was all gasping thinking hold on is she an actor and she thinking are these people mad! LIFE UNFAIR! Also the group of people that played my friends, they were so funny!!! They looked like 'what do you want us to do', I was like I dont know errmm improvise, it has to be realistic. That is the best line I have ever come up with, when not knowing what to do.

But overall I enjoyed every minute. It was a great way to say goodbye to these guys and end the project. I have had a great summer doing this I would have never thought I would had done and I think secretly we were all a bit sad to say goodbye.

Today we made ‘sound postcards’ to capture the everyday sounds of London. I decided to focus mine on the many languages spoken by tourists between the bridges. We went to Tower Bridge, and thanks to Cairra (who is very brave about talking to strangers!) we recorded people talking about London in Italian, Spanish, German, American English and Chinese – all in less than 45 minutes!  I want my postcard to be about these languages; their similarities and differences. I would like their views about London to be layered and intertwined to create a smooth flow of intonation and rhythm, and to make the change of language not so defined. I do not want my voice to be heard in the postcard, but for the listener to be an observer who cannot always understand what is being said, and so hears the postcard as if it were music not speech.

Listen here

Hi everyone, it’s me again, Tony the adventurer! As usual I was running late. I met with the other Pioneers, we went to Tower Bridge and we decided to break up into teams. Ciarra and Alex recorded people walking by and talking. I helped Ciarra by asking people to beep their horns. Then it started to rain, so we all ran under Tower Bridge, then I had an amazing idea, more like Alex gave me the idea, she said why don’t you do something about the rain? So I took the microphone and started to record people underneath the bridge. I got some good sounds, then I recorded the rain dripping down, and the sounds of people stepping in puddles, and the cars driving on the road. There was boy singing ‘rain rain go away’ so I recorded him. Then I started to experiment by going outside and stomping on different surfaces, concrete, wood grass, then I decided to have fun with some pigeons, I ran towards them and made them fly at Ciarra, who screamed.
I want my postcard to sound like there’s constant rain going on, and people are still going about their business. The rain is London’s trademark, so my postcard is like a trademark of London.

Listen here

We met at the office and we couldn’t get the doors open which was quite funny, then we got inside, met everyone and then our task was to make a postcard in sound. I wanted mine to be interactive, I enjoy interacting and approaching people. So I went to Tower Bridge, it was quite busy, I started talking to people, even if they couldn’t speak English I asked them to try and teach me a few words in their language. They mentioned the Tate a lot, then we went to the road and waved at the cars and asked them to beep. I looked like a crazy lady! I spoke to a lot of different people today, People were pleased that I was talking to them in Spanish. We got this sweet Chinese girl to talk to us in Chinese, and we met a big group of School girls from China. They tought us some Chinese, like how to say hello. I asked them to say that they love London, then I asked them to say Urban Pioneers, and they did, that made my day!
I think my postcard is going to be about people. Everyone that I talked to had a smile on their face!

Listen here

Hi my quest goes on! No, wait? I mean my adventure goes on. Today we were not going to do much but draw... which I totally love to do. You guys should see my own drawing, but we're not going to talk about that right now, so here we were walking to Tower Bridge with David Sparshott, Ruby and the others to draw things. We sat down and looked at the Bridge, it was time to draw but we had to do it i n a challenge sort of way, so David timed us so we had to draw the Tower in seven minutes. David was the only one that did good, and ME of course be he was better. We did the same thing at London Bridge and Blackfriars. Then we went back to the hideout to tea, then I showed my drawings to David, he liked them. I might show you if they let me have my own page on the site, then you can. See ya on my next adventure!

I began today knowing nothing about how bridges span rivers, and at the end of the day we had made a model of a suspension bridge that could support several balls of clay!  Gifford’s Technical Director of Structural Engineering and Sustainability, David Tasker, gave us a crash course in bridge building.  Despite making a few structures out of egg boxes and the odd bit of lego building, I had never thought of myself as having much knowledge of engineering.  However, David began the workshop by explaining how we are all structural engineers, in that when we carry a bag, for example, we alter our position to cope with the load.  He explained the forces that occur – tension in the arm and compression in the body – and that the weight of the bag is drawn to the feet and ultimately to the centre of the earth.  Then he showed us how thin sticks of balsa that are put under the same type of forces buckled and snapped.

Clearly the thin pieces of wood did not have much strength simply on their own.  However, David demonstrated how we could make them stronger by using six sticks to make a tetrahedron.  Structurally this was very strong, much more so that a cube which we associate with being a good building block.  The challenge was then to combine these tetrahedrons into a suitable formation for building.  We came up with numerous different arrangements, but found the best method was to join them ‘node to node’.  

Having seen just how weak the sticks were, I was quite apprehensive about making a bridge, especially when David told us that the challenge was to make it span 2m!  We used a combination of arches and suspension to support the road, and with help from other Gifford engineers we made a structure that did not look unlike many bridges in England.  The moment of truth, however, was the weight testing.  We held our breath as we tentatively placed pieces of clay at various points of the bridge, until finally the arches contorted under the weight.

Despite the inevitable failure of the model, I thought that, thanks to David’s help, we were able to create a bridge that in real life could possibly have allowed cars and people to cross a river – although I am not sure I would want to be the first person to test it!

Today I met the rest of the urban pioneers who I will be working with over the next few days. After arriving at a book launch hosted by the Architecture Foundation, I was introduced to Alex, Vanessa and Anthony by Ruby. Everyone was very welcoming. Sadly, Ciarra could not be there. Then we visited Gifford Engineers and were taught by David Tasker the basic principles of structural engineering. We learnt about the various effects gravity can have on a structure, including compression, tension and bending, before attempting to design and build our own bridge using only nylon thread, tape and balsa wood. Working quickly as we had limited time we assembled our bridge, which used 2 arches to hold up a basic walkway. It could carry a suprisingly large amount of clay weights despite being incomplete, although eventually the briddge buckled.
Finally we had our pictures taken beside the river Thames with our own bridge. I thoroughly enjoyed our first day and meeting the Gifford engineers.

Wanting to be a civil engineer Wednesday was such as important day for me. The Pioneers and I went to Giffords (a civil engineering company) where we were learning about bridges. This day was interesting as it was a small recap of what I had done for A levels and what I have to looked forward to in university. To me this day was so important as I had so much fun making small models of bridges in a team and taking into account small details of making a bridge that can hold a certain weight. I was really happy to be involved as this assured me that I want to be a civil engineer and looking around the office it gave me an insight of what I have to look forward to. I MEAN GOOD START!!!!!!!

Hi what’s up – this is the beginning of my adventure as an Urban Pioneer. My name is Tony or Anthony. I will be working with four other Pioneers on this project about the architecture community. On this project we will be learning a lot of new things, eg skills in filmmaking, performance, radio production, web design and a lot more. As we go along I will be filling you in on every step. OK so let me tell you what we did today, this was my first time meeting the other Urban Pioneers. Once we got to the meeting point I got to speak with the other Pioneers, each one of them was nice and friendly. Then Ruby came, the head of the Pioneers, and took us to do a workshop with great Gifford engineers. It was great. David Tasker told us about how to make a bridge, but he told us that too much stress can compress and break down pillars. He showed us with a long stick, putting pressure on top and breaking it. Next he showed us that without the right support, a stick will fall down, and if it keeps falling down, the shape it makes is half a sphere. By adding more sticks you can make a tetrahedron. We made lots of these, and put them together. Once that was done we built our bridge and got clay and put it on the bridge. It was so much fun, I can’t wait to see what we do next. See you on my next adventure!