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We are keeping a diary of the project as we go along so you can get a flavour of what we are up to.


18th July 2024

Burdett Coutts Intro

A fabulous premiere of the films and animations produced by children from Burdett Coutts, St Francis of Assisi and College Park took place at the BFI Southbank in front of a packed audience in NFT3 today.

Each school introduced their project and showed off their films, animations and model-making.

Ernest Boots model St Francis of Assisi

The event was concluded with a rendition of the Ernest Boots song written especially for the project.

Ernest Boots Live at the BFI on Vimeo

3rd July 2024

Today Peter, Sav and Matthew spent the day on a Cory tug on the River Thames that was taking empty barges up river to the Riverside Waste Transfer Station in Wandsworth and collecting barges full of Kensington & Chelsea's rubbish! They interviewed skipper Gary Anness and Head of Communications, Caroline Dobbin along the way and did lots of filming to use as cutaways for the documentary.

The tug boat crewThe Crew


Day 5:

Similar thing from yesterday, interviewing people consisting of dustmen, historians and waste and recycling managers. We played outside and watched multiple movies from the past about Evacuees as well as lightermen. If our group had finished their interviews we did ICT/computer and played and made games. We then had a wrap party afterwards.

Interviewing Desmond JonasInterviewing Desmond Jonas


Day 4:

We interviewed many people in small groups. Gary, David and others. We had lots of fun learning about people's jobs and how their lives have progressed 'on the dust'. If you’d already completed an interview, we had to draw about that person and their lives. We then stuck card on the back to make a stained glass window.

Interviewing Gary O'HaganInterviewing Gary O'Hagan


Day 3:

We discussed themes that we would use in our questions and we learned about open questions and closed questions. We were going to use these to help us ask questions to Peter Daniel. Peter Daniel told us a lot about himself and answered the questions regarding his time as a dustman and the history of refuse collection in central London. We continued practising the audio, camera and lights.

Interviewing Peter DanielInterviewing Historian & dustman, Peter Daniels


Day 2:

We are using a voice recorder. One of the rules is that you can’t fidget with the mic since it makes unwanted noise. We've been practising interviews while learning the skills of filming, recording, lighting and sound. Each person has a different job. We learned about dumb ways to break a camera and how not to. We learned that body language would help you in your interviews to emphasise your words and that body language is important.

sound recordingConcentrating on the sound levels


Day 1:

Today in modern times, people often call dustmen refuse collectors. The rubbish used to be taken to a canal, collected and transported to the Thames. The dust was used to describe horse dung as well as coal ash and rubbish. Dustmen strikes affected everyone and there was a push towards refuse collection being privatised with our local dustmen now working for Veolia.

Oral history is useful as it allows you to question the person you are interviewing regarding their personal experiences. You can also learn about how people really felt and the emotions people felt around that period of time.

PractiseA full team practice interview

We learnt the rule of thirds for framing our shots - the eyes one-third down and one-third in from the left or right to provide 'nose room'. We did fun activities to ensure that we knew how to use lighting and composition so we could see the interviewee. We learned how to use a camera, adjust it and make sure that we could frame the interviewee using the rule of thirds. We practised interviewing each other with one person behind the camera. Lighting was also required to raise the quality of our video. We saw a short video of Eastenders and how they cut the unwanted scenes to stop it from being boring. Near the end of the day, we did a test run of our questions to Eddie Jaggers and Peter Daniel.

ReminiscenceReminiscence Session: Our chance to quiz Eddie Jaggers and Peter Daniel

a rubbish tip