Proof is in the pudding! A watery pudding that is...

AFTER a year of historic price highs, raw oil now costs less than bottled water.

Australians have cut back their petrol consumption by 6000 barrels a month, pushing prices down to their lowest since early 2004.

World oil was trading at $US43 ($65) a barrel during last week, now closing in on its long-term average range of $US25 to $US35 a barrel, adjusted to inflation, not seen in almost half a decade.

With 158 litres to a barrel of oil, the raw product has dropped below the price of the cheapest bottled water - a 12-litre bottle of Northbrook water retailing for $4.99 at Aldi - 41cents compared to 42 cents a litre.

Figures from the International Energy Agency show that demand for petrol products in Australia has been falling since January, as high interest rates and high living costs began to take their effect.

The most recent figures for October, show demand has fallen to about 327,000 barrels a month, down from 333,000 barrels in January.

CSIRO modelling estimated that if oil prices were sustained at $US100 a barrel it would have restricted economic growth by 3 per cent - knocking Australia firmly into recession territory - relative to prices at $US35 a barrel.

The fall in consumption has been a short-term boon for the environment but it has come at the expense of the fledgling biofuels industry.

Paul Graham, a senior adviser in the CSIRO's Energy Futures project, estimated that the sharp price rises resulted in a de facto carbon price of upwards of $200 a tonne, much larger than the $23 to $32 range that Treasury has predicted for the introduction of trading in mid-2010.

"All the movements in the oil prices are much larger than the future carbon price," he said. "When you see a rise of upwards of 50 per cent [in petrol prices], that is obviously quite substantial. We know that kilometres travelled did flatten out as that began to take effect."

The CSIRO has predicted that pure unleaded petrol products by 2030 will be almost entirely replaced with ethanol blends and diesel vehicles that can achieve greater fuel efficiencies.

But Mr Graham said that move will be delayed - at least in the short-term - as oil prices continue to fall.

"Certainly expectations of future prices play a big role and there's a big dip since the financial crisis has unfolded," he said. "But a lot of these [forecasts] are long-term and business, too, will take a long view.

"At the moment, the risk for major investment in alternative fuel products is very high so low prices would tend to delay those investments while there is volatility."

Bruce Harrison, chief executive of Biofuels Association of Australia, said the price falls have put a huge strain on refining margins just as the industry attempts to boost production by more than 20 per cent to 245million litres a year.

"Certainly the fall in oil prices makes it harder for every one in the industry. Everyone's margins are down," he said. "Our view is that the world economy starts to pick up, demand will pick up."

But experts have warned that the price falls may be short lived. The US Energy Information Administration predicted prices to stabilise at around $US63 throughout 2009.

london bottle water ban? october 2009

The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday October 11 2009

In the article below an editing error led to our claiming that 400,000 people pass annually through Hammersmith bus station and the Tower Bridge museum, where new Hydrachill water fountains are to be trialled. That should be 4 million and 400,000 respectively.

---

London may soon follow in the footsteps of Bundanoon, the Australian town that last week banned bottled water and set up drinking fountains for thirsty locals.

The capital's first water stations will be set up this month in a move that could have serious repercussions for the £1.5bn-a-year bottled water industry, with companies finding it increasingly difficult to justify their carbon footprint as the quality of tap water improves.

Thames Water, Britain's largest privatised water company, with 13.6 million customers, has had talks with the Greater London Authority and Transport for London to install water machines in the capital. In the first trial, Hydrachills will be installed at Hammersmith bus station and at the Tower Bridge museum. The machines can fill bottles of up to 500ml with chilled water for a 20p charge. All proceeds will be donated to WasteWatch, a charity working to change the way people use natural resources.

Should London's water stations prove a hit with the 400,000 visitors who annually pass through the two sites, the scheme will be extended to underground, bus and railway stations across London and the south-east before the 2012 Olympics.

The move follows the installation last week of Hyde Park's first drinking fountain in 30 years. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was criticised for reneging on promises to install water fountains in the capital's parks, with Hyde Park his solitary success.

In his draft water strategy for London, Johnson says British tap water is "among the best in the world", but that misconceptions over its perceived healthiness encouraged people to buy bottled water. Tap water is a thousand times cheaper than bottled, which is more expensive per litre than petrol, he says. But Thames Water has been left to take up the mayor's pledge of more drinking stations, in a move that has upset bottled-water firms, which are fast losing the PR battle.

Activists say bottling water causes unnecessary use of plastics and fuel for transport and requires 2,000 times the energy required to produce tap water.

Hildon, regarded by many as the most exclusive bottled water, last week launched its second aggressive advertising campaign. In magazine adverts, fitness instructor Jonathan Goodair claimed tap water was only good enough to shower in and for "washing my kit". He claimed it left an "unpleasant taste".

In the summer, the company took out a 20-page trade magazine advertisement attacking tap water. Under the headline "Is it safe?" it said: "Cancer drugs found in tap water", adding : "Is there anything else they are not telling us?"

Water companies ignored the attacks, preferring to concentrate on promoting their own benefits. The Drinking Water Inspectorate's latest water quality report said Thames Water's tap water was 99.99% compliant with national and European standards – its best-ever performance. Average compliance across the industry remained at 99.96%.

Consumption of bottled water doubled in the 10 years to 2006, but since then sales have fallen. At the end of March, sales were down 12% on the year, according to researchers. Of 13 billion plastic bottles of all types sold in the UK last year, only a third were recycled.

Peter Antolik, of Thames Water, said: "Where once people may have felt obliged to order mineral water when out for a meal or a drink, they are now at ease asking for tap water. We're building on this achievement by trialling Hydrachill water stations, which we hope will soon be commonplace for carbon-conscious Londoners wanting to stay refreshed as well as cut down on cost and waste."

Black Gold has lost its sheen, and how! Today, the cost of a litre of petrol or diesel for Indian oil majors is less than the price of the bottle of packaged water that you buy.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that a litre of petrol costs about Rs 11 and diesel about Rs 13, excluding transportation and sundry other charges etc. In contrast, you pay Rs 12-15 for a one-litre bottle of water.

Here's how the arithmetic goes: A barrel of crude oil contains about 190 litres. At $38 a barrel, the current price in the international market, each litre of crude works out to Rs 10, taking the exchange rate at Rs 50 to a dollar.

On an average, approximately 28-29 litres of petrol and 85 litres of diesel are refined from each barrel of crude.
Admittedly, this figure can vary according to the type of crude being processed and the technology deployed in a refinery. So how much would the price of a litre of motor fuel be after incurring the cost of refining, if there were no other charges?

The calculation is so mind-boggling that sometimes even executives of oil marketing companies get confused by the myriad central and state taxes - levied at incremental rates - and complex charges such as "freight equalisation levy'' and dealer margins, etc. Such levies taken together constitute 45-55% of the sale price of petrol or diesel.

So if petrol costs a little over Rs 45 a litre in Delhi pumps, taxes and levies make up about Rs 22 and another Rs 12 constitutes the oil-marketing firm's profit. That leaves a basic cost of about Rs 11 per litre. Similarly, at Rs 32 a litre - the Delhi price of diesel - the actual cost can be taken as Rs 13 as the companies are making a profit of almost Rs 3 a litre.

These calculations are admittedly simplistic and do not take into account other products such as kerosene, jet fuel, cooking gas, naphtha, etc., that are produced along with petrol and diesel and have a bearing on the final cost of each product. However, there won't be big difference between these figures and the figures worked out by the industry.

With crude projected to slide further in the coming days as the global slowdown gets a firmer grip on industry and pushes demand further down, the obvious question is: When will our pump prices go down further?

ToI has repeatedly said this will happen just before the elections are announced, possibly around February. In the meantime, the government is looking to rejig the petro-tax regime to make way for lower prices without hurting oil marketing companies that have accumulated huge losses during the extended run of high crude prices.

'Dasani' Coca-cola's Water Scandal!!!

Soft drink is purified tap water

Tap water is the source for Coca-Cola's Dasani product

Soft drink giant Coca-Cola has admitted it is selling purified tap water in a bottle.

It says the source for its new Dasani bottled water is the mains supply at its factory in Kent.

The company says Dasani is "as pure as bottled water gets" due to a "highly sophisticated purification process".

But the UK water industry is worried that the marketing of the product implies tap water is impure, which experts say is not the case.

'Reverse osmosis'

Coca-Cola is investing £7m in launching Dasani, which has become the second most popular bottled water in the US following its launch there in 1999.

We would never say tap water isn't drinkable. It's just that Dasani is as pure as water can get - there are different levels of purity Coca-Cola

Marketing for the product says it goes through four stages of production before it is bottled, starting with being passed through three separate filters.

Coca-Cola says "reverse osmosis", "a technique perfected by Nasa to purify fluids on spacecraft", is then used to filter the water further before minerals are added to "enhance the pure taste".

Finally, "ozone" is injected to keep the water sterile, the company says.

But water industry representatives say consumers do not need to buy Dasani to get "excellent quality, healthy water".

'Tap water pure'

Barrie Clarke, spokesman for suppliers' representative Water UK, said: "We don't think there are any impurities in tap water.

"If people like the bottle, the convenience, the style, then fine, but I don't think that is the way they are marketing this product.

Dasani is the second biggest selling bottled water in the US

"Tap water is pure, and that's the opinion of the drinking water inspectorate, which carries out three million checks a year."

Judith Snyder, brand PR manager for Dasani, confirmed "municipal" water supplies were used but said the source was "irrelevant" because it "doesn't affect the end result".

She said: "We would never say tap water isn't drinkable.

"It's just that Dasani is as pure as water can get - there are different levels of purity."

Research published on Wednesday shows that UK consumers drank more then two billion litres of water in 2003 - up 18% on 2002.


Website link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3523303.stm

Volvic's 'healthy' 14 day challenge

Came across this 14 day challenge from volvic. They are suggesting drinking 'Volvic' water is essential part of a healthy lifestyle. They say drinking 1.5 litres a day will make you more active and alert, they have used statistics and other methods to persuade consumers to add this to their lifestyle.

link to website:
http://www.volvic14daychallenge.com/home.htm

plan for monday

monday:

after our seminar at 9.00 am we will go and set up our table at the top of the atrium stairs to do our taste test.

What we will need: 1x XM2

1x rifle mic

50 plastic cups (poundshop etc)

2 liters of evian

2 liters of buxton

2 liters of tap water

paper/pens

Todays filming

Today we had a very successful day's filming, along with Monday and Tuesdays' days of filming. We have managed to capture all the interviews we wanted to get, 9 in all, some of the public, some of caterers etc. all of these interviews had good elements to it.

we also got some very good fill shots, of which we are going to place the facts over.

the only things we have left to film are: the water taste test, and some more fill shots of water bottles and running water. we also need to get the archive footage of the adverts.

tomorrow's plan

meet at 1.00 at the main cafe

bottled water: evian, tap, and any other cheaper bottled water: expensive,cheaper,free

plastic cups

tray

collect 1x XM2

1x rifle mic

1x marantz

we will be filming:

more fill shots for the information scenes: running water, taps, fountains, bottled water, rubbish, pollution

water tasting scene

more interviews

More stats.

So which areas of our world are consuming the largest amounts of bottle water? Splash's website provides a wealth of knowledge regarding who, what type, regulations and an overview of the market. Below is a graph of 1999 Bottled Water Consumption in liters per person, courtesy of Splash's Freshwater Newsletter. Surprisingly, Western Europe consumes almost 50% of the world's bottled water. Many claim that this is due to European culture, since the continent has had very polluted waters due to agriculture and industry dating back to the Industrial Revolution.



Splash

Splash also states that roughly 59% of bottled water that is consumed is purified, while the 41% is spring or mineral water. Most bottled water (about 75%) originates from protected sources such as underground aquifers and springs. Increases in bottled water consumption is also a major issue. Below is a graph that explores the increase from 1999-2001 for eight different regions globally.







http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/klessill/

branding

The image

Whatever the brand name, the image they project is the same - cleanliness, purity and health. To sell a commodity at a high price to people who can get it for next to nothing out of the tap, the image is all-important - and not always realistic. Buxton Water is advertised on television and the bottle with pictures of the beautiful Derbyshire landscape. The water is bottled in an industrial estate next to a busy railway yard. Glyndwr Spring Water, on the other hand, is bottled by hand in a portacabin in a field. Where they are bottled does not mean that they are necessarily contaminated, but neither does it mean that they are necessarily safe to drink. What is important is what is happening on the catchment area from which the water is taken.

Water is water. What gives the different bottled waters their particular characteristics is the minerals and chemicals that they pick up in their passage through the ground; and they will pick up any and all. Most of the water is taken from a rural environment. This means that to be safe to drink, what happens on the earth through which they flow must be strictly controlled. For example, cattle and other animals excrete waste material. Ground around springs should not be used for grazing. Over large areas, there should be no pesticides or herbicides used. Do these areas get the degree of control they need? Nobody knows - there is no information.

Although all bottled waters are believed to be from natural springs, some are not. Some are from the same surface water sources as the local tap water, and some are tap water.

Marwin UK Ltd., based in a Manchester industrial estate, markets a bottled water called Purefect 95. This comes straight out of a tap from the Manchester main water supply and is then purified further by the company. Purefect 95 is not spring water but it is probably one of the cleanest and purest bottled waters on the market because the company's purification is in addition to all the checks, cleaning and treating that the regulations demand of its public supply source.

Purefect 95's label proclaims, 'Purefect 95 is produced here in Manchester from upland water sources utilising the latest treatment techniques. It is purified by a series of specialised processes which remove unwanted or potentially harmful chemicals giving you a wholesome water for all your drinking and culinary requirements.' With no minerals, no organic or inorganic chemicals and no bacteria in it, Marwin can claim with justification that it is the best bottled water you can buy.

Purefect 95 is not the only bottled tap water. In the South, Crystal Spring is bottled from London's tap water, and the soft-drinks giant, Schweppes, is planning to bottle tap water in Britain just as Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola already do in the USA. The BBC1 consumer programme, Watchdog, looked at 'Designer Waters' on 27 September 1996. The programme concentrated on Crystal Spring, which is made in the basement of a London restaurant and which sells for £2 a bottle in around two-hundred other restaurants. They found that the only differences between Crystal Spring and the London tap water from which it is made were slightly raised levels of copper and zinc and, because the chlorine had been removed, bacteria levels 10,000 times higher! Crystal Spring may still be safe to drink despite these high levels - but it cannot be as safe as the original tap water.

facts

One of the most profitable schemes ever devised to deprive the gullible of their money must be the sale of bottled water. In the western world, tap water is about as safe as it can be and it is relatively cheap. Yet many people are prepared to pay up to 1,500 times as much when the same stuff comes in a bottle. In this paper we will consider this phenomenon.

The bottled water boom was indeed an unlikely phenomenon. Perhaps the strangest thing about it was that this bland commodity made its impact in Britain at the height of a recession and with raging inflation. There was a general lack of money in people's pockets, yet bottled water became an overnight success. Strange too is the fact that present water companies boast of the purity of their product, when the various impurities that mineral waters contain used to be the whole point of buying the stuff anyway.

Natural water is never purer than when it falls on the hills as rain. Once it hits the ground, however, all that changes. Seeping into the soil, it moves underground through passages and caverns carved over the millennia, eating away at the rock and dissolving metals, salts and minerals along the way. As it goes, its character changes, depending on the type of rock through which it passes. Eventually, it arrives in underground lakes or aquifers - the sources of most bottled mineral waters.

But an advertising campaign by the French company, Perrier, in 1974 was to bring about a dramatic change. The Financial Times, in an article on the Mineral and Spring waters market, called the campaign a waste of time because bottled waters, it said, would be drunk only by cranks and foreigners. How wrong they were. Bottled water has become an extraordinary success story. Sales of bottled water totalled 3 million litres in 1976. In just one decade that figure rose to 128 million litres and by 1991 some 300 million bottles of mineral water were drunk in Britain alone. Wenche Marshall-Foster, Chairman and Chief Executive of Perrier UK, predicts that the market will rise to one billion litres a year by the turn of the century. A survey of 250 people from London and the Midlands, published in 1992, found that a quarter of them never drank water directly from the tap.

Perrier has been joined by many other companies eager to cash in on the trend. There are now 113 producers of bottled water in Britain, from large, hi-tech bottling factories to small, unsophisticated ones in garden sheds. All are attempting to cash in on the £1 million-a-day UK market. But the market is still dominated by the big names and supermarkets' own brands. Perrier owns Buxton Water, Contrex, Volvic, Vichy Saint-Yorre and others. Scotland's Highland Spring, which is owned by a consortium registered in Liechtenstein bottles for Tesco, Sainsbury's and the Co-op.

Bottled Water

after a weekend off, we have finally come to a final filming documentary, on the effects of bottled water on the planet, and trying to discover why people are buying it. we will be giving facts and figures (similar to the style of zeitgeist) but we will also use interviews and tests to get across the point of the film. we will be making trouble by making the public aware to the problems and effects of bottled water. and the public good will be spreading the word on the problems of bottled water, and hopefully getting them to change their ways.

we will also look at the advertising techniques which the media use to sell us the public a free product for an extortionate amount of money.

http://www.bottledwaterblues.com/bottled_water_facts.php

http://www.bottledwateralliance.com.au/en/Did%20you%20know/Facts.aspx

a nice article on SLC bonuses

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/16/student-loans-company-bonuses

and corruption

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/aug/08/highereducation.education

our new idea

we going to challenge how people see degrees. ask if they are worth the time and money, how can they be justified with the amount of money. look at what degrees are now worth.

give facts and opinions. more thought provocative, as we will be challenging all these questions. challenge the conception of the degree.

we will focus on this as our main topic, but we will also look at the larger scale, how the government can justify the cost of degrees, and why they cost more.

the aim will be to challenge the viewers opinion of what a degree is really worth.

some more bad news....

once again, at the 11th hour, we have had to cancel our filming. as posted before we were to film at a SWP meeting tonight, but equipment booked, we received a phone-call giving us some information that we did not want to hear. Apparently the SWP are not happy with us filming them, and do not feel that they would make a good film. with this devastating blow to our project we are now going to leave this idea behind and focus on a new one.

we are now sitting down to brainstorm some new ideas for making trouble for the public good.

will post up results of this new idea soon

Marxism

the SWP believe in marxism, and would be a good thing to have knowledge on

the following link is to a good beginners guide to Marxism:

http://www.marxists.org/subject/students/index.htm

Post tutorial

after our group tutorial with Steve, we have now got a more focused idea of where to go, we will go with the initial filming ideas (filming the SWP meetings, interviews and following a particular member promoting the SWP out in the public) we will use this to explain what the SWP is to the audience, and what SWP members feel passionate about, and their opinions on the current way the world is, and how they would like it to be.

we will incorporate this in to our film by using the aforementioned footage, but also by getting the SWP to give their opinions on camera. We will also film footage for which to place over the top of the interviews, to make the viewing more enjoyable for the audience, and less boring. if we can film some footage of what they are talking about and place it over the audio, we can have a visually pleasing film, along with an interesting film. We talked about the style of the "island of flowers" which i feel could work in certain areas of our film.

information on the teamster's rebellion

http://www.socialistpartybristol.org.uk/2009/04/teamsters-rebellion-notes-from-meeting-14th-april/

In 1934 workers in the US were stirred by a series of dramatic strikes in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The union involved was the General Drivers Local 574 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), an American Federation of Labor affiliate, the principal union of workers in the US at that time.

In those fights, Local 574 went from a being a small “business union” unit that focused on organising a few skilled workers, to being a mass organisation that drew in hundreds of previously unorganised workers.

This change, recounted in Farrell Dobbs’ book ‘Teamster Rebellion’, resulted from the emergence of a new, militant leadership that gradually gained control and proved its competence in the eyes of rank-and-file members who wanted to use the union’s power in defence of their class interests.

It is this feature of the strikes that makes them relevant for us today.

As the economic crisis deepens and attacks on ordinary people’s living standards accelerate, the question of how to fight back will be posed more and more to a growing layer of workers.

For many workers the union is often invisible in the workplace, or not seen as a vehicle for defending workers’ interests. How to change that situation around, is an important question for socialists today and the 1934 strikers offer some useful lessons in that task.

what we need to do

Thursday meet at 16.00 to collect equipment from stores (2 x Xm2, rifle mic, tripod)

16.30 - 18.00 design questions, and eat

18.30, get to community centre and set up

19.30 - 20.30 film the meeting

20.45 - 21.15 interview Tim, Tom and Martin

yet again a new action plan

we will now try to go to the second meeting on the 19th second November. this will be on the Teamsters rebellion

we have just requested and received permission to film at this meeting. it will be a smaller event with just SWP members only. it will contain about 20 people, but these will be very dedicated SWP members. we will film the meeting, and get the interviews afterwards.

we plan to film 3 interviews this night as well

ontop of this we will also film a paper sale following the SWP members, and a brief history of the SWP

another problem...

today we were supposed to be filming the monthly SWP meeting in the quaker house in sheffield. we have to full permission of the SWP who were more than willing to let us film their meeting. unfortunately we have just discovered that we are unable to film inside the quaker building, due to a sudden change of mind. this is not something that we could have changed or we could have foreseen. we had done all of the work meeting people, and getting permission to film the meeting. we had got signed release forms, but this all accounts for nothing due to the sudden change of heart by the building owners, not the SWP.

This is very frustrating as we had booked all our equipment, and sorted out interviews, and what to film. we have learnt that even with the full permission of those who we would be filming, we cannot always please everyone.

we will now have to go back and think of what to add in the film instead.

Dave Crowther 13 November at 17:08

easy guys, hope you're all good, just confirming the plans for monday for the SWP meeting

if it's ok for you all we should probably meet earlier before we go filming, so we can collect our equipment, and plan out what we need to film etc, say meet outside the stores at 4.30? we can then grab a bite to eat at a pub or something before we go filming. hope that's good for you all?

dave

Danny Parkinson 15 November at 20:31 Reply

Sorry for the late reply man. Yeah I'm good for meeting at 4.30, ill clear some details up tonight with my house mates but I have already talked to them about it and it's all good to film.

Gimme a call if somethin comes up, seeya tommorow

a new event we could also film?

i found this whilst on the events section on the SWP website:

The teamsters’ rebellion With Tim Nelson

Thu 19 Nov, 7.30pm

Sharrow Community Hall, Sheffield United FC, John St

some more great information from SHU, For us all to see- important to our documentary!

Interviews

Good interviewing techniques are fundamental to many docs but it can be a bit of a neglected skill. Perfecting interview techniques might take a life time of filmmaking and of course everyone develops their own personal styles. Some key things to remember:

Good research

You can never do enough research. Don't discount the value of preparation, it helps you know what you want to get out of your interviewee - but keep it under check. It is no good if you are so busy showing off your knowledge that the real expert doesn't get a chance to be heard. There is no need to try and impress your interviewee.

Genuinely good listening skills

It is a real mistake to try and stick to a planned set of questions that were derived during research. You need to genuinely listen and remain flexible to get the heart of the story. Not listening will make the answers superficial.

Interviewing Tips

• It can be helpful to start with introductory questions that give the person you are interviewing a chance to relax with get used to the camera it can be as simple as just asking them what they have been doing that day what they had for breakfast etc

Finding something the interviewee is really interested in talking about even if it doesn't have anything to do with the story you are trying to tell is another way of getting into a relaxed conversation

Make sure your questions are phrased in an open-ended fashion. This means you are not putting words into the interviewee's mouth and allows for genuine answers. It also help a lot in editing if you get them to incorporate your question into their answer this means you can cut your voice out asking the questions easily.

Questions with a 'yes' or 'no' answer are no good!

Don't be frightened of silence. Often it is in the silent moments that the 'moment of truth' is revealed. You will hate yourself when watching your rushes if you've jumped in to ask the next question to avoid uncomfortable silence. You'll see that they might actually have just been about to say something.

Remember you don't have to interview someone sitting down facing the camera, you can do it whilst they are washing up or walking the dog.

Think carefully about where you position someone in the frame when you are interviewing and what else you show – you can often give the viewer additional information by giving careful thought to this.

If you are planning to cut between two interviews make sure you don’t position your interviewees in exactly the same place in the frame or the edits will look uncomfortable.

Never forget to get your consent forms without a release you can't use the interview however great it is.

the 10 rules of documentary! - from SHU Space, but i found it important

Victor Kossakovksy's 10 Rules of filmmaking

1 Don't film if you can live without filming.

2 Don't film if you want to say something - just say it or write it. Film only if you want to show something, or you want people to see something. This concerns both the film as a whole and every single shot within the film.

3 Don't film, if you already knew your message before filming - just become a teacher. Don't try to save the world. Don't try to change the world. Better if your film will change you. Discover both the world and yourself whilst filming.

4 Don't film something you just hate. Don't film something you just love. Film when you aren't sure if you hate it or love it. Doubts are crucial for making art. Film when you hate and love at the same time.

5 You need your brain both before and after filming, but don't use your brain during filming. Just film using your instinct and intuition.

6 Try to not force people to repeat an action or words. Life is unrepeatable and unpredictable. Wait, look, feel and be ready to film using your own way of filming. Remember that the very best films are unrepeatable. Remember that the very best films were based on unrepeatable shots. Remember that the very best shots capture unrepeatable moments of life with an unrepeatable way of filming.

7 Shots are the basis of cinema. Remember that cinema was invented as one single shot - documentary, by the way - without any story. Or story was just inside that shot. Shots must first and foremost provide the viewers with new impressions that they never had before.

8 Story is important for documentary, but perception is even more important. Think, first, what the viewers will feel while seeing your shots. Then, form a dramatic structure of your film using the changes to their feelings.

9 Documentary is the only art, where every aesthetical element almost always has ethical aspects and every ethical aspect can be used aesthetically. Try to remain human, especially whilst editing your films. Maybe, nice people should not make documentaries.

10 Don't follow my rules. Find your own rules. There is always something that only you can film and nobody else.

For Monday the 16th November:

we will need to book out the following equipment for our shooting week (the SWP meeting and the documentary shooting for the rest of the week.)

2 x XM2

2x Tripods

2x Rifle mics

On monday we will meet at 4.00 at the stores to collect our equipment and then discuss our shooting plan (what we aim to film for that night, where to set up and the shooting for the rest of the week as well) we will set up our cameras at 6.00 at the Quaker building where the meeting is being held.

new action plan

after meeting earlier today we have decided to go filming on monday the 16th November, this way we could all focus on our smaller poetic sequences and get them done by this week. we will be filming on monday at 19.00 a SWP meeting, which we have been given permission to film. this will be a great starting place to begin our shooting, and we can even get interviews with the publisher of the SWP paper. this will be the start of our filming week, in which we aim to film our SWP "protagonist"(?) who we will follow throughout the documentary. this is a great chance to get inside the SWP and discover what they stand for, and plans they make etc.

A minor glitch

as you can see, the postal strike has been called off, which is going to cause us a problem for our documentary. this means that we will have to re think what we are going to shoot in out film. we are going to stick with the SWP, but we are going to follow a single memeber, and focus on him as to what he does etc, and follow him to events, meetings and action which he takes part in.

we may still reference to the postal strike, using archive footage.

Fresh hope of postal dispute deal

Earlier strikes caused a backlog of 35 million letters, Royal Mail said. A third round of postal strikes may be avoided, union sources have told the BBC. The sources said a possible deal was on the table. Royal Mail is not commenting on the speculation. The latest planned industrial action, scheduled for Friday and Monday, would be more disruptive than previous rounds as it would be an all-out strike. At the heart of the dispute is union concerns over the extent of job cuts, and conditions for staff who remain. Thursday's meeting includes the Communication Workers Union's (CWU's) Postal Executive - the union body that has the power to call off strikes. A statement is expected later. 'Period of calm' The BBC's Greg Wood is at the TUC headquarters where the talks are taking place. He said that even if the strike is called off, it does not mean that the dispute has been resolved. An agreement on a national level does not necessarily mean an agreement on a local level David Stubbs, Europe Economics Instead it would amount to "a framework for proper talks, instituting a period of calm during which they can take place". Postal expert David Stubbs, from Europe Economics, said: "An agreement on a national level does not necessarily mean an agreement on a local level...and that could sow the seeds for a future dispute." He said that one of the issues was the relationship of unions at national level and its members at local level. Royal Mail is trying to modernise to compensate for letter volumes dropping by 10% every year as people switch to other forms of communication such as e-mails and texts. It has shed 63,000 frontline postal staff in recent years, and says it needs to cut more jobs as part of continuing modernisation plans. The CWU agrees that job cuts are necessary, but disagrees over their extent, and over the future pay and working conditions of the workers that continue to be employed. Delays There is still a three million letter backlog from last week's strikes, half of which are in London, according to Royal Mail. In total it estimated that the action caused 35 million letters to be delayed. Unions claimed the figure was nearer to 60 million. If the talks are unsuccessful, the CWU will go to court on Friday to try to prevent the Royal Mail from using agency workers during the industrial action. Royal Mail has denied that employing the 30,000 extra staff is an attempt to break the strike, but instead to deal with the backlog and the Christmas rush.

Group plan as from 2 November

Filming Postal Strike: 9th November, 9.00 : interview with Tom, following him

Filming SWP meeting: 16th November, 18.00 interview with SWP editor

1x XM2

1x tripod

1x rifle mic

Why?

The trouble started in May, when local managers started to implement parts of the company’s controversial 2009 cost-cutting business plan, after five months of fruitless talks with representatives from the Communication Workers Union.

The plan was deeply divisive. It had called for a 10 per cent cut in costs at depots and sorting offices across the country – and cuts of 22 per cent in London. It was the latest attempt by Royal Mail to reshape the organisation to cope with a 10 per cent annual fall in the amount of mail being sent.

These modernisation plans had been agreed in principle after the last national postal strike in October 2007. Yet the devil was in the detail. The plans included cutting overtime, forcing some full-time staff to work part-time and cancelling set delivery times for some business mail.

Yet Royal Mail sources claimed that the CWU had already sabotaged any attempt to agree the cuts by telling members in April not to engage in talks with Royal Mail on the efficency savings.

Finally, in May, managers in Royal Mail’s East City Delivery Office at the Mount Pleasant sorting office in central London took matters into their own hands and started to implement the cuts among 450 delivery office workers.

One Royal Mail source said: “We did our utmost to try to get the union to engage with us on the changes taking place at a local level. This was in line with the 2007 agreement.”

The result was uproar, and it prompted an immediate call by CWU representatives for local strike action.

News of the ballot at Mount Pleasant spread and soon workers in Edinburgh, Plymouth and Bristol North were balloting for strike action. Scores of other local offices followed in the succeeding weeks.

Over the summer, workers at hundreds of delivery offices, mail centres and van depots balloted for strike action as the dispute escalated. By the end of last month, 700 Royal Mail delivery offices and depots had agreed to stage localised strikes, involving 13,000 workers.

The result was chaos in the mail system, with some households waiting for up to two weeks for cheques, bank statements and credit card bills to arrive.

The CWU said some 30million items of mail were stuck in the mail system – although this figure was disputed by Royal Mail. Talks at a national level between the leaders of the CWU and Royal Mail failed to get any agreement. Then last month the CWU announced that it was balloting its 121,000 members for the first national strike in two years.

Robert Hammond, post expert at Consumer Focus, said: “It’s hugely disappointing to watch a great UK institution tear itself apart."

Lord Young, the postal affairs minister, added: “A national postal strike is completely self defeating and will only serve to hurt consumers and businesses who rely on the post and drive even more people away from using mail.”

Meanwhile major customers have started to make their own plans to deliver their post. Internet retailer Amazon signed up a rival courier firm to deliver its goods in the event of a strike.

TNT, the Dutch postal giant, said it expected to win more major mail contracts in Britain, to add to the deals to delivery British Gas and BT phone bills from Royal Mail. The future of Royal Mail has never looked more uncertain.

News

Further postal strikes announced for 6th-9th November

The BBC reports that two new dates in the ongoing postal strike have been announced. Friday 6th and Monday 9th November will see all-out strikes, in contrast to recent action where different parts of Royal Mail have walked out for 24 hours at a time each.

Royal Mail have said that the backlog of undelivered mail has risen to 35 million items, but that they have cleared items delayed by last week’s strike. The Communication Workers’ Union called RM’s estimate “laughable” and said that the true figure was between 50 million and 60 million. Anecdotally, we’re hearing from many online merchants that their post does seem to be getting through still, though whether that will continue in the face of all-out strikes, remains to be seen.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, who is chairing talks between the two sides, seems to remain optimistic that a settlement can be reached soon. He said that proposals had been put to the CWU and to RM’s management, and

Postal Strike info

Postal strike to escalate as talks collapse in bitterness

Long-suffering Royal Mail customers have been warned that the postal strike will be stepped up after the latest talks between union and bosses collapsed amid recriminations.

Billy Hayes, the head of the Communication Workers Union, said today that there was every prospect of longer walkouts. He also hinted that the union was preparing to sue the Royal Mail for hiring agency workers to help deal with millions of items of backlogged mail.

"We will be upping the dispute. We will not be scaling it down," said Mr Hayes. "There is every prospect that we will increase the action and we could be looking at longer strikes."

Picket lines were mounted outside mail centres across the UK from 4am today at the start of the latest, three-day strike.

The talks ended last night with Royal Mail accusing the union of scuppering a deal by trying to introduce fresh demands.

Bosses claim that the union negotiators turned up at yesterday’s talks at the TUC, after a meeting with its national executive, armed with a fresh set of proposals, including paying striking workers overtime to clear the backlog and an agreement to lobby the Government jointly on the company's £10 billion pension deficit.

Mark Higson, Royal Mail’s managing director, said he thought the two sides had been on the verge of a "sensible agreement" after talks on Monday and Tuesday. He added that the union was sending contradictory messages: "The CWU leadership has failed to carry its own postal executive committee, which appears to be split with London members, at odds with the rest of the country, and unable to reach any decision."

A statement from the company said: "Royal Mail urges the union to get independent help to resolve its own internal position so that the company and the union can then get on with constructive and meaningful talks."

Dave Ward, the deputy general secretary and head of the CWU negotiating team, dismissed the claims that the union made fresh demands as "complete nonsense".

He said: "The proposal that we tabled yesterday was in line with the progress that we had made in negotiations. If that is not true, our challenge to Royal Mail is, why didn't they reject it outright? They waited eight hours and at this point in time we still don't know whether they accept it or not."

Mr Ward in turn accused Royal Mail of scuppering the talks by breaching the confidentiality of the negotiations and refusing to go to Acas for mediation.

"They wanted to string this out without a strike until after Christmas and then they were going to carry on imposing change," he claimed.

He said the union wanted the dispute sorted out as postal workers would find it "very difficult" to strike at Christmas. "I'd rather sort this out now than have people think we're holding them to ransom," he claimed.

Up to 120,000 workers are due to strike over the next three days. From this morning, 43,000 workers, primarily in the mail centres, are due to strike, to be followed tomorrow by 400 staff at sites in Plymouth, Stockport and Stoke. The bulk of the workforce, up to 77,000 delivery and collection staff, are set to strike on Saturday.

Unite, the other union represented within Royal Mail, has told its membership, primarily supervisors and managers, not to cover the tasks of striking workers meaning that backlogs could top those of last week. Royal Mail has recruited up to 30,000 temporary workers to deal with the backlogs although the union is still considering whether to seek an injunction against the use of this alternative workforce.

Royal Mail said after last week’s two-day strike that 10 million items had been delayed although the union said it was closer to 100 million. The company said yesterday this had been reduced to around two million items, primarily in London.

Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC who chaired the peace talks, said he was very disappointed at the turn of events. He added: "A great deal of positive work has been done in the negotiations, which have been conducted in a positive spirit on all sides throughout. It is crucial that the progress that has been made is not lost."

A spokesperson for the Department of Business, Industry and Skills said: "We are disappointed that today’s talks have not reached a resolution that would have averted this week’s strikes. However, the TUC is willing to continue to facilitate talks to build on the progress made this week and we urge both sides to continue with them."

The difficulties the industrial dispute is posing for small businesses was highlighted yesterday with a survey showing they each expected to lose between £500 and £5,000.

The survey, conducted by the Federation of Small Businesses, said that although half of the 1,200 companies questioned were considering leaving Royal Mail, they felt they were "held to ransom" because alternative carriers were too expensive and did not meet their needs.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6895165.ece

SWP Research

What does the SWP do?

Build the movement

Whether in opposition to war, racism or privatisation, we have thrown ourselves into building the biggest mobilisations possible. The last few years have shown how the actions of ordinary people through strikes, protests and everyday resistance provide hope for transforming our world. We believe the greater this movement, the greater the chance of putting an end to the global dominance of capitalism and war.

Keep it broad

Long manifestos don’t win such struggles — practical unity does. We fight alongside anybody or any organisation that wants to build the movement. The anti-war movement has gained its strength from its unity and breadth. That’s why we fight to main the principles unity of all the coalitions and campaigns with which we are involved. We respect people with ideas that are different from ours. So, while we seek to persuade people of our revolutionary ideas, we resist moves to narrow the movement to those who are already part of the radical left.

Keep it radical

We believe the anti-war movement is stronger because of the anti-imperialism at its core. The movement for global justice is stronger for its anti-capitalism and stronger still when it links to working class resistance. We strive to be the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist voice of the movements we build. We want to win fellow activists to these ideas. Millions of people are already drawing the connections between the war on Iraq, the occupation of Palestine, the bleeding dry of the global south, attacks on working people in Britain and the global rule of profit. We seek to deepen that process.

Fight to win

At the beginning of the 21st century humanity faces poverty, war and environmental destruction. In the SWP we believe we have to seize the opportunity to put an end to the barbarity of capitalism and fight to create a different kind of society. There has rarely been a better or a more necessary time to show that another world is possible.

Is Royal Mail breaking the law to try and beat the strike?by Simon BasketterThe scabbing operation by Royal Mail was under growing pressure this week.Right to Work campaign supporters were set to protest at the scab mail centre set up by post bosses in Dartford, Kent, on Wednesday morning.And the CWU union plans to launch legal action to stop Royal Mail using agency staff to break the strikes.The bosses are attempting to hire 30,000 temporary workers, which the CWU argues is a breach of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003.The relevant section of the Act states that, “...an employment business may not supply a temporary worker to a hirer to replace an individual taking part in an official strike or any other official industrial dispute.“In addition, an employment business must not introduce or supply a work-seeker to do the work of someone who has been transferred by the hirer to perform the duties of the person on strike or taking industrial action.”In other words, you can’t hire agency workers to break a strike. Supplying scab labour is a criminal offence.The GMB union has set up a “scab hotline” for people to report agencies supplying workers to replace workers on strike, on 020 8971 4217.The legal firm Blake Lapthorn is offering advice to employment agencies on “legitimate ways in which recruiters can help employers at a time of industrial unrest”.As well as making sure agencies don’t fall foul of the law, the company asks, “Is it even possible that future historians, politicians and members of the public will come to recognise recruiters as the people who helped keep vital public services going during the great strikes of 2010–2015?“We suspect in fact that it will be convenient for everyone publicly to blame the recruiters for stirring up industrial unrest, and recruiters may need to have good PR lined up.“In any event we believe many recruiters will find profitable supply opportunities.”
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=19425

Millionaire boss vs post strikers: Which side are you on?by Yuri PrasadRoyal Mail boss Adam Crozier gets £3,044,000 a year as he attacks jobs and the union while most postal workers, who are striking to defend the service, earn £18,538 a yearBattle lines are drawn in the fight for Royal Mail—and it’s time to take sides.In one corner sit the bullying Royal Mail bosses, the media, and the government. They want to smash the postal workers’ union, wreck services, and privatise the post.In the other corner are postal workers and their union allies. They are fighting to defend jobs and working conditions, and to keep the post public.Despite the daily barrage of hostile news stories it’s postal workers who are winning the battle for public support.An opinion poll for the BBC last week showed that 50 percent of those asked sympathised with the union, while only 25 percent backed management.Support for the strikers is concentrated among working class people, with 59 percent of those classified as “unskilled” backing the union, and only 16 percent siding with the bosses.The sympathy demonstrated in the poll is important—but for postal workers to win it must be turned into solidarity.Union leaders should be encouraging pickets, meetings and collections. They will only do this if put under pressure.Everyone needs to throw themselves into supporting the strikes this week. Strikers must be inundated with solidarity.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=19425