review

Kurdistan Unveiled is a short documentary following the lives of three kurdish people and the views they have on the current situation in kurdistan following the demise of saddam hussein, and what it was like during his reign. The aim of this documnetary was to educate people on what kurdistan is and the current situation that lies there. We also aim to show how kurdistan has been affected by saddam hussein and the emotional tortures they have suffered.

A strong point of this documentary is that it targets people very emotionally as it includes memories of traumatic situations that some people have been through. The ending is also a strong point as it ends on a depressing note with pictures of death. This is great as it leaves an image in the audiences mind and almost leaves them to act upon it.

A weak point for me is the places the people were filmed in. They were all filmed in similar locations so a sense of identity was tough to create with the characters. It also made the documentary almost look repititive. Also there many time constraints due to commitments others memebers of our group had and it did not bode well with the time we had as it only restricted us.

Interesting facts:

• Abdi beat dola whilst filming
• WHile filming sawan the bell went !! (was a great interview as well!!)
• Me and zainab were ready to capture footage but hammad went hounslow like an idiot !¬!! WITH the tape !!!
• Sorry.... but Hassan's cinematography .... a really emotional serious scene ... n he zoomed into sawans nose !!! Loll

ATHAR MAHMOOD !!!

MY REVEW

well kurdistan unveiled aimed to unveil the truth of kurdistan but i think we did more than that.we showed the cultural differences in our society and the stereotypes people have of muslims. what we didnt do was focus on pakistani muslims but looked into iraqi muslims and further more in to the lost land of kurdistan.the 7/8 minute documentary was ''aired'' on Channel 4 in between te news and bigbrother. the timing we chose was crucial for our audience. we aimed to follow the lives of 4 kurdish 6th formers at greenford high school, but after reviewing our footage we had to delete sawans part. so we looked at dola hoshmand and tara. we put in interesting archive footage of kurdistan and saddam hussien to keep it contemporary.
Interesting facts!!!
me n athar wer constant gossip queens in editing

we used to stay until 7 in da evening to edit but it was fun.

hammad ran off with the camera tape...silly child to hounslow.

hassanz camera work was so bad every1 critisised it..sorry it was so shakey lol

kl zebraaaaaaaaaa xxxxxxxxxx

PRODUTION REVIEW

Director: Hammad Khan, Athar Mahmood, Zainab Zakria, Radhika Sorathia, Hassan Abdul

Starring: Dolavon, Tara Arif & Hoshmand

Documentary, 2007, 7mins ???secs

www.kurdistan-unveiled.blogspot.com


Have you ever heard a place called Kurdistan? Ever heard of Kurds? Note…don’t confuse yourself with ‘Borat’ that was Kazakhstan.

Kurdistan: Unveiled is a short documentary explaining yet educating the audience about Kurdistan. It reveals the hidden country and its people, which are proud of their independence. Despite it being known as an ‘un-official country’ Kurdistan remotes itself from its surrounding countries such as Iraq, Iran, Turkey & Syria.

The Documentary starts off with a hard-hitting clip from a film, which sets off of our production. We look into the lives of 3 Kurds, which currently study in GHS. We look into their thoughts and opinions about life before and after Saddams’s Régime.


Interesting facts!!!!

• Dolavon was getting beats from his friend Abdi, during the recording and was about to be thrown in front of incoming traffic. LOL
• We were getting ready for Sawan’s (deleted character) scene, as we pressed the record button, OFF THE BELL WENT…DAMN it took long to get the shot ready!!
• Hassan’s Cinematography was just too funny! Where’s the camera goin!!!?
• Zainab and Athar filming, when they pressed record they didn’t find any tape, and Hammad was down Hounslow with the tape in his bag. HAHA
  
  HAMMAD KHAN

ThE EnD

POW we've finished....i had 2 go in friday aftaskl 2 show mr bush n mr munro n dey wer happy wid da end result, jus had 2 make a few changes wid titles n sound.finished around 5.30....told mr babu and hes merged it n put it on DVD....dats it we cant make any more changes...it wud ave bin better if sum1 else 4rm da group wz der wid me so we still had some group input for the final details but now its done and personally i am happy wid the input and the final production.....gona get it on DVD soon

xXx...ZEBRA...xXx

Update!!

Finally, we reached to the end, we have finished our production now. I was putting my best effort throughout the time we had for editing, the last week got me soo nackard as i was working through my frees and after school too, i thought to finish it on friday21st rather leaving it for monday. I was finalising the scenes of Saddam's execution whcih Athar had left. Radhika & Athar, came afta skul to help on with the last touches, hassan came on earliar to do his last voice over, which he did perfectly.

We know realise how long it takes to edit loooool. I am hoping next week, mr munro sees our production and tell us any changes we need to make, in order to get the best out of our production.

hope my hard work pays off.

!!!!!!KHAN!!!!!!

Update!!!

We are coming to an end of our Doc. just a lil touches ere n der....n vr done....so far it looks good...Me n Zeb messed around with the start and finally we came up with a sikkk sequence..da start is something u got to see. We also worked on other sequences so Mon n Tues(editing week) went well....the channel 4 ident's feed back was good....hope no1 chooses the same1 though lol.
Finally the whole group got together on thurs(editing week) where we sorted most of the stuff out....nw jus a few changes inda sequences n we'r done really....hope da whole group turns up inda las cuple days we av left nw---we reached to this point and so we should finish it....

!!!!!!!KHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KURDISTAN:unveiled

ok lets be alittle specific about da documentary.....we've got our institution CHANNEL 4...it starts off with the ident obviously...than instead of having a title sequence we have a short scene with a little kurdish child talking about kurdistan ...we then fade in to the title sequence.......which is followed by the vox pops 'what do you know a bout kurdistan?'.....then we have images and voice over describing kurdistan....we now introduce our main characters...which are now jus DOLA TARA and HOSHMAND.....unfortunately we had 2 cut out sawan because we didnt have enough footage of her and when we asked her to come in 2 be re filmed she was always busy............... so from then we have footage of kurdistan...saddam hussein...and the rest of their interviews......erm there was this one really good shot of sawan talking about the affect saddam husseins regime had on her family where she becomes very emotional...i dont think we can use that either............BTW all of the things said in the documentary are REAL NOTHING is STAGED....so when our charcters talk about their personal problems...they are alllll real.....

(btw this mite be one of my lasts posts.....and i so doubt anyone reads this stuff any moreLOL)

x.x.x...::[z][e][b][r][a][z]::...x.x.x
:).....:).....:).....:).....:).....:).....:).....:)

update

i cant beleve were coming in da holidayz 2 finish dis editing...me and hammad have been in yday and 2day workin BARE hard and we've actually got some of our sequence 2getha and i luv it.....it luks so sik...and 2mro da whole group's gona b in just 2 update every1 wid wats going on....and if there are mre ppl we can multitask...get da voice over done....re film sawan tara and hoshmand....and edit....Dola's gona get me some stuf 4rm kurdistan by da end of dis week....music pics...and actual footage... sik...hopefully we can use it all....OUR OPENING is amazin...i saw dot coms and da size zeroz opening and i thought damn wer gna flop but now after 2day im happy :)

x x x [z] [e] [b] [r] [a] [z] x x x

update on progress

WOAH have we been working hard or wat.........(well not everyone but i wont mention who has and hasn't :P) but yeh alot of time has been spent aftaskl... in the mornins... in our free lessons its bin crazyyyy we have got quite a bit done and the mentors are quite helpful aswell [thankz guys] i think honestly is all we need now is some archive footage and maybe just a retake of tara and sawans interviews and if we get that i think we can finally put the sequence together in order.....with the voice over and music and thats it...........sometimes i complain thinking what the hell was i thinking taking media but i do honestly enjoy it even though its affecting my other a levels but i chose it so i have to deal with it...however im the one that chooses to come afta skool wenever i can because it is really fun. i just want to finish it off and see the final production, and we shouldn't care about the media awards evening.that is not why we chose media.we want our good A level and thats what were hoping to achieve. we've also seen other peoples title sequences and i must say dey r lukin really gud.

kl thought i'd keep u updated whether or not ne1 even luks at dese anymore lol

(oh and dola's gone to kurdistan on holiday and i was stressin so much but i've realised we dont need to re-shoot him so its all gud lol)

...xXx...[Z][e][B][r][A][z]...xXx...

Progress Report

i was editing Hoshmand's interview...adding the powerful phrases he used and placed them around the screen (technically titles) was quite tricky to do..because i had to match each word to each word he said.....i also added music as it was missing-peoples responce to them is really positive...Archive done by Athar and Zeb was good..we need to work on Zeb's Archive-as whats the reason behind it.....i made the pics larger-was quite simple to do...then i started on the structure...the intro-title...and the end-credits....well hope we get it done in time....

HAMMAD

how the editing is going so far....

well soo far i dnt think we've done as much editing as we possibly could have done. we're also a little behind in the sense that we do not have the archive footage we need ready. ive found out that editing is quite a long process and does take alot of effort. ive managed so far to make a sequence out of the vox pops we had but me and zainab who were editing it, soon realised that we do not have enough interviews. So we are now looking to film some more vox pops (about 10 more) and are going to incorporate 6 into our documentary.

Also we need to look through dola's footage pretty quickly and look to see wether we need any re-shoots because he is due to go on holiday in 2 weeks ... n will not be back for some time so the main target for our group is to review the footage we have and to make necessary amends where needed.

Otherwise i think the editing process is quite an enjoyable experience. As i have never used this programme before, i think it is good fun to see the possible things you can do with your video.

My targets would be:

1. get archive footage
2. do more vox pops on "what do you know about kurdistan"
3. review footage of dola incase of the need for a re-shoot

AtHar...............

update!!!!

Last friday 2nd March....Period 6 Sir gave us da chance to edit in lesson..unfortunatley we got a mashhd up camera..which didnt evn pik up da tape.....in da process of fixing we didnt realise and da BELL went....luckily i ad period 7+8 off....so i stayed behind....it woz lng!!! Coz i woz experiencing da same prob agen viv da camera....buh it woz kul lata on....did quite a few captures so dat day woz all gud...

Monday 5th March...Morning evy1 arrived...sum running l8 lool...buh evy1 der....we got evytin booked out n we settd it up in G Munro's room....me athar had done it b4 but the othas hadnt had a try at capturing .. so gave Radu/Hass/Zeb a chance to edit.....

Zeb woz intending to edit in her frees.....but loool coz i had soo much work...as well as according to our timetable i went yard.....n frm der i set off to Hounslow.......i didnt evn realise i ad the tape...n zeb n i think athar were fuming as heard over the phone...myyy badd guyz soz!!! Next time i got2 be careful!!!

KHAN

Update!!

the other day me n athar filmed Dolla....dis bit will show his everyday life...developing the character will make the audience comfortable enough to understand dolla's character plus it will make them focus on him....

Today Me and Athar came early at 8...welll athar woz der b4...so yeah lol...i was running l8 but we did set up and started capturing.....later on today we as a group will be capturing more clips in period 6 with G MUNRO.....so hopefully we can capture everything...

KHAN

Update...

The other day me n hammad got more useful footage of dola. we got footage of him doing everyday things such as walking in and out of school, getting of a bus and socialising. These clips will be very useful to us as they will help the audience feel more related and connected to the character. This is good because as well as developing a narrative.. we are also developing a character which will work in our favour as it will draw more attention as well as opinions !!!

Now we will come in on friday mornin to start on the editing. We will start by logging and saving all the clips we have onto the computer so that the editing process is much easier from an earlier time.

Athar...........

14tH Feb ....fIlMiN TaRa....me and hassan

hass hass is such a liar i woz not sitin der havin i laugh..........i may HAVE laughed while i woz der lol we flopped so much that day and we learnt not to trust a certain sum1 wid da camera...only jokin athar :D LOL...yeh so we went calling ppl begging dem 2 let us use their camera 2 film tara talkin about kurdistan....(posted on da blog ....scroll dwn)...and now it seems like it was never ment 2 b...we got all dressed up n everythin....yeh so after callin ppl and puttin da fne dwn ('uahaahhh BYE') we anjali let us borrow it (THANK U luv U 4 DAT)...but it was no use ...the battery was dead...so we start charging it up only 2 realise theres NO tape.....i was havin a heart attack and so i sent hassy and ikky off 2 find a tape....they left me wid the debating lot...which was sheikh tara mandeep sophie and sawan.we couldnt use phones in the room and so there was no way 4 me 2 find out whether hassy n ikky wud b bak on time....and the speeches were hilarious...every1 spoke so posh and in such a respectable manner.....it was mad...it makes ghs luk lyk the worst school ever...and der is worse den ours LOL.well yeh and there was this guy who gelled up his moustache .....it was jus all 2 much 4 me...and i felt like laughing so bad.... hassy and ikky finally came back but by then we had alreddy filmed the speech on taras fone....but yeh overall it was the worst and best day ever...it was so much fun even though i was so tensed that we may not get this filmed.... we had a really good time and still filmed it...i was so happy in the end and so tired....i forgot my folder in hassy's car....LOL....but it was really gud....well dat set da story straight abt me jus having a laugh hass hass :P lol. and yes u had 2 bthere 2 understand the jokes ('I AM COTCHING......I KNO IT SOUNDS CORNY BUT I LOVE THE WORLD'') lol

P.S gUYs sTiLl w8in oN IdEaS 4 dA DoCumEnTaRy NaMe thAnX...hope u lot had a good holiday aswell :P xxx

...xXx...zEbRa...xXx...

Going to film Tara's speach

it was a real suprise that we found out that Tara on of the people in or documentary doing a speach on iraq... so we had to be there..well it all started like this..

It was on a wednesday, Valentines day :-( Me, Zebra and (iqra) got together bout 5ish... n we found out we dnt have our camera... so we called every1 hu we could possibly think of...n then found sum1...we borowed it of a friend (thanks guys), we rushed there as we thout we were going to be late.. we were well happy that we got there on time.. we went to set up the equipment n found out our 'friend' didnt even give us a tape... so i went all over ealing looikng for one while zebra was haven a laugh and watching the spech.. i came back empty handed as it was past 6 n all the shops were closed.. however, she did get filmed on a phone which we mit b able to use.. we did however have a laugh at the posh people there... and a guy that loves the world.

...Hassan...

TARA's Conference

GUYS HERES THE FOOTAGE OF TARA AT DA CONFERENCE...ENJOY!!!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ipzWYJ1H5M

Progress Pics- Logging in

Hass n Zeb Logging in

KING KHAN

JiYaN By jAnO RoSeBiAnI

i was sposed 2 research on a film called halabja by jano rosebiani but i couldn't find much on it...but i found another film called jiyan which basically means life...and this film still focuses on the happenings in Halabja and how it affected a ten year old child called jiyan, who luckily survived the posionous gas attack.

brief of the film...

Five years following the infamous chemical and biological bombing of Halabja, Diyari, a Kurdish / American good Samaritan, returns to his homeland to build an orphanage in what is left of Halabja. He meets Jiyan, a ten-year old orphan and survivor of the chemical attack, doomed to live with a burn scar covering most of her right cheek. A strong bond between the two ensues and later he names his orphanage after her.During the course of his stay in Halabja, Diyari meets a colorful bunch of townsfolk, many of whom remain physically and/or psychologically marked with the effects of the chemical agents. Among them is Jiyan's only living relative, Shérco, a twelve-year old who has also lost his family to the poison gas. While Shérco dreams of marrying her one day, Jiyan dreams of seeing flowers, a picture of which she finds on the back of a magazine.In addition to building the orphanage, Diyari brings a spark of hope and happiness to Shérco's and Jiyan's lives. However, this affair is short lived. As he leaves, the two orphans turn back to their lonely shells with very little light to look forward to - a familiar state of mind echoing throughout Halabja. Diyari departs with a promise to return, but now leaving a tearful Jiyan at the place where he first meet her - on a swing under a lonely tree on a small lonely hill.

xXx...ZeBrA...xXx

footage n nu name

hey ppl.........as soon as hammad cumz online ill make sure he posts up da public speaking footage............but one problem we stuk on is our documentary name........the thing is that we focusin on kurdistan and not iraq so we are thinking of changing the title...to sumthin more...kurdish.. :S anyway point is that i woz jus thinking if ne1 has any good suggestions plz comment on dis post...2 giv us sum ideas thanx

xXx...zebra...xXx

Personal Reflection....

From looking at the responses/comments, I think we should do the following to our Blog-

• Add pictures of our progress
• Include more research about our actual production, i.e. the brief but it depth, as changes have been made.
• For postproduction, most of the people say use contrapuntal sound, which would prove effectiveness and use a Male voice- over, as this is a serious subject, it is also following the documentary convections.
• Definitely work on Camera shots…develop Hassan’s skills lol
• Do progress Reports, everyone plz!!!
• The interviews made, should be split up and show each Kurdish students’ background, who they are, how old, basic stuff.
  

21st feb….plz update when more comments come in. Cheerz

KING KHAN

REGARDING PROGRESS AND POSTING UP FOOTAGE

Guys just be patient...i'll post it up as soon as Zeb zeb givs me the footage...Cheerzzz



KHAN

FOOTAGE

hey as we gt all dese comment 4rm media students sayin they wnt 2 c sum of our footage well i decided 2 post up a 5/6 minute clip of tara at a public speaking and she explained kurdistan as the other side of iraq...hw ppl haven't seen the beautiful peaceful side of iraq because of ppl lyk saddam and george bush...nw hopefully i can post it up...i duno hw 2 ...
...
...
...
U KNO WAT ive asked alota ppl but they don't kno hw 2 put it up..so im gna leave it u lot can w8 n ill ask hammad 2 post it up l8a :P

kl ...zEbRa...

Blog Comments

1. What do you think of our blog?

• What do you particularly like about it? What's especially impressive?
• What could be improved? What's missing or could be added?

2. Based on what you've read on the blog (and maybe seen in test screenings in class) what suggestions do you have regarding what we could do to make our Practical Production really successful?

• What other things could we include in the production?
• How should we go about filming any remaining scenes or editing the footage during post-production (+ suggestions for music, etc.)?
  

Athar & Hammad

WOAH dola found dis small documentary on youtube and sent me da link its sooooooooo educational i've lernt so muchin 6 minutes about kurdistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URfGs5TlqLM&mode=related&search=
go there.its so amazing....theres 30 million kurds in da world, i think the largest ethnic group in the world and equivelant to canadaz population and yet they don't even have their own country...its been divided.
and im gna research on a film called halabja by jano rosebiani

kl
.........ZeBrA........

Al-Anfal Campaign !!!

The campaign

In March 1987, Saddam Hussein's cousin from his hometown of Tikrit, Ali Hassan al-Majid, was appointed secretary-general of the Ba'ath Party's Northern Region, which included Iraqi Kurdistan. Under al-Majid, who "even by the standards of the Ba'ath security apparatus ... had a particular reputation for brutality," control of policies against the Kurdish insurgents passed from the Iraqi Army to the Ba'ath Party itself.
This was the prelude to the intended "final solution" to the Kurdish problem undertaken within months of al-Majid's arrival in his post. It would be known as "al-Anfal" ("The Spoils"), in a reference to the eighth sura of the Qur'an.
Anfal, officially conducted between February 23 and September 6, 1988, would have eight stages altogether, seven of them targeting areas controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. For these assaults, the Iraqis mustered up to 200,000 soldiers with air support -- matched against Kurdish guerrilla forces that numbered no more than a few thousand.

Statistics

One of 24 Assyrian churches bombed in 1988. Other groups such as Assyrians, Shabaks, and Turkmen were targeted as well.
During the Anfal campaign, the Iraqi government:
spirited away or killed an argueable 182,000 Iraq Kurds (figures are hard to estimate because of the scale of destruction)
destroyed about 4,000 villages in Iraqi Kurdistan [4]
destroyed 1,754 schools, 270 hospitals, 2,450 mosques, 27 churches[5]
wiped out around 90% of Kurdish villages in targeted areas


This is quite shocking info i found on wikipedia and from this i can finally see and understand thr reason behind alot of hatred towards saddam as well as the pain kurds have gone through because of him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anfal

This website includes the whole articlee !!!

ATHAR >>>>....................

analysis of doc.

I found this documentary called ‘ Iraq in fragments’ on MSN movies, it released on January the 18th. 1hr 36min

This is a Documentary by filmmaker ‘James Longley' the documentary features shadows of ordinary Iraqi citizens in three crucial yet fractured regions-Baghdad; the Shiite south; the Kurdish north-as they struggle through a chaotic present and face a distant, uncertain future.

He shows the crisis in Baghdad, and then moves into the south of Iraq- where political arguments raise, and young Shiite men take themselves to the streets to enforce religious laws.
In the northern Kurdish countryside, he shows how the local people e.g. a farmer, is grateful to America for removing Saddam, and then basically interviews the farmer, which makes him reflect over the future of his family and people, as his son tends sheep and dreams of becoming a doctor.

I can say this documentary links with ours, (yet I haven’t seen it, but read about it) because we are trying to show the background of the country and how it has been changed after Saddams death, plus we will be interviewing some people who have been affected by this. Here below is the trailer of the doc.



KHAN

change of character focus

rite...after thinking about the fact that we have just about a week to finish off the filming and that we really haven't gone in depth with focusing on one person...we deicded to change our main charater from tara to dola. this is because we can't keep asking tara to take out time for us to film her. we don't want to hold her back from her work and im doing 5 A levels myself so i know how hard it can be. this is my cwk so i have to be commited to it, but tara was just helping us out.so eventually we couldn't really get alot of footage fo her, because she is always so busy. we have now decided to make dola our main focus for the documentary and he has such good ancestry linked to kurdistan and iraq.

...ZeBra...

well we got sum filmin done yday. we got footage of hoshmand and dola. Also through hoshmand we found out information that could be very uselful to our documentary, the fact that Dola's grandad is a very famous Kurd who is considered as a role model to many. We decided that Dola should now be our focus point rather than tara. Due to the fact that Dola's family are well known Kurds and also that Tara takes many subjects and hardly has any time to spare whereas Dola has loads of free time. also our main focus has changed from iraq to kurdistan !!! well now were filmin dola socialisin, playin foosball and were hopin to get more footage of him soon !!

ATHAR

yesterday 08/02 we finally filmed Hoshmand and we also fimed Dolovan again to get more footage.. after a VERY long discussion.. we decided to make Dolovan our main Character as he has quite a lot more to say and has a very interesting family background.. another reason we had to make him our main character was that Tara didn't have much time for us and was normally busy... whereas Dolovan had more free time.. right now, 3 members of the group are filming Dolovan playing foosball and probably gonna ask him a few more questions.

radhika..

HALABJA

HaLAbJa is a Kurdish town in Iraq about 150 miles northeast of Baghdad and 8-10 miles from the Iranian border. The town's population is largely Kurdish and is known for being more religiously observant than Kurds in other Iraqi regions.

1988
Halabja was overrun by Kurdish peshmerga( armed Kurdish fighters) supported by Iran in the final phase of the Iran-Iraq war. On 16 March 1988, after two days of conventional artillery attacks, Iraqi planes dropped gas canisters on the town
The town and surrounding district were mercilessly attacked with bombs, artillery fire, and chemical weapons, the latter of which proved most devastating. At least 5,000 people died as an immediate result of the chemical attack and it is estimated that a further 7,000 people were injured or suffered long term illness
The attack is believed to have included the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin, and VX, as well as mustard gas. It is occasionally suggested that cyanide was also included among these chemical weapons, though this assertion has been cast into doubt, as cyanide is a natural byproduct of impure Tabun The attack on Halabja took place amidst the infamous Anfal campaign, in which Saddam Hussein violently suppressed Kurdish revolts during the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam Hussein is said to have used chemical weapons in attacking up to 24 villages in Kurdish areas in April 1987.
Before the war ended the Iraqis moved in on the ground and completely destroyed the town.

After 1988
In the mountains to the East of Halabja, the militant Islamist group Ansar al-Islam occupied a small enclave in the period 2000 - 2003. The area was overrun by peshmerga from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), with U.S. air support, at the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
On December 23, 2005, a Dutch court sentenced Frans van Anraat, a businessman who bought chemicals on the world market and sold them to Saddam's regime, to 15 years in prison. The Dutch court ruled that Saddam committed genocide against the people of Halabja, which was the first time a court described the use of chemical weapons against the people of Halabja as genocide.
On the 2006 anniversary of the gas attack, violent demonstrations erupted in Halabja against the Kurdish administration. An estimated 7,000 demonstrators protested against priorities in reconstruction, claiming party bosses did not care about the problems of the gas attack victims. Road blocks were set up and the gas attack memorial museum was set afire. Police fired at protesters killing one 14-year old boy and wounding many others.

The effect of the gas attack were unbelieveable and i found some images that are sooooo disturbing. im so shocked that anyone could even witness this let alone plan this and actually do it.
and it still affects people there now, maybe not the gases but the affect they had on these childrens lives and families

you can find more of these disturbing images on google just search halabja.

ders more 2 come kl

...ZeBrA...

4th day :S i think

i think its our 4th day of filming...i duno anyway WE FINALLY GOT HOSHMAND INTERVIEWED and erm yeh it woz interesting LOL . den we went and got dolovan who might be our main focus of the documentary but we haven't fully decided that yet. This is because him and his family have had an amazing experience(some good some bad) in kurdistan and i don't wana give away too much but wen u watch it you'll be lyk 'WOAH REELI!!!' its really good footage and im sure we can use almost all of apart...apart from the bits wen hosh starts laughing or wen hassan can't ask da questions properly LOL.

kl dat it really

...ZeBRa...

WELLLLLLLL 2day we filmed dola....and we asked him about his views of iraq...how he came here etc. it was reeli good the group decided we can film outside where ...whoever went by screamed something. one girl screamed DOLOVAN and then goes it wasn't me lol but yeh...and HOSHMAND ran off wen i tld him 2 wait 2 minutes
but thats al we cud do...its kool dough


Xxx...zebra...xxX

progress report

today we managed to get footage of dola!! we managed to get a good interview with him outside which gave it a realistic effect. It was also good to film outside because he is not one of our main characters so therefore it is effective in the sense that the audience are forced to listen more intently as he is not a character who is being developed i.e. tara.
now we just need footage of hoshmand and more of tara as well as compiling archive footage of saddam hussein!!!

ATHAR...

LIGHTZ CAMERA N ACTION!!!! WEEK 3

WEEK COMMENCING MON 5TH FEB

WITHOUT WASTING ANY TIME, WE GOT HOLD OF DOLOVAN...n FILMED HIM....HIS PART WOZ VERY BRIEF.......BUH WE GOT A SLIGHT INSIGHT OF HIS VEIWPOINT

KHAN

week 2 - monday 5/02

Today we managed to film Dolovan.. he's also a Kurd just like Sawan and Tara.. we filmed him outside to get a live, realistic effect.. we wanted to film Hoshmand too but he disappeared somewhere.. well that's all we've done so far today..

radhika..

Athars Homework

Fighting Terror and The Iraq War

This documentary is about possible reasons behind the war in iraq and looking into things that may have lead to it. Also looking at the consequences of many evil deeds committed.

I chose to analyse this documentary as it is made up fully of interviews and archive footage. Our documentary will also consist of alot of archive footage and interviews and thus i am analysing this to get ideas for our production.

It uses explicit footage such as the planes crashing into the twin towers which gives the documentary a more realistic and dramatic effect. It also uses words on screen to put emphasis on the words being spoken in the case of this documentary, to give the words an ironic feel.

This documentary also uses only a voice over. The director does not play a role within the documentary. This is similar to our documentary and in this one, they use it very effectively. I think it is particularly good as he differs his tone of voice alot and does not get boring at any one point. I think if we are to make a successful documentary, we must also concentrate on this.

Brothers In America

This a documentayr following the lives of two immigrants who are brothers and now live in america.

I find this documentary interesting and relevant to our documentary as it follows the lives of 2 brothers and we are looking to follow the life of tara. In this documentary they achieve a good effect as they show the brothers in all sorts of places from their home to many places across America. This enables us to understand the characters more as we see the thimgs they do. For our documentary i think we will need to do film things tara does in her everyday life. e.g. catch a bus, walk into school, contribute to something in lesson.

ATHAR...................

documentary - saddam hussein

The title of this documentary is "Uncle Saddam".. this documentary was quite good to watch and i found it quite interesting too.. it's basically a biography of Saddam Hussein. the documentary tells a story on him and facts run through the screen in the beginning so that viewers can catch the main points.. theres a book about Saddam Hussein shown and lots of his childhood pictures appear at the beginning of the documentary too. The documentary also concentrates on things we might find little for example.. the hats he wears-he has a different one for different occasions, his ties-he wears a diff one all the time, his moustache which he dies a rich black to make him look "younger".. there are a few clips of him swimming.. apparently he loves water.. he goes swimming sometimes, boat riding, etc.. Nearly all of the pictures shown of Saddam Hussein in the documentary are with him with a BIG smile.. probably to show that he was proud of what ever he did and he has the "power".. there was this one part in the documntary where they talked about the newspaper and they interviewed the publisher.. she said that he would want his picture to be on the front of every newspaper published with a DIFFERENT picture everytime to show his success! Saddam Hussein said that he is "god's servant, a believer, the leader of all Muslims" .. to prove he is god's servant.. he wanted a mosque built that was higher than the Eiffel Tower and bigger than 70 football pitches.. (i can't remember if it was built.. or was to be built). he said that building this mosque would make him "closer to God"..

radhika..

wEeK 2..

this week we're planning to get quite a lot of filming done as last week we didn't get much done..

* we're gonna try to get as much footage as we can on tara and her life..

* interviews with Sam, Ishta, Hoshmand..

* famous lines by Saddam Hussein.. which athar has already donee =) ..

* archive photos and videos of Saddam Hussein..

radhika..

wEeK 1..

This week is our first week of filming and we've not got as much work done as we should have. today, 1/02, we started filming our main character of the documentary, Tara. this week, we've also managed to film Sawan.. we asked her questions on iraq and her opinions.. we still need to get more footage on Tara and how she lives her life..

radhika..

LIGHTS CAMERA N ACTIONN!!!! WEEK2

2nd WEEK commencing MON 29th JAN to FRI 2nd FEB

FINALLY WE GOT DA CAMERA ROLLING AGEN AT D END OF DA WEEK....WE GOT HOLD OF SAWAN AGEN, N LUCKILY OUR MAIN STAR TARA WOZ FREEE....WHOA IT WOZ JKZZ FILMIN TARA...V TOOK SO MANYY TAKES...SHE CUDNT STOP LAFFIN AT ONE POINT...HUSS HUSS OVERLAPPING HIS QUESTIONS...SO V CNT GIV ALL DA BLAME TO TARA.....NEWYZ IT WENT WELL AS WE USED TYM AFFECTIVELY....COZ ME N ZEB ZEB DID WORK ON BLOG...WHILE HUSS HUSS, ATHAR N RHADZ FILMED......LATA ON ME N ZEB ZEB SWAPPED VIV ATHAR N RHADZ....SO V SHARED DA WORKLOAD.......WORK AS ONE---WORK AS A TEAM!!!!!

TARA'S VIEWPOINT WOZ CAPTURED-QUITE A POWERFUL TONE SHE USED---IT SHOWED SHE IS STRONG .....HUSS HUSS GOT EMOTIONAL--HE NEEDED A HUG.......N DEN SAWAN'S REQUEST TO FILM HER N TARA DISCUSSING/DEBATING ON EACH OTHERS VIEWPOINT.....V THOUGHT DIS WUD B GUD...AS IT SHOWS DA DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS OF 2 IRAQIS

V STILL GOT MORE TO FILM...AS RHADZ HAS POSTED

HOPE IT GOES AS PLANNED....

KHAN

LIGHTS CAMERA N ACTIONN!!!! LOOOL

1ST DAY OF FILMNG... WHOAA IT WOZ A STRUGGLE......V WER HUSTLIN TO FIND FREE ROOMS...IT TOOK TYM BUH FINALLY WE GOT IT SORTED.......IT WOZ A SERIOUS INTERVIEW...V DIDNT ACTUALLY REALISE TILL V FELT SAWAN (ONE OF OUR STARS) GETTING INTO HER ANTI-IRAQI MODE....SHE SHOWED HER EMOTIONS AND TRU FEELINGS....WHICH TOUCHED US ALL AT DAT MOMENT...... CAPTURING SAWAN FOR DA 1ST TAKE WOZ EZY....BUH DA 2ND TAKE DIDN’T ACTUALLY GO WELL—AVIN SUM PROBLEM VIV DA MISE-EN-SCENE COZ WE AD TO MOVE ROOMS….IT GOT TO THE OUTSIDE OF THE BLOCK…N BY DA TYM WE HIT RECORD…AND SAWAN STARTED HER LINES..OFF DA BELL WENT……LOOOL….WELL V AD TO PACK UP DEN…..IT WENT WELL AT D END OF D DAY.......ATLEAST WE GOT SUM FOOTAGE

GUD WRK TEAM!!!!

KHAN

Iraq; hidden story

i have watched this documentray online.... it does really reach out to u ... it shows raw fotage of iraq.. and the effect of the war.. it also shows britain and other western countries not showing the real stroy.. only showing things that they want to show..such as britains or amercains soldiers that have been shot or attacked... thses western channels dont show the reall stories..

A popular, reconnisable voice over is used,he is ch 4 newsreporter, he also appears in the doc.. this doc is trying acomplise something... hes trying to show the real life of iraq and the going on's in iraq..

this doc has interviews of other people..formaly and informally...

Hassan x

Second day Filming

The second day of filming went realy well.. coz we were surprised that tara and sawan had the sme frees... so we decided to interview tara 1st coz she's not free often... then we had time free...so we had a lil inform debate/convo going on between them... i cudnt belive it... it was soooo sooo emotionall... i was amost in tears...belive if u c this u wud be tooo... wee still got along way to goo.. so yhhh.. lets hope everyfin goes smoothly and to plannn....

Hassan x

Quotes of Saddam Hussein

"God is on our side, and Satan is on the side of the United States."

"Allah is on our side. That is why we will beat the aggressor"

"Remember the valiant Iraqi peasant and how he shot down an American Apache with an old weapons."

"We are not intimidated by the size of the armies, or the type of hardware the US has brought."

"Don't be attracted to easy paths because the paths that make your feet bleed are the only way to get ahead in life."

"Keep your eyes on your enemy and be faster than him."

"Don't provoke a snake unless you have the intention and power to cut off its head."

"Keep people's secrets and don't tell them to others or use them against them."

"Long live the people, long live the nation, down with the invaders, God is great, God is great." Saddam HusseinReacting to his death by hanging sentence for crimes against humanity, November 2006

"I ask you, being an Iraqi person, that if you reach a verdict of death, execution, remember that I am a military man and should be killed by firing squad and not by hanging as a common criminal." Saddam HusseinAt his trial for genocide and crimes atgainst humanity, July 2006

"I am ready to die. I am not scared of execution. I do not attend this trial to spare my life. I attend it to defend Iraq." Saddam HusseinIn Interview with his lawyer Bushra Khalil while on trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity

"I didn't have time to write poetry before, but now I have had the time to become a poet." Saddam HusseinConfiding to lawyer Bushra Khalil while on trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity that he had written a new epic work

"My spirit is still standing firm and will not fall,And in my body runs the blood of the great.Oh Iraq you are crowned in the heartAnd on the tongue you are the poem of the poets.Oh Iraq misfortune has shaken your sword, so stand tallAnd gather your strength without bearing a grudge." Saddam HusseinA sample of his poetry

"My name is Saddam Hussein. I am the president of Iraq, and I want to negotiate."
Saddam HusseinTo US troops who captured him in a hole in the ground in near Tikrit

"Victory will be ours soon. Iraqis will strike the necks as God has commanded you."
Saddam Hussein Speaking to his troops as American and coalition troops declare war on Iraq

"We are ready to sacrifice our souls, our children and our families so as not to give up Iraq. We say this so no one will think that America is capable of breaking the will of the Iraqis with its weapons."

"When the enemy starts a large-scale battle, he must realize that the battle between us will be open wherever there is sky, land and water in the entire world. ... There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Well, give us time and the necessary means, and we will produce any weapon they want, and then we will invite them to come and destroy them."

"Yours is a society which cannot accept 10,000 dead in one battle."

These are a bunch of quotes from saddam hussein and they are all very powerful as we get to see what type of person saddam was. But most of the quotes point towards the fact that he was a brave man who never backed down from any sort of fight. This however may have been a reason which led to his downfall.

ATHAR....

what we've done so far...

so far we have managed to get footage of sawan and tara. We've done interviews with them and managed to get them to answer questions relevant to our documentary. This is good news for us as we initially were struggling to get any footage at all. When we first did an interview with Sawan, Mr Munro suggested that we re-shoot it because he felt it should be zoomed in more. When we went to film her again, Angela needed the room so we were struggling for time. But luckily, on the same day we had media, Sawan had a free period and Tara had her lesson cancelled which worked in our favour as we managed to get a good amount of footage and good interviews with them both. Whilst they were filming Tara and Sawan, me and radhika decided to make a schedule for the next week and decided upon what things needed to be done. I need to do research, hassan and zainab need to film, hammad needs to get archive footage of SADDAM and radhika is going to do research on the backgorund of iraq. Everything seems to be on track now so hopefully everything stays this way.

AtHaR..........

second day of filming: we're filming sawan again just because sir thought we didn't zoom in enough, and we're trying to get hold of tara and its so hard because she's already doing 5 a levels and so she doesn't have much free time on her hands but yeh so far so good, wen we finish filming sawan we will go on to filming hoshmand and dola and maybe sam and ishta (twins lol) and get their views on iraq and saddam hussein
safe lol


...zebra...

First Day filming

yeahhh.... we finialy got it roling... we done our 1st recording, i was impressed at sawan... she really made me feel for her... i realy did feel her emotions... i was laughing at first then i realised this is serious, her family has actully need through this, so has she.. but yhh all in alll its been good. i wish we cud ave dne more recording but time wasnt on our side...

Hassan x

our first day

OUR FIRST DAY OF FILMING...woah!! we got sawans interview done and it looked really good.you get really get a view about how emotional she is about this topic, but she kept her composure. she went into detail about her life in iraq and everything. but then Mr munro comes in and sez 'film it again and zoom in slightly'. soo dats what we tried 2 do nex lesson but we couldn't find anywhere to do it. plus we were getting stalked by pavz (lol fo sho!!! haha)

but s0 far i fink its goin well, its nt about quantity, its all about quality...

... zebra ...

as part of our hmework on da site we gta look into 3 documentaries
so the first one im gona focus on is Iraq in Fragments by james longley...
James Longley spent more than two years on the ground in Iraq where he got to know families in the Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni regions. Divided into three chapters, the film stands out among the Iraq War documentaries released to date on the strength of its gorgeous cinematography. Though filming completed before 2006's escalation of internal conflict, the film makes clear the dramatic cultural divides Iraq faces.

Even though this documentary doesn't focus on all the aspects our documentary will, it shows the division within the nation and can explain the differences between kurdish people and iraqis.

"To many Kurds, who have found their true identity, Kurdistan resembles a mother that has been suppressed and taken advantage of by four influential men in the Middle East. In this age such a mother should be free to make a choice."


BtW KuRdiStaN (A.K.A 'Kurdewarî') UseD tO B a CItY In IRaQ (and ThEIr Is AnOtHeR PArT Of KuRdIsTan In irAN, SyRIA AnD TuRkEy) anD wAS RuLeD OvER By ManY OtHeR cOuNtRIES But FiNaLLy GoT THeIr InDePeNdANcE.

this shows how kurdistan has been split up between turkey syria iraq iran and armenia. Kurdistan as a whole has been highlighted with the kurdish flag.
The iraqi flag.

btw vishna wen u asked how tara fits into this...we're thinking of focusing the documentary on taras life in the U.K and how she's coped...why she came here...and what she thinks of saddam hussein's reign and his exectution...hope dat answered ur question

...ZeBrA...

WOS GWANIN GUYZ!!!!!!

JUS DROPPIN BY....HOPE ALL DA RESEARCH IZ GOIN WELL....NEWYZ CU LOT SOON!!! KING KHAN

history of iraq under saddams reign

Under Saddam
In July 1979, president Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr resigned, and his chosen successor, Saddam Hussein, assumed the offices of both President and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. He was the de facto ruler of Iraq for some years before he formally came to power.

Territorial disputes with Iran led to an inconclusive and costly eight-year war, the Iran-Iraq War (1980 – 1988, termed Qādisiyyat-Saddām – 'Saddam's Qādisiyyah'), eventually devastating the economy. Iraq declared victory in 1988 but actually achieved a weary return to the status quo ante bellum. The war left Iraq with the largest military establishment in the Persian Gulf region but with huge debts and an ongoing rebellion by Kurdish elements in the northern mountains. The government suppressed the rebellion by using weapons on civilian targets.

A mass chemical weapons attack on the city of Halabja in March 1988 during the Iran-Iraq War is usually attributed to Saddam's regime, although responsibility for the attack is a matter of some dispute[1] (Saddam maintains his innocence in this matter). Almost all current accounts of the incident regard the Iraqi regime as the party responsible for the gas attack (as opposed to Iran), and the event has become iconic in depictions of Saddam's cruelty. Estimates of casualties range from several hundred to at least 7,000 people. The Iraqi government continued to be supported by a broad international community including most of the West, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China, which continued sending arms shipments to combat Iran. Indeed, shipments from the US (though always a minority) increased after this date, and the UK awarded £400 million in trade credits to Iraq ten days after condemning the massacre [3].

In the late 1970s, Iraq purchased a French nuclear reactor, dubbed Osirak or Tammuz 1. Construction began in 1979. In 1980, the reactor site suffered minor damage due to an Iranian air strike, and in 1981, before the reactor could be completed, it was destroyed by the Israeli Air Force (see Operation Opera), greatly setting back Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

....

This is information on what iraq was like whilst under the reign of Saddam Hussein

Athar ...

Important wesbite with pictures and info of Saddam and his doings

www.husseinandterror.com

this website has lots of pictures and information on saddam that could be very useful to our documentary. information such as deaths he has caused and controversial information as well as conspiracies about saddam!!

ATHAR ....

***IMPORTANT***Saddam Hussein - History and death sentence

KING KHAN

SUM ARCHIVE----FRM DA START TILL D END

KING KHAN!!!!

SaDdAm HuSsEiN eXeCuTiOn VDO----***UNCENSORED***

KING KHAN

This site has picture of the war in Iraq. Some are very explicit and if you’re squeamish I suggest you don’t go on it, but it has opened our eyes on what is the reality of the terror in Iraq.
www.fotos.geschichtsthemen.de/iraq-war/iraq.htm

hassan and zebra

after long winded discussion about what to do, we have decided that we will do a documentary that will discuss issues which we feel should be brought up to help raise awareness as it is a topical issue. We are going to look at people, who have been affected by Saddam Hussein and the consequences they have had to face. We felt this issue would be good to bring up as Saddam was recently executed and these people seem to have different points of views and we feel it would be interesting to discuss this topic.

we are working in a significantly large group of 5 consisting of the members, Hassan, Radhika Hammad , Zeeebra!! and ATHAR :)

At first there were a numerous amount of arguments about what we wanted to do, and topics such as car trailers were brought up but thankfully they were quickly dismissed! We then were set to do a documentary on cars but then we decided against it after Mr Munro disapproved of our idea. Then with some inspirational thinking from the group, we decided this documentary was the best to do.

So far we have resaerched the background history of Saddam Hussein and we have managed to get hold of videos and pictures of him and most importantly we have got the powerful video of his execution.

We are next planning on getting the videos of Saddam together and discussing which ones to use and also we want to start ti question the 3 people we want to discuss with about how Saddam has affected their lives.

Thats all from me for now !!!

ATHAR ........................

Brief....

heyyy.... im gona give you a brief outline on what our production is about

in our group there is 5 of us... me-Hassan, Radhika, Zeebra, Athar, Hammad. our group spent many hours trying to come out wiv good ideas that we all agree on.. believe me it tock a long time and it did lead to lil small arguments but we finaly got there. we have decided to do a documentary on something that is imporatnat, something that has effected people our age, people that we know, people that have been hurt. we have decided to look into people in Britain that have been effected by iraq and Saddam Hussein. we chose this topic as we feel that not many young poeple know the history bout this topic and how it effects young people around us.

...HaSsAN...

zeb'z version of our brief

after a lot of discussing and going into random topics(a documentary about cars!?!?) we finally settled on a topic that looks into serious issues that affect people in the u.k. We will be looking at people who have been affected by the goings on in iraq and possibly looking at the aspect of what saddam hussein has done to their country and their people, and how they feel about it and his execution. We aim to show our target audience the reality behind the veil of iraq.

... Zebra...