Little Italy tour on a bicycle, 12th August 2010
Fancy discovering what Little Italy used to be like?
Come and join us for a bicycle tour of this fascinating historical location in London which came to be known as the Italian quarter from the 1860s onwards.
The tour will be led by Oral Historian Verusca Calabria in partnership with Southwark Cyclists, with an introduction to the history of the Italian community by Camden Archivist Tudor Allen.
The ride will tour the key places of London’s Little Italy including a guided tour of the Italian church, the Chiappa’s organ makers workshop, Gazzano’s, the Italian hospital, Grimaldi’s house and Mazzini’s working men’s club.
You will hear some sound bites of people’s memories of what life was like in Little Italy, Clerkenwell, encompassing some of the key historical events that left a mark on the Italian colony in London.
Thursday evening 12th of August 2010
STARTS AT 6.30 P.M. AT SOUTHWARK NEEDLE
(South side of London Bridge)
FINISHES AT 8.30 P.M. AT QUEENS SQUARE, HOLBORN
THIS IS A FREE EVENT
OPTIONAL MEAL AT ITALIAN RESTAURANT AFTERWARD
BRING A SPARE INNER TUBE AND A BICYCLE LOCK WITH YOU
For more infos contact Verusca Calabria, info@veruscacalabria.co.uk
Oral History and filmmaking series: Charlotte Bill
`Charlotte Bill
I met Charlotte Bill last year when I delivered oral history training to a group of young talented filmmakers to enable them to interview older residents more effectively. Charlotte is a filmmaker who produced an inter-generational documentary with and about the people of Clapham Park estate. See video clips here. Here I asked her a few salient questions about the use of oral history in filmmaking:
When did you first hear about oral history?
I think I first heard about oral history quite recently. I had heard of the oral tradition of storytelling and as a tribal way of teaching, so when I heard oral history I guessed it must mean the telling of history.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently working on a documentary about coming to London as a child refugee from Uganda. Recording the oral histories of people who arrived here 40 years ago and comparing their experiences with those of people arriving now.
How does oral history inform your work?
Oral history informs my work by giving me a way of describing the interviews gathered in documentary making. Oral history training improved my abilities as an interviewer and formalised things I heard learned by instinct and experience. I use oral history as the backbone of my documentary making then use other methods to tell the stories gathered.
What attracted you to using oral history rather than other methods of gathering information for your film work?
I use oral history as the backbone of my documentary making then use other methods to tell the stories gathered.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using video recording as opposed to digital audio recordings from your experience?
I have always used video recording. I like to see the person as well as hear their voice and so much information is shown in someone’s home or work environment, details which would be impossible to capture with audio alone. Using video also sets the year of the recording through the decor of the place. Audio recording is a big part of video recording and should not be undervalued by using inadequate camera mics. I would use audio recording if the person could not be filmed for some legal reason.
Article written by Verusca Calabria
Photo by Venus Bill
The One and Other Oral History Collection
One and Other
The Wellcome Trust commissioned Oral Historian Verusca Calabria with the challenging and ambitious project of recording 2,400 oral histories of the ‘plinthers’ which now form the One and Other Oral History collection deposited at the Wellcome Library for public research.
Similar to the early work of the Mass Observation project, which started in 1937 and collected material about everyday life in Britain, the interviews form an important part of British culture. They are a fleeting window onto the nation’s understanding of itself and its well-being, preserved for future contemplation, study and celebration.
This material will provide a long-term resource that focuses on the individual and their choices of self-representation and identity as well as their aspirations, fears and hopes. The archive will be an extremely unusual and rich source of material for a wide variety of future researchers and public programmers to draw on for future academic multidisciplinary investigations, as well as for other creative projects such as exhibitions, films, books and websites.
Some of the plinth stories have already been examined and will inform one of the chapters of a book about One and Other, which will further explore people’s aspirations and the impact the experience had on their lives.
The One and Other oral history collection will be an invaluable resource to understand the nature of change from a psychological perspective, highlighting the relationship between the individual and the collective experience of an artistic event. The collection will be available to the public via the Wellcome Library from mid-October, in conjunction with the launch of the One and Other book.
Verusca Calabria will also discuss the collection at the forthcoming international conference, [Record] [Create] Oral History in Art, Craft and Design, where a panel of plinthers and experts will examine the project and the way in which oral history can enlighten artistic practice and process. The conference, which is being organised by the Oral History Society in association with Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), will be held at the V&A’s Sackler Centre in London from 2-3 July.
Oral Historian Verusca Calabria directed the recording and collection of the 2400 oral history interviews for the Wellcome Trust’s One and Other project. A weblink about the oral history collection will be online in mid-October.
This article was originally written for the Museum Association and has been published in the Museum Journal in the June 2010 issue.
Oral History and Film Making: Sue Giovanni
In the first article of this series, I aim to explore why filmmakers are attracted to the use of oral history in their work and what are the pros and cons of using oral history methodology when making social documentaries. I asked Sue Giovanni, a London based documentary filmmaker.
What inspired you to become a film maker?
Having done a degree in Fine Art – Sculpture I was searching for a medium that allowed me to tackle the complexities of peoples lives. I was inspired by work that I was seeing at the London Filmmakers Co-op by filmmakers such as Sandra Lahire, Sarah Pucill and Tanya Syed.
What kind of films do you make?
I make documentaries, often working collaboratively with community artists or filmmakers on local projects in Southwark and Lambeth. My role in these would probably be camera or editor. Projects of my own to date have focused on women and creativity and feature a single voice.
When did you first hear about oral history?
I first came across oral history while working on “Margaret Mellis a life in colour”. I was researching the possibility of making a film about the artist Margaret Mellis who at the time was in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. My research had shown that Margaret and her work were often talked about by experts but there was very little of Margaret talking about her own work. The discovery of nearly eight hours of oral history recordings in the Artists’ Lives collection in the British Library Sound Archive was a revelation. Mel Gooding who interviewed Margaret was sensitive and well informed. Margaret was given time to speak and the issues covered were broad, having worked in television this approach was unusual to me. I was particularly interested as Mel’s interview had similarities to the way I had worked with Annette Eick in my previous film though at that time I did not have a name for the method.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently researching a project based in the tenement flats of Glasgow’s Pollokshields. The project will focus on the shared spaces of the neighbourhood and the sights and sounds of the community. I will be conducting oral history interviews with people who have memories of the area and particularly asking people to recall the sounds of the tenement blocks.
How does oral history inform your work?
The use of oral history has allowed me to make very intimate films, the subject is only talking to you, the viewer. Oral history gives a very subjective perspective and literally a voice to the work. The audience spend private time with the subject and are able to empathise with their story, unlike journalistic documentary this work is about listening to and connection with another person not hard hitting facts.
What attracted you to using oral history rather than other methods of gathering information for your film work?
I think the openness of oral history allows narratives to emerge that are normally dismissed as trivial or inconsequential. Often these quiet moments of reflection are the moments when connections are made with other people. The details of life struggles are experienced by everyone. The approach can be very time consuming but I think that time is crucial.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using video recording as opposed to digital audio recordings from your experience?
For my personal projects I find there is something very freeing about recording audio only. For me it has certainly been a good way to start a project and in some cases I have later moved on to video interviews towards the end of the project. I find that people are more willing to give audio interviews, they are more relaxed during the interview and the interviews can be conducted by one person which is less intrusive. As a filmmaker no matter what format I am recording it is being done with the possibly of it being used in the finished film so quality is important. With video the amount of equipment required to get good quality pictures can be quite significant whereas with audio recordings a very high quality can be obtained with a small amount of equipment.
I do feel that for a film project it is nice to have some moving image material of the subject but this need not necessarily be interview. The biggest disadvantage of not recording any video interviews is that it leaves you with an awful lot of footage to find for the edit!
Sue Giovanni can be contacted via her website: www.suegiovanni.info
Researched and edited by Verusca Calabria
www.veruscacalabria.co.uk
Lambeth Archives Audio Report
Listen to some of the participants from the Recording Life Stories Course at Lambeth Archives reflecting back on what they have learnt from attending the 6 sessions course and from carrying out their own interviews.
Having managed a number of oral history projects in my time, I have collected some useful templates that make life a lot easier when dealing with large volumes of audio/visual materials, large number of paid and volunteer interviewers and transcribers. I will begin these series with how to catalogue audio/visual materials.
CATALOGUING YOUR AUDIO VISUAL MATERIALS
You should index and back up your data in at least 3 separate hard drives as soon as you have completed your interview or scanned images received by interviewees.
By indexing I mean naming your digital files according to an easily identifiable system. For example you may have interviewed Mrs Patel more than once. It would be useful to always have a fixed digit number for your interview such as: Patel 01. You can then denote how many interviews you have carried out with Mrs Patel by adding another digit, hence Mrs Patel’s first interview file name would look like this: Patel0101, the second interview would look like Patel0102 and so on.
Set up a straight forward spreadsheet that will help you keep track of what you have been collecting. I suggest the following categories and you are certain never to loose key information that will help you access the data in the future:
1.Interviewee’s name and surname
2.Interviewer’s name and surname
3.Date and place of birth
4.Occupation
5.Date & location of interview
6.Interview code (file name)
7.Interview length in hours/minutes/seconds (00:00:00)
8.Clearance/consent obtained
9.Type and format of file i.e. wav 16 bit 44.1 khz
10.Compressed version of file i.e. mp3
11.Name of hard drives where copies of the data has been back up.
12.Interview notes i.e. received 5 photographs from interviewees.
