Intial doccumentary ideas and influences

Changing Southbank-
-Examine how the landscape of the river has transformed, looking at this now thriving and iconic setting.
-Interesting as is the centre of the London’s media scene (BFI)

Influenced by Jaques Brunius’s “Brief City” (1951) which documents a very different Southbank that is desolate and abandoned. The documentary is in Black and white and employs generic documentary feature such as voice over. There doesn’t seem to be any reconstruction in the documentary and the editing comprises of simple cuts. Although the techniques used are still used alone they seem rather dated therefore I wouldn’t use them like this in my own documentary. I would want mine to be an update of Southbank’s activity.

Out to play-
- This will focus on the culture that children now grow up in compared to their parents childhoods
- Aim to highlight and question the fears of parents
- Focus on the ‘playground community’

This idea was influenced by a documentary I watched- “Out to Play” 1936- in the BFI’S media tech which is an archive of thousands of movies from all genres. Although “out to play” was filmed in black and white using very simple shots and documentary conventions what was being documented caught my attention. The documentary was showing the life of young children, London was their playground and sanctuary. There weren’t any reconstruction shots meaning that it was probably filmed over a long period of time, which wouldn’t be relevant to me as I have small time period. This completely contrasted my experience with growing up in London as I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere by myself until I was at least 11. However I did have a taste of this freedom when I went to Ireland to visit family and I would be allowed out to play on the green and go out with my cousins. So I grew up with a mix of these cultures and I thought it would be interesting to look at parents views of how their childhoods contrast with their children’s or if they did at all.

Exams-
- I want to examine the pressures that public exams but on young people today.
- It would aim to highlight the voice of the people sitting the exams rather than the people who makes the laws.
- Also wish to look at the effect exams have throughout ages, meaning that I would want to interview range of students.

I didn’t watch any documentaries about this issue in order to influence me. Instead it was my own anticipation of my forthcoming results which spurred the idea. Although I am aware that several documentaries surrounding the question of public exams, I knew that this idea wasn’t truly possible as results come out in the summer therefore I would have access to resources.


Class: upper class family in poverty
- I wanted to document the life of a family who come from wealthy background however now finds themselves living in poverty.
- I aimed to subvert some people initial views of people who appear to be upper class.
- I wanted to illustrate that the social boundaries are becoming more and more blurred.
- I think the documentary should address prejudices and stereotypes.

I was strongly influenced by a channel 4 documentary called “The f**cking Fulfords” which followed the life of an upper class family. The documentary showed this family who lived in large Aristotle estate that was crumpling away. Many voice bridges were used between the interviewee and the corresponding images on the screen, I found this worked well as made what was being said more interesting. The images also reinforced what the audience was hearing. This is something I would like to employ in my own documentary.

Disability in the workplace: a workers profile
- Want to question and subvert the prejudices surrounding disability in the workplace.
- I aim to illustrate the worker and not the disability
- I want to get a view of an employer on the disability rights act

During the summer while on my BFI course one of the mentors- Edward Owles- showed one of his documentaries he had made about ‘deaf dj’s’ It created a window into the deaf community and more specifically the deaf raving community. The documentary had a voice over and sound bridges that were of the voice of participants and not documentary maker. This gave the documentary a truthful feels as the voice of the participants was clear; I would like my documentary to also achieve this as I do not want ,voice to shadow the issue I am documenting.