Documentary Initial Ideas/ Group meeting 1

As part of the documentary stand we need to create two films, the first is a 2 minute 'poetic' documentary to prepare us for our final film which is a 5-10 minute documentary film following on from that.


For this we have split into groups and my group is:

Myself - Director
Paul Manning - Producer
Luke Parker - Sound recordist/designer
Joe Bowles - Picture Editor
Jacob Waterall - Camera

These are our assigned roles which we will try and stick to for the most part but the person who's role is sound is not taking that as a skill but is still happy to do it as long as we all help him when needed so I feel we have a good well-rounded group.

On Thursday the 31st Jan we had our first meeting to discuss ideas, we wanted to do this asap as we know the difficult part is getting permission and then arranging times to film once you have decided on an idea so I thought it would be best to get a main idea chosen straight away and to find out if we can do it so if we can't do it for whatever reason we will also have a back-up or two in place which we will still have plenty of time to do.

On our Facebook I told everyone to think of ideas so then we could go round the group and here everyone's mini pitches at the meeting. After hearing everyone's we decided to write them down and then get everyone to choose their top 3 (not including their own idea) and we tallied them up at the end.
We had quite a range of ideas which was good, the ideas I came up with were:

1. Tango Man - This is to be about a well known Sheffield Wednesday football fan who is famous for going to just about every match and taking his top off no matter what the weather. He seems to receive a lot of bad press for his 'banter' and hand gestures but I read something about the fact he looks after a mate in a wheel-chair and takes him along to the games with him and it made me think so -called football hooligans get a bad name for themselves when they get a bit lively and passionate and matches but who are the people behind all this hype. I thought it would be interesting to see his side of things and also see what he gets up to in every day live when he's not making a show of himself at football matches. What sparked this interest is I've had the pleasure of seeing him (and his hand gestures) first hand at a match and he seems like quite a colourful and fun character to find out about. The positives about doing this documentary are I think it would be quite fun to do and I feel that a lot of people would actually find it quite fun and interesting to watch as well whether they're into football or not. I also think it would be good to try and show someone that gets a lot negative press in a different light and I know this has not been done before - in terms of using this person. Negatives are obviously firstly we have to get his permission and if we get that we also need to get Sheffield Wednesday football grounds permission to film within the grounds and that of maybe a couple of his mates too. 
2. Wildlife in Sheffield - Watching 'The Unnatural History of London' and 'Autumn/Spring Watch' Influenced me with this idea because I am really interested in animals and wildlife and I find it interesting the amount of animals that live in quite close proximity to us that many of us don't even realise. Especially in the Unnatural history of London there are so many different animals that most people probably didn't even know we had in this country but it also sheds new light on of some the most common animals like pigeons.  My idea for this documentary would be to do some research into areas in and around Sheffield that other people have documented to be good places to find wildlife and what sorts of wildlife you can find there. The positives about this subject are wildlife is becoming an increasingly popular thing with the general public and people are more interested in learning about there local wildlife as well. I also think it's a good thing for children to learn and understand about as well. The negatives are firstly animals are hard to capture at the best of times but if you aren't a very experienced crew with this sort of thing and don't have the right equipment, for example cameras that can film in the dark when most animals come to life, then it's is going to be very difficult to do and plan and you could end up with very little interesting footage by the end of it.                                                                                   
3. Castle Market - In With the New, Out with the Old - I'm not from the Sheffield area so I don't know much about it but I've heard Castle market is closing and moving to a new site that is currently being built now. I thought with this subject we could find out about what the stall owners and customers think about this because obviously is been there a long time and is quite historic. I thought it would be good to maybe follow one person and do an intimate account on what it means to them and how they feel about moving and also people that share opposite views who think it's about time and it's been needed for a long time.                                                                                Inspiration for this came from a documentary I watched called 'Sound it Out' (2011, Jeanie Finlay) which I watched on BBC 4, about the last surviving record shop in Teeside and how it is still attracting a lot of customers despite the loss in popularity with vinyl records. The documentary involved interviews with the owners and customers of how passionate they felt about it and the fact that most record shops have gone but that one is still surviving - just. I liked how it was quite laid back but also a bit emotional at the same time because the customers would all have their little anecdotes to tell about hunting for records or something and it was quite sad to think that soon that may all be over. I also like the simple structure of it how they started with some facts and introducing the people that worked and went there, then once they were introduced it would re-visit the people and the stories they all had to tell which was where they begun to build the emotion and for each story or scene they would play a different track (obviously something they would sell at the store), then towards the end it went to a more sombre tone where people were just reflecting on the store and its future and then to end it there was a montage of all the different customers coming into the store and just going about their business and enjoying it while it was still there and I think this was quite a nice way to end it and show it's just the simple things in live that make people happy. The positives are I think potentially you could find out some interesting little stories about it and get some emotional views if people had worked there along time or something. The negatives are people who don't live in the Sheffield area would probably not care much about this so you're not reaching a broad audience also for example you might not find someone who's unhappy about it moving so then you can't make much of a story from it.                                                                                                                                                     
4. Traffic Wardens, Public Enemy number 1 - This was just a quick idea I had because down my street one week I kept seeing parking tickets being put on the same car everyday until there was at least 5 on there and it made me think how much people hate them but you've never really seen things from their point of view like how they're just an ordinary person trying to do their job and make a living to feed their family etc so I had the idea it might be interesting to follow one for the week and hear their side of things. The positive of this is people might find it intriguing as they are so hated by most of the public so I think it could stir people emotions. The negatives are it would be hard to show much variety of footage to keep people engaged and it may be difficult to get theirs and the councils permission for something like that.

BBC Natural World - 'The Unnatural History of London' (2012)

After we'd voted for the ideas my Tango Man idea was voted in the top 3 and we all decided it would probably be the most feasible out of all the ideas to do, as long as we could get permission. Everyone seemed to like the idea, even the non-football fans which backed up what I thought about not having to like football to find this entertaining and interesting. I gave Paul the media office numbers for the football ground as I thought that would be a place to start to get their permission and also a way to try and contact Paul Gregory aka Tango Man. We're going to get onto this straight away and if it turns out we're not permitted then our second idea is Paul's which was about doing something on homeless ex-army soldiers and how they've been treated once they've left the army. The third top 3 idea was Luke's which was about the RSPCA and how they're getting too many animals to cope with and having to put them down.

As the director I told the group that I'd be happy to compromise on ideas as long as it's something I feel I could be passionate about otherwise I would find it difficult and it might not potentially be as good as it could be if I was interested in the subject. I am excited about doing the Tango Man documentary as I've already had ideas as how to film it, which I have already shared with the group and they seem happy too, but I understand we may not get permission so I am happy with our other main ideas as well and also many of the other ideas we had as well if it comes to it.

We are planning to meet up next on Tuesday 5th after our session at 1 to see if we've got anywhere with regards to permission and to talk about our back up subjects in more detail so it will be easy for us to pick up one of those instead if we have to. We also need to start planning our pitch and treatment which are both due in 19th Feb.