First Idea
- Strong dance culture in Winchester with easy access to studios in London via train.
- Potential for a lot of strong, human emotion.
- Already established connections in London relative to the subject matter.
- Original premise.
- With most of the filming being in Winchester, it did not push our boundaries.
- Similar in format to a film submitted last year.
- May have to film with children which means getting permissions.
This documentary follows the hard work of dancer Katja Björner after she has joined the Royal Swedish Ballet. The film is a very poetic documentary as it forces the audience to watch the dancing more than the dancer and express her emotion through that. This is anchored by an orchestral soundtrack, true to the conventions of ballet, to portray the emotion that the image is trying to relay to the viewer.
If we were to use to this idea I would follow the format shown by Donya Feuer in Dansaren as I feel it would suit the subject matter perfectly to film it as a poetic piece because the art of ballet itself is very poetic.
Ballerina - Bertrand Norman (2006)
Mode - Poetic
- Original and informative premise.
- Potentially taboo.
- Relatively short travelling distance.
- Risk of finding no interesting overarching narrative.
Research:
America's Port - National Geographic Production (Series)
Based mainly in the Port of Los Angeles the production follows the day to day activities for workers in the dockyard. Although this production is over dramatised, produced, and possibly staged it shows the subjects that I would most like to look at - the cargo workers. I think there could be a lot of interesting stories around the work they do and the containers themselves - what's in them, where've they come from, where are they going etc.
Below is news announcement that was given to employees of the port about the series being aired.
http://www.portoflosangeles.org/newsroom/2008_releases/news_0400408ap.pdf
"It's a city within a city, brimming with a workforce of thousands and potential crises 'round the clock: longshoremen urgently offloading cargo; customs officials investigating suspicious containers; a port pilot circumnavigating busy and unpredictable waterways; police divers searching for missing persons; a counterterrorism chief inspecting target points."
The quote above comes from that announcement and stories mentioned would be something I would like to explore if we chose this idea, excluding the terrorism one as I'm unsure of the terrorism threat in Southampton and Portsmouth...
While researching I came across this short photo study on the Port of London.
http://www.urban75.org/london/docks.html
The pictures show a very industrial style which inspired me to visualise how the film itself will look. I hope to recreate something similar to the style of these pictures using audio, taking wild tracks of the environment when we are there to use as filler over repetitive imagery that anchors the subject matter for our audience.
I have also taken the initiative to contact the Port of Southampton after gaining a contact number through their website and I am currently in talks to see how likely it is to gain permission.
http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/
Since this was last posted the idea has fallen through due to difficulties in the port being able to keep us and the port secure. Unfortunately a lot of the discussion was done over the phone and I didn't have the foresight to record them. Something that I may do in the future. Instead I have posted one of the numerous e-mails I sent.
Very few significant positives to this idea so I decided to exclude it when pitching to the group.
