Capture
From The Star And Shadow Cinema Wiki
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
DO YOU PERCEIVE A CHANGE IN ATTITUTES WITH REGARDS TO PEOPLE'S RELATIONSHIP TOO AND INVOLVEMENT WITH DEMOCRACY? AND IS THIS THE SAME ACROSS ALL STRATA OF SOCIETY?
WHAT TIMES IN YOUR LIFE HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED PEOPLE SUCCESSFULY EXERTING DEMOCRATIC PRESSURE?
WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEMOCRATIC DISSAPOINTMENTS?
WHAT EXAMPLES DO YOU KNOW OF THAT MIGHT DISPROVE THE NOTION THAT WE ARE SUFFERING FROM APATHY?
CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN THE LOBBYING FOR THE NHS/ EXPERIENCE IN GREECE/ OTHER CAMPAIGNS YOU HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN...
HOW WOULD YOU EXPLAIN THE REASONS TO BE POLITICALLY ACTIVE TO THE CURRENT GENERATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE?
E-mail us your ideas; you can submit more than one, and a brief description of what you’ve done, what you’re passionate about and what your favourite documentaries are and we’ll meet you to find out how you might develop your ideas and your skills.
NFM link: http://www.northernmedia.org/?mod=news&pageid=38&id=200
We would like you to provide 1 or 2 pages maximum to include:
idea / issue summary
why you want this opportunity
why you think you’ll make the most of this opportunity
a list of projects, films, TV shows, events, web sites that have inspired you and that you believe could change the world
an idea of how you think media can make a difference in the future
Send us in examples of your work if you can.
IDEA:
1.Apathy? What Apathy? (Strand 1 or strand 3)
This idea is based around the notion that our communities are apathetic. We would like to research the daily battles being fought all over the north east, to demonstrate that acting directly is alive and well. Whether it be a community housing committee, organizing against threatening development plans, volunteering to help defend the rights of asylum seekers or Christians demonstrating about morally dubious art works in the Baltic, people are getting their voices heard, in contrast to the myth that political struggle has disappeared. While large scale protests like Make Poverty History and the enormous march against the invasion of Iraq seem to get publicity but not much else, local protest and activism is an enormously significant part of democracy. This documentary would not necessarily align itself behind a certain cause, but reflect upon the energies of people who hold strong enough beliefs to fight for them. The fact that it could follow various different groups in parallel might lend it well to screening on television.
2.Allotments (Strand 3)
Allotments are amazing environments. People grow food and flowers, recycle old materials to build green houses and fences, or other things to help plants grow. Often found in the most built up areas, they are oases away from the intense patterns of life that we normally equate with the city – stressful work, busy transport, consumerism and escapist partying. In allotments, people from all ages and all walks of life co-exist and help one another, while struggling, often in vain, to control a bit of nature for their table. This film is about representing the atmosphere of allotments, and focusing on key characters whose stories and memories will unfold. By the end of the film, the emphasis will have moved from 'allotments as environments of interest and hope', to an emphasis on individual stories and human interaction, while inspiring the use of allotments as a place of social development and an environmental alternative to buying food flown in from half way across the globe.
examples of people on north east allotments - ex-miner, bob, now working in timber yard; next to him, kurdish refugee, unused to our western vegetables, three young women sharing the allotment as an alternative way of seeing eachother in their busy lives, single mother and her two growing kids who pick the slugs off the lettuces.
3.The Co-op House. (Strand 3)
Following the people that live in the Summerhill Housing Co-op in Newcastle upon Tyne, this film would focus on the pro's and con's of shared housing where rent and bills are low because resources are shared among many people, and there is no private landlord. This co-op was started in 1981, at the end of a period during which Housing Co-ops were considered a serious and progressive housing solution. Since then, they have almost all been bought out or succumbed to the weight of pressure exerted upon them by the Housing Corporation. The irony is that in passing hands to a private developer, the new private landlord is obliged to provide far less in terms of standards of decency, while charging far more to tenants. As both of us have lived or do live in the Summerhill housing co-op, we have excellent relationships, knowledge and access to the mechanisms which help and hinder the Co-op. This film would reveal the difficulties inherent with shared housing, but hopefully bust some myths and prove it a model worthy of reconsidering in terms of its environmental and social sustainability.
The opportunity:
We would like this opportunity because it helps us as filmmakers take the next step in our creative film making career. We have made a number of educational short films, music documentaries and professional promotional videos focused on cultural and social issues, but have yet to take on a larger scale project through which we could have the independence to properly develop our own film language and style. Having studied cinema at post-graduate level, we are keen to put into practice some of the ideas we have been discussing about how to best represent people and their stories in a way that does not sensationalize or exploit, but respects and shows the complexity of things. This opportunity allows us the time and money to research, develop and produce a serious idea, rather than being forced into scaling down our ambition because of a lack of time and funds.
Influential works:
The salesman – Maysles brothers.
Chronicle of a summer – Jean Rouch.
Ghosts – Nick Broomfield
Germany in Autumn – Fassbinder, Kluge, Schlondorff etc.
Fata Morgana – Werner Herzog
A Taste of Cherries – Abbas Kiarostami.
Hori-zone eco-camp at G8 summit in Gleneagles.
http://www.tenantspin.org/ community tv station.
http://www.transitiontowns.org/
Brasseye - satirical tv show by Chris Morris.
www.theonion.com - satirical news website.
How media might make a difference in the future.
Media has always made a difference. In 'Soy Cuba' it is the printing press that is the greatest threat to the status quo. Film, television and the internet currently form a very significant and accessible route to being informed, inspired, and having one's mind opened..
Beginning:
- Manchester super 8, slo motion, home made organ music creating artificially emotive environment, visual material is hard to locate in time.
- Dave Douglas voice over, waxing lyrical about old days of protest, over image track of recent big politicians in the area, edited awkwardly to slightly undermine but also accentuate points made by D.D
- V.O of narrator begins with quotes about democracy from ancient greece, over image track of kitsch use of Greek iconography in shoppomg centres, fast food outlets, garden centres - yard in fornt of ilanas, garden centre in teamvalley.
- Slow mo, grainy b&w footage of iconography of capitalist consumerism, barratt homes, consumers, 4x4s.
- V.O of banker saying "you can have £600o in your account within 30 seconds, over image track of test film girl's face melting or sensodyne advert toothache.
- Cut to outdoors, potential propaganda section focusing on Matt W with veg oil, Beth gardening, Hannah doing flyers, S&S vols who do direct action.
- V.O continues getting an alternative point across with very few words, mostly authentic cync sound, no music.
- Subtitle: "Allo Allo is now starting on BBC 2"
- Footage of Gay Pride, Clown Army (theatrical protest) and contrasting footage to emphasise (maybe through words) the very impossibility of a dialectic film making practise, while capitalist advertising uses same techniques without any problem.
- Subtitle: "Marx for beginners is now starting on E4"
- Footage of 1960's action (personal and mass) with contemp reflections on idology and the way forward against the spectacle.
End
ARCHIVE FOOTAGE
AMBER - GROSVENOR SQUARE
PHIL TYNE MEDIA - LOCAL APPEARANCE OF NATIONAL POLITICIANS
CONTEMPORARY FILMS - 1968 MATERIAL
NRFTA - LOCAL MATERIAL...
OLI MARLOWE - SEATTLE
ALAN - GLENEAGLES 2006
FILMBEE - MANCHESTER 2006
CONTEMPORARY FOOTAGE
LOCAL DIRECT ACTIONS/ PLANNING ACTIONS
TEAM VALLEY GARDEN CENTRE
Quotes
Aristotle:
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
Grosvenor Square
