Documentary Evaluation

For the Documentary strand on the Moving Image Project module this semester, the brief was left open for us to discover our own story and create a documentary film on a subject that we feel passionate about. This module has been very enjoyable, as well as beneficial and productive, in terms of the learning process as well as creatively.  Taking on the role of Producer on a film project left with a very open brief was an exciting concept and I have enjoyed the process, as well as learnt a great deal throughout it about works well in documentary storytelling and how to approach certain elements with a clearer vision in future film projects.

For the module, I worked in a group of four and believe our key strengths as a group throughout the entire process have been our teamwork, communication and complete commitment to the project from the start. We decided on roles together from an early on point in the module, based on our interests and where our individual strengths lie. I offered to take on the role of Producer, as I produced another documentary in the first year of the course and found this to be a job role that I really enjoyed and was keen to try out again. I also wish to carry on with documentary filmmaking in future as this is where my main interest lies. I enjoy the organisation and the planning process of filmmaking, whilst the other members of my group prefer to work on the practical and technical side to productions. The other members of my group were Sarah Cooper (Cinematographer), Emily Spokes (Sound Recordist/ Sound editor) and Heather Hall (film editor), who all chose their individual roles as well, based on their interests and what they were keen to experiment with in this Documentary project.

Coming up with a concept initially for the film was enjoyable, as we discovered a lot of potentially interesting stories that could make great documentary content through searching online news articles  as well as through making and comparing notes on topics which interested us all as individuals. Throughout a series of group production meetings, we found our story through a current local news article that was present on quite a few different websites, and one which was very current and relevant to Sheffield.

The story is that part of the Devonshire Quarter area of Sheffield, that has always been the city’s independent area, is under threat of demolition plans and that there is an ongoing struggle to save this unique part of the city. After researching this further, we found that the story and the reaction from people was actually on a much larger scale than we initially thought it would be. We sourced comments and interviews from famous Sheffield born musicians backing the petition to save the area as further research on our subject. We also researched and collated comments taken from local people who have grown up in Sheffield and have positive memories of the independent area which they have shared. An early and on going inspiration for our film has been Sound It Out (Dir. Jeanie Finlay, 2011.), a documentary about the last surviving record store in Teesside. Having this as an inspiration throughout the process has been helpful, as have been able to go and look at this as example when we were struggling with a few structural issues even up to early on in the edit stage.

From this point onwards, our focus was to gain contributors for our documentary film. Whilst at first we anticipated this to be a positive experience which would gain lots of interest as our chosen angle was to support the campaign to save the area, throughout the pre production process this was one of our first difficulties with the project. The owners of two out of the three stores under threat of demolition were not willing to be involved in the film or give away any extra information on the subject, which although we completely respected, was a bit of a shame to us as we were beginning to get excited about our idea. Luckily, the owners of Syd & Mallory expressed a keen interest in being involved so we worked with them onwards to at least be able to gain one interview and follow on focusing a story of one particular business who this will affect the most in our film.  However, only having one contributor who this story will directly affect was a bit of a disappointment overall in our group, and as Producer at first I did not feel too confident with where this one small store’s story alone would go in terms of the bigger story we wished to tell.  However, to get around this, as a group we had a rethink in terms of our story structure and how we could break the film up into smaller sections, and about who we could try to contact in terms of extra contributors to strengthen our film. The decision to meet up as a team to work around this was a positive and helpful learning process, as we all contributed our own ideas and it enabled us to ensure our vision for the film was still kept clear at a very early on stage in the filmmaking process. From this, I contacted some of the other main independent businesses within the Devonshire Quarter area to try and raise awareness of the fact we were making a documentary film and gain any further interest from potential contributors. Within a few days, I had heard back from The Forum, a small independent shopping space on Devonshire Street as well as The Green Room, an independently owned and run bar on the corner of the same street which the stores under threat stand.
After this initial contact through email, I also spoke on the phone to Kane Yeardley, the managing director of the Forum, to discuss the film in further detail and exchange schedules to arrange an available time for an interview. I also emailed a list of pre interview questions over after this, as requested. I decided it would also be a good idea to spend  some time visiting  the Green Room in person to get to know the interested member of staff and confirm availability so as to not disturb the needs of the business during the run up to the busy Christmas period.  

The pre - production and planning process took up a lot of our time as a group, however we worked well  and consistently at this as a team during this time and I think the amount of work we put in and our commitment from an early on stage was a strength of ours.  Whilst I was focused on sourcing and remaining in contact with contributors as well as filling in the project forms, Sarah (cinematographer) and Emily (sound recordist) went out onto Devonshire Street with my camera to collect a series of cutaways and establishing shots of the area which we knew that we would need to include at some point during our final film in order to manage and distribute our time well throughout the course of the production scheduled weeks.  We also went out to try and gather some voxpop style interviews around the Devonshire Quarter area to try and get a sense of what people liked about the area and capture some of the ‘community’ side to our film, which was a main theme we had in mind. However this was not as successful as we initially imagined it to be, so we decided to put this idea to one side from quite an early on stage. Instead, we chose to include news articles and spoken comments to show the story in a more literal visual way and add a bit more of a unique element to our film.

 

 

In terms of moving on to scheduled production filming days, one of the most successful of these was in Syd & Mallory, when Sarah and I went inside to take some close ups with the intention of capturing the finer details which make the store so individual. Whilst doing so, we had a chat with the owners about any updates on the proposed plans, signed an in store petition and were given permission to spend as much time as we needed around any area of the store to collect as much visual content as we could. I think this was another early strength of ours, as we managed to form an established working relationship with our main contributors from the very beginning of the project’s planning and kept this continuing throughout the process.

An area which began less positively but which we built upon throughout the filmmaking process was our interviewing. Each of our three contributors had very different reactions to being in front of camera and so our approach had to be adapted through learning what worked well and didn’t during our earlier interviews. This did however mean that some aspects to our interviews were weaknesses, such as remaining a steady line of eye contact and the consideration of background noise in interview set ups. In the Forum, the background sound in particular was a huge issue which we did find difficult to get around, as the location was chosen and set by the interviewee in terms of ease of convenience for the venue which we had an understanding for. After attempting several ways to work around this issue such as using an audio clean up editing software, we discovered that the quality was affected and collectively decided we would rather finely cut down the interview to the parts that the background sound was less noticeable in and have less content than affect the overall quality of the film’s content. Although our interview approach in terms of keeping a consistent eyeline and taking our time to set up to visually frame the interview as well as carry out tests positively developed throughout the production process, there were still areas of this which we were disappointed with and can identify as weaknesses to our final film. As Producer of this film, I do feel that this was on quite a large part my responsibility, as looking back on it after reviewing footage, I recognise that I could have focused more on certain finer elements whilst setting up, such as asking the contributors to turn down background venue music, as well as ensuring our interview questions were a bit more varied between contributors in advance. However, I see these as mistakes to learn from when creating future films, and do think that in part this comes down to the nature of documentary filmmaking in terms of the unpredictability of situations and adapting to change during the documentary filmmaking process.  

 

Whilst another group strength was organisation, during the last few remaining weeks of our production schedule we seemed to gain a larger amount of people interested in helping us out with the film and becoming involved as they heard about it from other contributors. This was challenging for us in terms of knowing the best way to approach this at such a late stage in the process. Although on one hand we could have just apologised and explained that it was too late to become involved to the interested contributors,  as a group we felt a stronger interest in trying to gain as many contributors and opinions on the story for our film as possible to strengthen it. We understood that this was going to make our schedule extremely tight, however thinking about how the value of the extra content would add to our documentary, we decided to go ahead and film further content which we left space for in the current edit, which we worked on simultaneously.  
For this particular film, it was a positive although brave decision to reach, as it had the potential to not add much to our story and instead purely be time consuming, however it did the opposite and added a new and interesting element into our film in the form of bringing in memories told as stories, which added a reflection theme into it, strengthening the overall film.

On the whole, the finished documentary is a film which we feel does tell our story well, but that has more of a campaign film style and approach than we initially imagined for it to.  Although our story does lend itself to a standard, short and almost promotional type of film, we do feel a little disappointed with the overall result, purely due it feeling quite standard and nothing out of the ordinary to us.  However,  we did challenge ourselves with form especially when producing content for our earlier poetic documentary, and we were extremely organised as a group and worked well together during the process of creating the film.

The learning process has been extremely valuable to me as I would still like to continue with documentary filmmaking in future and have tried to find outside of university opportunities relating to this since, such as applying for the Sheffield Doc/Fest Youth Jury and visiting video installations in my own time such White Hole (Dir. John Smith, 2014.) at the Tyneside Cinema.

Whilst there are areas we don’t feel come across as well as we initially intended to in our film, I think this is partly due to us having spent so much time on it ourselves without having a fresh pair of eyes viewing the content and having someone watch it who don’t necessarily know anything of the story. The positive feedback from contributors in the past few days to the film has made us feel more confident and positive about the film as they have expressed to us that the film has done a great job of showcasing their part of Sheffield, which was the heart of our story and the main thing we wanted to achieve from this film.

Made in Sheffield - Final Documentary

Made in Sheffield from Hannah Grencis on Vimeo.

Post - Production process

Due to other group member's unavailability during post production, we had to share job roles more than we usually would have, meaning Sarah and I took charge of the edit on a number of occasions. Although we initially had a draft structure by which to go by, several issues cropped up during the production process which meant that when reviewing footage back, the structure had to continuously be adapted which although was extremely time consuming was worth it in the end as we managed to better the film as we went along and it has been a valuable learning process.

Some of the main issues that we encountered whilst in the edit were finding enough variety in shots to make an interesting visual structure and sound interference issues. We decided the best way to approach this with there only being two of us was for one of us to work on the sound issues and research ways around this, whilst the other one work on visuals and searching through all of the footage, including any extra content that we originally gathered which we did not initially intend to use. This way of working was quite successful, however the editing process was still quite stressful as it was taking up a large amount of our own time when we had different job roles than the editor and other work to be getting on with. 

I also spent some time during the final post production week reading a few sections of an editing book that I have, The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory and Practice (by Ken Dancyger, 2010.) to gain a bit more knowledge on and familiarise myself with post production as this is an area that I am not too confident with.

Having sat down as a group and reviewed the footage a number of times again, we made some more notes and managed to restructure the timeline completely so as to try out new ways of structuring the content and telling our story in the way in which we intended.

I think we made some brave decisions which worked to our advantage, such as choosing to shoot a final last minute interview and leaving space to fit this in and work around it within the current edit. Considering the tight time schedule we had, I think we have done the best job we can with the edit and have worked extremely well as a team to ensure that our final film is what we initially intended for it to be, especially in terms of the story that is coming across.

Making further contacts

Whilst choosing to film an extra interview close to the deadline was risky, it also provided us with the opportunity to talk to new people about our idea and make further contacts. Although this was unanticipated, it was an exciting part of the documentary filmmaking process, as we just happened to be filming in the Green Room when the sound engineer from the SheffAid single was in the bar.

Before this interview, we had not heard of the SheffAid campaign, but after it being mentioned we were interested in finding out more and so used this as an opportunity to introduce ourselves and our project, whilst finding out more about the SheffAid single. We actually came away from this interview after exchanging details with a suggested offer for us to use the track on our film, and/or promote the campaign as the cause that they are trying to promote ties in well with the theme and general idea behind our film. In this case, it was a bit disappointing that we had come across this at such a late on stage in the process as we could potentially have gained a lot more contributors and made a stronger film if we had more time to work with this, however we understand at the same time that unpredictability is part of documentary filmmaking and we are still pleased that we have gained potential contacts to send the film to and perhaps work with in future.

The SheffAid campaign

(source: http://www.thestar.co.uk/what-s-on/gigs-music/slideshow-sheffield-musicians-roundabout-way-to-support-retailers-1-7002440)

The SheffAid single was released by local Sheffield bands and musicians to raise awareness of the demolition plans and to try and save the independent businesses, whilst also raising money for Roundabout charity.

Instead of putting this track underneath our film as it's main soundtrack, we used the local busker's instrumental track instead as we felt this fit alongside the visuals better and was not too distracting in terms of still hearing what the interviewee's were saying and giving the viewer time to take in the visual content. However, we still wanted to include the SheffAid campaign in some way in our film, so we did this by putting a link to their social media page on the end of the film.

Production File - Contributor Release Forms

Here are the signed and agreed contributor release forms for the remaining two of our interviewed contributors:

 

 

 

Transcribed interview with Bill (The Green Room) - Tuesday 16th December 2014

Interview with Bill - The Green Room - Monday 8th December 2014 - 2.30p.m
Can you please briefly just introduce yourself and your role at the Green Room for us please?

Oh god, I don't have a role here I volunteer!.. erm My name is Bill, I work at the Green Room.
What is the Green Room?
The Green Room is a bar which has been around since the early 2000's, it previously was various other establishments.

..and what do you like most about it being in the Devonshire Quarter area of Sheffield?
I haven't been working in the Devonshire Quarter until around three years ago, er - it's great, it's a really close knit community around here, all independent shops, mostly independent bars -  really nice place to be.

Do you have a favourite memory of working here?
I've got lots of memories, but none of them involve working here, erm, but I did used to drink in this place when it was Mr Kites, and Casablanca's after that, erm and then I've obviously been around for a while here before I started working here.
..Favourite memories...that's a good question!

In the time that you have been working in the Devonshire Quarter area, have you noticed it change at all?
It's changed with the whole street drinking and homelessness side, but that's a different story and side to it. Erm, I think (on the demolition plans). As far as I'm concerned, it's not so much the shops that would be going, it's the fact that there would not be independent shops replaced there. If the building needs to be knocked down for fairly structural reasons then fair enough, but if it's just replaced with another...bar, another chain shop, another restaurant, it would just take away the fact that all around here is mostly independents and it's got a reputation for that.

So, is it the independence of the Devonshire Quarter area that you think attracts people?

Yeah, I think it's a great area, I remember when it was first redeveloped, about ten years ago...more than that about fourteen years ago. Before then, again, it was still little shops and bars, but they knocked down a lot of those to build the flats opposite - that was great because it brought all the students and the first big sort of city centre living into Sheffield. Erm, but I think there's enough. We don't need anymore around here, there's about four halls of residence that you can see out the windows here and even behind us they've got a new student flats area, so I don't really see the point in knocking down three old shops to build, I think it's twelve more flats.

Do you think it would affect you, or the customers of the Green Room if the plans for demolition were to go ahead?
I don't think it would affect us directly, I think it would affect the streets. It would particularly affect some of our neighbours where, for example Filibuster and Booth - an antiques store - a lot of people who shop there would also shop in Rare and Racy. We've already lost Sue Callaghan who was the book binding specialist, but erm, the company that is in it's place, Syd & Mallory - is another great little store for boutique clothing and everything. It wouldn't affect us directly, but it would affect them more.

Can you tell us about a bit about the customers that you get in the Green Room?
Very collected (?) customers in the Green Room - we have anyone from magazine editors to...anyone really. From pop stars, all sorts of musicians, very artisty sort of crowd, few professionals come in after work. In the mornings when we're doing the food we get builders in, everyone comes in, and of course, quite a lot of students!

Yeah..so do you think if the Devonshire Quarter area became sort of more commercialised, then it would change that?

Yeah, I think it would. Yeah, I think it's the beginning, it's the thin end of the wedge, and you know..if a lot of other cities were to save areas like this, er to make sure there is still areas of culture, I mean - its called the Devonshire Quarter area for a reason, its like you know they're trying to make it sound arty. It is the thin end of the wedge because if we start getting rid of everything, all the independent places and just having chains, then it may as well be Fargate, which as we know is struggling.

What kind of musicians have you had in?Over the years? Yeah over the years there's been..er quite rich, one of the bars has got quite a history of music. Er, when it was Mr Kite's and Casablanca there was a lot of jazz here, we still have obviously all the live bands, but recently various bands have done live showcases here. The people are sort of well known Sheffield people from Jarvis Cocker to Richard Hawley, people like that, they've all come here - used to remember when I drank in here years ago The Human League used to drink in here, it's always been that kind of bar.

...any funny stories of working here?Haha, no! ..because they all involve things you can't say..I do like that question though!

Thank you very much!

Production File - Contributor Release Forms

Here are the release forms for the interviewee contributors in our final Documentary (Bill & Kane)

Inspiration for Opening sequence - Life Itself (Dir. Steve James, 2014.) and Living Like Kings (Dir.Zoe McIntosh, 2014.)

Whilst at this years Sheffield Doc/Fest, I watched Life Itself (Dir. Steve James, 2014.), a documentary on the life of Roger Ebert, and found the beginning of it to be a really interesting way of opening the story. From just showing the city scenes of a key location, the story is established by the location rather than the subject at first. I also really liked this film for the style of it's content as well as it's approach - turning a sad story into a more positive memoir and celebrating a life rather than purely focusing on the negative side to grief.
Although our film is incredibly different to this in terms of it's approach as well as type of film, I like the idea that although the story we are focusing on has the potential to be quite negative, we could experiment with instead celebrating the positive sides to the area as it stands today.

Another short documentary film I have watched recently which also follows a similar opening sequence structure is Living Like Kings (Dir. Zoe McIntosh, 2014.) which I discovered when looking through the Short of the Week website.

 

I showed this to the rest of the production group, as I thought it would make an interesting and bit of a different opening to our own film, if we included a still or long take of the Devonshire Quarter area in a similar style to the ones shown above, and would be an interesting way to establish the location of our film's story without delving straight into interviews. I also feel like this would be fitting with theme of 'community' of our film - right from opening shot.

Transcribed Interview - Kane (The Forum) - Monday 8th December 2014

Interview with Kane - The Forum - 8th December 2014 - 12 midday
Can you briefly describe your role here at the Forum and a bit about the Forum area itself please?

Ok...so erm my name's Kane Yeardley and I'm like the owner and the manager of the Forum and we've got two bars here and about twelve shops. Erm, my role is to oversee the bars, make sure they're run well and the design and the offer, and then with the shops to try to get an interesting mix of tenants to make the place a destination.

Can you tell us a bit about your opinion on the Devonshire Quarter area?

I really like the Devonshire Quarter, 'cause it's where a lot of interesting small businesses start and er, it's just got a feel to itself . It's not like the high street ...people are more friendly here than the high street. Yeah, that's why I like it!

How's it different to the city centre?

Well like all city centres, because of the high rents, they tend to have the same chains and the same brands, so all city centres look very similar, whereas what you get here is you get different people doing different sorts of things and services. You know, you've got from small tailors that will repair things, you've got cobblers, you've got people that make one off pieces of clothing for you to specialist skateboard shops to great coffee shops which you don't get on the high street.

Whydo you think Sheffield benefits from an area like this?

Erm well, it benefits because...well I read an article this morning that says 60p the pound that is generated by independent stores goes back into the same city. It helps little businesses to start because the rents are not as expensive, and it's attractive to other people to come and live here, -  if there's a good independent area then people will choose it because it's kinda more interesting.

and can you give us your opinion on the demolition plans being proposed?

Erm it's a bit sad really, it's a lovely building. It's got three great , quite different, unique traders in - Rare 'n' Racy has been here a long time, the book and record store. The Royal (Natural) Bed company, which has grown from being a little store to like exporting all around the world, and Syd and Mallory, which again - small, two girls that set up and now export quite a few bits and pieces around the world.  I think the development and the proposing - knocking it down and making two large units, would be solely for the purpose to rent them out as bars or restaurants  - to chains - and to get more flats above. So...I can't see there's any benefit of that really to the area.

What do you think the effects would be if it did happen?

Er..(pauses) well as I say those three are great little retails, and they help with the character of the area, which if they go..it kills of a bit of the character in the area, erm...I can't see any benefit really.

And if you could give a message to the people behind the plans, would you have anything to say to them?

I think if they decided to say the building couldn't be demolished, it would then leave itself for smaller businesses to ...oh and it wouldn't mean that higher rents could be charged from new buildings so it would help other small businesses come into the area.

..and is there anything else you would like to say on the subject?

Erm, no (laughs) I think that's it. Is that alright?

Yeah, thank you very much!

Small Business Saturday - filming on Devonshire Street - 06/12/14

After some further research, we found out that today is Small Business Saturday, which is a campaign highlighting the importance of small, independent businesses, encouraging shoppers to support these local businesses in their area. Because this fits so well with the theme and overall story of our film -encouraging people to shop locally and save independent businesses - we  decided to use today as a full filming day around Devonshire Street, as we expected the environment to be lively due to this promoted campaign.

(Source - The Star Sheffield : http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/business/business-news/call-to-celebrate-sheffield-s-vibrant-independent-traders-1-6989289)


We gathered a variety of close ups of the individualities that make Devonshire Street unique, to show how considered this area is by the people who work in it and how small details have been thought about and are different to city centre, which has much more of a generic style.  We discovered when looking around the area for these small details, that we had not even noticed some of these ourselves previously. Signs such as 'support Sheffield independent businesses', friendly messages on chalk boards outside of independent cafes , signs thanking customers etc.. are a few examples of these.

Although today was productive in that we managed to capture further close up details of the businesses and general area, we were slightly surprised by how little difference small Business Saturday seemed to have made to the amount of people around the area. We still set up the camera and filmed two ten minute full long takes of the street, to capture as many people as possible walking around the area and are pleased we had chance to go out on a Saturday as it was busier than it had been when we had previously been around the area during the week.

Filming City building blocks - 29/11/14

This afternoon, Sarah and I went out with the camera to collect a wide range of shots that all looked like building block shapes which make up the cityscape of the city buildings.

We did find this interesting, as whilst out we discovered for ourselves that we had never really looked up whilst walking around the different areas of the city and that they was actually quite a contrast between the high rise and tops of buildings in the city centre area when compared to the outskirts and independent quarter area. We used this to talk about ways of further developing the part of our film where the city centre is briefly shown- concentrating on the idea that people focus purely on brand names and images rather than the overall area that surrounds it.

The timing of our first interview was positive as we had managed to interview Lucy at an extremely early on point in the process, so we knew and recognised key parts to the interview that we wished to use, such as the LEGOLAND city comment, which we were able to match to suitable visual content whilst out today, keeping our documentary feeling real and true to the subject matter from the beginning.

Documentary Update - 28/11/14

 

 

Following a helpful tutorial this week, we have put a plan together as a group for the remaining time left on the project schedule. Last week, I spoke on the phone with Kane, the General Director of the Forum, who has expressed his opinion on the story and an interest in becoming involved with our film. He has arranged to meet us for a filmed interview on Wednesday next week (03/12/14), and I have also sent him a list of pre-interview questions which he says have helped in preparing for this.

Other than this interview, we have also had gone into and had a chat to the manager at the Green Room, who has agreed that some staff will be willing to be interviewed and the best time to do so will be a Thursday afternoon. Because we do not want to turn up unannounced, we will visit again early next week in person to double check their availability for next Thursday. They have also agreed to let us use a back room area of theirs for any interviews, even if they are with outsiders of their business.

This has helped us a lot, and from a Producers perspective I have found it a lot easier and more convenient to go in person to places and talk through projects rather than emailing or phoning, as it is easier to discuss the project in depth and introduce ourselves in person to start an early established working relationship with contributors.

In terms of our plan from now onwards, we will be spending the next week very involved in the project and aim to get the full film content complete by the end of next week. This is to allow ourselves a few weeks in the edit, as we feel this can sometimes be the hardest part and will be a challenge with our film, especially in certain parts of the documentary - such as the contrast between the 'legoland' city visuals and those that capture the difference and independence of the Devonshire quarter area. We are aware that we have a lot of work to do as a group within the next week, but are all looking forward to putting the full length documentary together as we are enjoying the project and find the story interesting and one which is current as it is continuing to crop up in local news articles etc.


Email contact I have had with potential contributors:

 

Documentary Treatment - Made in Sheffield

Made in Sheffield

Production Group: Hannah Grencis (Producer), Sarah Cooper (Cinematography), Emily Spokes (Sound) and Heather Hall (Editor).

Length: 7 minutes
Tagline: A unique area with a story to tell, before it is too late.

The Devonshire Quarter of Sheffield has always been known for its striving independence since the 1970s. Current demolition plans propose to knock down unique independent businesses in the area, leaving owners out of business and an empty, generic city in their place.

Made in Sheffield captures a community of Sheffield people; independent business owners who have grown up in the city and whose venues allow visitors and residents alike to experience a different and unique side to the city. They are the ones directly affected if these proposed plans for demolition get the go ahead. They are the ones who believe in their businesses and are passionate about doing something different and bringing it to a city that is creative and benefits from an independent sector. The film allows the people of Sheffield to voice their opinion and gives them a chance to openly express how much they care about the issue; how much the city benefits from these businesses and the truthfulness of the impact that it will have if the proposed plans do in fact go ahead. The film goes behind closed doors and delves into the smaller details of the stores affected, showcasing the unique work that they do on a daily basis, and the passion that they put into it.

Our contributors tell us their own stories, expressing their passionate opinions, but they also show us. Lucy has worked at independent vintage clothing store Syd and Mallory for eight and a half years. Her business has already had to relocate three times in the city and she feels strongly about not wanting to leave, as she believes the store has ‘finally found the perfect place to stay’. Lucy found out via social media that her business was under threat of closure, and is currently fighting back by setting up an in store petition opposing the plans, in which hundreds of customers have already and are continuing to sign. The film captures Lucy creating items for her store and openly discussing how the demolition plans will negatively impact on Syd and Mallory as both a successful online label as well as a local Sheffield brand. Her passion and determination to keep her business up and running in the building which they have grown to love is clear; ‘there aren’t many shops like this are there?’, and her fight in the struggle to keep it is an emotional one – ‘everything that we do is in this building and it’s great and we don’t want to leave’.

Kane is the general director of The Forum, a small independent shopping centre, café and bar on the corner of Devonshire Street. He has grown up in Sheffield and seen his business strive in the independent quarter area, and very passionately believes that independent businesses contribute to the public’s positive perception of Sheffield. He understands and feels unhappy about Lucy’s struggle, as he holds fond memories of when Syd and Mallory was located in the Forum, before being moved across to the opposite side of Devonshire Street. He believes that the independent quarter ‘draws people into a different side to Sheffield, a side which forms part of the city and which caters for people who may not enjoy city centre life’.

Steve works at The Green Room, a small independent pub on Devonshire Street, which regularly holds live music nights and supports local talent. He is disappointed at hearing of the plans, as he is proud to call Sheffield his hometown and does not want the city he knows and loves to become just like any other. He worries that if the plans do go ahead, business may be affected at The Green Room, and that the community of people around the area may well change into a similar environment to the city centre – something which he believes should be firmly kept there. The film documents how each of the businesses in this quarter of Sheffield are unique in their own way, creating an exciting atmosphere around the area. It captures memories of those who have grown up in the area and have seen it develop, and who are trying desperately hard to save it.

Made in Sheffield captures a side to Sheffield that sadly may not be around in future generations, but which needs to be captured as it positively stands today. It will celebrate the importance of independent businesses in a creative and unique city, and visually highlight why they need to stay.

Poetic Documentary - Legoland City.

Legoland City from Emily Spokes on Vimeo.

Progress & Tutorial - 13/11/14

This week we spent some time listening back to all of the audio and reviewing the footage we have collected up until now, in order to plan out the structure of our poetic documentary. An early established aim for the poetic film was for us to show two or three simplistic, static shots, placed over brief audio sound bites which give the viewer an insight into what our main film is about and the topic in which it is exploring. Showing two different sides to the city of Sheffield in very different lights intends to inform our viewers of our full length documentary film and as such will act as a shortened trailer in some ways for our film, without giving away too much information but still showing the ideas that our film wishes to express.

On Thursday, we had a tutorial which I found to be very helpful as although we feel positive about how the main documentary is going and have been working hard on gathering more potential contributors as well as filming in any spare time we have, there was a slight concern over what our poetic would consist of. This was due to the majority of the footage that had already been shot consisting of mostly interviews and close ups of unique items within independent stores and the general outdoor Devonshire quarter area. Whereas for our poetic piece, we want to keep the focus on simple shots which introduce the viewer to the concept behind our documentary, our subject and an insight into how the story will unfold.

After taking on board the following feedback, as a group we have agreed that although we have a lot of work to do in the next week, we feel confident enough to be able to go out and reshoot, experimenting with a new concept in order to create a poetic film which we can visualise as working a lot stronger than the initial rough cut we put in place for the purpose of the tutorial.


Tutorial Feedback:

• The static shot down Fargate (city centre area of city) is stronger than footage taken from Devonshire Street area. When showing Devonshire area, the viewer needs to see and establish a clear difference between the two parts of the city; something that makes it obviously unique and that reflects the overall atmosphere and independence of the area.
• Think about what could be done to strengthen the visuals in the film; perhaps consider using a slow tracking shot down Fargate, then gradually getting darker as it merges into another tracking shot which shows Devonshire Street in the evening (a time when it looks visually different and has more going on around the area).
• Consider removing pieces of different soundbites and instead focusing on one or two people's voices - the ones which express their views in the best way and capture the idea the film is expressing well.

Plan for the next week
Friday 14th November - Film tracking shot along Fargate - early morning city centre. Full group available for this. Make sure to capture as much as possible and experiment with showing street in different ways, take shots from a number of views and angles to ensure we have extra footage than required to work with in the edit.

Saturday 15th November - Sarah/Hannah to cut down Lucy's interview into small segments that will work well alongside poetic footage.
Monday 17th November - Meet with John at the Forum at 11.30a.m, to discuss the requirements for the film and filming in the Forum area. Take notes from this on availability of interviewees and location recce images. Afternoon - record atmos. and general city sounds - repetitive, mundane sounds e.g. tramlines, cash machine sounds, small details that all form part of the same concept; that capture the idea of the mundane, everyday high street shopping experience. After this, move on to Devonshire Street and capture contrasting soundbites; exciting details such as skateboards, bicycle wheels and bells, etc.; details which capture the vibrance and independent atmosphere of this side of the city.
Tuesday 18th November - Full day of filming. Early morning start on Fargate - setting up tracking shot and spending time ensuring we get the correct shot. Late afternoon/early evening, move on to Devonshire Street and gain tracking shot of area, focusing on involving as many unique details as possible. Take time to set up and gain shot, ensuring that where the previous tracking shot down Fargate will end, this one will be able to follow on from smoothly.

Wednesday 19th November - early morning - Full day of post - production for poetic documentary film.

Sound Recording - Public opinions - 11/11/14

This afternoon we met up as a full group to go out and gather a further collection of sound bites from the public, with the intention being to collect a range of opinions to capture a shared community view on our story.

Having had little luck on Devonshire Street in stopping people previously to explain the project and ask if they were willing to answer a few recorded questions - we decided to go to the Moor Market, as we were aware there are also a lot of independent businesses within the area who may be more knowledgeable about the plans and have stronger opinions on the importance of local independent businesses. 

This worked out very well, as once we started a conversation with one of the stalls, the owner then showed us around the Market and pointed us in the direction of other stall owners that are passionate about independent businesses and who would be willing to talk to us. We spent around 45 minutes gathering various people's opinions within the indoor market area, and began to realise that a lot of them were sharing the same opinions and had a lot in common - most of the people expressed that they find Sheffield a "friendly city" and that "keeping it local" needs to happen in regards to the importance and benefits of shoppers choosing to go to independents. 

Originally our plan for today was to also include a trip to Devonshire Street to set up another static long take - similar to the one we gathered last week in the Fargate area of the city, showing the contrast between the two areas. Although we did capture one of these last week, our time was limited and after reviewing the footage we decided collectively that we needed to reshoot in order to gather as much footage as possible to choose  what to work with in the edit. However, because the weather today was rainy and by the time we had finished recording sound bites in the Moor Market it was beginning to get dark outside, we decided to reschedule this filming for early next week (Monday/Tuesday morning).

Current project strengths and improvements

After finishing up today we all agreed that we feel like the group project is going well, we are pleased that we are organised and are managing our time well and that the further we get with the development of the project, the more people in the area seem to be interested in what we are trying to achieve and are wanting to be involved.

An improvement could be to move in closer on the affected area that our story is centered around. The reason we went to the Moor Market area of the city today was purely because we needed to capture some opinions in order to have some content to work with for our rough cut next week, however for the full length piece our intention is to visit the Devonshire Quarter area on a busy day, probably a weekend, in order to get the opinion of those who know the area and are very aware of the plans. At the moment, our idea is still in a fairly early form, and I have organised a few group meetings within the next week to allow us to sit down together and work out where our poetic film idea is going and to plan out  visually and with audio  how we are going to achieve this. Our group is very organised and we are all communicating well with one another, relating to both the project filming dates but also finding content that is relevant to our story. We have set up a Facebook group to post links of articles and share interesting online responses to the story that we have all individually come across, and this has also been a good place to share influences and new ideas for the production.

Filming Day 2 - Street scenes and Sound voxpops

This morning we met up as a group and went to record some long shots around the Fargate area and also Devonshire Street to contrast this. The weather was good and clear all day so we made the most of the full day by starting early and gathering as much footage- both close ups as well as long, static shots - as we could until late afternoon when the shops began to close and it began to get dark. At first, we did encounter a few issues with the shots we set up, such as market stalls and vans being set- up in the middle of the street, meaning it was difficult to get the full long shot straight down the Fargate area that we initially had planned out. After discussing the options for this as a group we managed to relocate to the side of the street which meant that these stalls were no longer in view whilst also ensuring that we had the a similar intended shot re set up.

After sorting out the camera settings as it was a bright day, we let the camera roll for about ten minutes to get a variety of people walking past and capture different types of scenes happening on the same busy street. The intention for this shot is to show how fast paced life in the city centre is, and present the idea that people go about their day to day lives, generally in a rush and not really paying attention to what is around them.  When contrasting this with the similar scene on the Devonshire Street shot, we intend to show the difference between the people in the area as well as the place itself; how people choose to go into independent stores and generally explore the area with more interest than the majority of the shoppers who are rushed around in the city centre area, where the stores that stand are no different to any other city.

We also made use of the full day and time that we had free as a group to record a selection of soundbite vox pops from members of the public during the busier early afternoon time around the Fargate city centre area. As well as asking them the more general question of their views on Sheffield as a city and the shopping facilities, and if they knew anything about independent businesses and where to find them in Sheffield, we also asked them to describe the city in one word.
The purpose of this was to gather as many words as we could to put into our poetic documentary and, if at all possible, joining words that different  people have said together to form an almost poem out of spoken words from the public. Our intention for this soundtrack is to put it alongside the footage of the busy city centre street scene, possibly in black and white and possibly as a timelapse - the words being those of shoppers who find the city like any other, boring and a nice place but not unique. In doing so, our intention is to capture and portray the fast paced city life that rushes through this part of the city every day, and contrast this alongside street scenes of Devonshire Street, where people in general take in their surroundings and aren't so rushed around - enjoying being around and noticing the smaller and more unique details of Sheffield; those that make it unique and what it is.

At the moment, although our idea is not fully formed, experimentation is the stage we are at - trying out early ideas and reviewing our own footage and sound on a regular basis, as well as the work of others that we take inspiration from, to establish how to strengthen the film and visually present the idea which will be fully explored in our main length documentary.

Establishing further contributors

As Producer of the documentary, I have been keen to establish contributors as early on in the filmmaking process as possible. Because this is a very current issue, I initially carried out some research online to find out what other businesses in the area have been commenting on in the local media as well as their own social media pages. From this, I noticed that a lot of the independent businesses around the whole Devonshire area, and not just Devonshire Street specifically, have been spreading the word about their disagreement on the demolition plans, and seem to form a very strong community around the area.

Because we already have vintage clothes store, Syd & Mallory contributing to the film, I thought it might be a good idea to gather a few different types of businesses as our main contributors, so that they all have different comments on the area and the situation, and are different types of people, although sharing a shared view. I sent emails introducing myself and the group and outlining our current documentary project to Moonko, an independent gift store, The Great Gatsby, a unique bar in the area and The Forum, a small, independent shopping centre and café on the corner of Devonshire Street. A few weeks after doing so, I had not heard back from any of the venues, so decided to chase them up via social media, as I understand that emails can often be misplaced or not caught up with at times. Within a few days, I received a reply from Moonko ,who thanked us for asking and said they will try to get back to us soon, as they are dealing with a busy time of year at the moment.

I also received an email back from John Hamilton at The Forum, who expressed a keen interest in our film and agreed to allowing us full access to the building as a space for any filming we need to take place, as well as expressing an interest for the staff there to help in any other way that they can. I have since arranged a meeting with John for Monday 17th November at 11.30a.m, to discuss our requirements as a group for the film.

At this stage, I feel quite positive and confident with the contributors that we have managed to gain interest from so far, and will continue to try and generate further interest amongst a few more people. I think visiting the stores and bars might be more effective in some cases, as having a one to one chat with somebody feels like a more genuine approach than an email conversation. After the meeting with John on Monday, I have organised a brief production group meeting to discuss the progress of the film, how the group members feel it is going, and everyone's views on what the next stages from here that need to take place will be, in order to move the production process along as effectively as possible.

Filming day 3 - Establishing shots in Syd & Mallory

Today Sarah (cinematographer) and I (Producer) revisited Syd & Mallory's Emporium on Devonshire Street, as previously agreed with the owners, who offered for us to come in at any time to film around the store. We both feel grateful that we've had such a positive experience with contributors and managed to already build up an early established working relationship with them. We were allowed access to the full building, other than the top floor studio space due to health and safety restrictions.

The purpose of our visit today was to gather a selection of close ups, capturing small details of the store that make it so individual and unique. This was a very useful and worthwhile experience as we were also allowed to explore the store ourselves in further details - really get a sense of the place and the hard work and passion that goes into decorating the store as well as picking items which hold meaning. For example, we discovered a lot of historical items, old photographs and keepsakes that made us as the filmmakers ask questions - about who these people were and where these items had originally come from. Our visit today helped us to also establish a theme of our film - preserving an area of the city which holds history and is different to any other.

One issue we did encounter is that because the room spaces in the store are small, we could not set up a tripod due to us not wanting to get in the way of customers and interrupt the daily running of the business, therefore some of our handheld shots will be too shaky and unusable for our film. However, we did manage to get around this in some cases, by using nearby window ledges, tabletops and other surfaces to steady the camera on, and spending enough time reshooting any strong shots a number of times until we felt comfortable with their appearance. We also agreed that we can return to the store to reshoot and gather further material for the full length documentary film in a few weeks time - being prepared enough in advance and booking out a shoulder rig from the creative media store in order to strengthen our panning shots further.

After spending a few hours in both upstairs and downstairs rooms in the store, gathering a large collection of shots, we noticed that Lucy, who we had previously interviewed, was sewing in the store entrance and so we asked if it would be possible to film a few minutes of this, which she was more than happy to agree to. We also had a chat about the current  stage of the demolition plans and how much further the petition had raised awareness, and found out that there might be a debate due to the number of signatures the campaign has attracted. We thanked Lucy for her time and letting us spend so much time in the store again, before agreeing to stay in touch.

After today, I feel like our idea is really beginning to take shape and come together, and I am looking forward to producing the final documentary film. There are some group concerns about the two minute poetic piece at the moment, which are mainly due to us having shot more footage and audio for the actual film than for the poetic film currently, however we have arranged a group meeting to discuss this in further detail and have all agreed that this could actually work in our favour, if we take parts from what we have gathered for the actual film and use these in our poetic film - as it is intended to inform our main production.

Contact with Syd & Mallory and Planning for further filming

After last week's filming we got together as a group to review the footage and sound that we collected and to generate ideas for our next filming date within the store (Wednesday 5th November). We thought about some of the key things we gained from our interview with Lucy; how we learnt about their side of the story on the current situation - the fact they found out via social media and that we all feel like we got a sense of understanding that this is a store that has passionate owners who love Sheffield and bring something unique and of their own to their city. We also found out that everything that they create and sell in store is made in house, and so we thought about the creative possibilities within this. After attending the practical workshop session on Friday in the workstation studio, we feel we could get further interview footage and that it could be really beneficial to our film to include footage of the contributors talking to us as they make items and are comfortable in doing something that they love as they talk about it.

Because we previously had already interviewed Lucy and agreed to come back in next Wednesday (5th November) to film closer up details of the store and general establishing shots, we wanted to stick to this as we understand that there are only a couple of members of staff in the store and we do not want to be interrupting the needs of the business. However, due to us rethinking the store interviews and how we could better approach these, I sent a message to Syd & Mallory thanking them for their help and time for the interview and explaining the process of us reviewing the footage and our query about if filming them at work would be at all possible. Within a few days I received the following response:


Hello! No problem at all, I'm happy for you to come in and film around the shop and even a bit of sewing downstairs. But unfortunately we won't be able to film up in the studio as it's a very small (and chaotic!) space which we can't really let public into with the industrial machines and big rolls of fabric, and heat press, it's just not safe to have many people up there. Also we have a big order to get finished and shipped this week so it's pretty full on up there!
See you in the shop in a couple of days.
Cheers. x

Taking this into account, we are happy as a group to film the work that goes on downstairs due to the health and safety restrictions that the upstairs of the building has in place. We think that even just small details could work quite nicely and fit within our film, such as one of the owners on a sewing machine or making some jewellery. We are also glad as a group that we have established a positive working relationship early on with our contributors, as they have agreed to let us go into the store with cameras to film any time we want to during their opening hours, and told us to e-mail them if there is anything else that they can do to help.

Poetic Documentary inspiration and planning

For our short poetic documentary, our intention is portray the theme of contrast between both derelict buildings and dull demolition in the city and lively, independent and bright, quirky areas of the city - where the independent businesses lie. Through doing so, we also want to evoke a sense of contrast in moods in the viewer, between positive and negative, depending on the content they are viewing. The main themes we want our film to explore are a sense of community and realisation in terms of the way that we shop on the high street in comparison to the independent shopping experience.

Research

Whilst walking around Sheffield, mostly in the city centre area I have noticed recently the amount of demolition work going on and how unappealing it is making key parts of the city appear. I took the following photos to reflect upon in group meetings and get a sense of where these buildings are and also to further research their purpose for taking place in the city:

One of our main influences for our poetic film is Blight (Dir. John Smith, 1996.), as the themes explored in the film are similar to the ones we wish to express in our film - the sense of community in the film is put across in an interesting way; through the use of repetitive key words and phrases from the people who the story affects the most - the viewer is able to pick up on the tone of the story whilst watching the demolition visually unfold. Our film could follow a similar structure, although we would like to make it different by also including background sounds repeating, such as supermarket till beeps and other everyday, high street sounds and then a busker on the Devonshire Quarter independent area of the city contrasting this alongside shots of close up details within the independent stores, ones which make them unique and appear to capture a sense of their history and uniqueness.

Transcribed interview - Lucy (Syd & Mallory) - Wednesday 29th November 2014

Interview with Lucy - Syd and Mallory - Wednesday 29th November 2014 - 1.30p.m

Can you please briefly introduce yourself and your business?

Hi...yeah. I'm Lucy Jo Newell and I run Syd and Mallory's Emporium on Devonshire Street with Kirsteen Hardy who's upstairs sewing, so it's a partnership but she's upstairs, busy.

Could you please describe the current demolition plans on Devonshire Street?

Yeah..well at the moment it's just going to planning to the council, so we've got a petition running to hopefully fight that but that's just the stage that we're at at the moment, we don't know what's happening until next week I believe.

What are the plans that are being proposed?

Erm, well, we found out via social media to start with which was the worst thing, so our landlords didn't even send us a letter or anything to tell us. Just that they're knocking down the last three buildings which is us, Rare 'N' Racy  and The Natural Bed Company and proposing to build A3 buildings which is cafes, bars, restaurants, etc. and flats above. So, er, no more independent businesses.


If you could give a message to the people behind the plans, maybe something that they might not necessarily already know about what it will mean to Sheffield, what would that be?

yeah, well I think its slowly getting less and less independent around this area and well, the whole city. Everything's getting knocked down and built into, well like as I say there's so many coffee shops and flats and empty like glass fronted buildings 'cause people can't afford the rents. So inflated rents in buildings like that...there's just not..there's going to be no one like us, like in future generations or well, in now,  like independent businesses can't pay that sort of rent so it's just going to be sterile, A3 units with coffee shops.

Do you have a favourite memory of the store?

Erm, of being in this building? Well we've only been in this building for a year and a bit but we've been in business for eight and a half years. So we've moved around the city. We started off down near the train station, then we got to The Forum - we had a shop in there for five years and then when we got here we finally thought this was, you know, the building we needed to be in, we need to be on Devonshire Street it's the independent quarter. We've got a studio on the top floor so everything is made in house, so everything that we do is in this building and it's great and we don't want to leave...but yeah I suppose that's it at the moment we just..we thought we'd found the place that we'd stay.


What do you like about the Devonshire Green area?

It is the independent quarter, it has been since the seventies. Rare 'N' Racy opened in sixty nine or something like that and it's just..this area's always been for this kind of retail, but it is smaller and smaller now and there's only about five shops on this road really so we don't want to lose any more.

So a lot of people have already signed the petition online already..

Yeah..(agreeing)

Do you think that people will be put off Sheffield as a city if the plans do go ahead?
yeah I think so, I think it's going to be more of a, I dunno like a.. LEGOLAND sort of city, like the same as every other city. Like, everyone's high street looks the same doesn't it? People come to this area for these shops and if there isn't any then they probably will just go to Manchester and other places.

What kind of positive feedback do you get from your customers?

Yeah, just that they love what we're doing, they love the label - they love that they can see that we're making clothes as well hand picking vintage. It's just there's not many shops like this is there? so there's always good feedback.

Why was Sheffield a good place to set up the store for you?

Erm, well we're both from Chesterfield so only down the road, but then also we always came as younger teenagers to The Forum  we'd always shop in there, cause they always had loads of independent business and basically we just thought we can do this and we shouldn't move to London to do it, as everyone does, so we need to do it in our city and so that's what we've tried to do.

Filming Day 1 - Interview at Syd and Mallory

Today we filmed the first of our interviews for the documentary at Syd and Mallory's Emporium on Devonshire Street. We arrived at 1.30p.m and spent around 20 minutes setting up the equipment and choosing where the best place to film was, both in terms of being able to get a background that established the location well, as well as being set up in a way which was still convenient for the store's customers to browse.

I think it really helped that Sarah and I previously visited the store last week to take recce images and see what the space available to us was like, as this became clearer when we were setting up in such a small room. As we had already planned ahead for this and had a good idea of the possible issues we may face in advance, this meant that it became much easier to organise ourselves and the positioning of the equipment and interview set up, and took a lot less time to do so.

The interviewee, Lucy Jo, is one of two of the store's owners and agreed to be interviewed when we visited the store initially two weeks ago. Whilst the interview was not at all rushed, we did agree to only take up about half an hour of her time yesterday as the store front needed to be manned by her whenever possible and we did not want to interfere with the needs of the business. She is happy for us to come back next week to gain any more footage and audio we need and told us we could just come in with our camera at any point during the week as well. I think another aspect that is going well for us is this working relationship that we have established early on with our contributors. We are working with them to discuss the best ways to overcome the issues with the location that we had whilst filming and working around their schedules so as not to interrupt with their daily business. We have recognised that they are currently getting a lot of press coming in who are interested in the story, and so we are working as a group to problem solve in getting the right balance between not being too intrusive but also not wasting any free time that we have to film as much content as possible.


Test shot for the interview set up

The interview itself went very well and we learnt a lot from the responses that we did not previously know or even expect to capture. We kept the camera rolling all the way through instead of cutting after asking each individual question, and after reviewing the footage I think this was a very advantageous choice as we have captured small details that we would not have got if we had cut in between questions. The interviewee was very passionate about the story which helped to drive the narrative of our film, and it is clear it was an emotional topic. The questions that we asked were quite open ended, and we also asked one about what their message would be to the people behind the plans, but maybe something that they might not necessarily already know. From this, we captured that the store itself was not directly told about the demolition threat plans initially, but instead found out via social media, which shocked us all.

One thing that didn't go so well in our interview was the eyeline between myself and Lucy. Because the room was quite small and the equipment had to be set up close to her, it felt like it was quite a nerve-wracking interview and so there were times during the filming in which she would look down or away. As Producer, I feel this was my responsibility to ensure the eyeline stayed focused and I think I could have maybe tried to put her at ease a bit more whilst the camera was being set up which could have made this less of an issue during the filming process. However, I have now learnt from this and as a group we know that we arranged our interview for very early on in the semester and that now we have had the experience of filming one, we have a stronger understanding of the logistics of an interview set up and will employ this in our next and upcoming interviews. Luckily, we did manage to get some good quality interview footage where the eyeline is kept focused and which will be useable, and overall we do share a generally positive perspective on how today went and the information that we managed to capture on both film and audio out of the interview.



Production issues

After the interview, we spent some time around the Devonshire Street/larger Devonshire Green area to try and collect some sound bites from the public about their views on the area. This did prove to be quite problematic as there weren't many people around the area at the time and many of them said that they weren't from Sheffield and didn't know the area. Although we spent some further time there and did gain one or two interesting responses, we decided that the best option would be to return to the store next week and whilst there, try to gather some possible customer contributors. That way, they will definitely know the store and hopefully be willing to give us an insight into the perspective of the customers themselves, which will add to our film as we want to capture a variety of views surrounding a wider community issue.

Another issue was that we intended to go out and gather establishing shots for our poetic documentary in the city centre, however along the main busy street that we planned to film on, there are currently large and high up fairground rides which line the street and block the view we wanted to capture. We tried to work around this the best that we could by filming from a number of different angles around the sides of the rides, but in the end we want this shot to look a particular way that just is not possible with all of the attractions taking up the street at the moment, so here we decided the best thing to do would be to check online to see if we can find out how long these will be up for, and come back next week if these are no longer here, to capture our city centre contrast shot.