Production Meeting - 28/10/14



We held a group production meeting this afternoon to discuss the content for our poetic documentary and also share our visions for the filming tomorrow. We have a scheduled time slot for filming in Syd & Mallory on Devonshire Street from 1p.m until 3p.m, which we will spend the first hour filming interviews and the rest of the time capturing footage of smaller details of the store, which then also can go on to be used in our full length documentary film. After the time spent filming within the interior of the store, we intend to make the most of the rest of the day and evening by capturing general establishing shots around Devonshire Street, to try and capture the vibrancy of the space. In contrast, we also aim to film some city centre footage, around areas such as Fargate.

 

Generating ideas for the poetic documentary film

 For the poetic documentary, our current idea is focused on the theme of contrast between two different parts of the same city. One side of Sheffield - Fargate - is a busy area filled with chain stores and restaurants, just like any other city. Just a short walk up the street is Devonshire Street- an area which is filled with quirky, independent businesses that make Sheffield unique. Due to the fact that our full length documentary is tackling a broad subject and current story, the poetic film will instead narrow this down to portray the idea that people in the city centre (Fargate area) are so accustomed to the familiarity of chain stores and brands that they don't notice what else is around in their city and what makes it unique. To visually show this, we will be incorporating black and white sped up timelapse footage from the Fargate area to show how many people rush through without paying much attention to what is around them. To contrast this, we will then show colour footage of Devonshire Street, possibly with  a slowed down pace, and the surrounding green area, to show a sharp contrast in the atmosphere and environment; to showcase it's individuality. Our poetic film will mostly consist of this contrasting imagery, of two very different places shown to the viewer in a new way.

The sound for our poetic documentary will be segmented and taken from larger interview audio pieces that we gather from the public, in which we will be asking their views on the stores along, as well as the streets that we will be filming on. In doing this, we hope to capture a variety of contrasting views on both Devonshire Street and Fargate. We then hope to all get together and review the audio, before selecting out key words and phrases that we can repeat in our poetic film and place alongside the contrasted footage from the two areas. This will allow the film to hold quite an experimental approach and follow an angle which suggests different viewpoints, which informs the larger aim of our broader documentary.