Made In Sheffield

Made in Sheffield from Hannah Grencis on Vimeo.

Documentary Filming Day 3 - 15/12/14

Today we had an interview with Bill who is one of the bar staff at the Green Room, an independent pub on Devonshire Street. He is a great character and a really bubbly guy we were happy to have an interview with him finally, as he made us more confident that we are going to be able to carve a good story out of the three interviews we have. He talks a lot about the memories of the street and what it was like 10 years ago when he used to come here to drink and be with friends. He also mentions how the Green Room has a rich history in music and many Sheffield local musicians play there and still do, which shows how big of a community this street is. We did have a problem with the background music in the pub as they were playing well known bands over the speakers. We realise that we should have asked the manager if we could have the music off for a little bit while we interviewed and I definitely think it has been a lesson to us that we really need to not be scared to make these sort of requests. 

Documentary Filming Day 2 06/12/14

Our documentary needs a lot more footage of the quirkiness of Devonshire Street to show the big difference between this part of Sheffield and the high street. We spent just over an hour looking around the street and looking up at buildings around there, which actually helped us to see many things we had never noticed before. This relates to the part of our documentary that we recently filmed about the dullness of looking up at the buildings that aren't in the independent quarter, where we found that the buildings really do look the same and have none of the quirkiness like the buildings of Devonshire Street do. (photos of tops of frog and parrot and mooch and mint)

Another thing we noticed while finding little things to film was that the business in this area of Sheffield really is friendly compared to the bigger businesses. For example there are boards outside most shops with little messages, and a lot more of the shops have a 'come on in' sign hanging on the door or window. There is also a lot of support for independent businesses, especially in The Forum where there are a few signs that say 'support independent Sheffield', which shows how strong the community is around this area. This is important for our film as this is a part of the message we want to get across to the public and the people who are creating these plans to get rid of some of the businesses. 

Documentary filming day 1 - 30/11/14

Myself and Hannah went around Sheffield today finding building to film looking up on for us to use in the collage part of the film where Lucy talks about the city turning into a lego city. We tried to find a range of buildings to film but what we realised when waking around is that the majority of the buildings really do look the same, and are mainly big tall flats, which actually will work well in the context we are putting these shots into anyway. We managed to get some interesting shapes with some of the buildings and collected quite a few shots that I think should be enough to fill out the screen as a collage. If not we decided we could always just film some buildings when we're out filming at other times for the rest of this week. 

Planning for main documentary

This week we had a tutorial with Debbie to review some of the footage we have for our main documentary 'Made in Sheffield'. Because the past couple weeks have been heavily focused on poetic we haven't had a chance to film anything else for the documentary, so all we have is the interview with Lucy and the cutaway shots from inside Syd and Mallory. Because of this we just discussed how we can structure the film and what things could make it different to any normal documentary. We've been given a target to try and film the whole documentary in this week so that we leave ourselves with nearly 2 weeks to edit since it's going to be difficult to find a narrative structure from the interviews that is going to be effective. Debbie has told us to split the film into 3 parts with the first being an introduction to Devonshire street and the issues that we will be facing in the rest of the documentary and the contrast with the high streets, the second showing all the legal terms to it and explaining what is actually going to happen and if we can we should find someone from the council to explain the reasons for the plans. And then finally the last bit will be about the people these plans are going to be affecting and we'll try to speak to some of the customers and use a lot of nice footage from around the independent areas to show it's homeliness and quirkiness compared to the rest of Sheffield. We have a interview with the management of 'The Forum', (which is a sort of indoor shopping area full of independent stores) who seems really passionate about this subject and we think he will give us some good material to help with the narrative of the film.  To make the film a bit different Debbie gave us the idea to do something with montage editing or split screens to maybe boost our marks higher. I like the idea of doing something like Jonathan Caouette does with his 2003 film 'Tarnation' and create a collage of images from a variety of building around Sheffield that all look the same and boring, but with these images also creating a skyline out of them to create a Lego effect, which links back with our poetic documentary 'Legoland City'. 

                               (still from 'Tarnation' showing the split screen effect we want to try)

'Made in Sheffield' Treatment

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.

Rough edit and feedback

Our original idea for the poetic was to have the film consist of two shots of fargate which shows all the high street shops, and then of division street which shows all the independent stores. In terms of the sound for the project we wanted to use certain words or a sentence of the vox pops we recorded from the public. We asked them what they thought of the area they were in (we done this in both fargate and division street) and if they knew about the closing of the independent shops and what were their thought on this. However putting them onto the edit I wasn't too sure on this idea anymore I thought it sounded quite messy and it didn't have the outcome I had originally expected, but it was left in to show Debbie in our tutorial. There was also an idea to not just have the two shots of the streets, and instead to include a cutaway of Lucy sewing over the clip of the independent stores and then a shot of feet walking past the camera in a dull shot over the shot of fargate. We weren't too sure on how well these really fit in with the theme of the poetic we had gone with but again we decided to get Debbie's opinion on this. We had very little sound design at this point so the sound was really basic and rough but didn't bother us too much as this was only just a rough edit to show at the tutorial. 

We received a lot of feedback from Debbie which will require us to go out and practically film completely new pieces of footage in the week before the film is due, but this didn't bother me as I completely agree with everything that was said and I think the feedback we received will help us to create a better film. First of all we need a better shot of the independent shops on devonshire street because as you can see from the image of the edit below you can't really see much of them, and it doesn't do the quirkiness of the street justice. We were also told that using the two cutaways doesn't work if the rest of the film is just the two shots of the streets, we need to go with one technique or the other. To resolve this Debbie had a good idea that I wish would be possible for us to do where we would track up fargate showing all the mainstream stores and then cut it to a track of the independent stores which I thought could work really well if we done this right. However because of the time of year the Christmas market stalls are up in fargate and fill up the majority of the street, which makes it impossible to get a position that looks good for the tracks. So instead we are going to film more shots of the mainstream shops and the independent stores from up close instead of two long shots, and use some of the cutaways we filmed in Syd and Mallory to show the quirkiness of the shop compares to the plainness of fargate. For the sound design we need to get an atmos track of fargate, and then loads of sounds you'd expect to hear there like tills and bank machines, then as we go into Devonshire we hear a busker playing and sounds of the skateboarders and general sounds around that area. We have also decided to just use Lucy's voice to make the sound design less messy, plus she talks about more relevant things with more passion than we got from the vox pops. 

Day 3 of filming 5/11/14

Today myself and Hannah went into Syd and Mallory to film some shots of the trinkets, vintage objects and clothes that they have in their store. To me this is what gives the shop it's character and there were endless things we could film and experiment with in terms of focusing. We ended up with a lot of shots, some that we could use for the main documentary, and some that we can either shoot again or put a stabiliser over in the edit, since a few were shaky as we handheld the camera. We were also able to film Lucy working on the sewing machine and get permission to go back into the shop whenever we wanted with the camera to get some more content for the documentary. Lucy didn't want to have another interview or say anything else on camera, as she was quite nervous the first time, so Hannah has sent them a message to see if it would be possible for us to interview any of the other staff as we need much more interviews to fill out the documentary.

Day 2 of filming 4/11/14

Today filming was mainly focused on getting the sound bytes and images for the poetic documentary. First we decided to go to Fargate where the main high street of well known chain shops are located. We put the camera on a tripod at both end of the street as we couldn't decide what would look better on camera for the documentary. We filmed both sides of the street for around 10 minutes as we are planning to speed the footage up in the edit if it looks right, to show the busyness of the high street. I also set the tripod to it's lowest height while we were sitting on one of the benches, so that I could film peoples lower legs and feet as they walked past. We are thinking of maybe using this for a cutaway in the poetic if we need one. We were also quite lucky with the sound bytes as we recorded around 5 people who all said something that we can use for the poetic film. There was a busker playing on the high street too who allowed us to record him while he played a couple songs on his guitar. The sound for this and all the sound bytes are really clear so won't need much tweaking in sound edit, and we think the guitar will work really well with the film. After this we walked up to Devonshire street to film the other image for the poetic documentary, which is a shot up the road where you can see the independent shops. We left it running for 10 minutes like the other two, however the street was quite empty and we're not sure if we're going to need to go back at a time we think will be more busier so that it has the same effect. 

Day 1 of filming 29/10/14

For our first day of filming inside Syd and Mallory, we decided that all we would film today was the interview with on of the owners Lucy. This is because we did not want to disturb the shop for too long as she was the only person downstairs to watch the till and customers, so she also didn't want to be kept for too long. After arriving she advised we film in the back room as upstairs both rooms are too small and full of too many things for us to film an interview in there, which we agreed with after already seeing both the rooms upstairs. We gave ourselves around 20 minutes to set up, Emily was sorting our the sound equipment and doing sound checks while I was setting up the camera and working with Hannah to figure out which position would be best to film Lucy in and where to have her stand. After this she came into the room and I framed her to the what I thought looked the best while she was doing a sound check. I think that the interview went well in some ways, mainly because she gave us some new information that will be really good for the documentary and that we would have never found out without conducting this interview. For example she told us that they found out about the plans via social media, the landlords of the property warned them about it or sent them anything to let them know these plans could be a possibility in the future. The only thing about the interview that I think could have gone better is that she rarely kept eye contact with Hannah, who was standing next to the camera asking the questions, so her eye line goes all over the place, mainly on the floor a lot of the time. We know this is because she was quite nervous, so from this we have learned that from now on when filming interviews it would be best if the director or producer would run through the questions with the subject while sound and camera are setting up, so the subject has a slight idea of what we will be asking them, and then do a few warm up questions with the subject in front of camera so that he/she can get more comfortable with being in front of the camera. Apart from the problem with the eye line I think that we got some really good footage for the main documentary, and she speaks really passionately about the store which will definitely help the mood of the final film.

                                                     (a still from the interview set up)

Production Meeting 28/10/14

Before filming tomorrow my group arranged a meeting for us to discuss the plan for tomorrow, book out the equipment needed and to think of some interview questions. Firstly we wrote down around 10 questions we thought would be suitable and generate the sort of information we need for both the poetic and main documentary. Some of these were:

• In 5 words describe the store
• Can you describe your favourite memory of this store?
• Why do you think independent businesses are important to Sheffield?
• What were your reasons for opening the store in Sheffield?

We decided that we will be filming on a Nikon DSLR camera as it's Hannah's and I have used this camera many times before so felt more comfortable with this. We were also unsure on whether we would need to bring lights for the interview, so after a bit of discussion we decided that since the store is so small that the dedo lights would be the best option in case we need to set up lights for the interview. We also decided that we weren't going to keep Lucy away from being able to work for too long since we're going around dinner time and there will still be a chance of customers coming in the shop to look around. Because of this we've decided to just film the interview tomorrow, and then take the zoom and get some vox pops of the publics opinion on the subject if they know anything about it. If they don't we still think we could get something from the public by asking what they think of the city, and use this sound clips for the poetic documentary. 

Syd and Mallory Location Recce

In preparation for our first filming session with the owners of Syd and Mallory next Wednesday, myself and Hannah visited to store to take some photos around the inside to get an idea of what sort of thing we want to film. This was also useful as we now know the size of the rooms around the shop and since they are quite small rooms we have to think of the best way to film around this issue, especially the interview set up. I find this store really interesting, I love all the little trinkets they have around each of the rooms, I think this really gives the store character. This is really good for our film as we have a lot of opportunity to film shots for cutaways with the sound from the interviews over the top. I like that we will be capturing what is unique about this store and what is very different to the branded stores e.g. H&M and New Look etc. During this visit we were also able to confirm a filming time for next Wednesday, which will be from 1pm - 3pm roughly. We also asked on of the owners about any regular customers that would be willing to come forward and discuss the topic from their point of view. She agreed that we could create a post on their facebook wall and twitter asking if anyone who feels strongly about the situation would like to be interviewed for this student documentary.

 

 

Pitch



This week we had to present our main documentary idea, while touching on the 2 minute poetic documentary so that Debbie would have a clear idea of the angle we want to take with it. At the moment we are working with the title 'Made in Sheffield' but this could change if one of us comes up with a better name. We also had to come up with a back-up idea in case we have any difficulties with the main one and it could no longer be filmed, which we called '2 minutes of your time?'. I feel like we described our idea as best as we could and screen grabbed some comments left on articles from angry citizens who object against the action to demolish the independent stores on division street. We also found an online petition that we showed to the class to show that this topic is important to a lot of people and that action is being taken to ensure this makes a difference to the council. We also made it clear that we are developing a working relationship with the owners of Syd and Mallory, and have them completely on board with what we are doing and are willing to be filmed for interviews. I think that our pitch for the main idea did go well and Debbie and the rest of the class understood our intentions on the sound and story side of the film, however we didn't do so well with trying to convey our intentions of what we want the film to look like visually, which we need to be clear on very soon. We also struggled with making our poetic documentary idea clear as we hadn't yet fully understood or discussed what is was we had to achieve in terms of the poetic piece of film, so I agreed with Debbie that we really need to start planning it out and think of a clear angle to take with it. After a chat with Debbie at the end of the lesson it did become a lot more clearer about what we need to think about when it comes to the poetic documentary, and we have a clearer vision of what it could look like visually as well as what we want it to sound like.

 

 

For our back up idea we decided to do a 'day in the life of' documentary about a group of genuine door to door charity workers as we see the struggles they face with going through the constant rejection of having doors being shut in their face, people ignoring them on the streets and the public generally having a annoyed opinion of them. For contributors I know someone who owns a company that has charity workers work out on the streets in Sheffield and go door to door and would be willing to let us see about filming a few of these people if we ended up needing to go with this idea. We want to show these people in a positive light, and show that they are people who's feeling can potentially be hurt everyday without the public realising, and we want to learn a bit more about this area of work.  

Documentary Inspiration

Our main inspiration for this film is the documentary 'Sound it Out' (Dir. Jeanie Finlay, 2011) about the last record store in Teesside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47cF_7U0dos 

We like how down to earth this documentary is and want to have a similar feel with ours, even with the stressful situation of having plans to knock down their store they're still enjoying what they do and are trying their best to get everyone involved in the objection of this. Like in 'Sound it Out' we want to be able to film the owners as they work, maybe even film them making the clothes since we found out they do this with the sewing machine they have in one of the rooms upstairs. What I also like about 'Sound it Out' in particular is the diverse range of customers this record store has. With 'Syd and Mallory' being a vintage clothes shop a lot of their regular customer, or even first time customers could be quite quirky and different, and it would be good for us to be able to film them and get their opinion on the subject. I think this will give our film a lot of character and show the importance of the independent stores to it's customers.  

Poetic Documentary Inspiration

Although my group does not have a clear vision of what we want our 2 minute poetic documentary piece to look like visually, we have been thinking of some creative and rhythmic ways we could make the documentary sound. We all agree that we want no soundtrack on the 2 minute piece, and Hannah came up with the idea of just using the repetition of people's voices. To achieve this we will have to either contact regular customers of the shop and collect some sounds of them discussing why the demolition of division street independent businesses would be disappointing to them and say what it is about these shops that they enjoy. Our inspiration for this is from the poetic documentary 'Blight' (Dir. John Smith, 1996) as he uses the communities voices, in a broken up and juxtaposing way while also creating a rhythm, as they talk about a memory they have of living in a street during it's demolition to make way for the M11 motorway. 

We don't want to break up the contributors comments as much as they are in 'Blight' but we are wanting to repeat certain words a few times that really stand out to us. We want to do something a little similar to this film with the images in the way that we will show some demolition sights that are going on around the city with just a few shots, as we mainly would like to focus on the beauty of the store 'Syd and Mallory'.

Pre-interview questions for pitch

For our pitch on Thursday, we have decided that it would be a good idea to get some quotes from the owners of 'Syd and Mallory' to include into our pitch. This is going to show that we have already contacted our contributor and they are willing to be involved, and also show that we have talked with them and made sure that we have enough information on their thoughts and feelings prior to the pitch. Here is the list of questions that we are going to email to them today and hopefully get a response before the pitch on Thursday:

1. Can you tell us a bit about the store and why you think Sheffield is a great location for it?

2. What are your views on independent stores and what do you feel that they bring to a city like Sheffield?

3. We’ve read the news recently about redevelopment plans to demolish the row of independent businesses along Division Street, in order to create bars and restaurants and apartments. Can you tell us a bit about your perspective on this please?

4. Why do you think that these plans have been proposed?

5. If our film could be shown to the people behind the plans, what would be the key message that you would want it to highlight, and is there any specific visual content that you feel would be beneficial for them to see?

5. We want our documentary to be focused on celebrating what independent businesses like yours mean to the local community and the negative change and effects that will be brought about if the redevelopment plans get the go ahead. Do you know any regular customers that may be willing to be involved with the film?

6 .Do you have any upcoming events that we may be able to film at, to form part of our documentary?

Documentary Idea - Independent Shops

For this module I am working in a group of four which includes Hannah Grencis as director/producer, Heather Hall as editor, Emily Spokes as sound designer and myself as cinematographer. The first thing we decided to do was to have a look online for any inspiration around Sheffield that would be interesting enough to create a documentary from. I looked around news websites such as the 'BBC News Sheffield and South Yorkshire' website and then on an even more local news website 'Sheffield- The Star'. It was on this website that Hannah found an article about how the drummer from The Arctic Monkeys was backing up a fight to save some of the independent shops around Sheffield, in particular Division Street, that have been told there are plans to knock these buildings down to make room for building new apartments. 
http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/arctic-monkeys-drummer-backs-fight-to-save-sheffield-shops-1-6892207 
We could tell that this would be a strong subject to make into a documentary as there were many comments from people who have gone to these shops for years, who were strongly objecting to this happening. As myself and Hannah live quite close to Division Street we have walked past these independent shops many times and have even gone into one of them a few times. We noticed that alot of people we mentioning one of the independent book shops on that street called 'Rare n Racy' and how it is a 'rare oasis of independence in the mostly soulless city centre'. Because of these comments we decided we could see if Rare n Racy would be willing to let us focus the documentary on there shop. However after going in to see if they would be fine with this, they objected as the owner felt really strongly about the topic and didn't want to say something on camera that he shouldn't. Luckily the shop next door called 'Syd and Mallory' which specialises in vintage clothing were more than happy to be involved in the film and like the sound of what we are trying to achieve, which is to look at the positives of these independent stores before they get closed down and show people why they are important to have in a city. 

Poetic Documentary

A poetic documentary is a type of documentary filmmaking that includes the use of some of these techniques and styles:

• Rhythm
• Aesthetics
• Personally stylised 
• Abstract 
• Symbolic/metaphoric
• Emotion
• Non linear narrative (playful)
• Lyrical
• Unity of form
• Memory

An example of a poetic documentary is Blight - John Smith 1994

With the use of the juxtaposition of sounds and images, and breaking up the interviews to then echo the house being turn down, it creates a really rhythmic feel to the documentary, especially with the repetition of certain words and phrases.