Our team consists of; Joe Bowles, Hannah Bushnell, Luke Parker, Jacob Waterall and myself.
In the session we agreed to arrange a meeting for later in the week (but before the next session) and to bring any ideas that we each have for the subject of our documentary.
At our first Production Meeting on Thursday 31 January each team member put forward their ideas. (We also used this meeting to establish crew roles within the team.)
As Producer I took the notes of the meeting, recording the ideas of each team member, and noting the unique / different angle that will make the documentary of interest to the viewer, and then I organised a poll amongst the team to establish the top three most popular ideas.
For the poll you were not allowed to vote for your own idea, and the top three were established so that I could do a feasibility study for each one and start the process of contacting contributors for each of the top three. (I did this so we wouldn't have a scenario where we spend a lot of time on one idea only for us to be unable to proceed due to a problem with contributors, and then have to start again from scratch with little time left to work on the film.)
The ideas that were put forward were as follows:
Luke - A report on the work of the RSPCA in Sheffield and the effect that the current economic climate has upon their service provision, given that the RSPCA is entirely funded by public donation. The different angle for this film would be public perceptions of the highly respected service and the possibility of animals being put down. We are supposedly a nation of animal lovers. Could we let lack of funding result in animal deaths that might otherwise be avoided?
Jacob - High Street Shop Closures - given the increasing frequency of high street chains going into administration and the changes in shopping habits, what is to become of our high streets? The film would have vox pops with shoppers and find out the people's perception of what is happening and their thoughts on the subject, and an investigation into the causes of the decline of the high street.
Jacob's other idea was regarding the funding of museums and their reliance on public contributions and volunteer staff. Jacob volunteers at the Fire and Police Museum in Sheffield and can offer us an insight into the problems that museums face. Other possible point of interest is the reduced opening times of Sheffield Graves Gallery.
Joe - Three ideas put forward by Joe are the real life experiences of World War 2 soldiers. How these experiences differ from the movie versions and the lasting effect that service has left. Joe has a relative that would be happy to be contributor.
Joe also put forward ideas for documentaries on the heavy metal music scene in Sheffield and the perceptions that people have of heavy metal and it's performers and fans, and also an idea that really interested me regarding the original punk era in the late '70s and whether there could be a punk revival given the similarities that are emerging in the current socio-economic climate of anti-establishment feeling. From a purely selfish point of view, I would love to work on a documentary about punk as that is music from my childhood and I still go to Hazel O'Connor and Toyah concerts now! It would be interesting to speak to music professionals and see if there is the same rebellious feeling now or whether it would be passe to attempt a music rebellion now? Indeed, is there anything shocking left to do that could provoke a response and recognition of the meaning and feeling involved?
Hannah - Hannah brought a few ideas to the meeting. The first is to do a film about TangoMan a Sheffield Wednesday football supporter who is an over the top character at matches and often appears on TV coverage of matches, usually with his shirt off and his ample belly helping to make him noticeable. The film would look behind the character at the matches and see the homelife and real life side of the man.
The other ideas that Hannah suggested were to do with Castle Market given that it will soon be closing to relocate to a site on The Moor - how will this affect the traders that work in Castle Market (Jacob could help us with that as his father owns a fish stall in the market) and can the traders afford to move? - and a film about traffic wardens where we get to see the real life, away from the job, of the people who decide to become traffic wardens.
Finally my idea for a documentary was to investigate the shocking numbers of homeless ex-armed forces personnel who end up homeless and living rough on the streets.
This is a subject that I am passionate about and really concerned with. I do a lot of voluntary work and fundraising for Help for Heroes which deals with the support of wounded servicemen and women, but I have only recently found out about the numbers of ex-forces that are ending up homeless after they leave, or are discharged from the forces.
A lot of the reasons for the number of homeless ex-personnel are a lack of transferable skills, lack of education, medical conditions such as post traumatic stress or disabilities, lack of rehabilitation, lack of counselling and lack of pastoral care.
I have been following the work of several charities, in particular a charity called Soldiers Off the Street, the work of which which would be the main focus of our film.
From the above ideas we all voted for three ideas that we like, then the overall number of votes were totted up and the results were as follows:
RSPCA = 3
High Street Shops = 0
Museum = 0
WW2 Experiences = 1
Heavy Metal / Punk = 2
TangoMan = 4
Wildlife in the City = 0
Castle Market = 1
Traffic Wardens = 0
Homeless Ex-soldiers = 4
Therefore the three films that we are considering are the RSPCA, TangoMan and the homeless ex soldiers.
We discussed each idea further and I made some more notes and will transfer these to the mindmaps in order for us to see what the core of each film would be and the possible areas for further discussion and research arising from that.
I like using mindmaps as they can be added to and I can use them to keep track on all the different areas of a project and see if I've not covered some important aspect, so they serve as a back up to my research and production notes.
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