Project Statement

Cinema Verite was founded by anthropologists, who wanted to delve deep into the subject matter by becoming a part of the people/lifestyle that they were documenting.

Therefore, we, as a group feel the best subject for us to document would be something we are already familiar with- Film and Media.

Our Documentary will look at the benefits of the film industry to a specific area (in this case Sheffield), and how young film-makers can struggle to become successful in a competitive industry.

From personal experiences of meeting individuals who grew up in past generations, where the U.K was not a spearhead for an industry in Film, it would be interesting to look into the negative connotations associated with media courses by gauging public opinion and wronging the prejudice against the 'lazy media student'.

We will attempt to get in touch with past students of Film related courses, we will look into Independent companies, including Warp Films, The Showroom Cinema, Sheffield Independent Film and local businesses associated with Media Production that contribute to the local economy in the area and how they are benefiting an area which has seen a massive decline in industrial industries (the steel industry) in the past two decades.

The style of our documentary will be essentially influenced by Cinema Verite. The narrative will be driven by voice-over. The feature will not include a presenter, and will instead feature interviews with people from the aforementioned businesses, and the general public and a look at people associated with the declined steel industries views on the matter. Cut aways of the city, will play as statistics detailing just how difficult it is to progress in the film industry, but acknowledging the positive aspects the film industry to an area, intercut with interviews from associated people.

We will aim to naturally create tension between the characters within the feature by juxtaposing interviews of people that hold negative views of the industry, and seasoned professionals disregarding these negative views.

The length of the feature will be between six and eight minutes.

Further influences of the feature will be the Maysles Brothers- who believed in involving oneself with subject matter. We will also be using the technique of minimal editing, this includes not cutting between shots but rather having one continuous shot. We think that the use of minimal editing will enable the audience to 'gain the truth', rather than us creating it for the audience. Dziga Vertov's belief of showing things how they are, will play a major part in our production.

All in all, we hope this will create good for public bad.