Documentary Project - Group and Idea Development

My group with the chosen group roles consisted of:

Heather Kelland as Director
Isabel Wells as Producer
Beth Elston as Camera Operator
Myself as Sound Operator
Jamie Wiffen as Editor
Bronte Schoonen as Sound Editor

     We were told that our documentary was to be filmed in Liverpool between three days which meant we had to research on a topic within Liverpool we could make a interesting short documentary about that would be in our reach of achieving. After research our group came up with two ideas for a documentary we felt we could accomplish with the time we had there.

     Our first idea was to make a short documentary on a dead man called William Mackenzie who lived in Liverpool and by myth was buried only 5 minutes away from our hostel in a tomb above ground. We were fascinated by this idea as there is a myth that William Mackenzie was a drinker but a successful gambler by playing poker but one day he met his match with a mysterious character. He lost all of his money to this man but the strange man asks him to play one last hand even thou he has nothing to gamble with. The strange character suggests betting his soul and therefore loses his soul to what appears to be the devil. we felt this would be an interesting documentary that we could make into the length of 5 minutes with a couple of interviewees who are aware of the myth and have any thing to say on the topic. With shots of his tomb with the interviews and shows of perhaps graves and churches near by we felt this could be done.

     Our second idea was to make a short documentary on the Jacobs Biscuit Factory based and created in Liverpool. We had two approaches to this idea as we felt we could make a easy straight forward short documentary on the history, present and perhaps the future this Liverpool local factory and has given huge amounts of jobs for locals of the city. We also in our research found that recently there had been conflict between works and the bosses at the factory over new rules that had been tried to be made such as workers had to have permission to go to the toilet. As interesting as we felt this situation was we felt that we would be making things harder for us trying to get interviews on the matter especially off any mangers or bosses. Either way we felt that it would be an interesting documentary to make that locals of Liverpool may be intrigued to watch as it is a place they may see in close to everyday life.

     

     We pitched both our ideas to our seminar tutor and the rest of our peers. We received positive feedback on behalf of both ideas so it was up to us to decide which idea we would do. As a group we all agreed on the William Mackenzie idea as it is what fascinated us the most.