Qs for the urbexers

How did you get into urbexing?  / How did you find out about it?

How long have you been doing it for?

What was the initial appeal?

Did you start by yourself?

How often to do you go?

What would you say to people who look upon it negatively?

Why do you think it’s worth photographing these places?

What’s the worst experience you’ve had?

What’s the best experience you’ve had?

What drives you to keep doing it?

How do find out about these places?

What is it about these buildings or sites that you like?

Do you think its important to photograph these places? / Why?

What is your view of abandoned buildings? Should they all just be left so you can photograph them? Why not demolish ? their taking up space..

Do some of the sites ever scare you?

Have you ever been in trouble with the police?

If the legal aspect was removed would you still find it as entertain? IS the illegal aspect the main thrill?

Were you into photography before urbexing or vice versa?

What do you do?

Background?

What inspires you?

Any ambitions?

is your work purely personal? Do you want others to see the pics?

What about the forums? Do people get a bit precious over spots they find?

Why do you think its become so popular recently?

Describe some of your favourite shots, why?

Is it depressing going to all these ruined places, aren’t they a bit eerie and lifeless? Esp. asylums.

Do you edit your pics? If so why? A lot of people are against editing their images.

Describe yourself in 3 words.

Shooting Day 1

Today we had our first full days shoot at the Stanley Tools site. The day didn't get off to the greatest start, as our director turned up late and had forgotten to bring the notes and shot list he and the cinematographer had made. As a result the day was by no means productive. A lot of time was spent trying to remember what the notes had consisted of and whereabouts in the building these shots took place.

I was not sent the shot list prior to the shoot therefore only a very rough schedule could be made. However as Steve forgot to bring these notes within him, the schedule was completely blown. This was doubly frustrating as we couldn't enter the site until 11am, meaning that due to the time of year we had little time before light started to fade.

Our contributors did show up for todays shoot though they too were a little late meaning that we were a little rushed filming with them. Myself and Grace went to interview them on the upstairs floor upon Steve's insistence that they be interviewed on the site. This was despite the fact that Grace, who is the sound recordist, said that the background noise (from external traffic and the echo of the place) meant that the quality was poor and unclear, and therefore the urbexers should be interviewed in a studio.

The interview was really interesting as both contributors had some great anecdotes and stories to tell. They both said some great things that I think would be really fitting for the documentary, so I hope that the sound doesn't come out too bad.

Plank

Dir. Billy Pols




 Plank takes a close look at Nassim Guammaz . He is a 15 yr old skateboarder. Its a very personal film, looking at him and what skateboarding means to him. The film maker has a real presence in the film; we see he shadow, hear his voice and at one point we even see him briefly. I think this makes the audience connect with Nassim even further; by seeing the film maker its as if we are seeing snippets of what actually happened while the film was being made, unedited moments between film maker and contributor. We are seeing how Nassim interacts with the film maker, and therefore we see another side to his character.

I also really love how the film ends, with two heavily contracted shots within his school. The first tracking shot is my favourite.; I love how it slowly tracks behind everyones heads and then Nassim jumps on to the fronts desk, dust rising, while we see the teacher in the background, in slow motion continuing the lesson. Its clearly very stylish but I also think that its really original way of demonstrating how he feels about school and education and how this relates to what he wants to do with his life.

I think this relates to ideas for our own film because like Plank, we are focusing on a few individuals who are really passionate about something; we are taking a glimpse into a really specialised field and aiming to shed a bit of light on it. I think if we can also achieve a strong personal element in our film, it will be successful.

Location Reccie

These are few things that caught my eye when we explored Stanley Tools for the first time..

Treatment

Urban Exploration

Length: 10:00

Format: 16:9 Full HD

Hook or tag line: Just because it’s abandoned, doesn’t mean it’s empty.

Short synopsis (25-50 words):

What is the film about?

Our short documentary will focus around the sport of Urban Exploring, following a small group of urban explorers as they photograph the Stanley Tools warehouses.

Mid-Length synopsis/outline (250 words):

What is the core subject matter of your film? How will the story unfold? What are the themes/issues/arguments you are trying to uncover? Who are the key contributors? What makes them interesting? What will we learn about them? Use visual language the aim is to bring the story alive and the characters off the page.

The core subject matter of the film will be explaining the sport of Urban exploring.

We are currently thinking the story will take the full 10 minutes of the allotted time and will play out in a structure similar to this;

• Introduce the urban explorers and urban exploring through VO
• Follow the explorers as they prepare to go ‘explore’
• Explore the Stanley Tools and other sites with the explorers
• Intercut this interviews from Stanley Tools site owner and VO and images from the explorers
• End with future of Urban Exploring

Some of the arguments we will look at will be that buildings shouldn’t be left to rot because it’s a waste of space and resources, but as they are rotting why not take the opportunity to admire them in a temporary state while trying to adhere to the law.

The key contributors throughout the piece will be the Urban Explorers we follow and the site owners,

What makes them interesting is a very unique and uncommon hobby on the edge of the law with an insight into a world most people don’t know exists.

Our two main contributors are Matt and David. Their both in their early twenties and are friends who met at university.

Both Matt and David were born in small towns, growing up in tight-knit communities in which it seemed that not a lot happened and not a lot changed. For both boys, they found entertainment not on the streets but in abandoned buildings in their local area. Unlike the everyday pattern of their lives, discovering these buildings offered a new sense of excitement. Gradually discovering and seeking out these sites became a regular occurrence and is something that helped seal their friendship.

Matt is an eccentric individual with an artistic flair. Whereas others may think these derelict sights are a waste of space, for him it’s a blank canvas. The unique aesthetics of the sites offer a new, completely different space to work in meaning that every piece is unique.

David is a much quieter character with attention to detail. For him, these places are a haven of undiscovered secrets waiting to be captured through a lens

We hope that this will give a glimpse into the wider urban exploring movement.

Analysis of approach (500 words):

How will you make this film? What will it look and sound like? What is its style? What are the techniques used? What works were inspirational to the film? What works does it resemble? What is its mood? Its ambience?  Demonstrate enthusiasm and a distinctive visual/aural voice here. Include references to TWO films that you have watched as research.

We will make this film by getting our footage partly from interviews, b-roll and hopefully archive footage, while also gaining observational footage from following the Urban Explorers.

It will have an urban gritty feel to match the subject matter and environment we will be shooting in, while at the same time implementing many cinematic style shots such as large sweeping pans, wide angle shots, extreme close ups and possibly time lapses to help convey the emptiness and vastness of the location we are filming.

Its soundtrack will be entirely instrumental, we are thinking something with a strong beat but relatively simple with not too many individual instruments or sounds because a cluttered soundtrack wouldn’t suit the mase en scene and would detract from any voice over’s from interviews.

Some of the techniques used will be expository and observational, archive footage, interviews, voice over’s, still images and montage.

Some of the inspiration we have gotten for the style of our film is from a short 30 minute documentary on a new drug that is appearing in Russia called krokodill. It is an incredibly potent drug far stronger, and more importantly for the addicts much cheaper, than heroin, but it literally rots the body from the inside out. The documentary focused largely on the fact that it is the poor who are succumbing to the urge to try it as a cheap alternative to heroin.

They really drove this message home by getting a lot of b-roll of the poor areas of the city, and doing interviews with the inhabitants on location in the run down dangerous looking areas. Seeing the extreme poverty really drove what they were saying home, and we want to implement this in our film by interviewing on location if we can.

Its mood will be exciting and light-hearted but with serious undertones regarding the legality of the things the explorers do and the future of Urban Exploring as a sport.

Its ambience will generally make it seem like a quiet piece that focuses on the artistic side of the abandoned buildings, trying to show the viewer a world they probably have never seen before, but also trying to illustrate why the Urban Explorers risk getting caught just for a chance to explore these strange locations.

Filmmaker biography (50-100 words) :

What kind of documentary maker or filmmaker are you? What are the themes in your work? How do you approach work? Do you have any awards?

Tutorial/Production Meeting

WE have had a tutorial where we pitched our initial ideas for the documentary. The two ideas that we brought forward were the Urban Exploring idea and the idea covering Eccelshall Graveyard. Debbie thought that the graveyard piece would be good visually however, much more challenging in terms of finding interesting contributors. She also raised one of our own concerns about this piece, saying that would be difficult to ensure that this film didn't turn into a straight forward history; it would be harder to maintain viewer interest within the 10 min time frame.

She was much more positive about the Urban Exploring idea and it came across that this too was also our favourite of the two ideas. The main point that she raised was that we would have to make sure the film was about the contributors - the people who do urban exploring - rather than about the places; this would make a different film and require a wider range of contributors.

Following the tutorial we had a production meeting in which, as a group, we discussed the urbexing idea in further detail. Steve and I are now writing up the treatment.

Poetic Documentary

• Using image or sound as metaphor
• Editing is the films punctuation
• Emotion is created through characters and subject matter
• Atmosphere is evoked through the use of sound, light and the cinematic approach of the film maker

Regen (1929)

Dir. Joris Ivans

Inspired by the works of Man Ray and Dali, Ivans made a film that experimented with image just as much as these artists did. He wanted to create a visual poem that focused on lifes little moments. The rhythm of his visual poem is created through the use of music. 

Sans Soleil (1963)

Dir. Chris Marker

Part of the documentary movement that emerged from the 1950s around the film essay. Marker rejected the term documentary altogether and wanted to present his side of an argument using everything that he had at his disposal to get this point across. Sans Soleil contains philosophical themes, reflecting on the imperfection of memory. Marker tries to illustrate how our memory can have gaps and therefore is not always true. 

Production Meeting 8.10.12

Initial ideas :

• Park Hill Apartments  - Largest listed building in Europe, being put up for sale with an open day on 13/10/12. They have already featured on a lot of TV shows, including the BBC's Saving Britain's Past. Main interest in them is that no one is buying the flats up, therefore their pretty creepy and are an urbexing hotspot. 
• Stunt Women in training - women with really exciting background (having lived all over the world, in places like Egypt) now living in Sheffield undergoing training to stunts, eventually ending up in TV and film. Main interest is the uniqueness of her life and career choice. Could get some really cool shots, would be a personal story.
• Cemetery on Ecclesall Road - a Victorian church and graveyard, nearly 90,000 bodies buried there. The church and community are doing a lot of workshops to help educate people about it and to help with conservations. Would be visually awesome, would be great for the poetic exercise. Could interview members of the local community and the church as well as go into the history of the place. Burtie Bassett is buried there too. 
• Comic book scene in Sheffield - a very buzzing community with Sheffield Space Centre and Forbidden Planet. Every month there are comic conventions in the showroom. Visually we could do something really exciting, playing with comic style. Would need to decide on an area to focus on though, very broad topic. 
• Something reflective about film and documentary itself - a documentary about documentary, reflective on film itself, why people do it etc. would be interesting but would take a lot of planning and time restraints could cause problems. Also, would be harder to use this idea as a basis for the poetic exercise. 
• People who look after drunk people (the flipflop guys) - would focus on the group of people who go around at night looking after people coming out of clubs who are far too drunk. They offer clothing and flip-flops as well as water. This is done entirely by volunteers so not sure how often it takes place due to lack of funding. But to follow these guys on a night out would be really interesting, unpredictable. Also interviewing the people who volunteer would be interesting. could be a really thought-provoking short. Also allows for some really cool night sequences of the city. 
• flyers - concerned with all the students who hand out flyers for clubs. Its a rubbish job but a big community builds up. 
• Samaritans - would focus on one person who volunteers for the Samaritans. Interesting due to the huge amount of responsibility that they have. Who are they? Why do they do what they do? How do they cope with the difficult things they hear over the phone? Why do they keep doing it??
• Games Workshop - doc about stereotypes. Would use Games Workshop as its something most would recognise. Would aim to show that these are actually interesting people with strong friendships. 
• Urbexing - AKA Urban Exploration. Prolific in Sheffield. The Old Court House in town or the 'Megatron' , which is a storm sewage tunnel that was built in the 80's. Could cover history, the people who do it etc. Would be really cool and you could get some very good sequences however would be incredibly difficult to light as well as take equipment to these locations. 
• Record Shops - Very big music scene in Sheffield, some great independent record shops. Would look at what its like to own one of these, the difficulties of doing so in the digital age and in double dip recession. Would have vox pox of young people discussing their take on music and downloading. Potential for cool shots and great soundtrack. 
• Roller Derby - not your typical female sport but a strong scene in Sheffield. Teams competing with other Northern towns. Would look at the sport itself rather than focusing on an individual. Fun and a bit different, could get some really cool sequences. 

Documentary Brainstorm

Idea 1

LP Record Store and Record Collector

Good for exercise too, could do wicked secquences and sound – grace would be sick at doing stuff for our soundtrack, we could even see if there are any tracks from local bands they’re selling that we could use. Rob has decks so could use those to get great CUs and other interesting shots of records playing.

Could cover the day in the life of someone who works in an independent record shop, the highs and lows, the difficulties of trying to survive in the digital age and the strains of the recession.

Could contrast with interviews with people on their preferred form of buying music.

Generally speaking an optimistic documentary, championing independent music and sellers.

Idea 2

Ruby and the roller derby!!

It would be fun and really interesting as its something that we don’t know a lot about. You could do some sick tracking sequences too. We could go into traingin and competitions and interview different team members about why they do it etc. Whats really interesting too is that it goes against the stereotype of female sport as its really aggressive. 

Research

Touching the Void (2003)
Dir. Kevin Macdonald
An example of performative and reflective documentary.
Documentary made with dramatic reconstruction and interviews and VO from those involved. Features camera and sound work that you would expect to find in a drama feature film. This makes it even more gripping and immersive.

Grizzly Man (2005)

Dir. Werner Herzog

An example of performative documentary. 

Unique as Herzog makes the film from footage made by Timothy Treadwell. Therefore Herzog edits it together to make his own story about Treadwell. Considering this, this is a particularly interesting film as it demonstrates the power of editing in film and specifically documentary. 

Don't Look Back (1965)

Dir. D A Pennebaker

An example of observational documentary. 

Unlike any documentary of its kind at the time, this film is purely observational and doesn't hide away from showing the darker side of Dylan. The film is very heavily constructed. 

Production Meeting 1.10.12

First meeting discussing everyones initial thoughts on the brief and discussing roles. Decided we should all go away and spend the week brainstorming and researching at least two ideas for a production meeting next monday.

Finalised Roles:

Director - Steve
Producer - Me
Camera - Robin
Sound/Sound Design - Grace
Editor - Alli