Group 11 by Erin Henderson

Pre-Production meeting 1

40660202_2 — 2024-01-22 19:58:50 UTC

After out first seminar together we wanted to get to work as soon as possible. With Erin and Ewan unavailable for the day Hannah, Christopher and Ben met up to brainstorm ideas - filling Erin and Ewan in shortly after.

It was Hannah who came up with the ideas we settled on. Greyfriars Bobby and subsequently after the paranormal tours of tourist spots around Edinburgh. Due to their historical signifigance these places have mountains of research available surrounding their personal histories. Greyfriars bobby would allow for an intensely focused documentary on the subject of Bobby, whilst the supernatural ghost tour would provide a human subject and a rigid structure for the documentary due to the tour itself.

We are continuing to develop ideas and enagaging with both until we come to a definitive answer.

Greyfriars Bobby

40662877_2 — 2024-01-23 13:49:42 UTC

During our first pre-production meeting, we discussed the possibility of focusing our documentary on the story of Greyfriars Bobby. As the tale of Greyfriars Bobby is historical and is popular for tourists visiting the city, we would have a lot of areas we can research. This could include the Greyfriars Kirkyard which has both the grave of Bobby and his owner, the Greyfriars Bobby statue and bar on Candlemaker Row and the Museum of Edinburgh on the Royal Mile which has dedicated exhibits to the tale. There are also many tours round these locations which could help us gather more research and could potentially provide us with interviews with the tour guides and tourists for our documentary.

Planning a research plan

40660202_2 — 2024-01-31 13:42:41 UTC

In an effort to develop our idea further we broke down our Greyfriars Bobby idea into 5 segments, one for each of us. in an area we were interested in. Euan explored the cemetery nearby that shares a name with Bobby, the Greyfriars Kirkyard. He wanted to know more about the history of the two - what came first the dead dog or the cemetery? Ben explored the tourism spots directly around the statue and how places local to Greyfriars benefitted from proximity to the tourist hot spot. Erin looked into the origins of the story in myth and reality, and whether it became popular naturally or through force. Christopher Looked into the pub directly behind the statue, how a pub that shares it's name with the iconic spot wrestles with the demands of tourism. Hannah was interested in the reaction from the public, both tourist and local. Whether they thought it was worthwhile all the foot traffic that it brings to the area. We each decided to individually research these and combine it all together, and go from there.

Our ideas from the workshop

40662877_2 — 2024-02-06 15:27:29 UTC

We decided that we should focus on the statue of Greyfriars Bobby as our character for our documentary. This character will be used to show the story of over tourism in Edinburgh relating it to the worn away statue. We will try to discover if Edinburgh can handle the high levels of tourism that it now draws in and if it is being slowly worn away by it. Ben also mentioned a potential interviewee and is in the process of getting in touch with them. They used to work at the Edinburgh film festival so would be useful in discussing tourism in Edinburgh. If the interview is also successful, this could be a possible character for our film instead of the statue.

Change of Subject

40662877_2 — 2024-02-27 22:16:56 UTC

Our group has had a change of subject, directing our character for our documentary to Richard Demarco. We felt we could get a more engaging documentary especially since we are doing our film in an observational style as Richard has had such an interesting life with lots of involvement in the arts industry in Edinburgh. We plan to get a meeting with him soon so we can storyboard and plan our film further.

First Meeting

40662877_2 — 2024-03-11 15:13:08 UTC

To develop our research, we met with Richard Demarco to discuss our plans for the film. While we were there, Richard showed us around 3 of the rooms in his archive at Summerhall in Edinburgh. We clearly saw the relationship Richard has with his archive and the importance of art preservation. This made our group want to explore the themes of preservation and age, as now Richard is 93, we feel as a group it will be impactful to observe him surrounded by his collection in the film. Especially as some of his archive have suffered water damage due to the unequipped location, we feel like the film would be very relevant in showing Richard’s determination to save and appreciate the artwork. We are currently working on our pitch and proposal to develop our film further and gather our ideas before shooting.

Shooting Day

40662877_2 — 2024-03-11 15:36:21 UTC

After our pitch and proposal, we are now aware of the key question and themes we want to explore in our film. Our key question will be: As Richard gets older, what should we learn from Richard’s strong advocation for art preservation and its effect on the city’s culture? This will help us observe the relationship of preservation and age throughout our film through our observation of Richard. We have now decided as a group on our shooting days, which will take place the 13^th and 14^th of March.

Pitch - Brief Outline/Background Summary

40662877_2 — 2024-03-11 15:40:15 UTC

In this film, we are hoping to capture the themes of age and preservation through the observation of the relationship Richard Demarco has with his personal archive at Summerhall. When meeting with Richard, we understood the importance of his archive and made our group realise that our generation should be caring for and admiring this artwork too. We also could clearly see the damage that underappreciating art can have, with a lot of the archive suffering from water damage from being stored in an unequipped and unreliable location. We hope to show the theme of preservation as we see Richard’s determination to save this artwork for future generations, but also shows his inability to successfully do this with limited resources and money. Additionally, as Richard is now 93, it is important this film translates the need for art preservation as with his growing age the time for him to achieve this depletes.

40662877_2 — 2024-03-11 15:44:43 UTC

40662877_2 — 2024-03-11 15:44:58 UTC

40662877_2 — 2024-03-11 15:45:12 UTC

Challenges of Filming -

40651185_2 — 2024-03-12 13:02:19 UTC

Capturing Demarco's Legacy -

As we are producing an observational documentary, we cannot interview Demarco on film or have him speak to us and the camera directly. We will instead try to capture his talkative nature and wealth of stories through visual depictions of his cluttered archive. We will also record interactions with his assistant and personal musings on he has on his collection to provide further context to the images on screen. Our aim is to provide an authentic look at the archive through Demarco’s eyes in order to drive home the belief that it should be preserved and cared for by other likeminded artists.

The location itself provides many challenges for filming. The floor is crowded with boxes of artwork spanning decades, with high rows of shelves separating the rooms into narrow corridors. For this reason we will use static, mounted shots sparingly as finding suitable space for a tripod will prove difficult and restrict the what we will be able to show. We will favour handheld shots using a shoulder-rig as this allows us more flexibility in what we can show and enables us to better convey the feeling of exploring the archive to the viewer.

We aim to capture the stillness of the archive through sound and provide the viewer with the feeling that it is being forgotten despite our intrusion.

Vimeo Link to Film

40662877_2 — 2024-04-30 14:53:34 UTC

Critique Feedback Form

40662877_2 — 2024-04-30 14:54:18 UTC