Acid house Idea and Treatment

So after hitting these problems we managed to hit some luck and gain access to Chris and Anthony Donnelly who were responsible to introducing the acid house scene into Manchester. They also own and run two clothing companies in the form of Geo-Goi and YO.

This was a perfect opportunity for us to touch on a subject that we have never thought about before and we knew that there wasn't a group that would be doing anything similar to ours. Getting them to agree to being filmed would be a challenge that we would face later on but knowing their God daughter will help us with that 

Treatment

Born in Manchester, brothers Anthony and Christopher Donnelly soon became infamous in their hometown and across the UK for organising some of the biggest raves the North and South had ever seen.  Introduced to the world-renowned nightclub, The Hacienda by their sister Tracey (who worked for Factory Records) the brothers were soon under the guidance of owner Tony H. Wilson.

The notorious “Sweat it Out” was Manchester’s first illegal warehouse party, going down in folklore. Attendees included 

The brothers put on the largest rave the North had ever witnessed called “Joy” in Ashworth Valley. With tens of thousands of people in attendance the phrase 24-hour party people came about as it carried on for 24 hours.

After their status for throwing the best parties garnered police and parliament attention where a new bill was passed to tackle the Donnelly’s and Acid House Scene, the brothers had to move on to other ventures.

Gio-Goi was born a brand that is still linked between fashion and music today, worn by current artists: Calvin Harris, Pete Doherty, Deadmau5 and Lily Allen amongst others. To recently announcing a new underground brand Y.O. (yourownclothing.com)

For our short documentary we will be interviewing The Donnelly brothers, we will ask questions about their growing up experiences and how they got involved into the Acid House Scene and became infamous for organising the biggest raves of that time. With a huge amount of stories to tell, we will have to plan the questions so we have a good amount of detail that can fit into a short documentary.

We will also try to interview their sister Tracey to get information on her time at Factory Records under owner Tony Wilson, which was also featured in 2002 film 24 Hour Party People (directed by Michael Winterbottom).

We will also get footage and a walking interview on the site of the first rave organised by the brothers which is owned by their father, called Whitehouse Farm.

Manchester will provide us with numerous locations to film, such as the old site where the Hacienda Club use to stand before being demolished in 2002.

The documentary will be informative yet engaging, with the contributors offering information that is interesting and exciting and should be relatable with young and older people around during the 1980’s and familiar with this scene. I would like to mix interview footage with, photos from the time and footage from today with the possibility of getting archive footage from the raves. 

We will also look at using some music that is from the time and scene which will give the piece a real lively and vibrant feel. Obviously we will have to be wary of any copyright issues but I feel we can make a strong piece that really brings alive the essence of the Acid House Scene and the raves that the Donnelly brothers orchestrated.

Parkour Final treatment

So we decided to go for the parkour idea as we felt like it would give us the most scope and we would be able to produce the best documentary from it. we felt like we could make it look good and had an idea to take forward for the poetic also which we didn't for the other ideas we had.

Final Treatment 

For our short documentary we all came together and brainstormed a few ideas for what we wanted to do. We wanted to do something that was different and would still invoke a reaction. We thought about looking into video games and how playing on them a lot over a long period of time makes people but we didn't think we could take this further. We then looked at Extreme sports as one member of the group has a knowledge of this area and has done film work involving this. We then started to think outside the box and looked at Parkour (free running/ jumping).


Parkour is really interesting and very impressive in what some people can do. We realised it's very popular in active young people and there is a big scene especially in Sheffield. But it seems that they misrepresented as vandals and people who seek to cause trouble due to the where the sport is done (public places etc.) and also what they wear. But ironically not a lot of people know what the actual term 'Parkour' means. We want the documentary to show that this is something to be admired and not something that falls in the bracket of troublemaking.


We have already contacted a group who are very interested in being filmed by us and with the idea we have put forward they are only too happy to speak about it. Our documentary will be an observant one, watching and filming the subjects as they perform Parkour, but also somewhat Participatory as we will need to ask them to share experiences and give their honest opinion about the topic at hand.

For the technical side of the documentary we want to use tricky cinematography and visually impressive shots to match the footage of the people performing Parkour. In the edit suite we would slow the footage right down and use soft gentle music to show the sport being very graceful and elegant rather than fast pace and jumpy like you would expect. We would still want to make the piece very gritty and urban as it is an urban sport so lots of blues and greys would be used.


Interviewing the subjects we would want it in the urban environment to match the footage of the Parkour elements we shoot. We would like to be informal to make it seem more real and it will make the subjects feel much more comfortable with this. We will ask them why this sport interests them and why they think they're misrepresented and given a label. We will also ask some of the general public if they know what Parkour is.


In the 2 minute Poetic documentary we will use a combination of both fast and slow footage of the Parkour and use tracking shots and spins. Also long shots of the subjects gliding through the air. Using a combination of both and fast and slow pace will make the piece seem really interesting. For example show slow motion in the air and then cut to a fast landing. We will also use the voices of the subjects in this piece.

Problems

After deciding to go with the Parkour idea we had a few problems.

The first problem we had was getting hold of people that do this sport. We had a good response from people at Hallam who were part of the society at university but we needed someone big who we were contacting but with no sort of luck.

We also encountered another problem when we were shown a similar documentary to idea by Debbie from a previous year and it looked pretty much the same as what we were planning for ours and we new that it didn't get a great mark

Having these two problems with our documentary so early on we decided that it would be wise to try and find another idea that we could possibly change to.  

Initial Ideas

Coming up with the initial ideas for this documentary was a long and hard process. We all wanted to find something that other people wouldn't be doing and something that we would all equally be enthusiastic about.

One of the ideas that we had was to go to the devils arse cave in the peak district that I went to last week. This was a inspiring place that as a tourist you could visit but not the whole cave. If we could gain access to the caving society in the town this could have given us access to the deeper part of the cave where there is a drop the size of the london eye. We decided not to go with this idea as we would struggle with the logistics and getting hold of some equipment for filming in really low light would have been difficult for us.

Another Idea that we had was to look into addiction but not what you immediately think when you think of addiction.  We wanted to look into gaming addiction this an area that not many people know about and something that we dont know much about ourselves but like to know more. This is becoming more and more prominent in younger people and we want to know why and what help people can get. we decide not to go with this idea as  although it is a good subject and intersting we think it wouyld just be to hard in the time scale we have.

Our last idea which was the idea that we would be taking forward was to do a documentary on parkour / free running. We chose this idea as we knew people that did this at a high level so we could get the access and we also thought that this would be a interesting topic. This was something that none of us had done before so we had to go away and do some research before continuing.

Project Nim

Cover for project NIM

This was a Documentary about something that i studied During my A-levels. this is a story about a monkey taken from birth to be taught by humans how to communicate via sign language. There were many problems with what they were doing. The biggest being that there was never any thought into the ethics of taking a baby chimp and what effects it would have on it. 

They had many problems along they way with changing of teachers and where he was taught and also him attacking his teachers as he got older this was obviously not the right environment for a chimp. on of my favorite things was when  NIM learnt that when he went to the toilet he didn't have to learn so he just kept signing that he needed to go. m After all of this NIM ended up in a animal testing unit where he was tested on before finally being bought by a family who were trying to 'save' him but just put him in solitude where he lived out the rest of his un happy days. 

So this documentary at the begging was very hard to follow there is no real explanation as to what you are seeing on screen so it takes a while to understand and catchup but once you do you can start to enjoy the documentary for what it is. One of the best things about this documentary is that they have found everyone who had key involvement with NIM and all the people that had made the decisions in his life. 

Another good thing was that you heard from all sides of the story and  not just ones side. All this along with the use of found all the found footage this makes a touching documentary that is both informative and great to watch.