We all shared our ideas; Myroslava’s pitch was on her granddad, as he fought for the Ukraine army. However because her grandfather had recently passed away, the interview was going to be her dad talking about his father’s experiences. But we found that talking to her father would not have the same meaning and effect than if we spoke to her grandfather.
I then pitched my idea, which is on my Nan becoming a full time career after my granddads stroke, and how she is coping with how her life has changed so much. Although the group found this a strong idea, we all agreed that the subject was still to upsetting for my Nan to talk about. I know this because when doing the mock interview with my Nan, for our own independent research, it is clear that she got very upset talking about it. Please see the link, to understand what I mean: http://vimeo.com/35643582.
Shelley then pitched her idea, which was about her friend Flori, and how she is originally from a run down area in Romania. Flori has now moved over to England and now studies full time as well as working two jobs to send money home to Romania to support her family. As a group we decided that this was the strongest pitch and also the most practical.
Although Flori is a close personally friend of Shelley’s and the rest of the group don’t know her, Shelley meets up with her every week and for the past month has been asking her in depth conversations about her life. Even though the rest of the group have not been in direct contact with the subject, we have all put ideas to Shelley to ask Flori questions about her life, so that we have enough research on the subject to all feel confident enough on the matter.
With the questions that we all put forward to ask, we have begun to gather a wider picture on Flori’s life and her stories are becoming more interesting.
The issue that we faced when in the group meeting was what area on her life to focus on. The reason this is an issue is because she has had such an eventful life, that it was initially difficult to pin point an exact topic on which to focus on.
Events in Flori’s life consist of:
- Her life of poverty in Romania
- Her struggles moving to a different country on here own
- The pressure of having to earn money to stop her family from starving
- Her abusive father
We feel that all these elements will make up a very interesting piece, however we will have to focus more on one specific element. This is because in the three minutes we got, we don’t want to bombard the audience with loads of information, because they’ll get confused and I don’t think it will have the emotional impact that we are hoping for.
The angle we have decided to go with is to show the audience how Flori’s life was a struggle growing up and how she has not turned her life around. This was we can start of with the negative parts of her life allowing the audience to feel empathy with her, and the progress to how she has succeeded to then make the audience feel that there has been a positive outcome.
In a group discussion we looked at 5 photographs from Flori’s life and discussed what we could say about all of them.
This picture shows Flori and her relative when they were children. Flori has told Shelley she thinks she was about 10 years old at this time. They are in Romania near the flat they lived. This picture is to support what we want to show in the beginning of the documentary, we want to interview Flori and ask her about her childhood in Romania, about her relationships with her family, the struggles she went through when she was growing up in poverty. How she had to live with her grandmother from the age of 13 because her father used to beat her mother. Little details like her mother used to make one big stew for the whole family and deliver it to all of the houses at dinnertime otherwise they would go hungry. We really want to show the hardship of her younger life before she got into school and before she got the ambition to go to university. I want an audience to realise how different some people grow up. In the documentary we will show this by asking Flori questions and showing her answers, hopefully Flori can also provide us with some photos of her childhood like this one.
This is a picture of Flori, which was taken not long after she got the job at the Royal Oak pub. This currently is Floris only source of income as student finance is not supporting her education this year. We want to show in the documentary footage of Flori working in the pub, this is because this is her lively hood. This is how she survives and how she helps her family to survive. We want to show in the documentary how Flori began working her 7 days a week in the pub when she moved to England, as well as studying Law at university, and she currently works there now for 5 days a week. This is where she earns the money to not only keep herself alive but also to send to her family in Romania so they can survive. This is key to show in the documentary because it shows Floris selflessness as a character, and how she is surviving on a minimum amount of money to help her family.
This is a picture of Flori’s brothers children, so her niece and nephew. The picture is great for showing her relationship with her family and puts a face to what Flori will be explaining in her story. This is a really important image to include explaining Floris story, the background gives you an idea of the poverty her family are living in. It is really important for us to show Flori’s relationship with her family in the documentary and the importance of it. These are the people who she is supporting financially and in the documentary we want her to explain her relationship she has with them and explain how difficult it is to provide for herself and her family on a part time wage.
This is a picture of Flori on Christmas day taken by her roommate Karina. It is important to show this because this is where the majority of the interview we film will be set. Also it shows where she lives, which gives the documentary an authentic personal feel. However you can read this picture in both a positive and negative way. It is sad that she is not spending Christmas with her family as neither can afford to fly over and spend it with the other. However it is also nice to see what Flori has now, where she is living, she is living in a nice house near work and uni and it is important to show this in the documentary, just how much of a better way of life she has here.
This is a picture of Flori, which was taken before one of her competitions in her law degree. This is a very important image because it offers a resolution to Flori’s story and it shows the real positives of her life here in England. I felt this is the most important image to include last as it shows where she is today. It shows her journey from struggling in poverty in Romania to making something of her life here in England, it also shows her passion and her ambition and we want this to come across to an audience.
I then drew up Five segments of storyboards to illustrate, how we will set up the shot and what locations we will film in to represent best Flori’s Life. Please excuse the drawings as im not an artist.
The first storyboard shows a close up of Floris face. We plan to interview her in her home, to illustrate to the audience where she now calls home. This shot will be a close up. I think close ups are key when people are talking about their personal life, as it captures all their emotions and facial expressions and gives the audience a more one to one feeling. The interview section of the piece will be key part as the documentary will keep cutting back to her talking about her life, intercut shots of her going about he key daily routines will be intercut in with it, and her voice will still be heard over the top. The reason were going to do this is to re-enforce what she is saying with visual stimuli.
This shot is just going to be another angle in which we will shoot Flori. This shot will be key when the audiences are connecting to her as they will be able to see her surrounding and where she lives. Many people have said in history that people’s objects say a lot about a person, and that is why we will shoot from a long to medium shot perspective. The other plus point by doing this will be to show her body language when she talks.
This storyboard shows the audience where she works, we plan to film her working at the pub she works at. This will interlink to the moments she talks about working to help herself and her family live. Therefore the audience will not just hear her talk about it, but will also see he doing it. We have permission to film in the pub, as Shelley also works here; therefore she has already sorted it out with the management.
This shot will show Flori studying for her Law degree, which takes up a lot of her time. Once again this shot will be used to back up what she is saying when she discusses her education. The reason why we know when we will be able to use these exterior shots other than the interview is because we will ask her questions regarding each section of her life that we want to look at, and then with some planning, they will all link up well.
This final shot will show Flori in a courtroom, for Floris course she has to practice doing mock court cases and coincidently she has one coming up next Friday, therefore as long as we can get permition to film. (Which shouldn’t be a problem) we will film her taking part in this activity. She will be wearing all the traditional robing and as a group we think it will be an exciting aspect of her life to capture. This will then be a good end to the piece, as they are quiet positive visual images, which contrast to her negative stories at the beginning of the interview.
Overall as a group we are very happy with the direction the project is going in. The only issue we may have is focusing on one small aspect of a very eventful life, however as we progress with the project im sure it will become clear which of Floris stories we can focus on more, that will link to the angle we wish to take, being how she has turned her life around.
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. David Bird Media . 