first post and project statement.

Our Documentary is to be on "making Trouble for the Public Good". for this we have chosen to do a short film about the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP). We are going to follow a group member of this party, and see his reasons for being in the party, and what actions he takes (his beliefs etc). We are also going to film strikers on the picket line, as the SWP support the workers on the picket line, and hopefully get interviews from these workers.


Project statement:

Our documentary film project is to be on the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). We are going to look at how they stand up against large corporations, and side with the workers of these companies, offering legal advice and support on strikes and the picket lines. They also stand for equality and socialism, and are against racism and oppression. An example of this within our film will be the postal strike that has been ongoing for the last month. The SWP are supporting the mail workers against a privatization scheme, in which many workers may lose their jobs. We are hoping this will display how the SWP help out workers, and create trouble for the public good. We will be following an SWP member and perhaps one of the striking postal workers or others on the picket line and hear their views, desires and aims and capture their interactions. This will be an investigative documentary, in which we will be getting information and actively seeking it.
Visually we want the film to be a mixture of handheld shots (often related with documentary style, due to an authentic look of realism and non staged events). We will use handheld shots when out in the field, on the picket lines with the workers, and when having impromptu interviews with those who want to talk to us. However, we will use a tripod for our organised interviews, which will hopefully draw away any attention of camera work, and the subject will be the main focal point with their answers. In between the interviews and action on the picket line, we will also have researched the reason why the postal workers are striking, and why the SWP are supporting them. We will hopefully manage to get some archive footage too, to support our evidence and historical references. In our documentary we don’t really want to have a voice over, as we feel it will take away the impact of the film. There will be plenty of talking with our film, so we don’t want the audience to lose interest. We will however, use on screen text as a way of getting across any other information we need to.
The sound of our film will be synchronous sound, this being the voices of our interview subjects, and “natural background” sounds. These are the sounds of crowds, cars etc. For our interviews, we will conduct them in a quiet room, so we wont have to worry about background noise, but when out filming on the picket lines we will not be able to prevent these. However I personally feel it will give a greater feel of “authenticity” to the documentary.
For our documentary, we are fortunate enough to have contacts with the regional leader of the SWP, and he has agreed to talk to us about what it is they do, and how they will be helping the postal workers on strike. This will be great for our documentary, as it will help give a genuine sense of realism to our film. We want our film to be as truthful and informative as possible about our topic, and we are fortunate enough to have the regional leader willing to talk to us about how his party help those workers on strike.
Our film is ultimately going to be about the SWP, this will be our umbrella topic, and the postal strike will highlight what they do, and show the SWP in action. However, we will also have interviews with the postal workers, and their reasons and thoughts behind it. I feel our film handles the subject title well, as the striking workers we are filming are causing trouble, (most notably for their employers) but ultimately for the public good, and with the SWP supporting them, there are two areas in our film in which trouble is being made, but ultimately for the public good.