I thought that the presentation on Suttons was intriguing, the idea was interesting and there were obvious connections that the group had that would enable them to access more than the average person might, mainly because they are connected to the area as they live there. Suttons to me sounds like it was a great business for someone to have running in Ballarat. It used the history of the space to help get the community of today involved in music (primarily).

I could see and hear the connections Molly has and therefore the opportunities available to them. She works next door and she and her friends have previously been actively involved in using the space.I straight away thought it could make a great political film and has great potential to be shared online for the purpose of protest. However, as they mentioned in their presentation, there may be restricted entrance to the actual shop/space as it was currently unoccupied and the owners probably wouldn’t support the documentary as it would show them in a negative light. This particular fact may restrict what they are able to visually show in the film. This issue is one that any filmmaker may come across though, and I know that they could creatively solve this, or potentially use the restriction to their advantage by stating in the film that they were not allowed to access it due to the owners not supporting the film.

Although I thought the spoken presentation was great, I didn’t think the footage shown was very useful or relevant (though I think it may have been a mistake?). I understand that they may not have had time to show a little bit more of what they intended the style of the documentary to be like. I would have liked to see them giving a taste of their film, perhaps a snippet of an interview or some narration of some facts about the space. I thought that just showing the shop front didn’t strengthen their presentation.

Jack and Molly quite obviously have an attachment to the story and I could see their light passion and great knowledge about the topic. They seemed well prepared for the presentation – they had scouted the area, researched it’s history, researched the recent issues and had already organised to meet up and interview with the last owner of Suttons to talk about the past business and what went wrong. I see the idea for the documentary is easily and readily available to them through multiple interviewees. Isabella (the new girl) was not involved in the presentation and I couldn’t really see how she fitted in. If I were to be be ‘green lighting’ this project I would question what she brings to the project simply because she was not involved in the presentation itself. I know (because I’m in the class) that she was actually unable to attend previous classes for personal reasons and therefore was kind of thrown into the project headfirst, but they could have addressed this or she could have, as I like to say, faked it till you make it’ and rehearse some of the knowledge that the others had. As a funding body I may have questioned whether there was someone out there who could take her spot, someone who has more knowledge and passion about the subject, especially if the film in question was intending to be emotive.