Assignment 3, Part 1 – Deconstruction and Analysis

Assignment 3, Part 2 – Recording the feedback

Assignment 3, Part 3 – Discussing another group’s pitch

For my discussion of another group’s pitch I have chosen Arielle, Tal and Nowie’s Pentridge pitch. In terms of the actual pitch presentation, I thought the group put together something very engaging and fulfilling. The accompanying visuals were well-crafted and really gave you a sense of the film they wanted to create; they were also very practical in explaining the proposed process of their film. Tal in particular was very eloquent and engaging, and put forth this great parallel between Pentridge Prison and his own “imprisonment” as a reluctant resident in its new housing development. There was also a very clear path visible from their concept to how it would be enacted. As I discussed in my self-reflection, our presentation perhaps lacked a clear connection between the two; in the Pentridge pitch, you could see how their proposed interviews and images would translate the concepts they spoke about in the pitch itself.

In this studio we’ve focused on this idea of neighbourhood, which I found strangely absent from this group’s pitch. I don’t think it detracted from the quality of the pitch or will detract from any eventual film piece, but I believe that their pitch focused more on place than neighbourhood. My only advice in relation to this would be to perhaps talk about the perceived lack of neighbourhood that exists in Pentridge, and how this relates to its history as a place. If I’m being honest, despite the strength of the pitch, I would be hesitant to fund this film on a very limited budget just because of its enormous scope. Although it’s fine to collect as much information and footage as possible, a slightly clearer and more precise focus would ensure that said information and footage isn’t too diverse and all over the place, and will form a cohesive project once condensed to the 3-5 minute format. I believe if you cast the net too wide, it can become too difficult to fit all the best bits in one project in a way where they are all relevant to the same point of contention, whereas a more honed approach with a clear contention always in the back of the mind will ensure a tighter project.

Our idea was well received by the panel, who I think saw potential in exploring change, both positive and negative, in neighbourhoods that are so personally close to us. However, as Paul Ritchard explained in his opening feedback, the panel felt there was a major disconnect between the ideas, concepts and research driving our film and the actual content we planned for our film. The panel saw our film as about our personal connection with these neighbourhoods, with particular relation to our personal experience and observations of change (and of continuation/maintenance). They didn’t see this reflected in the interview subjects, who instead they said seemed disconnected from our personal experience; although thematically they may have followed the concepts we were pursuing in our pitch, they lacked that more in depth, emotional connection to the neighbourhood that we displayed in our pitch. Their advice for us was to work out a way of working this personal connection into the film, with Paul going as far as suggesting we ditch the two suggested interviews entirely.

I’d like to address this latter point first. Obviously we can’t eliminate these interviews due to the guidelines set by the assessment, but I personally believe this would be detrimental to our film anyway. The interviews we have chosen are of people that are part of the positive evolution of these neighbourhoods, pursuing creative, professional projects with a beneficial community effect. I believe we need their perspective, even as long-term residents of the area, to understand how and why change is happening.

In terms of applying the advice, I believe we should start by altering how we approach our interviews, namely what questions we ask and what topics we steer the conversation toward. Our draft interview questions/ideas have been more geared towards our subjects’ reasons for moving into the neighbourhood and the process of repurposing the space and becoming a part of the community. Although I think these questions and lines of pursuit are still relevant and important, we should also ask them if they see themselves as gentrifiers and discuss with them, with ourselves or one of us as characters, how we see and experience the neighbourhood. We should also talk at least briefly to someone who has lived in the neighbourhood for a very long time just for that perspective; we can even use these interviews to speak for us as creators and long-time residents of the neighbourhood.

In terms of further research, I’ve decided to turn my focus less to documentaries just about neighbourhood and instead focus more on narratives on neighbourhoods of change, where there’s a lot of focus on what may no longer be apparent in a neighbourhood, displayed instead through personal accounts of what was and images of what it has become. The two documentaries I have watched (at least partially) so far are The Pruitt-Igoe Myth and My Brooklyn (the former of which I will touch upon later in my reflection). Both films work well to paint a picture of a neighbourhood that once was mainly through interviews and archival footage, and My Brooklyn in particular explores what it means to be potentially classified as a gentrifier within a community. I believe these two films, and others of the same nature, can help inform how we interweave the interviews we have planned with the personal experiences and stories the panel encouraged us to pursue.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is a 2011 documentary directed by Chad Freidrichs, exploring the rise, demise and mythologisation of the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex in St Louis, Missouri. Once a shining example of modernist public housing, Pruitt-Igoe eventually fell into disrepair and, upon its dramatic demolition, became a scapegoat for anti-public housing advocates in the US, who saw its demise as proof that public housing could never work. In the film Freidrichs combines found footage with talking heads interviews with former residents who relate their memories of the complex, attempting to deconstruct the “myth” that the project failed because of its nature, rather than the myriad of socio-economic problems that were affecting (and continue to affect) disadvantaged people who find themselves in public housing in the US. I’ve chosen this documentary for analysis because of the way it deals with memory, in particular how it extracts notions of memory, neighbourhood and change out of its interview subjects.

The first thing that stands out about this particular section, and documentary in general, is how the interviews are filmed. Rather than situating them in the place the documentary is talking about, or even the individual’s homes to characterise them a certain way, the interview subjects are filmed, fairly centred and almost direct to camera, on a plain white background. This gives us little clue of how we should imagine their lives, or their conception of the Pruitt-Igoe complex; instead, the viewer is forced to rely solely on their narration. Through this, we get a much more unadulterated memory of the neighbourhood as its former residents understood it. The first part of the sequence uses some archival still images of the housing complex, slowly panning across them as they are lit up amongst an otherwise dark St Louis. This image accompanies one resident’s memory of the beauty she saw in the Christmas lights hung by residents all across the complex. Underneath, a somewhat melancholy orchestral piece plays softly, contributing to the heightened nostalgia of the narration.

These three parts all tie together to create this sense of community, togetherness and tranquility in a community, that only minutes ago earlier in the film was vilified as a public housing disaster and criticised for being incredibly unsafe. The music eventually gives way to a background of silence, and the archival images are taken away, leaving just the talking heads on the white background and their memories of safety, community and a sense of true neighbourhood. This is something I hope we can incorporate into our own film: not relying entirely on images to tell a neighbourhood’s story, but rather on words as they can, in some instances, be a much more powerful and accurate evocation of memory.

14:20-18:06 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKgZM8y3hso