Ollie Tristram

This is our proposal for our documentary film taken from a powerpoint presentation we did last week.

Story

• Focusing on a Nottingham busker called Sam. He is known colloquially and mistakenly as “the jazz man”. 
  
• He commonly plays blues and gospel music around Nottingham city centre
  
• We want to focus on his relationship with people and society hearing his opinions about the city and the people themselves 
  
• One of the key underlying questions is to ask why he chooses to do this for himself and the others around him.
  
• The documentary will be 4 mins long
  

• Quick background on the busker
  
• Starting slightly negative – society and the city will be portrayed negatively with general stereotyping
  
• This is to be proved wrong by our subject with an increasing positivity throughout the documentary with his views.
  
• His positivty shines through the grimness of busking life, with his music falling on un-caring ears.
  
• The Idea of putting a spin on the documentary comes from the likes of other documentary makers such as Michael Moore
  

• Artistic and creative shots throughout to emphasise the scale of the city and its character. For example, wide shots of busy city streets and close-ups of general city grime.
  
• Shots of the busker performing – mostly close-ups. Example ‘Susan and Susan’ from research post below.
  
• Camera techniques will include pull focus, canted angles, ambiguous shots to make the documentary a good visual experience.
  
• Editing techniques will include contrast variance, a colour tint – to emphasise the filth aspect. 
  
• Also text will fade in and out to reinforce particular words and sentences of interest.
  

• Voice over of Sam through majority of film which will come from questions we ask. This is what will tell the story. Example ‘Three Cherries’.
  
• Soundtrack will be recordings of the busker playing live and also general city ambience.
  
• We will record all sound using Edirol R-09 recorders.
  

• It will be interesting to find out why someone has made a conscious decision to sit on the cold, busy, dirty streets with the main objective of performing his music and meeting new people
  
• He is obviously somewhat religious so we want to know why his religion drives him to perform this act.