Urban Exploring Documentary Treatment

Urban Exploration

Length: 10:00

Format: 16:9 Full HD

Hook or tag line: Just because it’s abandoned, doesn’t mean it’s empty.

Short synopsis (25-50 words):

What is the film about?

Our short documentary will focus around the sport of Urban Exploring, following a small group of urban explorers as they photograph the Stanley Tools warehouses.

Mid-Length synopsis/outline (250 words):

What is the core subject matter of your film? How will the story unfold? What are the themes/issues/arguments you are trying to uncover? Who are the key contributors? What makes them interesting? What will we learn about them? Use visual language the aim is to bring the story alive and the characters off the page.

The core subject matter of the film will be explaining the sport of Urban exploring.

We are currently thinking the story will take the full 10 minutes of the allotted time and will play out in a structure similar to this;

·         Introduce the urban explorers and urban exploring through VO

·         Follow the explorers as they prepare to go ‘explore’

·         Explore the Stanley Tools and other sites with the explorers

·         Intercut this interviews from Stanley Tools site owner and VO and images from the explorers

·         End with future of Urban Exploring

Some of the arguments we will look at will be that buildings shouldn’t be left to rot because it’s a waste of space and resources, but as they are rotting why not take the opportunity to admire them in a temporary state while trying to adhere to the law.

The key contributors throughout the piece will be the Urban Explorers we follow and the site owners,

What makes them interesting is a very unique and uncommon hobby on the edge of the law with an insight into a world most people don’t know exists.

Our two main contributors are Matt and David. Their both in their early twenties and are friends who met at university.

Both Matt and David were born in small towns, growing up in tight-knit communities in which it seemed that not a lot happened and not a lot changed. For both boys, they found entertainment not on the streets but in abandoned buildings in their local area. Unlike the everyday pattern of their lives, discovering these buildings offered a new sense of excitement. Gradually discovering and seeking out these sites became a regular occurrence and is something that helped seal their friendship.

Matt is an eccentric individual with an artistic flair. Whereas others may think these derelict sights are a waste of space, for him it’s a blank canvas. The unique aesthetics of the sites offer a new, completely different space to work in meaning that every piece is unique.

David is a much quieter character with attention to detail. For him, these places are a haven of undiscovered secrets waiting to be captured through a lens

We hope that this will give a glimpse into the wider urban exploring movement.

Analysis of approach (500 words):

How will you make this film? What will it look and sound like? What is its style? What are the techniques used? What works were inspirational to the film? What works does it resemble? What is its mood? Its ambience?  Demonstrate enthusiasm and a distinctive visual/aural voice here. Include references to TWO films that you have watched as research.

We will make this film by getting our footage partly from interviews, b-roll and hopefully archive footage, while also gaining observational footage from following the Urban Explorers.

It will have an urban gritty feel to match the subject matter and environment we will be shooting in, while at the same time implementing many cinematic style shots such as large sweeping pans, wide angle shots, extreme close ups and possibly time lapses to help convey the emptiness and vastness of the location we are filming.

Its soundtrack will be entirely instrumental, we are thinking something with a strong beat but relatively simple with not too many individual instruments or sounds because a cluttered soundtrack wouldn’t suit the mase en scene and would detract from any voice over’s from interviews.

Some of the techniques used will be expository and observational, archive footage, interviews, voice over’s, still images and montage.

Some of the inspiration we have gotten for the style of our film is from a short 30 minute documentary on a new drug that is appearing in Russia called krokodill. It is an incredibly potent drug far stronger, and more importantly for the addicts much cheaper, than heroin, but it literally rots the body from the inside out. The documentary focused largely on the fact that it is the poor who are succumbing to the urge to try it as a cheap alternative to heroin.

They really drove this message home by getting a lot of b-roll of the poor areas of the city, and doing interviews with the inhabitants on location in the run down dangerous looking areas. Seeing the extreme poverty really drove what they were saying home, and we want to implement this in our film by interviewing on location if we can.

Its mood will be exciting and light-hearted but with serious undertones regarding the legality of the things the explorers do and the future of Urban Exploring as a sport.

Its ambience will generally make it seem like a quiet piece that focuses on the artistic side of the abandoned buildings, trying to show the viewer a world they probably have never seen before, but also trying to illustrate why the Urban Explorers risk getting caught just for a chance to explore these strange locations.

Filmmaker biography (50-100 words) :

What kind of documentary maker or filmmaker are you? What are the themes in your work? How do you approach work? Do you have any awards?

This is the second documentary in which I have been the main camera operator and I already feel a strong visual style coming through my work. I strive to create artistic shots utilising the specific visuals within the documentaries subject to show the beauty of the mise en scene and engage the viewer. I also personally enjoy making documentaries about peoples passion for their individual hobbies as they are positive and give audiences a chance to understand each other better as people. When working on documentary I look for the most interesting and eye catching cutaways that give tone and meaning to a film. I work both to shot lists and in an improvisational way grabbing shots of unique and interesting moments quickly and efficiently to ensure a comforting amount of B roll footage.