Five-Minute Film Ideas
Mariana writes:
I am a film student and my next project is to make a 5 minutes film related to the Maritime Greenwich. I have read many interesting facts on your blog but couldn't find yet a subject for the film. Specially because it must be about the specific area between the O2 down to the Cutty Sarck, the area that goes near the river. So basically all that goes beyond (south and east) of Blackwall Tunnell Avenue, Blackwall Lane, Trafalgar Road and Romney Road is unfortunately not useful...
Anyway I wonder if you could help us. I came to you obviously because I understand you have great knowledge and information on Greenwich; perhaps you know some amazing fact on the area that I am missing out. We are researching the local but If you know a great subject that could be interesting to film is always worth to ask.
I appreciate a lot if you could take some of your time to answer me back, I guess you're probably busy. Still from the dedication you demonstrate through your blog I can only have came to the right person. And by the away I read all about the T&L's Amylum factory; It's to considerate as you post it almost an year ago so I don't know how's the situation.
The Phantom blushes and replies:
But that's a fascinating part of town! Hey - it's one of the few vestiges of Industrial Greenwich left, and even as I write this, it is being eroded. Never more did this beautiful (yes, beautiful) part of Greenwich need recording.
Take a walk along the Thames Path for starters. Check out the Foot and Mouth Memorial - do a bit of research and find out who built that piece of classic Outsider Art. There's a story there for sure. Who looks after that little garden? A five-min film about whoever that is would be charming. How about the boat repairers, just next to the Lovell's Wharf development? It's still just about there, but is being re sited, I understand, to make way for the new flats. Get out there and check those guys out. One of their patients last year was the Grand Turk, a fine tall ship.
Or, if all that isn't edgy enough, what about those creepy dead buildings a bit further up, where the path is surrounded by high corrugated iron walls both sides and it's like something out of The Long Good Friday? Or the social club of the chemical works? Do a docco about the people who frequent that place and I'll watch it. Round the back of the Dome, scrap metal yards and dodgy dealerships, strange remnants of when the Peninsula was a thriving industrial zone still linger, their high chain link fences guarded 24/7 by Alsatians that are not guys from Eastern France...
Tell us the story behind that extraordinary Victorian building next to Blackwall Tunnel - or those long thin buildings that were once Endersbys. Or the aggregates that still arrive by ship at the wharf along the way. Tell us about the row of willows, or what has happened to the millennium art along the route after eight years.
Back the other way, how about a film about the lives of pensioners at Trinity Hospital, living in the shadow of the power station? Or the secret world of the power station itself? Or an interview with Bob the auctioneer at Greenwich Auctions?
Just walk along that path - talk to the people who use it - who run, cycle, walk their dogs. There are a million stories waiting to be told.
And when you tell it, make sure I know about it...
I am a film student and my next project is to make a 5 minutes film related to the Maritime Greenwich. I have read many interesting facts on your blog but couldn't find yet a subject for the film. Specially because it must be about the specific area between the O2 down to the Cutty Sarck, the area that goes near the river. So basically all that goes beyond (south and east) of Blackwall Tunnell Avenue, Blackwall Lane, Trafalgar Road and Romney Road is unfortunately not useful...
Anyway I wonder if you could help us. I came to you obviously because I understand you have great knowledge and information on Greenwich; perhaps you know some amazing fact on the area that I am missing out. We are researching the local but If you know a great subject that could be interesting to film is always worth to ask.
I appreciate a lot if you could take some of your time to answer me back, I guess you're probably busy. Still from the dedication you demonstrate through your blog I can only have came to the right person. And by the away I read all about the T&L's Amylum factory; It's to considerate as you post it almost an year ago so I don't know how's the situation.
The Phantom blushes and replies:
But that's a fascinating part of town! Hey - it's one of the few vestiges of Industrial Greenwich left, and even as I write this, it is being eroded. Never more did this beautiful (yes, beautiful) part of Greenwich need recording.
Take a walk along the Thames Path for starters. Check out the Foot and Mouth Memorial - do a bit of research and find out who built that piece of classic Outsider Art. There's a story there for sure. Who looks after that little garden? A five-min film about whoever that is would be charming. How about the boat repairers, just next to the Lovell's Wharf development? It's still just about there, but is being re sited, I understand, to make way for the new flats. Get out there and check those guys out. One of their patients last year was the Grand Turk, a fine tall ship.
Or, if all that isn't edgy enough, what about those creepy dead buildings a bit further up, where the path is surrounded by high corrugated iron walls both sides and it's like something out of The Long Good Friday? Or the social club of the chemical works? Do a docco about the people who frequent that place and I'll watch it. Round the back of the Dome, scrap metal yards and dodgy dealerships, strange remnants of when the Peninsula was a thriving industrial zone still linger, their high chain link fences guarded 24/7 by Alsatians that are not guys from Eastern France...
Tell us the story behind that extraordinary Victorian building next to Blackwall Tunnel - or those long thin buildings that were once Endersbys. Or the aggregates that still arrive by ship at the wharf along the way. Tell us about the row of willows, or what has happened to the millennium art along the route after eight years.
Back the other way, how about a film about the lives of pensioners at Trinity Hospital, living in the shadow of the power station? Or the secret world of the power station itself? Or an interview with Bob the auctioneer at Greenwich Auctions?
Just walk along that path - talk to the people who use it - who run, cycle, walk their dogs. There are a million stories waiting to be told.
And when you tell it, make sure I know about it...
Labels: Ask The Phantom
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
20:12
6 Comments:
If I had just five minutes to make such a film I would pick a very singular theme. My version is called 'Ebb & Flow' and would simply be a five-minute profile of the rivers edge as it comes and gos with the camera shooting almost at water level for much of the time. The river is at its best actually at the low tides when the banks are exposed. For even better results make it in black and white with lots of noise. Sound will be a big component also - the flap of a comorant drying its wing, the wash of the wake of the clipper commuters, the rattle of a discarded plastic bottle as it drag across the shore's pebbles, the whine of an over-flying City jet. All this filmed across a day from the darkest hour through to the dusk.
Well, that's how it shoot it anyway!
'Blackheathen'
I agree with the Phantom on this one. I have only been a Greenwich resident for the last 3 years and have seen such a difference in that short time. It really does need some serious 'Historian' type to document the decline of this once thriving industrial area before it gets covered by overpriced developments built by people trying to cash in on the Olympics.
I can often be found taking photo's along the Thames path trying to capture the essence of what was once a thriving community of different businesses and characters. But then I suppose that progress!!???
I went to an open day at Trinity Hospital a few years ago. It was fascinating - and is a secret to most people most of the year. If you could get inside and record the lifes of the pensioners it would make a charming short film. Great visuals of the tudor (?) building dwarfed by the factory towers alongside it.
Hum, interesting concept. I spend a lot of time beachcombing infront of the college and there seems to be an inordinate amount of animal bones washed up,anything from rabbit and sheep to ox.Strange.....where do they come from? My partner is convinced she will find some Roman gold, there was a Roman Temple in the park after all .Perhaps those dudes with the metal detectors have found some "treasure". If you go up the beach a bit further outside the Cutty Sark Pub up to the boat yard you can find some modern day treasure. I have found several mobile phones ( a bit waterlogged I must admit) wallets watches and various personal detritous which I suspect has been discarded by present day Greenwich Pirates. I'm sure there is plenty of subject matter here. All ideas are subject to copyright though, ha ha jim me lad.
there are a number of local projects working on this area - suggest people contact Isabel at the Independent Photography Project who have made films and worked on community history stuff in that area - and could also recommend some of the books and articles written on the riverside and on the peninsula and its industries
A lovely, lyrical response Phantom, and a great summation of the mysteries and beauties, however subjective, of East Greenwich waterfront.
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