TREATMENT - BLUECOAT CREATIVE COMMUNITY

This is our treatment of our second idea for the Bluecoat creative community.

An exploration of a thriving arts community based in Liverpool’s most historic building. The Creative Community at Bluecoat consists of three groups, creative industries, independent creative retailers and artists who work across all art platforms.

The Bluecoat houses a wealth of artists, working across a wide range of artistic disciplines, including painters, video and sound artists as well as fine artists, textilers and multi-media collaborators. The documentary will feature interviews with artists, asking what makes Bluecoat so unique / successful and how they feel Liverpool benefits from having such an established creative community. We will look at the rise of the nine independent retail units, selling a variety of handmade and unique items, from textiles to ceramics and how/ if they can compete with big chains. Also looking at the stories of why some people set up these businesses. We will consider the contrast between the thriving creative community at The Bluecoat and the struggling high street and ask if the Bluecoat faces any issues in its immediate future in terms of budget cuts and how will it plans to sustain itself as an enterprise. We can ask the independent stores how they are faring in the economic climate, how important the bluecoat is to them to continue trading, what they would do without it. Also we can ask the shoppers why they choose to support small shops instead of large chains.

The piece will be light in mood and focus on the positive aspects of regeneration and community spirit. We will be mostly using diegetic sounds, recorded in the artists own workshops to accurately represent their world. Given the artistic nature of the community we will be profiling we intend to reflect this in our treatment of the footage during post production. We intend to use colour tones to further enhance the emotion of the film. We will begin with a brief history of the building utilising old photographs of the building then fade them in/out to our own shots of the buildings now. Alternatively we will use time-lapse shots of various parts of the building, and people making art. While using voice over of contributors stating how important the community is to them. We plan not to use a traditional interview set up whilst speaking to the artists, instead we will film them while they’re making their art. There will also be lots of close ups/ short depth of field shots of some of the art/ objects.

We intend the film to be accessible to all audiences however given the nature of the documentary it will appeal predominantly to those with an interest in the arts or independent scene. The film could be used as a promotional tool for the benefits of small business and arts communities nationwide.