This group was proposing on a documentary film which would revolve around a run-down pet refuge in Peterborough, highlighting the people involved, the problems they are currently facing and what will happen without help of funding or other instances (the main contributors health).
This project, as I stated before, grabbed my interest for a range of reasons. One was, simply, my love for animals. I'm very passionate on this subject, and feel that my feelings towards it would help motivate me to create a style and theme. But a concern of this could be arisen, whether my feelings towards them would create a bias atmosphere within shoots. However, the project being based on the human struggle rather than the animals themselves opens up my view, and I am therefore wanting to explore all the opinions and views there are, filming all sides to the stories.
Another reason I liked this idea was because it was Documentary. Having worked on a few over past years of university, it's something I've really enjoyed, as well as enjoying watching works of others. I enjoy the idea of addressing/expressing an issue to the audiences' eye. However, saying this, I would have as happily worked on a drama.
So far, the group had a director, producer, sound & editors and were looking for a cinematographer. Here are some early details about the project:
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PROJECT SYNOPSIS:
Poetic documentary using striking imagery, voiceovers, some ambient sound and music to portray the day to day running of an animal sanctuary dedicated to caring for abandoned exotic animals.
The film shows the range of exotics as well as the amount of work involved in looking after a wide range of non-traditional pets.
The film charts the range of animals, including monkeys, birds of prey, big cats and reptiles and focuses on the most interesting animals such as the Lynx, the alligator and the monkeys and tells the back story of how the animals ended up in the sanctuary, nearly always as a result of people buying exotics as pets, then realising how much hard work and expense is involved in keeping them.
It is our intention that the film is not a bleeding-heart charity appeal type film, more an interesting look at what animals have been bought as pets in the UK and is a cautionary tale about thinking about how hard it ease to keep exotic pets before buying them.
The film will include interviews with four main contributors, that being the owner, a volunteer, a member of the public on the centre’s open day and one of the patrons of the sanctuary, actor Warwick Davies.
OUTLINE OF VISUAL STYLE
The visual style of the film is influenced by the work of Eva Weber and Bruce Weber, whereby the voiceovers are disconnected from the images in such a way that you never see the person being interviewed but the comments accompany the imagery.
The film begins with a close up of a kitchen worktop with dog bowls laid out and regular pet food being poured into them. As the camera tracks along the line of bowls the food going into each one changes and we see fruit being chopped up and put into bowls, then grain being poured into another bowl and then a bag of dead chicks being opened and those being poured into a bowl. At this point we realise that the pets to be fed are not your normal day to day domestic animals.
The film goes on to feature establishing shots of the rare animals in the grounds of what looks like a normal house and close ups of the strange animals and their injuries as voiceovers (comments from contributors) explain some of the back stories of the animals.
Films which have influenced this choice of style include Eva Weber’s works: Steel Homes and Solitary Life of Cranes, and Bruce Weber’s documentaries A Letter to True and Red Flag Day.
OUTLINE OF KEY THEMES
The hook of the story is the back stories of the animals and how they came to be exotic pets and then end up (often injured) in the animal sanctuary when their owners could no longer look after them. The interesting angle of the story is that such exotic animals, like big cats, Lama and alligators are kept as pets in this country.
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