Land Critical Review

The aim of our housing documentary was to show the contrast between country and city living whilst highlighting so called ‘urban sprawl’. The idea was to show suburban expansion and importantly the Greenland that has been and is being built on and the paranoia, and the positive and negative that comes with it.

The opening scene was one that was given much consideration in the original plan; we had decided to do a shot of a rising sun, but after seeing many other people had used that we decided against it. Furthermore it would not be entirely relevant to our subject of housing. The helicopter shot going over St George’s hill lacked the visual impact we had hoped for and the voice over gives it more emotion, whilst setting the tone for the rest of the documentary. The choice of poem is ironic in the way it talks about land being free to share whilst showing St George’s hill which has been acquired by a richer class than the previous owners. The bloody atrocities that occurred during the digger’s movement at St George’s hill provide the legitimate usage of the footage under public interest. Furthermore only what is necessary has been used which protects the usage of the short clip under the ‘fair use’ policy.

The sound is brought in to contrast the peaceful imagery of St George’s hill, the succession of building site sounds and imagery was intended to show the hectic nature of building. These shots are mixed in with countryside shots of open land and animals with a voice over which talks about the countryside being built on. This technique of contrasting loud sounds of a building site with the countryside is done to emphasise the difference of what can be seen as an intrusion of man and machine onto natural land. This concept is echoed by the voice overs of the ‘Save Barton Farm group’ who put this into words again giving more emotion.

The time lapse sequence intends to show the negative impact that urban overpopulation and new housing can have. The images show crime, the time lapse represents the fact that over time increased population and overcrowding has been linked to crime. This is of course one of many factors that have been attributed to over population and urban decay but is the one that visually provides a strong feel. The idea of crime spreading and over all urban decay is reinforced by the smashing of the bottle which also ads an acoustic contrast into the following sequence.

The next part of the documentary shows urban decay, the visual imagery here was basic in terms of the shots as the dilapidation of the buildings speaks for themselves. However the colour was taken out of the shot of the post man walking through the estate. I feel the colour left on the post man represents the contrast between the dreary surroundings of the estate and man’s ability to overcome bad surroundings. It shows that despite what surrounds you, you can prevail. I feel that the inclusion of social housing is very important; council housing shows the might of welfare state, but also its ultimate failings. With many estates now derelict it shows the negative side of housing and how despite its roaring success in the mid 70’s it has led to urban decay and ultimately failed. The sound track was made on garage band with the intention of being dark to reflect the images; however we made it a bit more upbeat than originally planned so that it would keep the viewer interested and is catchy. The voice tracks over the music provide more stimulation without literally narrating the piece, adding the negative attitudes towards housing as well as the visual of run down places. Originally we had planned to use shots from Barton farm that we had got permission to use, however they were not of a great quality and upon reflection did not add to what we were trying to achieve.  The clasped hands again represent the struggle between people and their surroundings and show the contrast between concrete and flesh. The shots of the estate are a bit grainy as they were not filmed using a HD camera; however this added to the affect that we were looking to achieve. The sun light at the end of the sequence shows the light which represents nature and that there are light and positive aspects to emerge from the mass building of new houses.

The interviewee voice track that goes over the countryside shots balances the views on housing talking about the positive sides of immigration and new housing and the interviewee is an immigrant himself which provides a valid point of view. The music from the busker was again courtesy of a John Knutson who filmed him on the day of the Barton Farm protests which fitted perfectly with the tone of the shots of various housing estates. The suburban housing estates were put together to show a rapid succession of identical houses that show the monotony of suburbia where everything seems to be the same as the neighbour. This is reflected by the overlapping of shots, which are actually of different estates but they look very similar. This wasn’t intended to reflect the positive or negative side of housing but simply what comes with new build housing estates. Whether the audience see these sorts of housing estates as a positive or negative thing is open to interpretation. The sequence also shows new homes that contrast the urban decay shown at the start of the documentary. Although we had used music over these shots, I think that we could have interviewed someone at a building company or from the council who could talk about the positives and negatives of new housing to back up the other interview. This would have given a bit more balance as well as getting more information on housing estates.

The Drama of the urban decay shots coupled with the protestors from Barton Farm gave a dark sinister feel to the documentary, which contrasts with the countryside shots which have no music. The idea was to show the countryside as being natural and untouched and I felt that the images speak for themselves in this case and did not need a music bed and just needed a simple voice over as the images are strong enough on their own.