We were originally inspired for the ‘Climate of hope and fear’ brief from an example shown in our lecture of “Primitive Technology”. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA
The idea of people who shut themselves off from modern day society and live their own authentic and self-sufficient lives is often perceived as abnormal from those in the modern day mindset. We wanted to look into how they do this, especially in a society which is currently in turmoil for political, social and economical reasons.
We began to think of people who could be accessible and near us who we could have as a subject. As the New Forest is a short drive from Southampton, we thought we might be able to find some interesting people there. We want our documentary to be authentic and as Michael Rabiger says, “Real life is where you find the really outlandish true tales.” (RABIGER, 2004, pg. 129).
I have often visited the New Forest in the past, I remembered one of the most interesting villages there; Burley, which is famous for its ties to Witchcraft in the past and even has rumours of Witches now. Rabiger describes documenting ‘Myths and legends’ as “…useful because it expresses particular conflicts that humans have found enduringly insoluble and which therefore must be accommodated.” (RABIGER, 2004, pg.130).
We want to make a documentary that matters, and may help solve the fear often associated with those who are different. I offered the idea to the rest of my group who were interested in how we can make this a really captive documentary. To break away from conventional documentary making, we asked ourselves what we could do to make ours different. We decided to try and steer clear from a presenter and narrator and let the story be told by characters and B-Roll. We have contacted “Coven of Witches”, a shop in Burley with close ties to Burley’s famous witch Sybil Leek to see if they would be interested in helping make our idea happen, and provide us with any archive and history they have.
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