I am studying at Liverpool John Moores University on the MA Documentary Programme.
For my first assignment I wanted to do a piece on people’s reflections of the Liverpool Festival Gardens combined with how the Gardens look today.
Reflections – Liverpool Festival Gardens
A visit to the Gardens in September 2017 made me consider what the space would have been like at the time the Festival was launched in 1984. I looked at old photographs and spoke with people who attended to explore why the Festival was such a memorable occasion. Those interviewed talked about the novelty of the gardens, their exoticism, the excitement and the crowds. I wanted to contrast this with the gardens as they are now; natural, reflective, and unobtrusive. I also wished to celebrate the resilience of the gardens and their journey from fashionable and contrived towards a more natural and organic state, surviving neglect and abandonment on the way. To tell this story I used the simple construct of voiced reflections over current footage.
I did consider using old photographs from the Festival initially but felt it was not as strong as having the contributors’ voiced recollections alone to represent the past. Drone shots were envisaged to give an aerial view of the site and structures to present a physical sense of space but also an emotional one of distance. These shots would then be contrasted with close-up, ground level filming of the planting using a DSLR to establish an emotional intimacy. Although my initial reaction to the gardens was one of being disappointed by them, this soon changed. Though spending time at the location I became mindful of the gardens’ serene nature and their understated beauty. It is my hope that through using drone filming in conjunction with DSLR, the magic of this space will be captured and documented.
Also as part of my research, drone filming was considered which required a flight plan to be devised (please click on the link below).
Questions submitted to the Drone Pilot (please click on the link below)
Questions for Andy (Drone pilot)