Documentary Week II

I’m so excited about this project. For anyone who doesn’t know, im taking part in a documentary filming project with Chocolate Films and the London Metropolitan Archives. This week we split into our two working groups. We spent about an hour discussing our topic which was originally loosely centred around the history of workers rights in the Uk. We went through various stages looking at all aspects including the origins of  strike action, matchstick girls, uk factories, imports and exports, the Huduenots (who were immigrants who took over weaving in London). This led us to think about the offset of hard labour, for example in the textiles industry, where the buck is constantly passed “out of sight out of mind” and look where it has ended up, mainly in over populated, under developed countries. Our thoughts turned to Child Labour. Which at different stages in history was prevalent in the uk. And there is even evidence that child labour was widely supported. Shocking. We went into the archives to find original documents from workhouses, newspaper clippings about the matchstick girls, public letters supporting child labour, etc. Next week we gain access to these document and photographs and that’s where the documentary process begins.

I know it’s a really horrific topic, but if anyone has a personal interest, i.e you may know that it effected an ancestor, please do get in touch if you would like to contribute to our research.

This topic has incredible relevance today with child labour being used all over the world. There is a punch line to our tale, but you’ll have to wait.

Stay tuned for weekly updates!!!!

Documentary Week I

Yesterday marked the first day of a new venture. Thanks to a collaboration between Chocolate Films and the London metropolitan Archives, a course in documentary film making for young people aged 16-25. The first session tought me all the ways in which documentaries can be used, the different methods they use to communicate a point and types of message. I never knew there was so much to it. I love documentaries because they inject information into the homes of people who otherwise would have no access to it. Documentaries, for me, always have to have a distinct educational, worth while message. I took the opportunity to browse the Archives to research labour rights in fashion within the history of the industry in the UK. I found loads of burning documents about labour unions and a document regarding imports from Africa to stores such as Harrods. This document is being kept closed under contract untill 2041. Interesting.  Due to the tangents i live my life on, i ended up straying into human rights, child labour, and a history of child abuse in the UK. All I could access was the fact that these documents exist. But im hoping soon this will become a direction for my further research.  Anyway, thats deep. I’m going to document the document making on here every week and hopefully my tangent will lead somewhere.