For my project, I am looking at portraying the youth culture in Jersey, and how in particular skateboarding is an area of society that many people look down upon and don’t see it as a good use of time. I am showing how the government don’t want to fund the sport but are willing to fund other sports heavily such as Football etc. For this I am going to create a documentary that shows how the youth culture in Jersey, especially the skateboarding community live, and speak with people that are a part of this. To research for my documentary, I am looking at a documentary produced by VICE called ‘Skate World:England’.

The documentary looks into the skate culture of England as they speak to numerous members and affiliates of the community. They first look at London and speak to skater Winstan Whitter, who talks about Southbank along the River Thames. He tells us how the park used to be a lot bigger and extended, but since then parts have been taken up with offices and other buildings, which means the park is now only a fraction of what it used to be. He also takes us to parks that have been specially funded by the governemnt and community, but even though they have been building a few parks, the culture is still looked down upon as something negative. We also meet Ben Nordberg, who is a skateboarder from Bath, who talks about how he started out skating the mini ramp, then went on top develop his flat ground skills. Nordberg and his friend Kris Vile tell us that they had to skate street as the skatepark that was built charged a lot of money to enter. This made them more dedicated to skateboarding as it gave them motivation to adapt to the environment around them, and improve their skills. Doing this meant they both gained sponsors, where they would receive free stuff such as skateboard decks, trucks, clothes etc.

From this documentary, the main influence on my project is that it focuses on the same topic. This means I have been able to look at the things that Vice have done in this documentary and take it into my own piece. For example, in the documentary they use a lot of archived footage of people skateboarding, as it adds more background to the story. I will be doing this as well by sourcing videos of Eddie from Youtube, and cutting up different sections to feature in the film. I also have taken the way in which they conduct their interviews, by getting the people to speak directly into the camera as it makes it a more direct conversation with the audience. I will be doing this as well, by interviewing Eddie as he looks and speaks directly into the camera.