PRODUCTION FOLDER: Developed Treatment for 'City Canvas' (chosen idea)

City Canvas is a short documentary which focuses on a celebration of street art, through documenting and discovering the art around the streets of Liverpool, an area well known for its street art culture and scene.

Through a series of interviews with local arts organisations, as well as street artists themselves, the film will agree with and explore the idea that art on the streets should be celebrated as it is talented work that people pass on a daily basis and that is all around us.

Liverpool, the former Capital Of Culture, is renowned for its street art. Even the most prolific artists like Banksy have been said to use the city of Liverpool as they canvas.  However, there are other undercover and less known artists turning to the streets to showcase their work across the city, which the film will explore the reasons behind.


The documentary aims to capture and shed light on what it is about the streets that draws artists to display their work there; if it is a form of open expressionism and is such talented artwork, then why is the world of street art so undercover? The film will reflect a celebratory theme and act as a positive showcase of street art, as an act of valued expressionism and a recognised art form, steering away from the idea that it is vandalism and a crime. The film follows the Liverpool Stories brief by asking the question of what street art has brought to the city, and on the other side, what makes the city so attractable to street artists.


 The film will incorporate interview footage as well as cutaways to artwork that attracts our own attention whilst exploring the city of Liverpool. The film will start with a montage of fast paced creative shots and videos captured from different angles of key pieces of artwork within the city. Through using sound bites of interviews alongside captured footage of key streets, the celebratory theme will then be opened up.

Interviewees are from different art backgrounds, however all believe that street art in particular should be celebrated and made more widely available and acknowledged on a wider basis. The first interview will be held with Catherine McMahon and Phil Battle from the organisation Urban Canvas, followed by journey through Liverpool to the Baltic Quarter area where we will meet Tristan Brady Jacobs, a filmmaker and community arts worked who is currently in the process of developing the first ever Street Art Festival in Liverpool in June/July 2014. The final interviews will take place with artists and studio owner Kieran Gorman in ZAP Graffiti, a studio in Liverpool city centre that promotes graffiti as a positive art form. Along the way, through the contacts we have made so far we have gained further interest from extra artists and contributors, who will become involved during the production process.

The key idea that the documentary will explore is that the art that is around us on the streets and that we pass every day should be recognized and celebrated in a positive way.