PRODUCTION FOLDER: Treatments for pitched ideas - Idea 2 - 'City Canvas'

City Canvas is a short documentary, which focuses on a celebratory theme of street art from artists perspectives in Liverpool. Through a series of interviews with local Liverpool organisations as well as the artists themselves, the film will aim to document the idea that art on the streets should be celebrated as it is something that people pass on a daily basis and 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 also other artists turning to the streets to showcase their work across the city, which the film will aim to capture and shed light on what it is about the streets that draws artists to use them as their canvas.

The film aims to follow the Liverpool Stories brief in asking the question of what street art has brought to it, and on the other side, what makes the city so attractable to street artists. The documentary will incorporate interview footage as well as cutaways to artwork that we will discover whilst walking the streets of Liverpool. The film will start by introducing Liverpool as a city filled with culture and known for its art, with fast paced images and creative shots captured from different angles of key pieces of artwork within the city. It will then unravel the story of street art as a celebration through the words of local artists and organizations from a first hand account. The documentary will come from the people, organisations and artists of Liverpool themselves as much as possible, as it explores their passion for street art in their own city.

The documentary aims to discover and capture on film a true account on what they believe art brings to the city of Liverpool and their views on how it should be perceived in a celebratory way. The film will be capturing true accounts and experiences of how art has been used in a  positive way and what specifically excites people in creating their artwork outside on the streets.

When researching we came across a business called Zap Graffiti who run events to promote graffiti as a positive art form. Each weekend they run workshops in Liverpool to help develop the skills of upcoming graffiti artists. We have managed to secure an interview with Keiran from ZAP Graffiti for Wednesday afternoon, and we are hopeful that their positive outlook on street art will add an interesting layer of meaning to our documentary. We have also contacted and had interest, as well as arranged interviews with a Liverpool organisation called Urban Canvas and a group of community arts workers and filmmakers who are currently in the process of organising the first ever Street Art Festival in Liverpool this summer.