Commission Documentary Unit 3: Target audience

Who are our target market audience?

As our documentary is for Canterbury Cathedrals you tube channel, our audience is mainly be web based, such as tourist, historians; young enthusiastic stonemasons, experienced stonemasons and visitors of the cathedral website/youtube channel.

Are audience is quite a niche audience as stone masonry has quite a small population which is why we are trying to get more people to be interested in the hobbie/job.

Demographics & Psychographics.

Demographics:

Our audience will be a range of ages between the younger audience around 18-25 and then the older audience which could range between 50-80. However, the age could change as there is no particular age to be interested in stone masonry. We believe we could have a younger audience as there are apprentices that work at the Cathedral that are enthusiastic in wanting a career in stone masonry which could influence others. There is also a high stereotypical amount of older people who are interested in the cathedral.

The gender for our audience can be male and female.

The class for our audience could be a range of working class/middle class to upper class - if they are highly fortunate and are interested in collecting artifacts.

Psychographics:

The older audience could be interested in reading and writing.

The younger audience could be interested in attending social events and with friends and attending classes to encourage their knowledge in crafts and stone masonry and stain glass artwork.

We also found that;

The Cathedral You Tube channel has 44 subscribers

Their Twitter account has 772 followers and the page is very active, receiving on average 10-tweets/re-tweets a day from either themselves or followers.

Their Facebook info page has 5600 likes, and 79,000 people have visited the location; with tourists posting frequently on the reviews section at the bottom of the page.

Commission Documentary Unit 3: Influencing Documentaries.

Commission Documentary Unit 3: What is the 'Great South Window' project?

The Great South Window Project.

At the cathedral the workers are currently working on a huge project in which they are replacing stone from hundreds of years ago from one of the largest windows at the cathedral called  the ‘great south window’. The project has been going on since 2012 and will carry on for a few years until all the old, broken stone has either been conserved or new stone has been carved to replace the old stone. The stone is being replaced as it’s getting too broken and old and is dangerous to the Cathedral as it is making the cathedrals foundation weaker. The apprentices get to be involved on the project too as Marella and Jake are both working on Minor mullions – stones that are being fit into the window, so that will be interesting to talk to them about in the interviews on how they feel that at their age they are creating something that will last for hundreds of years.

Documentary Commission Unit 3: Conservations.

At the cathedral there are two main conservations that happen;

Stone and Glass.

Stonemasonry.

Heather Newton is head of the stonemasonry conservation, joining the team at Canterbury Cathedral in 1998.

Heather has been in many documentaries talking about the Cathedral and is extremely passionate about what she does.

Heather gained a distinction in City and Guilds and a post-graduate qualification in the conservation of stone and plaster from Weymouth College in Dorst.

Stained Glass.

The stained glass conservation is also a huge beautiful place in the cathedral that also needs to be conserved and maintained to be kept bright and colourful.

Leonie Seliger is head of the Stained Glass Conservation Department. She also advices the Dioceses of Canterbury and Rochester on faculty applications involving restoration/conservation as well as new designs for windows in the churches of the dioceses.

For our project we decided to focus on the stonemasonry as Heather is the one who wants the documentary for the Youtube Channel so we thought it would be better to choose stonemasonry as Heather is extremely knowledgable about it and would be able to steer us in the right direction on who t talk to and what to focus on. Another reason we chose to focus on stonemasonry is because the stonemason yard has it's own course called the CWF - Canterbury Workshop Fellowship. This follows young apprentices on a 5 year course which begins at college level to then a degree level to become a fully trained stonemason. We want to create a fresh, unique video which is a promotional video on what the investors are putting there money into - the apprentice course.

Commission Documentary Unit 3: Which idea?

After the ideas lab, Vittorio and I spoke to Andrei about how the ideas lab went. He mentioned that the class and Helen liked the martial arts/karate idea, I asked about my idea as I wanted it to be at least considered however I was told that it's not a good idea for the amount of time we had so it wasn't mentioned in the ideas lab. If I was present I would of mentioned my idea however I wasn't so can't complain about that. Andrei told me the class and Helen liked the Canterbury Cathedral idea as no one was doing it, it would be a good idea for us to - so he told Helen to send off an email to Heather to let her know we was going to be coming to visit at a convenient time for her.

So after we had all come to the conclusion we are going to to focus on the Cathedral idea, I personally needed to develop my knowledge further on the Cathedral and decided to do some further research.

I looked at what the apprentices do at the cathedral and found that they are part of a CWF course, this is the Cathedral Workshop Fellowship. The CWF was established in 2006, the aim for the course is to enable hopeful apprentice masons to achieve a Foundation Degree (National Educational Level 5).

I looked at this post to get information about the CWF course!

http://hc.english-heritage.org.uk/content/pub/2013/cs-english-cathedral-works-dept-stained-glass-studios.pdf

I also looked into stained glass windows as I thought this was a beautiful part of the Cathedral to look at and found that behind each stained glass window there is a message that's being written. In Cathedrals the stained glass windows are trying to tell stories from the bible and use lots of different unique, bright patterns to visually tell stories about God, spiritually, mortality and humanity. 

Commission Documentary Unit 3: Educating Yorkshire

Commission Documentary Unit 3: Canterbury Cathedral Research

Our group decided to conduct some research into Canterbury Cathedral so that when we visit it to look around we would know exactly who we are looking for and the parts of the cathedral we are interested in.

In our brief a woman named Heather Newton asked for an edgy, artsy, new and original documentary which doesn't follow the stereotype of a cathedral being old, boring and only historical. Heather wants a 10 minute documentary for the Cathedrals You tube channel to have a fresh NEW look on the cathedral and concentrate on the art and creativity that happens there.

History of the cathedral...

Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Founded in 597, the cathedral was completely rebuilt from 1070 to 1077.

The Cathedral’s history goes back to 597AD when St Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory the Great as a missionary, established his seat (or ‘Cathedra’) in Canterbury

Currently, the cathedral has a lot of work happening to it as they are taking a large stone window out of the cathedral and replacing it with new stone-masonry work which will replace the old stone. This is a huge task to be undertaken which would be perfect for our group to look at.

Our group began to think about the stories we could tell by creating a documentary about stone masonry, the stained glass window artwork, or the historical artifacts that have been kept in the cathedrals possession for hundreds of years.

I began looking on the cathedrals You tube channel page and looked at some of the creative videos such as the stained glass windows and stone masonry.

Looking at these short videos allowed me to see a glimpse of the cathedral and what we could film. However, to be able to fully take advantage of what's there at the cathedral we are going to arrange a trip down to the cathedral.

When looking at the different sections we have considered STONE MASONRY and STAINED GLASS. 

Andrei did some research and found that 

''The people who work to conserve the Cathedral’s fabric are highly skilled artists and craftspeople. Their work requires sensitivity to the spirit of the building. The aim is to slow down the process of decay, and to replace only those parts that have lost the battle for survival.

Canterbury Cathedral currently employs 17 stonemasons, including two apprentices and one trainee. In the past there has been a tendency for masons to specialise in one area of their trade, but the demands of maintaining and preserving the Cathedral make it essential that today’s Cathedral masons are expert in all aspects of their craft, including the care and conservation of the ancient fabric. The Cathedral is a World Heritage Site and as such should be a centre of excellence for both the training and practice of crafts associated with its upkeep.We will also visit the stone masonry yard as we all discussed about creating a documentary on the stone masonry and the apprentices that work there.''

Heather Newton runs the stone masonry conservation and has frequently been involved in documentaries with the BBC in regards to the cathedral generally but also has talked to them specifically about stone masonry therefore we know she knows a lot about the cathedral and would be a great character to have in our documentary. 

Leonie Seliger is head of the stained glass conservation. Leonie has created work for St. Bartholomew's Chapel in Sandwhich and also All Saints Church in Boughton Aluph.