Author Topic: Video Production: Relics of the Region - Can you help?  (Read 3113 times)

relicsoftheregion

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Video Production: Relics of the Region - Can you help?
« on: August 16, 2010, 07:34:50 AM »
Hello everyone,

I'm a 23 year old freelance film-maker based in Birmingham. Over the next couple of months, I'm going to be filming and editing a series of videos dedicated to the history of Birmingham ... more specifically, to the buildings of Birmingham - those now abandoned factories, workshops and warehouses we all drive past, but rarely give a second thought to.

This series of online videos will act to document the history of these now derelict buildings, asking the question: "what did that use to be?", "who worked there?", "what did the workers in that building produce?".

Hopefully these videos will act as some sort of online documentation - a digital archive if you will, of the history of old Birmingham and its manufacturing heritage.

Each video in the series will address an individual building ... which is where (hopefully!) the members of this forum come in. For the first two videos, I'd like to start with Lallian's Mill and the Brandauer pen nib factory in Newtown.

These remarkable buildings are still standing tall today, albeit derelict and abandonded. Can we unleash some life into them by re-visiting the history behind them? To inform others of their past? To educate younger generations once these buildings are sadly long gone?

I'm looking for people who perhaps worked in these buildings, old photographs from years gone by, memories from those who used to pass these buildings every day, who perhaps lived nearby.

Do you, or anyone you know, have memories, stories, documents, or photographs relating to their history? If you do, I'd love to hear from you!

Please reply to this thread, or drop me a private message with any contact details you'd rather not share online and I'll get back to you.

Any help, no matter how big or small would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully we can make a success of this, and preserve these fantastic buildings in digital form!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best Wishes,
Michael.

Phil

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Re: Video Production: Relics of the Region - Can you help?
« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2010, 08:50:26 AM »
Hi Michael,
 
Welcome to our forum, may I say how it pleases me to see a youngster such as yourself taking an interest in the Birmingham that is fast disappearing. I'm afraid I am unable to help you with the two projects that you have in mind as I know very little about the buildings you name.
 
I can however make a suggestion for a third film. This building could do with being recorded before it disappears forever. Its the old Vale of Evesham brewery building that is still just about standing in Cato St North Nechells. At least it still was when I took this photo in 2008.
 
Michael I am adding this about an hour after my post above was made, it has just been pointed out to me that Lallian's Mill is in fact the name of the Vale of Evesham Brewery Building. I had never heard it referred to by that name. We are never too old to learn something are we?

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: Video Production: Relics of the Region - Can you help?
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2010, 02:54:04 AM »
Excellent idea Michael, congratulations -  this is the intro to what brum needs - have you thought about the following wrt to a given building;

1.  Was it built when its function was an important one in brum?

2.  How many other buildings in brum were in the same function/business, and for how long?

3.  Why was that function/industry located in brum, or that part of it? i.e. why did it start?

4.  If that function is vastly reduced, or has gone from brum, does it exist elsewhere, and if so where and why?

5.  Where did the work force come from (physically and skill-wise)? and what happened to them if it 'died'?

And very many etceteras!

You could become a successful and skilled social and industrial/commercial historian by developing these lines still further..

I'm from Balsall Heath and left brum 51 years ago. As I've no family/links there, there is not hands on way that I can help - I don't live in EU or an Anglophone place, so have far less access to resources than the majority on the forum - however, I'll be pleased to help in any way possible.   

It's important to keep your project yours, don't let others usurp it/take the kudos under the guise of 'helping/facilitating/structuring' etc - you've a good idea on which to build a valuable piece of social and industrial/commercial history - go for it..

I wish you the Very Best of Luck O0

tramp

Phil

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Re: Video Production: Relics of the Region - Can you help?
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2010, 09:01:29 AM »
Hello again Michael,
 
Another civic disgrace you might give thought to recording could be The Golden Lion Inn. The Grade II listed building was moved from Deritend in 1911 and rebuilt in Cannon Hill Park the building dates from the 16th century.
 
For many years it was used as changing rooms and a stage area for different shows and exhibitions, but over the last decade or so it started to deteriorate. Birmingham Councils answer to this was to scaffold and fence it off to the public. The scaffold and fencing gives no thought to protecting the building only to keep the public away.
 
There have been murmurs of returning the building to deritend, but we all know what is going to happen. It will be left until it becomes a danger, or just falls down. Then it will be "well there is nothing we can do now" and the site will be cleared.
 
Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

relicsoftheregion

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Re: Video Production: Relics of the Region - Can you help?
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2010, 07:45:54 PM »
Hello, I just wanted to say a big thank you for the support and advice given by the forum members above.

That's a great help, and I really appreciate the questions you posted, which can act as lines of enquiry during both my research, and in the videos themselves.

Since posting on here last, I have secured the help of a local film crew who will be helping me film this series of videos. I've also got a local historian on board, who has very kindly offered to present these for me too.

Will keep you posted on my progress!

Many thanks,
Michael.


 

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