Here is the script/shot list and voice overs for my short documentary about funding cuts and how they have affected local museums. I am using the case study of Hull and East Riding Museum as my main topic.
Script/Shot List:
– Entry titles: “Museums and Funding cuts”, fade in “Hull and East Riding Museum”.
– Video shot of a “tour” around Hull Museum with voice over (1).
– Interview with Pete Mackie, ex-flint specialist for the British Museum, about what he used to do at the British Museum and his views on funding cuts. N.B: Cut halfway through the interview for a statistics on the subject with voice over (2).
– Shot of around the museum including narrative voice over (3).
– Interview with Simon Marsh, amateur archaeologist.
– Final voice over (4).
– End titles: “all footage filmed at hull and east riding museum filmed with permission from paula gentil” and special thanks: “with thanks to peter mackie, simon marsh, and josh baker” (photo in background of statistics).
Voice Overs:
1) Like museums all around the country, Hull and East Riding Museum has been hit by severe funding cuts. While some museums have been forced to close down, other museums, such as the Yorkshire Museum in York, have been forced to charge extortionate entry fees as a way of raising money for the funding. The British Museum is one of the museums who have been seriously hit, causing them to cut their professional staff, such as paleontologists and flint specialists, and are replacing them with volunteers.
2) Due to a recent survey, it has been found that:
– 49% of museums in the uk have experienced a cut to their income
– 37% of museums in the uk have cut a high percentage of their staff
– 47% of museums in the uk have increased the number of volunteers rather than paid staff
– 27% of museums in the uk have now started charging for events, reducing the number of free events on offer
3) Also suffering are the British Museum’s Finds Days, which sees professional archaeologists go around the country identifying and recording valuable antiquities for historical records. It is these Finds Days that help locate hoards and sites of historical interest, such as the Staffordshire Hoard, and due to the funding cuts, their staff has been cut and they are struggling to juggle the amount of finds to be recorded between very few people, meaning the amount of finds being recorded had been cut. This has caused some amateur archaeologists to argue that because people and their finds are having to be turned away at their finds days, we are losing important history.
4) There is speculation as to what will happen to our museums and our history in the future. Will Hull and East Riding Museum remain free, like many others around the country that are facing the same threat? Will the British Museum cut its’ finds days completely, and if so, what will happen to the parts of our history that still lay in the ground, unfound? Time can only tell.
