Director Study: Nick Broomfield

Nick Broomfield (b. 1948) is an English documentary film maker.

Broomfield's style has evolved a number of times over his career.
His documentary films, such as Ghosts, tell and explain events from the point of view of the victim, so the audience grow and experience the character's emotional journey with them. He currently employs a technique he calls ‘Direct Cinema’ which uses non-actors to play themselves and helps capture the truth of his film’s subject matter. In Battle for Haditha, Broomfield worked with ex-Marines and Iraqi refugees, as well as known actors, shooting the film sequentially, enabling the cast to build their characters as the story progressed. It also used real locations and improvised dialogue was encouraged, despite working from a detailed script.

Previous work includes Kurt and Courtney, Sarah Palin: You Betcha! and Monster in a Box .
-Influenced by Colin Young.
-Mother was a czech refugee and father a photographer.
-Dislikes using big crews with expensive equiptment.

Ghosts

Broomfield's 2006 documentary of the 2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster Ghosts is generally accepted as an accurate telling of the circumstances leading up to the disaster.

Much of Ghosts is based on a series of daring investigative reports by the Taiwanese-born journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai, but the film also incorporates the experiences of its actors, themselves former illegal migrants.
Broomfield and his lead actress, Ai Qin, shot several scenes for the film undercover, working in a factory and picking spring onions, although ultimately these scenes were cut form the final version because it was "too much like a different film" (Broomfield).

"I remember picking spring onions for about eight hours", Broomfield recalled, "then getting three hours' sleep and then being hauled up to go and work in a book factory. I was always being fired because I was too slow, partly because I was filming as well. It was very, very tough."

Broomfield shot Ghosts using a five-man crew using a single hand-held HD camera on a tiny budget. The film picked up 1.15% of the audience viewing figures when aired (122,000 people), up on the average figures for the channel's viewing figures for that 10pm slot (which is typically 0.62%, or 72,000).


However, there are a few details that have been changed for the film:
-38 individuals, of whom 23 drowned, were involved in the disaster while the film depicts a much smaller group of people.
-The film itself is based heavily on undercover reports by Hsiao-Hung Pai. Because there is no real documentation of the characters in the film (due to them working illegally in the UK), the film reflects and is based on what Hsiao-Hung Pai experienced himself and also the experiences of both the cast and crew.
-Ghosts had no scripted dialogue only working from a written outline.
-Released on the 200th annerversary of the abolition of slavery.
-Originally intended as a drama, not a documentary.


The Wider Issue

The rules about immigration control (which are law) are complicated by the fact that they overlap with nationality law - that is, the law about who is or is not a British citizen, and the rights of the different types of British citizen.

The system of immigration control in the UK splits people into two broad categories: those who have 'right of abode' in the UK and who can live, work and move in and out of the country as they wish, and those who require permission in order to enter and remain here.