This led us to find out more about the people who make up our community and as we began to talk to them, one by one, we realised that there were common themes in conversational topics regardless of upward or downward social mobility. From the boys hanging outside the chicken shop to the trainee bank manager, from the single mums to the university lecturers everyone mentioned that they felt as if they didn’t have a voice...

Now this was not to say that they were individually not vocal, as it happens we have met some of the most colourful personalities along the way, but the voice that was commonly mentioned was the voice of a united community. So often we heard people saying that they felt ‘it’s all for nothing’ or ‘we never seem to trust each other’ or ‘this gun thing ain’t never gonna stop’. These were voices of people whose individual lights don’t shine bright enough to give them hope at the end of the tunnel. The voices of people who see the problem but are totally stumped at the answer. People who feel that they work so hard but never get the appreciation or recognition that they deserve.

The culmination of these narratives, conversations and opinions made us stop to take check of the situation. Surely there was something we could do, no matter how small, to begin remedying this?

And so we decided amongst ourselves to use what skills we have as individuals to make a team that could reach the most amount of people in the shortest amount of time with the farthest reaching message.

And so True Story: the documentary was born.

Skye, with his infectious personality, stage presence and zest for life, became the man in front of the camera and the general people’s person. Micah, the budding young film director with an inquisitive nature, took on the mantle of camera man and editor. I, as the co-ordinator and photographer, began researching different questions that would be good to ask across the spectrum of the life cycle and slowly our project began to take shape.

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