2. Today I am submitting my final project, which was focused on UK Independent
Professional Wrestling.
All of the work can be seen at;
KirstenThorpePhotography.co.uk
MY WORK
3. The work that I am submitting includes;
•One, 6 and a half minute long video
•23 Photographs
•2,000 Words of copy
• Introduction seen on website
• Photograph captions (around 50 words each)
MY WORK
4. When I started third year, I almost came in with a clear idea of what I wanted to
do with my work. For the past few years I have focused on events and gig
photography, which has really been great but I wanted to get away from just a
little bit.
SOME INFORMATION
Through knowing Daniel Chapman I knew about his passion for professional wrestling
and the fact that he wanted to start his own promotion in Leeds. Wrestling is
something that not many people know a lot about, so I thought it would be interesting
subject matter to cover.
5. The aim of this project is to inform the readers about a now small subculture
within England.
This specific subculture - independent professional wrestling, was once largely
watched on television and attended regularly by many families between the
1960’s and 1980’s.
AIM
6. •To investigate the reasoning’s behind the decline of British wrestling starting in
the 1980’s.
•To explore whether people would attend a local wrestling show in 2014 and
how much they are willing to spend whilst they are there.
•To see how British wrestling could be promoted in order to make it a popular
sport once more.
OBJECTIVES
7. Working with Dan over the course of this year has been a lot of fun.
We have been able to collaborate on a lot of work, which has benefitted both
him and myself.
Dan has worked on creating films for his character Danny O’Doherty and I have
been following Daniel Chapman – the guy behind the character.
WORKING WITH DANIEL
CHAPMAN
8. As stated in my week 8 progress presentation, I originally planned to focus on
R.I.S.E. Wrestling, which is the company that Daniel Chapman is starting.
As time drew closer to the event Dan realised that it was not going to be a show
that he would be happy putting on, and decided to change the date to after I will
(hopefully) have graduated university.
This put a spanner in my project and got me to focus more on Dan and not
R.I.S.E.
CHANGES TO MY WORK
9. This also meant that I had to rethink my delivery.
I don’t think people would understand the project if they didn’t have some
accompanying pieces like a video that tells you about Daniel Chapman.
A video can’t be delivered in a book, hence why I switched to a page on my
website.
In the future, when I have all of the content from this part of the project and the
show that will happen, I would still like to create the coffee table book, and
possibly continue with the video footage to make a longer documentary.
CHANGE OF DELIVERY
18. Cost wise on this project my main money has gone into travel and petrol. I have
been very lucky that I was able to stay with friends and family when traveling
quite far away so had no need for hotels or Bed and breakfasts.
I paid myself £10 p/h with an overtime rate of £15
I also paid £7 p/h for both Daniel Chapman and Michael Caden
The costs of my project were minimal to me, but if this were to go to a client it
may cost them about £650 – variables being hotels, petrol, equipment hire, and
pay for people such as Daniel Chapman.
COST OF THE PROJECT
19. •Stay Calm – Don’t sweat the small stuff
•Project Planning Works
•Brainstorming with Other People
•Don’t Rely On Emails
•Give Promoters a Reason to Respond
•Working on Projects with Another Person Makes Things go Smoother
WHAT I HAVE LEARNED
20. Yes.
If I were to do this project again, I would have looked into getting better access to the
world of professional wrestling.
I think by offering my services (free promotional photographs for wrestlers & in ring
promotional photographs) for the
trade of me being able to use them in my
final project would have probably given me
good leverage to go to some of these
wrestling shows. The wrestling world is a
tight knit community of people and will
research you straight away when you talk to
them.
WOULD I HAVE DONE ANYTHING
DIFFERENTLY?
21. Yes and no.
I honestly enjoyed this project as it is about something that I do really like, I just
wish that I got better access to the world of Professional wrestling.
If I were to redo a project of this size again, I would probably not do it on
professional wrestling, and find something that I am just as passionate about
somewhere else.
WOULD I DO THIS PROJECT
AGAIN?
22. In an ideal world I would have loved to have been able to travel throughout my
time at university and take a lot of photographs that would incorporate well into
a project like this. (Ie. Road-trip to Coachella, Seeing the Northern Lights,
Backpacking Europe)
I hope that in the next few years I can save enough to go on a big trip and to visit
places I haven’t been able to whilst at university. (Australia, Japan, Finland,
Canada)
