Britain through a lens Pt1 - Birth of British documentary

From this documentary I got to learn a few things:

Documentary in Britain had not really been explored until the late 1920s and early 30s and had not received any funding whilst in other countries there were the likes of Robert Flaherty or Eisenstein so in that case Britain was behind. the idea was to partner with big business and government to create films about life to keep the spirit of togetherness in Britain. 

1941s 'Listen to Britain' is considered one of the early masterpieces from this era. It presented an authentic truth of British people without as voiceover to sway opinion in some way, it allowed the viewer to create their own vision of what the story is. Despite being presented as very authentic it was a piece of government propaganda to encourage people to stick together during the war effort however it s an example of a documentary that was not influenced despite being a propaganda tool. 

It was one of many created by the 'British documentary movement' which was ran by John Grierson a former political activist who wanted to use documentary to change Britain for the better, he once said he wanted to 'Use documentary as a pulpit' his platform to change and influence from.

When seeking funding from the government in the EMB which the government wanted him to 'Bring the empire alive' and show what Britain was whilst he also got to make allies with the civil service which would help him for funding so he created a film on the herring fishing business that was a silent film called 'Drifters' made in 1929. He did this as one of the approving civil servants was writing a book on the importance of herring as a business. It was an 80 minute film showing nothing out of the ordinary and showed real fisherman on real boats. It was so successful on first release that the EMB soon set up a Documentary and film section led by John Grierson and so was the first film of the unofficial at this time 'British Documentary Movement'.