Hi guys, I was the director and producer of the piece, Ben Adams, I thought I'd hop onto 28DL and answer a few questions and try and defend the film given some of your comments.
It's the title that gets me "Leave Only Footsteps". It's supposed to be "Leave only Footprints"
Leave Only Footprints is already taken as an initiative against plastic waste, I decided against using it as I'd like to enter this film into festivals and didn't want any confusion between causes. Footsteps was intended to suggest you literally leave nothing, that was the point, but I guess that doesn't come across well enough.
It's also shame the majority of you felt the piece shows urban exploring in a bad light, everyone I've shown the piece to hasn't felt that way, in the slightest, I guess you guys aren't really the key demographic, you know everything about urbex, so all you can really do is pick holes saying what's missing or what isn't an accurate representation of urbex as a whole.
I would've thought you guys would understand that the participants in the doc are young and naive, that was the point, they don't really know what they're doing, but yet they do it regardless in the name of creating art. Yes they say things which don't represent the entire community but that's what happens, everyone I spoke to didn't feel as though the 3 presented in the doc fully represented urbex, merely they were participants to a wider cause, it's a lead in to a much longer, expansive documentary.
Any further questions feel free to let me know it's nice hearing feedback on where I've gone wrong, I'm looking to do a secondary piece on the entire compass of urban exploring that's free from the restrictions of university guidance, if any of you are interested, let me know, although I understand that after seeing my first piece and overall having a general distaste for it you'd all have some apprehension about being involved, all I can say is if you don't get involved and don't present your views, it would simply be another leave only footsteps, a select set of views, rather than a bigger encompass.
Thanks, Ben.