Inital Plan

After a thoughtful analysis as to what our documentary topic could be, we decided that our documentary would be on the topic of takeaways. We chose this topic becuase we felt it is something that every member of the audience can relate to. We felt that it would be easier to collect data related to this topic because of the large number of takeaway shops in the the local area. Therefore, it is easier to find people who are 'experts' on this topic. 

We learnt about the scheduling in documentaries on many TV channels. This is so it gives us a good idea as to we when could schedule our documentary. The types of scheduling can be found below:

Inheritance - This is when the channel controllers air a documentary on after a popular show such as Coronation Street - in doing so, people may feel the need to leave their television on so that the documentary can 'inherit' the audience of the more popular show.

Pre Echo - Works in the opposite way to inheritance; a documentary could be put on before a popular show such as Coronation Street. The audience waiting to watch Coronation Street may turn the channel on early so to not miss the start of Coronation Street, and in doing so may end up watching part of or the entire documentary.

Hammocking - A sort of combination of inheritance and pre echo, where a documentary can be sandwiched in between two popular programmes on a channel and may gain extra viewers via both or either of inheritance and pre echo, and also viewers who leave the channel on after the first show as they wish to watch the second popular programme.

We also were familiarised with the types of documentary featured on different British television channels.  

BBC 1 - These documentaries tend to be aimed at families.

BBC 2 - These are often the most educational documentaries out of the five main channels. However, these a sometimes more explicit and less suitable for children than the documentaries shown on BBC1.

ITV1 - The friendliest of the five channels. They are less serious documentaries than the ones aired on BBC1 and try to appeal to all audiences. ITV has shown serious documentaries in the past, including the controversial 2007 film 'Malcolm and Barbara Lover's Farewell' by Paul Watson. This documentary caused a scandal regarding the false death of Alzheimer's patient Malcolm Pointon, who actually died three days after his "death scene". Despite this, the film did raise awareness for Alzheimer's which some would argue was original goal of the documentary. This documentary was shown after 9pm to avoid upsetting any children. 

Channel 4 - Many of Channel 4's documentaries are aimed at students and younger people.  Often, they will have some comedy elements to them, such as in 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding'.  

Channel 5 - These documentaries are aimed at families, although Channel 5 as a whole is thought to not differentiate it's programs enough from BBC1 and therefore does not gain as much of a large audience. 

After some discussion, we came to the decision that our documentary would be called 'Tastes Like Teen Spirit' and that we wanted our target audience to be mostly students and drawing some attention from adults. The title of our documentary is a take on the world-famous Nirvana song 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. We felt that this would be a good title as it will appeal to our target audience who will most likely be aware of the song and how the title is a play on words. We decided that it would be best for our documentary to be shown on Channel 4 on a Thursday at 8pm. This would Hammock our documentary in between the seven o'clock Channel 4 news (who are likely to have slightly more mature viewers) and Educating Essex, a documentary that is likely to be aired after ours. We decided that 8pm would be a good time to broadcast our documentary as this is a time when we believe that a large number of young people would be watching television. Many students are busy with education or work during the day time. We felt that Thursday would be a the best day because at the weekend, a lot of our target audience enjoy socialising in the evenings by visiting clubs or bars.

Initial Documentary Content

Once I had been put into my group, we had a large discussion to brainstorm possible ideas for a reasonable topic for our documentary. We created a long list of ideas - some of these ideas were linked together if we could think of some sub-ideas. The initial list of ideas can be seen here:

• Concerts (or music festivals)
• Sport (different types of sport, fair play in sport, prejudice in sport, etc.)
• The elderly
• Teenagers
• Prejudice (racism, hair colour, sexism, etc.)
• Social networking (dangers)
• Holidays
• Accents (regional, international, etc.)
• Holidays
• Public transport (trains, buses, local, etc.)
• Shoes
• Fashion (different generations of fashion)
• Music (different eras of music, different types of music)
• Tea and coffee
• Television and film (different eras and types of television)
• Games (different genres and eras, the evolution of games)
• Allergies
• Fruit and vegetables
• Technology (iPods, phones, computers)
• Recycling (land refill sites)
• Drugs (legal and illegal) 
• Sleep (dreams)
• Clubbing (underage)
• Birthdays
• Parties (occasions celebration)
• Body-building (gyms)
• Takeaways (fast/junk food)
• Christmas (beliefs)
• Sandwiches (lunches)
• Money (finance)
• Drinking (alcohol)
• 3D (television and other technology)
• Obesity/anorexia 
• Cinemas (film)
• Pets (animals)
• Pies (bakeries)
• Phobias
• Obsessions (stalking, paedophilia) 
• Stereotypes
• Tattoos and piercings
• Plants (trees)
• Food (different types of food, cultural food)
• Shopping (for various different things, for example clothes or food)
• Seasons (what changes in separate seasons)
• College life
• Litter (and recycling)
• Comic books (old and new - history)
• The human body (different aspects of the body, differences between people and genders)
• Laughter (emotions)
• Feet (certain parts of the body)
• Water (liquid, hydration)
• The high street (differences between countries, regions, etc.)
• Relationships (differences in cultures, mutual relationships)
• Gambling (betting)
• Ghosts (beliefs, otherworldly beings)
• Paper
• Make up
• China
• Time 
• Mediums (religion)
• Idols (role models)
• Halloween (annual events)
• Fireworks (dangers)
• Religion

Single frame storyboards

In our first frame, we are interviewing a local takeaway worker, Andy Harrison from The Village Pizza.

The second frame shows mother Janet Orr, who, in her interview, explains why she prefers home cooking to buying a takeaway.

Storyboards

Page 1

Page 2

 Page 3

Page 4

Research Interviews

As well as our initial research questionaires, we recorded interviews with two members of our teenage target audience. These were two males and females and both of them were students who were asked the same questions:

1. How often do you have Takeaways?
2. What type of Takeaway do you prefer?
3. If you were on your own, would you order a Takeaway over cooking?

These are the responces they gave us:

Blank Questionaire

Questionnaire on Takeaways (Circle your answer)

1.       What is your gender?

Male       

Female

2.       How old are you?

16-20

20-25

25-30

30-40

40+

3.       How often do you have takeaways?

Never

Once every 3 months

Once every 2 months           

Once every month           

Once every 2 weeks           

Once a week           

More than once a week

4.       Would you have a takeaway as an actual meal or just as a quick alternative?

Meal           

Alternative

5.       Do you find takeaways expensive?

Yes           

No           

Some

6.       Do you prefer to get it delivered or to pick it up?

Delivered           

Pick up

7.       What type of takeaway do you prefer?

Indian           

Italian           

American           

Thai           

English            

Chinese           

Mexican           

8.       Do any special offers ever tempt you?

Yes           

No           

Sometimes

9.       Do you usually have one with your friends, family or on your own?

Friends           

Family           

On my own

10.   What type of takeaway is your least favourite?

Indian           

Italian           

American           

Thai           

English           

Chinese            

Mexican           

11.   Do you tend to order the same meal or go for something more adventurous?

Same meal           

Something adventurous

12.   What is the maximum amount you’d spend?

£0-£10           

£10-£15           

£15-£25           

£25-£35           

£35+

13.   Do you buy a drink(s) with your takeaway?

Yes           

No           

Sometimes           

Rarely

14.   Do you usually order one on a weekday or at the weekend?

Weekday           

Weekend

15.   Are you always satisfied with the service you receive with your order?

Yes           

No

If not please explain why…

16.   If you were on your own would you order a takeaway over cooking?

Yes            

No           

Sometimes           

Rarely

17.   Do you order one in the day or at night?

Day           

Night

18.   How often do you watch television?

Every day           

Every other day           

Every couple of days           

Every few days           

Only to tune into a particular programme

19.   What font do you prefer?

Arial            

Times New Roman           

Comic Sans           

Impact           

Lucida Handwriting

20.   Do you prefer to have a male or female voice over?

Male           

Female

21.   What music do you prefer to listen to in a light hearted documentary?

Classical           

Ambient           

Pop           

Jazz           

Acoustic           

Rock           

Electronic

22.   What is your favourite colour?

White          

Black          

Red          

Blue           

Green          

Pink          

Orange          

Yellow          

Purple

Running Order

Here is a chronologically ordered list of the techniques in which we plan for our documentary to be. This included shots, timings, narration, advert breaks and the total length that we planned for our documentary to be. This came to 26 minutes. However, we are only producing the first five minutes of our documentary, so there is a border at this point on the sheet.

Location Sheets

These are our location sheets. They show different locations on each sheet; each diagram is labeled explaining where all of the rooms are on set. The first sheet demonstrates the location of the ground floor of sophie's house so when we begin to film our group will understand their surroundings and be able to work in them. On the second sheet, there are two different sketches. The front of The Raj, which is a local Indian takeaway/restaurant in Culcheth and then a bird's eye view of the same location. Similarly to the house, our group will have a better understanding of The Raj when we start to film.  Both sheets provide notification of the dates we will be film on both locations, Health and Safety and the address. We can therefore consider any important factors in each area pre-filming.

Research

I have linked our external research sources sources which have aided us in our website:

BBC GoodFood: Easy sweet and sour chicken

BBC News: Takeaway dishes high in Colourings

BBC News: High fat found in takeaways

IGA's Fast Food table

IGA: Why is fast food bad for us?

The Independant: Families 'spending less on fresh food than on takeaways'

Just Eat

myfitnesspal

Saja Forum: Comparrison of a takeaways and a supermarket indian meal

Kim's Kitchen Culcheth (The Pack Horse)

The Raj Culcheth: Menu

DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS - Detroit Lives

TYPE OF DOCUMENTARY

This was a mixed documentary that strongly favored cutaways, reconstructions and interviews as methods of presenting factual accounts to the audience. 

THEMES

All of the sub themes were constantly related to one main theme of the past industries in Detroit from 1945-1972 after post war America. There were sub topics of how art and music are trying to recreate opportunities to Detroit. There was also some mention of how the media only generates negative publicity towards Detroit because of the drug infested neighborhoods and the many abandoned factories. 

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

The linear structure of this documentary was led by interviews. There was no 'Voice of God' that some mixed documentaries choose to present their information by. Instead, Jackass star Johnny Knoxville was the most common figure on camera and he acted as a presenter in this Detroit Lives. The exposition of this documentary is established within the first minute of edited footage by Knoxville. He tells the audience that he is going to find out about Detroit's industrial problems and if they can be solved. The leads towards the middle of the documentary, where there is an analysis of Detroit's possible opportunities and how music could create opportunities for the city. By the end of the film, the audience is left to decide whether Detroit could one day have a future similar to its 'Boom Years' of the past. 

CAMERAWORK

As soon as Johnny Knoxville mentions that he is in Detroit, there was an establishing location shot from a moving car of some of Detroit's buildings. This is very justifiable, straight to the point and in some ways the perfect way to open a documentary. The camera is canned up slightly to allow the audience to understand how large some of the buildings in Detroit are. There were some panned shots in the cutaways. Most notably, one of the panned long shots was used to create a comparison between one of many old factories and a new school in Detroit. The age on these buildings was made more obvious because of this. Some of Detroit's super long shots were taken from a helicopter. This was despite the location already being established earlier in the documentary. 

Not all of the interviews used a tripod to keep the camera steady. Often, when the interview subject was standing up, no tripod would be used. When an interview subject was sat down, there would be a tripod to keep the camera steady. This does not just add variety to the interviews, it adds some personification to the camera angles. This is a code that Detroit Lives sticks with throughout. Interviews varied in terms of angles. There were some full body shots of interview subjects that cut to mid close ups ups. In car that Johnny Knoxville was driving, there was a fixed camera with a microphone facing towards the inside of the car. 

MISE-EN-SCENE

Bright colours stood out among darker backgrounds. This helped in keeping the audience interested in what was happening on screen and tried to elaborate on Detroit's potential. The clothing that some of the interview subjects wore was one factor that contributed to this. One elderly African American male subject wore a pink shirt. In some ways, it helped make what he was saying much more relevant because of the Racial tensions that occurred in Detroit during the downfall of its industry. 

At one of the interviews in a darker area of the abandoned theatre, there was a door that had been opened wide to allow natural lighting to shine to where the camera was focused on.

SOUND

Whenever Johnny Knoxville appears in the classic Cadillac car, rock music was always played at the same time. The pitch of some of the music from a bar was briefly raised in a cross cut from an interview. This was relevant because it was just what the subject was talking about. The same music then fades to the level it was at before so that the subject could carry on talking. There was some diegetic rock music from the local band 'The Dirtbombs' when they were performing at Scion Garage Music Festival. There was some bad language in this documentary, usually coming from Johnny Knoxville, but it was censored by a bleep.

EDITING

In terms of editing, its style was very repetitive. The pace was almost always at a medium level except for when there was a short montage of artists who had performed in Detroit in the past. Cutaways were almost a constant feature of this documentary and to some this could be seen as boring. On the other hand, this could be seen as creative because of everything the editor cut to being relevant to the discussion on screen. 

ARCHIVE MATERIAL

The very first clips in this documentary are archive footage from news agencies who are reporting about Detroit in a negative way. This is pre-evidence before the mention of News agencies having a negative and biased attitude towards Detroit in modern times. There was a montage of artists who had appeared in Detroit in the past. This included The Stooges and Alice Cooper. Separate from this montage, there was footage of MCS playing in Detroit in 1970 and short clips from two music videos belonging to the rapper White Milk. 

There was archive material that was used in a re-constructional manor too. It helped the narrative explain to to audience that industrial car companies such as General Motors and Chrysler used to be based in Detroit during the industrial boom. 

GRAPHICS


Like many other documentaries, white text on a black or transparent background is a common feature here. The opening credits are in these colours and are animated. Sometimes, when a new location appeared on screen, in the bottom left corner small and white text appears to help establish the location. The graphics for the names and titles of the interview subjects appeared on the left or right side of the screen, depending on the camera angle.

DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS - Heavy Metal In Baghdad

TYPE OF DOCUMENTARY

This was a mixed documentary. There were many Interviews, Cutaways, Archive Footage and voice-overs, as well as a heavy usage of observational evidence and reconstructions.

THEMES

The documentary focused on War, Middle Eastern Culture, Loop Holes in Travel, corrupt policing and how Heavy Metal music helps the band Acrassicuada to gain hope of being able to move to the United States.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

The Narrative of this documentary was linear and interviews played a constant role in developing its structure. However, there were some elements of a docusoap in this documentary. There was an exposition, so its relation to docusoaps is only partial because of the small production team and eve's dropping on the lives of a few people in Baghdad, Iraq. VICE films, the Canadian company who created this documentary, featured their producer Eddy Moretti to play the role of an interviewer, presenter and narrator in this film. In the opening, Eddy Moretti establishes why they are in Baghdad. This was to meet Heavy Metal Band Acrassicuada, who they had been following for three years up to 2006, the year in which the documentary opens. The middle follows the band's lives in a war torn country as they move from Iraq to Syria. They search hard to try and find loop holes which allow them to travel to America. When they are in Syria, Eddy Moretti asks if they were considering splitting up but decide to carry on because of the fan's response at what was meant to be their final concert. The band moves on to Turkey, to which the documentary moves to a somewhat brief ending via the use of more subtitles. These subtitles explain what happened to Acrassicuada and their traveling fan 'Mike' up to the time that the documentary was published. These subtitles tell the audience that there is no definitive answer to the exposition because the band were not yet in america like they originally wanted intended to be. 

CAMERAWORK

Tripods were never used to steady the cameras and the majority of footage shot was handheld to avoid the creators of the documentary attracting too much attention for being journalists in the middle east. There were many close ups during the interviews. Some of these close up camera shots were 'undercover'. This is how the documentary used observational evidence to demonstrate the tension in some scenes between the Eddie Moretti, his team and the band against the Middle Eastern officials. When the band travel to Syria, there was an extreme close up on the band's translator, fan and friend called Mike. The camera looks up at Mike as he vents his frustration at how difficult it is to get into Europe because of being Iraqi. He sums up his frustrations on behalf of himself and the band. 

In Turkey, the cameraman records a TV screen when the band watches a rough cut of the start of the documentary. This is an extremely rare sight in any program to show the start of the same documentary at the end of the program. This however, can be judged as acceptable because of the struggles that the documentary has observed over the course of the past few years in the middle east. This footage was shown to the band because they wanted to be reminded of what life was like in Baghdad before they decided to travel elsewhere. They were filmed with medium shots showing the band being upset at their harsh memories returning to them.

MISE-EN-SCENE

The vast majority of the documentary footage was shot in the Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. There were only a few shots taken at Frankfurt Airport 's waiting area before Eddie Moretti and his team flew to the Kurdistan area of Iraq. This was perhaps the least most relevant location of the documentary. It did have some relevance to the exposition. However, because the narrator already said they could get a one way flight from Frankfurt to Iraq, there was some relation. Other locations in this documentary included: the streets of Baghdad, Acrassicuada's  practice rooms, their concerts at the Al Fanar Hotel and a Syrian bar, inside moving cars, an Iraqi Restaurant, a Syrian recording studio, the band's bedrooms in Syria and in Turkey.

SOUND

There is a dramtic sound of drums in the opening scene edited with shots of Moretti fitting himself with a bullet proof vest. It indicates to the audience that they could soon witness danger. Sometimes the Diegetic voice of the producer, Eddy Moretti can be heard asking questions to the band for interviews. Documentaries are often edited so that the questions cannot be heard by the audience. A lot of the interviews in 'Heavy Metal In Baghdad' can be judged as 'Casual' by the audience, but because of the location they were shot at and the size of the crew they could be exempt from this code.

All of the music heard in this documentary was part of the heavy metal genre. The music was played non-diagetically to the audience as a music bed (with Acrassicuada's own songs) and Diagetically at concerts (A metal cover of Europe's 'The Final Countdown' and Metallica's 'Fade to Black'). At the point of Fade to black being played, the noises of screaming fans in the Syrian bar can be heard because they are imagining that they are at a Metallica concert. 

EDITING

There were fast paced cuts between close ups and medium shots at the concerts of fans and the band. There was one man who had his face blurred out to protect his identity. He was worried about being killed for being in a western documentary and being in a location that they shouldn't be in. He worked as a translator whilst they were in Iraq for the documentary. Note that Mike also acted as a translator but chose not to have his face distorted. 

Transitions were not often used. However, there was a black fading transition out and in from the recording studio to the Syrian streets. This may be reminiscent of the Metallica song 'Fade to Black', who were a large influence on the band's material. 

ARCHIVE MATERIAL

There was archive footage of Acrassicuada's concerts and bombs being dropped onto buildings in Baghdad. There was an image of an MTV News magazine article entitled 'No War for Heavy Metal' which as Moretti explains in the narration, was how he discovered Acrassicuada. Some video footage of war vehicles on Iraqi roads were used as part of cutaways. There was also some photography of the fans with the band.

The documentary makers also used concert footage from 2002 during the regime of Saddam Hussein as re-constructional evidence to support the fact that they had to unwillingly perform a pro Saddam song.

GRAPHICS

All of the graphics other than the re-constructional maps were in black and white. This included 'VBS' titles and their website afterwards followed by the 'Vice Films' title at the beginning of the film. The name of the band members appear centre screen followed by the instrument they play just below it. The instrument name is still central. Sometimes, some of the English that people in the documentary spoke was muffled or the subjects were speaking in Arabic. There words were dubbed in English below in white subtitles. The re-constructional maps were animated and demonstrated how the production team entered the Kurdistan region of Iraq from Frankfurt and onwards to Baghdad International Airport.  

Two members of Acrassicuada talking in their interviews with white graphics.

The video below is part 1 of 9 of the award winning documentary 'Heavy Metal In Baghdad':