Monday, October 3, 2011

FORMAL PROPOSAL

Topic

The documentary is focused on the topic of takeaways. Why are they so popular? Is there a favourite kind of takeaway among our target audience? Is this having a negative impact on those who wish to eat healthily? In the full documentary these questions will be answered. This topic was chosen over the suggestions of Pizza and Feet (the topics are too specific) and Comic Books (the audience would be too small). We knew before we had the idea for this documentary that some people like to have takeaways on a specific night and that they are not always healthy. Our documentary wants the audience to question whether the idea of eating healthily is abandoned on so called "Take away days".

Type of Documentary

Our documentary will use voiceovers, Vox Pops, Interviews and voiceovers. Therefore, it is a mixed documentary. Vox Pops in particular will be an essential method to backing up our survey answers, as questionaires follow a similar concept to its 'Voice of the People' meaning. We plan for our editing to be fast paced with a heavy use of cutaways throughout.

Style of Documentary

We want this documentary to use narrators whose voices sound young and informal and subsequently is easier for our target audience to understand. This is the most appropriate way to handle the topic because it is something that most people can relate to even if they are not part of our target audience, rather than a political documentary that may only slightly affect someone's life in the long term.

Channel and Scheduling

We want our documentary to be broadcast on Channel 4 as this produces a lot of other documentaries which are aimed at our target audience including 'Supersize vs. Superskinny', 'Big Fat Gypsy Weddings' and 'The Secret Millionaire'. The most reliable time for our documentary  to atract viewers on Channel 4 is 8pm on a Thursday. This is in an effort for our viewers to be pre-echoed to the documentary that is on at 9pm. An audience would be happy to watch our documentary if Channel 4 advertise that another is on afterwards. It would not be a good idea to schedule our documentary in the daytime, as this is when most of them are at school, college or work. 8pm is before the watershed, therefore any strong language would be considered inappropriate.

Target Audience

Our target audience is primarily college and young university students, but it also aims to appeal to older audiences because of how everyone can relate to it. A lot of our target audience will be sat at home wanting to enjoy evening television entertainment at the time that we plan to broadcast our program. We need to make sure that our documentary is well suited to the audience's wants. It is important that we use questionaire results as a method of keeping to the themes of a mixed documentary. In particular, question 11 'Do you tend to order the same meal every time, or be adventurous?' has a much better balance of answers compared to other questions. Around 55% of people said they like to order the same meal, whilst the other 45% say like to have preference. This is a question that could be focused on a lot during the conflict.

Primary Research

Our primary research helps us understand what questions to ask when we are filming interviews. We need to give represtatives from our target audience questionaires which feature questions mostly on takeaways but also five of them on their prefered styles of documentaries. This is benificial not just to the editing process later on but also when we are filming interviews because it gives us an understanding of what questions to ask our interviewees. Interviews themselves are also a form of primary research.

Secondary Research

Our secondary research involves looking at the websites of those who are related to takeaways. This could include price research from local takeaways such as Dominoes Pizza in Birchwood and Health study analysis from BBC News Online. This type of information is much easier to gather online because some of the research has already been published. This helps our group to obtain an insight into modern opinions on takeaways.

Narrative Structure

Our documentary follows the common narrative stucture of mixed documentaries by having an exposition question (Is the popularity of takeaways having a negative impact on those who wish to cook at home?). It is crucial for the middle of our documentary to contain an unbiased conflict and it should not be explored within the first 5 minutes of the film. The conflict should be presented in the form of interviews and cutaways, as many mixed documentaries are. Towards the end of the documentary, we need to make a final summary over the questions debated in the conflict. This is so the audience can make their own judgement over what they have seen. 


Outline of Content


The opening of the documentary should have a fast paced editing, with use of stop motion photography showing a pizza being eaten up slice by slice. This is whilst the song 'Popcorn' by Muse is playing in the background.

We want to interview the following people:
  • Vox Pops
  • Takeaway restaurant workers
  • Somebody who is having a takeaway with friends
  • Somebody in their kitchen who prefers cooking their own meals at home.
We should use extreme close ups on the person who we interview in the kitchen because they can significantly develop opinionated answers from the exposition. The camera should look up slightly at them so that their dominance can be asserted on screen. On the other types of people we plan on interviewing, we want to look down at the subject because individually they can only develop the exposition in a minor way.

We want to film at takeaway related locations. This could be someone's house when they are getting food delivered or relevant subjects collecting a takeaway from a shop. This is due to their relevance to the exposition. 'How relevant is the content we have created?' is something we must consider as a group at every stage of production. 

Resource Requirements

  • A video camera with the correct tape: Out of all of our resource requirements, this is the most essential piece of equipment to record any footage with. 
  • A microphone: A microphone will be attached to every subject we use in our documentary to record the audio in our interviews. Also, to record our documentary's narration, the use of a microphone is also required here. 
  • A Tripod: This is to keep the camera steady when we film our footage. 
  • Blue Screen: Some of our longer interviews could involve a blue screen with a relevant image edited onto the wall.
  • Permission to film on locations: This is required because we may not be allowed to film a large amount of our footage without the consent from a shop/land owner. 

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