Proposal

Individual Idea

 

To decide what idea I wanted to do I made a mind map and wrote down what ideas I had. There were four ideas I had one was an observational documentary about my friends on a normal college day. Another one was an interactive documentary about someone who was kicked out of college and what they have done since then and speaking to professionals about how many people are kicked out each year. Another one was another interactive documentary about the pressures of going to to university or choosing an apprenticeship. My last idea is an observational documentary about my cat Timmy and how much she is loved.

 

 

 

Chosen Idea:

I have chosen to make an observational documentary about my cat, Timmy to show my love for cats and hopefully other cat lovers. The documentary is all about Timmy and the games we play with her, her normal rotor for the day. It will also include my family talking about her like what we I've about her and why I named her Timmy.

Form of documentary:

The form of documentary would mostly be observational just watching her but there will be some aspects of expository and interactive as we would be breaking the fourth wall talking to the camera and there might be a voice over talking about her over the footage of her. The genre would be special interest because it’s about me, the director’s cat not about sharing views of others. A lot of people love pets so if they have a special interest in cats they would love to watch a short documentary about another cat comparing it to their cat.

Target Audience:

The demographic audience for my advert would be every class, gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, income and generally Channel 4's peak time audience. This is because everyone would either love or hate cats depending whether they love animals or prefer dogs. Every psychographic would love cats but I think mainstreamers are more likely to have them as they are affordable. As we are publishing these documentaries on Channel 4 it is unlikely that children, the younger target audience wouldn’t watch programmes on Channel 4 so it is unlikely they would see the documentary. As it will be on Channel 4 people who could hate cats could see this so it is important to make it interesting to them to.

Primary and secondary research

To make sure I really know my target audience I will create a survey for them but before that I will need to do secondary research to see what others have done and see if anyone else has done a documentary about a cat and see what they included in the documentary. I will also look at some reviews or books finding out a bit of information about cats and see if I could use some of that information in my documentary. because this is isn't an informative documentary I will not be including any quantitative or qualitative data but to do my research I will need to find out quantitative and qualitative data. The purpose of all this research is to make sure I have a clear idea of my target audience to know who I am aiming my documentary at.  

The aim of the documentary:

The aim of my documentary is to persuade people who don't like cats to watch my documentary and at the end of it think cats are alright. It is a documentary to all people who love cats to remember all the good times they had with their cat. If nobody has a cat hopefully it will persuade them to buy one because they will become family and you won't be able to remember life without them.

Location:

The location of the documentary will be based inside my house and my garden. I will be filming here because this is where Timmy lives and feels comfortable and would be a bad idea to take her out of her comfort area. I would need to travel to my house so the best time to film this footage would be after college and on the weekend.

Production:

For the production the camera will be placed on tripod and when I’m being filmed I will kindly ask my sister to press play for me. I am not going to ask anybody from my BTEC media because they will be working on their own projects and I can't ask any of my friends because they don't live near me.

Sample questions:

There isn't that many questions that I will be asking them but here are a few I might. It will only consist of people talking not the interviewer.

What do you love about Timmy?

What things does she sit on?

How does she annoy you?

Do you spoil her?

Equipment:

The equipment that I will need to use is a tripod and a camera. I will also need costumes but that will be dependent on what day it is. There might be some other props I will use like string, cat food but I already have them. As I already have everything I will not need to spend any money.

Budget:

Even though I should not need to spend any money on anything I will have a £10 budget in case the home owners want money for letting me use their house.

UPDATE

After discussing my idea with my teacher we have decided together that it would be better if I filmed other cat lovers and their cat. We decided this because you find out about different cats not just mine. I should film about five other people with their cats preferably different ages to show that all ages love cats. I will be asking them questions about what their cat is called and what they love most about them.