Formal proposal

Formal Proposal

                                                                     

The topic we decided to choose was from a range of ideas including house pets, fast food, tattoos, phobias and piercings. After brain storming and discussing reasons for and against we decided that phobias would be the most interesting topic for our documentary. The main reason we chose phobias is because it appeals to most people simply because they have a phobia of some sort.

The type of documentary is a mixed documentary. The channel we chose is channel 4 because it shows a large amount of documentaries such as dispatches, so people expect to watch a documentary on this channel. We wanted our documentary to show on a Monday at 8:00 because we feel this is a free slot with little competition from other documentaries and when we looked at the most common time people watch T.V. on a Monday we discover it was between 7 and 9. The target audience we think would be most interested is age 16-30 this is simply because we feel the documentary has a mature theme but will appeal to a wide range audience.

 For our documentary we will need a good amount of facts on phobias such as how many people in the U.K. are scared of spiders, how many people suffer from phobias in the U.K. and why most phobias develop including primeval phobias. We will definitely need to interview people with strange phobias and even people with normal phobias, it would also help maintain interest in our documentary if we confront people with their phobias and get a great reaction shot of them scared.

If we had enough time it would be great if we could help someone overcome their phobia, this would add a great story line to the documentary but it would take a long time for someone to overcome their fear.  We could also ask people why they think they have developed their phobias and then narrate all the facts as to why people develop them.  

The documentary running time is 27 minutes the reason for this is we feel an hour would be too long for this topic as everything that’s important we will cover in the 27 minutes. The people we would like to interview vary from a doctor with some insight on why phobias exist, people who are effected by phobias, someone who works with tarantulas at a pet store, someone who works at go ape that has first hand experience of people with a phobia of heights and perhaps get Fay to meet face to face with a snail! We will definitely need to film a tarantula but I am aware of a pet shop we could visit to get some footage of the eight legged fur ball.      

We will probably have the interview over lapping instead of just a five minute interview with one person and then the next; this should help maintain interest and quality for our documentary. Some of the props we could use are that persons phobia if possible and perhaps interview someone in front of the green screen ask them a question about an experience with their phobia and then react it and have the video playing in the background with the person narrating what happened almost like a crime investigation but this could either be for comedy if that persons phobia isn’t serious or for a more serious phobia.

The music should influence fear into the audience with screams in the background and generally dark music if the phobia is one that most people have a fear of. But I feel we could have upbeat sections as phobias might be scary to that person but for everyone watching they will be amusing depending on the significance of the phobia. We believe that a documentary about phobias will attract a large audience and will have a significantly appreciated content.