Formal Proposal

Topic

The theme of our documentary is psychics. We all decided on this topic as most people think negatively about people making a living out of their talents as they don't fully understand the different types of mediums and how they use their gift for the best. We thought that we could educate the public and research local business.

Type

We have decided that our documentary is going to be a mixed documentary containing a voice over that will be heard over both recorded and archive footage. The voice over will inform the audience what is being shown on screen and what it about to come during the next scene. Vox pops will also be used as cutaways to speed up the pace and to also get the public involved with the subject. The vox pops will also be used to seperate footage from interviews if the change between cuts isn't as smooth as intended. Interviews will also create a professional opinion and the public’s opinion will be used throughout as people may feel like they can relate to it more easily, especially if they are within the same age range. Archive footage will add drama to the documentary as well known celebrities can be used which may attract more people. This is all relevant as it creates more entertaining documentaries and can attract the audience from the programme before, using quick, clean editing from all of these options.

Style

Our documentary will be informal to allow the interviewees to be relaxed which will help the audience to easily relate to the documentary and the content. The style of documentary was decided based upon the results that came from the questionnaires, the average result was 17/18 and female and therefore allowed us as a group to relate the documentary to what they would be interested to see and from our research,we agreed that psychics and mediums could appeal to this audience without it being too serious. The fast pace of the documentary will keep the audience interested, with the exception of the interviews which will last longer without any disruptions at a slow pace to enable those talking to engage with the audience. This allows the documentary to be easily understood and prevents the audience from being confused and bored.

Target audience & Channel

Our documentary appeals to a wide range of people of different ages as the channel we have chosen is channel 4. This is due to the fact that most documentaries are shown on this channel and are popular with the viewers. Depending on the content of the documentary, different audiences will be targeted throughout the year and this could benefit us as we have constructed our documentary so that it is appropriate to all ages and audiences. However, we decided to focus on young female adults as we believe that this is a suitable subject due to spiritual information being printed in magazines aimed at the same target audience e.g. look & More. Horoscopes are also available on the internet and are popular on social networking sites.

Narrative Structure

Beginning- Introduction to the topic with the visuals of archive footage and the Vox pop’s will show the public’s thoughts on their views about psychics and the paranormal. There will also be a voice over explaining what is going to be happening throughout the documentary.

Middle- When the professionals are being interviewed, cutaways will be shown where relevant and relating to what the person is saying.

End- The end of the documentary will sum up all the different views and opinions towards psychics and mediums and how people think differently about the same topic.