Formal Proposal

Proposal

Topic: The topic of our documentary will be ‘obsession’. We will be looking at how the general public view obsession and what sort of things they are obsessed with. We shall also look at obsession from a psychological point of view, seeing how obsession affects different people, why people are obsessed and if obsessions can be cured.

Type of documentary: This will be a mixed documentary and therefore will include observations, interviews with psychologists, members of the public and people with obsessions, archive footage of people’s obsessions eg. Cleaning, bands, animals and voice over’s.

Style of documentary: The style of our documentary will be informative as it provides our audience with information about obsession and aspects of it. It will also be informative because the documentary will include archive footage to further explain what the narrator is saying.

Channel and scheduling: We plan to broadcast the documentary on Channel 4 at 8:30pm. This is because our audience research proved that our target audience’s (aged between 16 and 20) favourite channel is Channel 4 and they would most likely to be watching television between the hours of 6pm and 9pm. By scheduling our documentary at 8:30pm it pre-echoes prime time television at 9:00pm, meaning people will have turned over to the channel in order to not miss the 9 o’clock programme.  Broadcasting on Channel 4 also happens to fit with the style of our documentary as Channel 4 was originally a channel aimed at students and young people and our documentary is aimed at young people and students. Channel 4 is also broadcaster of many obscure documentaries and documentary series such as ‘Body Shock’ and ‘

Target Audience: The target audience for our documentary is young people aged between 16 and 20. The majority of these young people’s favourite channel is Channel 4 and their least favourite channel is Channel 5. Most are in full time education and watch 2-3 hours of television a day. Most of our target audience say they watch television between the hours of 6pm and 9pm, a small majority say that they watch television between 9pm and 12:00am.

Primary research needed: We have done a questionnaire about documentaries and obsession and have three video recordings of people answering some of the questionnaires. We plan to interview someone who has a major/serious obsession, someone with in depth knowledge about the human mind and human behaviours, someone with a minor obsession, somebody who lives with someone with a major obsession and hopefully someone with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Secondary research needed: We need facts and statistics of obsession telling us why people are obsessed with things, what kind of things people are obsessed to, what people consider to be obsession, how people become obsessed with something, how many people consider themselves to be obsessed with something etc.

Narrative structure: The narrative will be linear and in the beginning we will introduce the topic and explain what different types of obsession there are (OCB, compulsions etc) and how they affects people’s lives eg. Money, relationships, jobs. We will then look at why people become obsessed with things and what people consider to be obsession. We will also look at what sort of people become obsessed with things, cures for obsessions and when obsessions become a serious problem (healthy eating, cleaning obsessions) Towards the end of the documentary we will pose the question ‘is being obsessed with something healthy?’ and summarise the documentary and leave it to the audience’s opinion as to whether obsession is normal and healthy or not.

Outline of content:

·         Vox pops

·         Interview with someone who has a major/serious obsession

·         Interview with someone who has a minor obsession

·         Interview with someone who lives with a person with a major obsession

·         Interview with someone who has OCD

·         Interview with psychology teacher

·         Cutaway of someone spending money on their obsession

·         Cutaway of specific obsessions e.g. sport, video game footage

·         The kind of things people become obsessed with

·         How being obsessed with something affects peoples lives

·         How being obsessed with something affects other peoples lives

·         The amounts of money people spend feeding their obsession

·         Why people become obsessed with things

·         What people consider to be obsession

·         Is obsession healthy?

Resource requirements:

·         Camera

·         Tripod

·         Items for mise-en-scene (e.g. someone peoples obsession in the background of interviews

·         Interviewee with major/serious obsession

·         Interviewee with minor obsession

·         Interviewee who lives with someone with  major obsession

·         Interviewee who is experienced in the field of psychology

·         Interviewee with OCD

·         Vox pops interviewees

·         Locations for interviews