Formal Proposal

Topic



Body Image/Appearance


Type of documentary


Mixed


Style of documentary:


Informal/informative/entertaining/ short sequenced fast paced.


Channel:


Channel 4


Scheduling:


Tuesday, 8pm


Target Audience:


Young Adults: 17-24 years old


Primary research:


Questionnaires

Interviews: Person who has had a gastric band, Nail technician, Sun bed technician , Hair Dresser, Drag Queen, make-up counter person, Gym person, Doctors surgery, Male obsessed with fake tan.

Vox Pops:

Which celebrity has your ideal body shape? - this will be filmed by New Look in Liverpool One

Do you think plus size women are still beautiful? - this will be filmed by the fountains in Liverpool

Would you get plastic surgery? What would you get done? - this will be filmed by the Metquarter

Would you say the person in this picture (Pete Burns) is beautiful? - this will be filmed by Primark

What would be your ideal features to make an ideal person? - this will be filmed by Topshop

Locations for filming:
Hair dressers, Salon, Liverpool One, Shops – Debenhams/New Look/H&M/Dorothy Perkins/River Island/Topman/G Star Raw/Evans/Republic, Make-up counter – Debenhams, Doctors, Gym-Total Fitness, Office Building, Mac Donald’s, Tesco, MAC, Technique Hairdressers, Drag Queen room.

Props/make up items.


Secondary research:


Magazines, Newspapers, Internet research, relevant TV programmes, still photographs, music, and official statistics.


Narrative structure:


Open, single strand and non-linear


Outline of content:


- Vox Pop – which celebrity has your ideal body shape? – Liverpool One


- Interview with a nutritionist over weight and healthy eating


- Interview with a plastic surgeon on the procedures young people are getting


- Interview with a person who works in a sunbed shop to see the types of people who come in


- Interview with a beautician to see what people want done and why and if it makes them feel better on their way out


- Interview with someone who has had a gastric band and why she felt the need to change her appearance dramatically


- Interview with: Pete Burns, Beth Ditto, Christina Hendricks, and Cheryl Cole as to how it feels to be in the public eye and why they’ve changed their appearance


- Interview a young person on how they view beauty and body appearance today and then contrast it with an old person on how beauty used to be defined


- People putting make up on or having it done in a department store


- Extracts from TV programmes: “Gok Wan: How to look good naked”, “Supersize vs. Superskinny”, “10 years younger”, “You are what you eat”.


- Film a boy band getting ready for a concert and contrast it with a girl band e.g. The Saturdays and JLS


- Film the different types of celebrity diet plans e.g. the baby food diet, or the apple diet or people trying them


- History of male and female body types and how they have changed in time and through place


- Film people going in and out of shops


- Montage shop names


- Film a cosmetic aisle in Boots or Superdrug


- Film a make up counter in MAC


- Magazine articles on celebrity diets fluctuating such as Natalie Cassidy


- Extracts from fashion week to see the size of the models, any plus size models?


- Contrast a male and female pin up calendar to compare the stereotypes of an “ideal” body image


- Discuss why there are only ever women on page 3, does it pressurise girls to look a certain way?


Resource requirements:


Tripod, digital video camera, microphone, computer with Adobe Premier and Photoshop

Brainstorm of content for documentary

This is the mind map my group developed for what content we think should go in our documentary:

Target audience research - Questionnaire results

Looking at this graph we can see that there is nearly an equal balance of males and females, however as there are a few more females the findings may be a bit biased.

Looking at these results it is evident that the results will be biased towards the age group 15-18 year olds.

Looking at this graph we can see that there is a vast difference in those who never go the gym to those who go daily thus suggesting that the people who answered are questionnaires are not committed gym goers. However when comparing those who do and do not go the gym it is an equal split whereby 16 go the gym and 13 do not and 1 person sometimes goes.

Looking at this graph we can see that the majority of people rank their appearance highly which suggests that appearance is an important factor in today’s society.

Looking at this graph we can see that the vast majority of those who answered our questionnaires do not diet regularly which may suggest that although they rank their appearance highly they like their food more.

Looking at this graph we can see that celebrities who go on ridiculous diets do not influence a lot of people as only one person said they have ever been on one.

Looking at this graph we can see that the popular answer was 5-10 minutes with 10-20 minutes a close contender which suggests that although they care about their appearance they are not obsessed with it.

Looking at this graph we can see that a lot of people only spend under £10 a month on cosmetics this is probably because the cosmetics are cheap yet last a long time so it is not necessary to spend over £10 a month.

 

Looking at this graph we can see that people all have different ideas of an ideal body shape however the celebrities that were named the most were Beyonce and Cheryl Cole which is interesting as they both have very different body shapes.

Looking at this graph we can see that both Topman and River Island are the most popular shops however they are both relatively expensive which suggests that when it comes to clothing those who answered our questionnaires are prepared to spend a little more. 

 

Looking at this graph we can see that the most popular magazine is NME which is a music magazine thus suggesting that those who watch our documentary will want good music in the background.

Looking at this graph we can see that the most popular colour choice is blue so this will feature throughout our documentary.

 

Looking at this graph we can see that the most popular choice of music is indie but with rock and pop close seconds so we can choice which genre will best suit our tone for the documentary.

 

Looking at this graph we can see that the most popular TV channel is channel 4 and our audience watch it daily so this is our chosen channel for our documentary as it will suit nearly all of our audience.

Target audience research - Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire that my group constructed:

This is a completed questionnaire:



Brainstorming

This is the mind map my group produced; it includes possible ideas for our documentary.

Initial Plans

Topic: Body image/apperance

Title: Bare Beauty

Target Audience: Young adults


Channel: 4


Scheduling: Tuesday, 8:00pm



TV Scheduling

The schedule for each day can be broken down into clear segments. How would you categorise these segments?
Breakfast
Daytime
Children
Family
Adult

Who are the target audience for these segments?
Varies.
Breakfast: depends on the channel as they all cater for a specific type...
Channel 4; children, teenagers
BBC 2 & channel 5; babies

Family: 7-9 pm (peak time)
Adults: after 9 - 10pm

What would you say are the most popular genres on television?
Soap operas
Game shows
Sitcoms
Talk shows
Films

Who is the target audience of each terrestrial channel? Give examples of scheduled programmes to support your views.
BBC 1: mixed - direct competitor with ITV (mass broadcasting)
BBC 2: well educated people, minority channel
ITV: mixed - direct competitor with BBC 1 (mass broadcasting)
C4: young adults/ teenagers BUT competitive with BBC 2 for a well educated audience
Channel 5: Mixed - mass audience

What percentage of each channel's schedules is taken up with repeats? Why do you think this is it?
Rare for repeats in peak time
It is cheap and saves money

Which channels have more imported programmes in their schedules? Why do you think this might be?
C4 & Channel 5: they haven't got as much money as BBC and ITV, its cheaper to buy a USA programme than make a programme to broadcast

What do you understand by the term "watershed" and where does this occur in the schedules?
Watershed is 9pm
Shedding the young viewers as children shouldn't be watching

Documentary Analysis - That Thing: Lara Croft BBC2

Type of Documentary

Mixed

Themes
Feminism

Representation of women

Power of the media

Narrative Structure

Closed

Non-Linear- there is no timeline.

Single Strand

Camerawork

Interviews: variety of shots; close ups, medium close ups and extreme close ups. The interviewee is positioned to the right or left of the screen with the eyeline 1/3 of the way down
Point of View  tracking shot - going into the Internet cafe and along the line of boys on the computer, followed by an extreme close up of a woman's hand on the keyboard playing the game.

Mise-En-Scene

Chromakey - shows game footage to keep the audiences attention/ interest on the interview

The woman being interviewed has a front projection of the green dimensions on her face whilst being interviewed as though trying to make her part of the game.
Film clips.


Sound

Voiceover- Standard English spoken,male, young age type of person who would play the game, calm and relaxed tone.

Music from the game is used.

Soundbites from the Lara Croft character from the game is used.
A Madonna track was played - before one of the interviewees referred to her

Editing

Cuts

Fast motion used in the cafe in the over the shoulder shot
Interview of creator: he has been put into the computer screen.

Archive Material

Websites

Newspaper headlines

Extracts from the game - Tomb Raider

Extracts from the film - Tomb Raider
Nike advert

Interview with Angelina Jolie

 

Graphics

On the opposite side of the screen to the interviewee or subject in white sans serif

The top line size is bigger than the bottom line, and its all in lower case writing
The title of the programme was referred to throughout the interviews such as the creator of That Thing.

Title of the programme is in speech bubbles which suggests the programme is about discussion

I could not find any relevant video clips for the documentary so I included pictures of Lara Croft and Angelina Jolie.