Formal Proposal

We were required to make a formal proposal for our documentary, in which we would state finalise almost everything about our documentary including our documentary's topic, style, type, scheduling, content, narrative structure, research, and resources required. By doing this, we would be able to use it is a guidance and be able to justify everything that we produced, as well as being able to present our formal proposal itself to provide crucial information on our documentary to whom it may concern. We researched and considered various different things including different codes and conventions of the documentary genre before deciding what we were going to include in each section, and this formal proposal below should give a thorough overview of what our documentary is to include and the decisions behind the selection of each feature.



Topic
The documentary is focused on the topic of takeaways. Why are they so popular? Is there a favourite kind of takeaway among our target audience? How do they compare to cooking at home? In the full documentary these questions will be answered. This topic was chosen over many others including 'childhood memories', 'allergies' and 'the human body' for many reasons, such as the risk of the target audience being to small due to the topic being uninteresting and potential problems in gathering interviews and information. Other topics such as 'pizza' and 'feet' were also considered, but quickly rejected as the topics were too specific - however, we did like the topic of 'pizza' and it did prove as some inspiration for our eventual topic of 'takeaways'. We knew before we had the idea for this documentary that takeaways serve as a common staple in modern day society across the globe, and due to the potentially huge target audience and accessibility to many sources linked to takeaways including people who own or work at takeaway shops and the general public, we decided that this would be a good idea for a documentary. We wish to find out and present when and why people choose to have takeaways whilst providing a balanced argument on the up and down sides of takeaway meals, alongside general information that will be of interest to our target audience. We chose the title of Tastes Like Teen Spirit as we feel the play on words of popular teen anthem 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana would appeal to our target audience of teenagers and students who would most likely be aware of the track, along with others who are also probably aware of the song and will therefore understand the play on words.


Type of Documentary
Our documentary will be a mixed documentary, and will include many features commonly found in documentaries of this type such as voiceovers, 'vox pops' (the voice of the people), Interviews, archive footage and voice overs. 'Vox pops' in particular will be an essential method to backing up our survey answers, as questionnaires follow a similar concept to its 'voice of the people' meaning. We plan for our editing to be fast paced with a heavy use of cutaways throughout to be able to keep our documentary a varied, informative and enjoyable experience for our viewers.

Style of Documentary
We want this documentary to use narrators whose voices sound young and informal to appeal to our target audience and subsequently make it easier for our target audience to understand - early on, we decided on a number of potential acquaintances who could provide the narration. This is the most appropriate way to handle the topic because it is something that most people can relate to even if they are not part of our target audience, rather than a political documentary that may only slightly affect someones life in the long term. We aim to mainly focus our documentary at our target audience of teenagers and students whilst also making it suitable for all ages - as such, it will not include anything inappropriate for younger viewers such as foul and abusive language of any sort.

Channel and Scheduling
We want our documentary to be broadcast on Channel 4 as this produces a lot of other documentaries which are aimed at our target audience including 'Supersize vs. Superskinny', 'Big Fat Gypsy Weddings' and 'The Secret Millionaire'. The most reliable time for our documentary to attract viewers on Channel 4 is 8pm on a Thursday. This is in an effort for our viewers to be pre-echoed to the documentary that is on at 9pm. An audience would be happy to watch our documentary if Channel 4 advertise that another is on afterwards. It would not be a good idea to schedule our documentary in the daytime, as this is when most of them are at school, college or work. 8pm is before the watershed, therefore any strong language would be considered inappropriate. Having our documentary broadcast at 8pm also gives us the potential of obtaining extra viewers - most likely older viewers - via inheritance, as it would be shown directly after the Channel 4 evening news; which starts at 7pm and ends just before 8pm.

Target Audience
Our target audience is teenagers and students; primarily college and young university students, but it also aims to appeal to older audiences and potentially even younger ones because of how everyone can relate to it and the way in which the content will be perfectly suitable for anyone. A lot of our target audience will be sat at home wanting to enjoy evening television entertainment at the time that we plan to broadcast our program. We need to make sure that our documentary is well suited to the audience's desires. It is important that we use questionnaire results as a method of keeping to the themes of a mixed documentary, and to broadcast the opinions of our target audience which we gathered during our questionnaires. In particular, question 11 'Do you tend to order the same meal every time, or be adventurous?' has a much better balance of answers compared to other questions. Around 55% of people said they like to order the same meal, whilst the other 45% say like to have preference. This is a question that could be focused on a lot during the conflict. Our production title of Tastes Like Teen Spirit is also made to appeal to our target audience, as they will most likely be aware of the Nirvana song 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and will therefore understand the play on words which we have used, which could encourage them to watch our documentary.

Primary Research
Our primary research helps us understand what questions to ask when we are filming interviews. We need to give representatives from our target audience questionnaires which feature questions mostly on takeaways but also five of them on their preferred styles of documentaries to give us a further insight into what they want to see. This is beneficial not just to the editing process later on but also when we are filming interviews because it gives us an understanding of what questions to ask our interviewees. Interviews themselves are also a form of primary research. We will be sure to only ask the questions that will provide the best and most varied answers whilst also creating a fair and balanced argument, as this will appeal to our target audience

Secondary Research
Our secondary research involves looking at the websites of those who are related to takeaways, as well as other sources of information on takeaways such as menus. This could provide things such as price research from local takeaways such as Dominoes Pizza in Birchwood and health study analysis from BBC News Online. This type of information is much easier to gather online because some of the research has already been published. This helps our group to obtain an insight into modern opinions and information on takeaways.

Narrative Structure
Our documentary follows the common narrative structure of mixed documentaries by having an exposition question (When and why do people choose to eat takeaways?). It is crucial for the middle of our documentary to contain an unbiased conflict. It should be presented in the form of interviews and cutaways, as many mixed documentaries are - it should also include archive footage. Towards the end of the documentary, we need to make a final summary over the questions debated in the conflict. This is so the audience can make their own judgement over what they have seen. Throughout, we will be certain to be unbiased and cover both sides of all conflicts.

Outline of Content
The opening of the documentary should have a fast paced editing. We came up the idea of using of stop motion photography showing a pizza being eaten up slice by slice. Whilst this is happening, we decided that we should have some relevant fast paced music playing - a suggestion that was favoured by all of the group was 'Popcorn', a cover song by Muse.

We want to interview the following people:
Vox Pops (The general public)
Takeaway restaurant workers
Somebody who is having a takeaway with friends
Somebody in their kitchen who prefers cooking their own meals at home.

We should use extreme close ups on the people who we interview in the kitchen and the restaurant because they can significantly develop opinionated answers from the exposition. The camera should look up slightly at them so that their dominance can be asserted on screen. On the other types of people we plan on interviewing, we want to look down at the subject because individually they can only develop the exposition in a minor way. We want to film at takeaway related locations. This could be in someone's house when they are getting food delivered or outside a takeaway shop, for example. We will include facts an figures that we have either obtained ourselves or from reliable sources - which will be credited. These facts and figures will either appear as text on the screen, in image form accompanied by text (for example; a graph) or they will be spoken by the narrator.

Resource Requirements
A camera
A microphone
A Tripod
Green/Blue Screen
Permission to film on locations