Formal Proposal For

Documentary
A2 Media Studies

Topic - Hobbies
The topic we are doing for our documentary is hobbies, we want to look at
different hobbies and the people behind them. For the specifics, we want
to aim at finding weird, interesting and fascinating hobbies and the
reactions of other people to these hobbies. We are doing this because
many people have hobbies and at least half are interested in finding
another one. We are going to do this by following a few individuals with
extraordinary hobbies and other people's reactions.

Type of Documentary
Our documentary will be a mixed documentary. It will include elements of
Observation, Interview and Narration. It will be mixed because these elements will
all be used in different sections of the documentary in equal amounts. Making the
documentary mixed means that it will be very interesting for our target audience.
Examples of these techniques is when we interviewed three people about their
hobbies and the narrator most notably when he introduces the documentary over
a montage. When in the montages we use many camera angles and shots
including point of view and match on action. Also we have made use of archive
footage of people doing old hobbies.

Style of Documentary
Our documentary will have an informal tone, the narration, music and style of camerawork will reflect this.
When looking at other people's hobbies in montages and in cutaways most of the camerawork will me
eveline view and we will make use of match on action. The voice over for the narration will contain jokes
and humor. The music will be the latest popular music. Some of the elements used to construct the
documentary will be taken from our target audience questionnaire answers and others will be revised
when appropriate.
Genres of music selected will reflect answers given in our target audience questionnaire and relevant
music will also be considered to fit certain scenes. It will be very informal and not factual whjen talking
about opinions. Mise-en-scene will be relevant to the topic or person involved but not forced or too
obvious, the more subtle ways of showing the topic through mise-en-scene seem to work best and we
intend to use this in our documentary. An example of this is when in the interviews we will have them
either in their bed rooms or outside while in the background is a hint to their bobby like a skateboard
poster or their clothes.

Channel and Scheduling

In our questionnaire, our target audience said that they usually watch TV
between the times of 9:30-10:00. Therefore, when it comes to scheduling
our programme, we are going to pre-echo our documentary before the
programme Gogglebox, so putting our documentary on before 9:00: our
programme will be shown around 8:00/8:30 on Friday 6th January.
In terms of channel, we were going to put our documentary on ITV as this
is what our target audience said that they watched the most, however, we
have now decided to put our documentary on Channel 4 as they tend to
have a lot of documentaries.

Target Audience
The target audience for this documentary is aged 25-60. They will either
have a hobby/multiple hobbies at the moment, have had one in the past or
will generally have an interest in them.
Generally the target audience of our documentary would normally watch
popular television shows that are aired on Channel 4 around 9pm.
It is also aimed at people who are committed to their hobbies and have
been involved with them for a long time and people who are interested in
starting a new hobby.

Primary Research Needed

Primary research we might need for the documentary will include interviews,
questionnaires, observations and interviews with experts involving more in depth
information.
We will ask quite a large amount of people for interviews so that our answers are
varied, this increases the chance of finding people who have more interesting
hobbies and in turn might make our documentary more interesting.
We plan to ask a physiotherapist questions about how hobbies are related to
fitness and a sociologist how hobbies are related to socialisation.

Secondary Research Needed

For secondary research we will find information on the internet,
in books and newspaper articles as these will most likely have
research on our topic of hobbies, and this will be recorded in our
research diary.
We could use statistics and facts found from reliable sources in
our documentary to make it more factual and interesting.

Narrative Structure
The narrative structure of the documentary is going to follow a linear structure. We
decide we are going to use narrations to make sure the plot keeps moving forward
and that it carries on we are going to be explaining the different type of hobbies
and people's opinions. We will try and show the reason they started their hobby
and the reason they carried on,if they are the same and maybe the reason tbhey
quit their hobby.

Outline of Content
For our documentary we are including interviews from people with hobbies which
will have their opinions on other people's hobbies experts of hobbies and we will
try and get a psychologist to help us understand why people do their hobbies. We
will include the use of actual footage of people doing their hobby and us narration
deeply.

Resource Requirements
For our documentary, we are going to need:

Computer
Editing Software
Internet
Video Camera
Tripod
Microphone
Lighting
Contact Numbers for Interviewees
Headphones