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   Medium (eg. film, graphic design)

The medium I will be researching is documentaries. For many years, documentaries have been made and there are many types such as: expository, interview, poetic, participatory etc. This website Documentary genres (docuseek2.com)  has all the different types and their definitions. Documentaries tend to be viewed by the audience on TV as they can be a one-of documentary, which tends to be an hour or an hour and a half long like a film, or a whole series is made. Television networks like BBC, Channel 4, Sky etc make many documentaries varying in different styles. This means documentaries can be about anything like science, history, people, animals etc so the target audience does vary depending on what the documentary is about. Main Product (e.g. short film, magazine) My first initial thought was to do a magazine because I wanted to do something new but when looking into it I thought it might be hard to make it to a high standard. This is because I would want to get it printed off professionally which could cost a lot of money and so would be over my budget. I thought through on another product I could create and so I decided to do a documentary. I have decided this because for my idea of the magazine, I wanted it to be about young people on how they have coped through Lockdown the past year so I thought I can still do this just in a documentary instead. My documentary will be of me interviewing three different people of the ages 18 and 19 but I will edit it so that no one can see or hear me asking the questions to give the feeling of the interviewee's just talking to audience. My documentary's target audience will be for young people between the ages of 16-21 who may be struggling in this pandemic. They are my target audience because I think young people going through that will find it relatable to watch and it will make them feel better hearing other people's stories and so they are not alone in this.  Length (e.g. minutes or pages) As this a Final Major Project, I will make the documentary a bit longer than I usually would for a normal project also. So, I think the suitable amount of time for my documentary to be is seven minutes long. As I would be interviewing three different people, I want to allow enough time for them to answer the questions in as much details as they want for the best possible answers. I will also need time for the title of the documentary to show and to film an intro of the interviewees so the audience can feel more connected to the documentary as they will immediately know some facts about the interviewees.  Why The main reason I have decided to do a documentary is because my favourite part of media is filming. I enjoy being in control with the camera as I can experiment with using different camera angles and also I enjoy learning all the different settings on a camera. A documentary is something I have never made before so I thought doing something different will be more enjoyable and will expand my learning. I enjoy watching documentary's in my spare time mainly when they are about people as I love to know how different people live their life's and what they go through. For my FMP, I want to make it relatable to people my age so I thought a documentary of me interviewing people of the ages 18 and 19 would achieve this. I also want it to be relatable to what is going on now in the world with the pandemic and Lockdowns so the questions I will be asking will be how they are coping with all this going on in the world.  Inspiration What inspired me to do a documentary for my FMP was the BBC. I find many documentary's on there so interesting to watch and they do so many different types. This is a link to all the documentary's they have on BBC iPlayer: BBC iPlayer - Documentaries . My favourite type of documentary's is when it's about other people as I find it interesting to hear about other people's life's. My favourite journalist/TV presenter for these is Stacey Dooley as she covers such sensitive topics like people's life's in prison, mental health, sexual assaults and many more. I enjoy watching these because Dooley goes above and beyond to find out all the information and let's us audience see people live their life's differently. However, my favourite favourite documentary is Amy which is about the life of Amy Winehouse from when she was a teenager to when she passed away. It was made after her death and it shows video's and pictures that were taken of Amy to let us see her in a different light no one has before. Friends and family are interviewed talking about Amy's career, love life, drug/alcohol abuse and much more. Their voices are narrated over the footage of Amy before she passed away. I love this documentary because I got to find out so much about Amy Winehouse which no one knew before. I also loved the whole concept of having video's/pictures  taken years ago as the main footage because it makes it organic and real which I think a documentary about someone's life should be like. I want to take the idea of having video's/pictures previously taken on someone away and use it in my documentary.  Key ideas While thinking about this project, I came up with key ideas of how I want to do it and how I want it to look like. First of all, as I am doing a documentary about teenagers someone will have too ask them questions however, I want to edit it so that the interviewer (who will be me) won't be seen or heard in the documentary. I think this gives a nice effect to the documentary because then all the attention will be on the interviewees and plus, the audience will feel like the interviewees are talking directly to them as though they are the interviewers which will make them feel more connected to the interviewees. Another key idea I have is too film the documentary at locations where the interviewees feel connected too. For example this could be their homes, a walk they go on every day, a place they meet up with friends a lot etc. The reason I want to do this is because I want the interviewees to feel comfortable of where they are as this will help them to answer the questions as they won't feel as nervous. They can even talk about the place they have chosen to be interviewed at as there might be an interesting/funny story to it or they feel like the audience should know why they chose that place if it's a deep connection they have with it. Talking about this will be a good way to start of the interviews as they would feel comfortable talking about it so they can ease in to the deeper questions as the interview goes along.