With Zoe, we discussed how producers typically come up with ideas for documentaries, and how these ideas translate onto the screen. There are a number of ways in which ideas for shows can come about, and Zoe discussed some of the most common and effective bases that producers find inspiration for documentary topics:
- 'Whatever happened to [...]?"
- Anniversaries of an event / death / birth
- Sheer curiosity
- News stories
- Current media: what topics are selling well or are popular?
- Ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances
- Locations: generating ideas through interesting places to film and document
- A good title or a well-worn format
The most important aspect of any of these ways of finding ideas was to decipher what the big question of the documentary should be: what is the hook? Audiences need to want to commit their time to watching a documentary and so the hook should be enough to entice them to start watching. During the process of choosing an idea for a documentary, it is also vital that we ensure we have strong narrative and central characters, and a universal/relatable theme - so that is has an effect on your mind, heart, or wallet.
We went on to discuss our ideas, baring in mind that we were still in the early stages of development. I mentioned my initial idea which would involve documenting a day at the special needs school that my mother works at. As of yet, I am unsure where I could take this idea - I had thought of perhaps shooting the documentary as a 'day-in-the-life' sort of style, following a teenager with learning difficulties and finding out the troubles faced by these young people in a society that may not be tailored to their needs.
With Zoe, we discussed things to consider if my group were to roll with this idea, including:
All in all, the feedback from Zoe was very beneficial and moved us on the right direction to prepare us for our pitch.
We went on to discuss our ideas, baring in mind that we were still in the early stages of development. I mentioned my initial idea which would involve documenting a day at the special needs school that my mother works at. As of yet, I am unsure where I could take this idea - I had thought of perhaps shooting the documentary as a 'day-in-the-life' sort of style, following a teenager with learning difficulties and finding out the troubles faced by these young people in a society that may not be tailored to their needs.
With Zoe, we discussed things to consider if my group were to roll with this idea, including:
- Getting permissions from parents - since we would be filming in a school, this could cause us a lot of hassle before the camera starts rolling.
- We should focus on some sort of journey, as opposed to just following someone around and waiting for something to happen.
- With this subject in particular, we must also be careful not to turn it into a sob story which would end up being a cheap attempt at enhancing emotion by focusing on a more vulnerable subject.
I was good to hear other peoples' documentary ideas and gauge where they were in terms of development so that I could gain a better idea of what shape our documentary would be taking.
After the session, myself and my group discussed our potential ideas, and came up with another plausible topic to focus on for our documentary. Since all four of us had passed our driving tests over the last two years, the process of learning to drive, passing our tests and buying cars was all very fresh in our minds. Driving is almost a rite of passage for young people and was a very important thing for us, and so we decided to look into teen drivers and the difficulties preventing that may be facing them and how important it can be for young people to drive. I researched some statistics on driving and found that teenagers made up for 43% of new drivers, and that over the last decade, the number of people taking their driving test has declined by about 25%.
Zoe seemed to like the idea but stressed that we need to focus on exactly what our angle was, rather than on teenage drivers in general, otherwise we risk making the documentary seem disjointed and confused. We had also agreed that we would film the documentary using a presenter to literally drive around to different locations and interview people and visit different places etc. We decided that I would be the best person to do this as I was the most passionate about driving and could discuss the topic at length, however Zoe also pointed out that whilst I can do this, I may not necessarily be the most interesting presenter, as I did not represent any kind of struggle that would relate to a BBC Three audience.
Zoe also gave us a really great idea to bring a sort of challenge element to the documentary to add a sense of tension and edge. She suggested that we could focus on one person who relies on driving and seeing how they cope when their car is taken away and they must rely on other means of transport to get around. We thought this would be an interesting and fun thing to film which would also work as our hook to hone in on the entertainment side of the documentary, which we had been struggling with.
After the session, myself and my group discussed our potential ideas, and came up with another plausible topic to focus on for our documentary. Since all four of us had passed our driving tests over the last two years, the process of learning to drive, passing our tests and buying cars was all very fresh in our minds. Driving is almost a rite of passage for young people and was a very important thing for us, and so we decided to look into teen drivers and the difficulties preventing that may be facing them and how important it can be for young people to drive. I researched some statistics on driving and found that teenagers made up for 43% of new drivers, and that over the last decade, the number of people taking their driving test has declined by about 25%.
Zoe seemed to like the idea but stressed that we need to focus on exactly what our angle was, rather than on teenage drivers in general, otherwise we risk making the documentary seem disjointed and confused. We had also agreed that we would film the documentary using a presenter to literally drive around to different locations and interview people and visit different places etc. We decided that I would be the best person to do this as I was the most passionate about driving and could discuss the topic at length, however Zoe also pointed out that whilst I can do this, I may not necessarily be the most interesting presenter, as I did not represent any kind of struggle that would relate to a BBC Three audience.
Zoe also gave us a really great idea to bring a sort of challenge element to the documentary to add a sense of tension and edge. She suggested that we could focus on one person who relies on driving and seeing how they cope when their car is taken away and they must rely on other means of transport to get around. We thought this would be an interesting and fun thing to film which would also work as our hook to hone in on the entertainment side of the documentary, which we had been struggling with.
All in all, the feedback from Zoe was very beneficial and moved us on the right direction to prepare us for our pitch.
No comments:
Post a Comment