Formal Proposal For Documentary =]

Topic
After much discussion, we decided to name the documentary “The Death of the High Street” so that the topic of our documentary becomes more apparent to the audience and also to highlight that the high street could be becoming a thing of the past. We thought it would be best to get two different view points for our documentary: people who prefer the high street and people who prefer to shop from the comfort of their own homes to remain unbiased throughout the documentary. Such companies such as eBay and Amazon provide a different outlook on online shopping and it’s also important to receive the different sides of the argument. We felt that modern day society is beginning to become more comfortable with online shopping and because of this it is ditching the old tradition of the high street for an easier way to shop.

Types of documentary
Due to the quantity of subject content that is available for the documentary, we have decided that our documentary will be mixed as we can include a voice over, archive footage and interviews to vary what the audience sees. We will mainly use cuts however we may consider using fades and dissolves when there is a transition from an interview to the next. We are also incorporating vox pops to portray a general outlook and opinions from the public.

Style of Documentary
Our documentary will be informal and lighthearted to try and take a humorous side to the argument we are presenting whilst also making the exposition clear. The informal nature will be evident through the use of relaxed interviews however a formal voice over will be used so that the audience can connote the seriousness of the documentary. We hope that this approach will mean that our target audience will feel more comfortable whilst watching yet also understand the point of our programme. We shall try and take a MTV like aspect whilst using quick editing to capture the audience’s attention.

Channel and Scheduling
We decided that Channel 4 would be the best programme to air our documentary as it is modern and this appears to be our target audience’s favourite channel which we found out through the use of our questionnaires. Our target audience is from 16-25 as they are more aware of the transition from the high street to online which shows that they tend to shop more online then other audiences. We decided that it will be broadcast at 7:00pm as; once again we learnt from our questionnaires, that this was the most common time that they watch the TV therefore this might help to make our documentary become successful as more viewers will be watching it.

Primary Research Needed
For primary research, we decided that our interviews shall be done in a natural environment. We hope to interview somebody from a retail shop and this could occur in their own shop whilst clothes are present in the background to give the audience a sense of context. If this fails, a natural background will suffice as it also relates to the fact that online shopping occurs at home. We have also distributed questionnaires to try and discover more about our target audience, this included questions on favourite colours, preferred time of viewing and favourite channel to research for scheduling. We also had subject related questions so that we could devise a few statistics and opinions from a broader audience. For example, pink was the favourite colour and therefore we shall use this in our graphics and the favourite type of music was Pop therefore we have decided to use Lady Gaga and other related artists in our documentary.

Secondary Research Needed
For our secondary research, we researched numerous different clips of archive footage online and have found different adverts that we can incorporate into our documentary to demonstrate the nature of eBay, Amazon etc. We are also trying to find different shots of retail shops that we can use for our cutaways to show relevant matter that coincides with what the interviewees are saying. We also plan on including images from books, newspaper clippings and TV footage.

Narrative Structure
The beginning of the documentary will explore the transition from the high street to online and how the younger generation has become more associated with shopping from home. The convenience of online shopping has taken over the traditional high street retailers. We will explore how online shopping has a lot more discounts than the high street and how voucher websites have become increasingly more popular. It shall discuss the recession and how it has pushed people to shop online due to amount of discounts available. We will try to include voxpops to generate an overall opinion on how things have changed over recent years.

The conflict of the documentary will discuss about how websites such as eBay and Amazon can be fraudulent and can scam people out of their money. Hopefully, we can interview someone who will have experienced this first hand and describe their experiences with online shopping. Then we shall later discuss the recession and how it has affected people through losing money online and the reasons why people have opted to shop online in the past.

The end will conclude on points about how it has changed and whether this change is actually progress. We shall also try to sum up our line of argument effectively whilst pointing out both the strengths and weaknesses for both types of shopping. We hope to end our documentary on an unbiased note as this will leave it open ended so that the audience have to make their own opinion on the matter of which shopping they personally enjoy better and hopefully feel more informed on online shopping.

Outline of Content
The content will range from formal interviews to informal voxpops with random members of the public to explore the different reasons behind the use of online shopping. Discussing a big company such as eBay means that we will have to try and research them as much as possible and to interview as many people affected by this company. We will try and talk about its potential unreliability and how a person is effectively buying off a stranger.

We will also speak to common retailers such as Bank, Republic and River Island who all profit greatly from a successful online website. There is also room to explore websites such as ASOS and Boohoo which are only internet based and don’t own a retail shop. The recession is one of the many reasons behind this transition and we hope to discuss about this more however at various points in the documentary to refrain from becoming dull as we have to keep our target audience in mind and the majority aren’t overly excited about the prospect of the recession. Therefore it shall only be mentioned lightly with few professional opinions on it; however we shall try to describe it concisely to keep the audience informed.

We will try to base our documentary around a case study from a person who has had problems with an online purchase or an unfair high street transaction. This will help to balance the exposition so that the audience can remain a fair view of the narrative. We will use as much archive footage as we can such as adverts, clippings etc. to reinforce our line of argument that the high street is no longer popular as it used to be. We hope that the narrative will be rhetorical and will allow the viewer to make their own opinion. Lastly, and the most important, we shall focus on the average member of the public’s opinion and try to create a generalized outlook on the subject.

Research Requirements
Obviously a camera is an essential piece of equipment needed for a documentary as this is needed to catch the action and practically create the documentary itself. We decided not to use a boom as this can sometimes pick up too much background noise whilst a microphone can pick up the interviewees direct words, this will help to prevent detracting from the subject content. We also need a tripod to keep the camera still whilst filming pans and establishing shots, interviews etc. We may consider using blue screen to incorporate different images behind our interviewees.