Formal Proposal

Formal Proposal

Our documentary is going to be an investigative documentary into the world of dieting, there are 4 topics that we will focus on, and in the first 5 minutes each of these will be explained briefly, showing interviews from experts in the field and people who have been effected by the following topics;

-          Anorexia- it is a running current topic throughout the media and the news and people are constantly talking about it, as the documentary is focusing on the dangers of dieting we felt this was the main subject area.

-          Media influence- again this is a running effect of dieting and people are interested in what celeb culture has done to the world of dieting and specifically younger women.

-          Diet pills- this links in to both the above and is a current topic which has to be carefully researched.

-          Examples- by this we mean people who have suffered, badly, at the hands of dieting, this is an important factor into the world of dangerous diets.

Our documentary is entitled ‘A moment on the lips’ as this is a common phrase within the world of food, diet and celeb culture and can be recognised immediately for diets to be the subject matter.

The documentary will have a complex narrative, as it had a number of different stories within the subject matter, that will all have a linear/circular narrative structure. The documentary will be part of the Dispatches sector on Channel 4 and will be screened from 9pm-9.30pm, we think this is appropriate for the type of documentary it is, as this is where controversial topics can be discussed and Channel 4 seems to be well known for creating such reputations.

The target audience will be mostly women, but can also be targeted at men; the main target audience however will be teenage girls, who are the most effected by the celebrity culture and wanting to be skinny all the time. In conclusion the documentary will be mainly targeted at teenage girls.

The primary research that is needed for our documentary is interviews with specialists, this will be a doctor at our local hospital who also specialises in diet requirements and has a qualification as a dietician, and we may also interview another dietician for this. For the other elements of our documentary we are going to interview people who have been effected by dieting, such as people who have become ill from dieting, people who are currently on diets and also people who have had success with safe dieting, we will be using a family member for this, Sue Franklin, who has been on a number of diets and has come up with a permanent and effective solution to the never ending weight issues we face.

The secondary research we will use is footage of magazines that advertise dieting, stats and facts from websites, archive footage of anorexia issues and also examples of deaths and issues created from dieting, that have been in the media. Also images of celebrities when the part of the documentary that has a theme of celebrity culture. Leaflets from doctors and hospitals with facts etc will be used within our documentary and also footage of pills and stories from the media that we have seen.

Our content for the documentary is going to be built from cutaways to footage of pills, diet meals, anorexia images, celebrity images and archive footage from people such as ‘the Atkins man’, as this is one of the stories we will use in our documentary. Also we will be interviewing 3 people, for the first 5 minutes of the documentary which will be a doctor, somebody who has been through many diets and somebody who has a constant struggle with their weight and is just beginning to try and diet.

For the content of our documentary to be successful we will need resources from hospitals, such as leaflets. Magazines, archive footage and people to interview.