Formal proposal for documentary

Formal Proposal



The main topic of our documentary is fashion. This includes sub topics such as how the economy affects peoples fashion budgest, and how the fashion industry affects peoples styles and views on others.

Our type of documentary is a mixed documentary as we will include a voice over which leads the narrative, interviews with shop oweners, vox pops, archive footage such as fashion shows, shop openings and past news reports for evidence, the use of music bed underneath which is relevant to the subject. We will use young, popular music to fit in with the topic and the target audience.
The style of the documentary is going to be linear, as we introuduce the topic, discuss all factors and finally come to a conclusion. Also we are giving it an informal feel, as the topic is fashion, and we want it to be upbeat instead of usign a formal style as this is usually used for serious topics.
This documentary will appear on Channel 4 at 7 o clock.

We chose this time as it would be an easy time for people to watch when they have come in from work, school or college. We found out from our questionnaire that most people watch TV from 8-9pm as this is when most popular soaps are on TV, instead of putting it on at a time where we would have to comepete with these popular shows we put it on the block before as it would attract a similair audience. We chose Channel 4 because it is a popular channel and features many documentaries, therefore we could gain a similair audience, and they also show programmes for the younger generation who we are aiming our documentary at.

From the questionairre, Most of our target audience prefer to watch Channel 4 other than any other channel so having this documentary on Channel 4 as it has a strong following already
Considering the documentary is about fashion we want to aim it at this audience as they are most fashion considerate and most interested in this subject. Also the fact they are the main target audience for most fashion designers. The ages of our main target audience are from 18-30. Also, the fact that they often have opinions and this gives them a chance to see different view points about an area which is highly popular.

The majority of our target audience are females, although we are going to include some sections based on men, as they are also obviously a major part of the industry. We are aiming it at females more as the fashion industry is more focused towards them, and they take more of an interest is the subject. Most people shop once a week although a minority of people shop 4+ times a week.

Primary research will consist of
For the secondary research, we have looked at online videos focusing on fashion shows. These shows depict the styles that are new for the current season of the time. As you watch the clips online, you notice firstly that most of the models used are of a slim build, this in our opinion portrays a vision of what females and males think they should look like. Our questionnaires show that mainly women follow this trend of thinking that the way to look is slim, which overall means that they might try many approaches to get this look. As well as female fashion shows, we also looked online for male shows, this proven to be useful in finding but the way men are portrayed in most of the clips we found are not as what males in working class society typically look like, therefore giving a distorted view to what the peopel in society feel they should look like. We are oging to cover such topics in the documentary.

We also looked at videos of shops opening their stores for sales, this is an event that thousands of people can relate to, especially those who watch the documentary. The clips we are choosing are quite extreme to excite the audience as they feature hundreds of people queing at doors.
We have also looked at a number of films, examples being the Sex and the City films, The Devil Wears Prada, Confessions of a Shopaholic. We have also discussed the way that they show fashion in films and relate to day to day lives of people involved with fashion and how they use it in their day to day lives. We are going to discuss how fashion in the media such as this affects daily lives and links to other areas of society.

Others uses of fashion in the media is the multi million pound industry of fashion magazines. Cosmopolitan, Elle and Vogue are well known fashion magazines with catwalk fashion and highstreet, but there are hundreds of other magazines looking at niche markets. We are going to discuss why people choose what magazines they choose and why the most popular ones are that.

Outline of Content
• Archive footage of different fashion shows
• Archive footage of shop openings- Topshop/Topman, Primark, Macys
• Archive footage of fashion films – Devil Wears Prada, Confessions of a Shop-a-holic
• Archive footage of fashion TV shows –Ugly Betty, Sex in the city
• Answered vox pop questions
• Music bed underneath it
• Interviews with managers of major high street stores , and Boutiques in Stockton Heath.
• Voiceover throughout that leads the narrative
• Cutaways to the fashion shows from the interviews.

Resources
• Camera
• Battery
• Tripod
• Microphone
• Headphones
• Green/blue screen – for mise-en-scene ready for interviews so we can bed footage behind it such as fashion shows shop openings, panning round shops etc.