Chosen Idea and Change

I had originally chosen to make my documentary based on my second initial idea which was to be about the culture of Carnaby Street in the 60's. Although after a few weeks I found that it would become difficult to find willing interviewees of the right age. I have therefore chosen a new idea and one which was not part of my initial ideas.

My final idea is in the style of a "Making Of" documentary of a feature film. Following the general template of this style it will include interviews with the cast and crew member as well as scenes from the actual film. Scenes from the film will be filmed as if the characters within the narrative have the camera and are filming themselves throughout the action à la 1999's The Blair With Project and 2009's Paranormal Activity.

Initial ideas

At first I had no ideas at all, I only knew what I didn't want to do and that was subjects such as A day in the life of... , drugs, rape, STD's and under-age pregnancy. This is because I feel that these subjects are unoriginal and have been done countless times. After some time however, I was able to come up with three initial ideas.

My first idea was to create a faux-documentary. The story of which being about the disappearance of  members of a band with the documentary taking place ten years later and interviewing various people such as fans, prominent figures in the industry etc. to find out their thoughts and theories about what actually happened. The only aspect that would not have been created by me was the actual band which was the be Magic Wands.

 Of course, there would be copyright issues and to do this I would have needed to use things such as song recordings, photographs and music video footage. As Magic Wands are not signed to a major record label they were willing to allow the usage of clips of some songs but could not give permission to use photographs and music videos as they do not completely own all or most of them. I felt that being able to use all three within the documentary was integral to the story and it is for that reason that I decided to think of other ideas.

My second idea is a documentary about the culture of Carnaby Street during the 1960's.

This would entail the possible usage of achive footage and photos from the 1960's and also interviewing individuals that have memories of the culture, atmosphere and times to get their thoughts and recollections on the subject.

My third and final idea is a look into Sexuality and Censorship within media during the 20th Century, much like the 1995 film The Celluloid Closet. The five minute extract would focus on comparing and contrasting the motion picture adaption of Lillian Hellman's 1934 play The Children's Hour, These Three and the later adaption of the same play which kept the original title of  The Children's Hour and was released in 1961 starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine.

However, if I chose this idea and put it into production it would be the most difficult as a result of copyright issues with using extracts of the films etc. Also, with regards to interviewees they would all have to be actors portraying various prominent figures in film or completely fictitious characters.

Project outline.

For the A2 Media Studies coursework we have been instructed  to create an extract from a new television documentary programme. Said extract is to be no more than the maximum of five minutes and the subject of this documentary short can be whatever we wish.