Ideas and Research for Production

Section 1: Research into different genres.

Original Idea.....

• You must come up with some rough ideas that are
   grounded in a particular genre.....
• Factual Based Programming
• Drama
• Comedy
• Promotional Material and Advertising
• Children/Youth Programming/Magazine programmes
• Music/Music Video

Genre Research..

• Your next job is to research your chosen genre. What different categories are their within you chosen genre(s)?

Example.......

First of all, can you say what you think a documentary is? What does it attempt to do? Give some examples of documentaries that you have seen on television recently. How are they similar to each other and how are they different from each other?

Below are a number of comments made by documentary film makers. Read through them and try to highlight the similarities and differences of their definitions and approaches to documentary film making.

"You even have to edit your film as the event is actually happening. Have to decide it is this and this and this I want to look at; and not this, this and this. And you can't sit there wondering, what does the director want me to do? You have to make the decisions yourself, you can't alter anything; nothing can be reshot. You're doing anentirely different thing; you're a social observer. Your own ingenuity becomes less important than the fact of how interesting is the subject; and is your own approach to it interesting enough. You don't show the whole of the
subject; you select; and your selection matters."
Richard Leacock

"It is possible to go to a situation and simply film what you see there, what happens there, what goes on, and let everybody decide whether it tells them about any of these things. But you don't have to label them, you don't have to have the narration to instruct you so you can be sure and understand that it's good for you to learn."
D A Pennebaker

"My definition of a documentary film is a film that decides you don't know enough about something, whatever it is, psychology or the tip of South America. Some guy goes there and says 'Holy Cow, I know about this and nobody else does, so I'm going to make a film about it.' Gives him something to do. And he usually persuades someone to put up the money who thinks this is the thing to do. Then you have a situation where this thing is shouting on the wall about how you don't know something."
D A Pennebaker

The history of the genre...

When did the genre first come about and why and what did early attempts consist of?

Example:

We can see from this documentary from 1940, that sound was not advanced enough to be included so, written words and pictures played a pivotal role. The idea was to get information across, the style seems almost irrelevant...........etc

we can see that this documentary from the 90's is more advanced and concentrates on talking head shots and various shots of the films subject at work. Clips of the film Gremlins are interspersed and a voice over is used at time............etc.

This more recent documentary highlights an interest in cultural aspects, including sexuality, unusual body shapes or parts. Quite often celebrities are used to talk about other celebrities and a series of mid shots are used, with the subjects answering questions but without the audience ever hearing the questions. The interviews are edited and dispersed throughout the documentary........etc

Most of these are styles that we would currently see on television such as:

* fly on the wall
* docu soaps
* docu drama
* investigative Drama
* documentary
* personal

Have a look at the website below for more info about documentaries

www.filmeducation.org

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/482184/
index.html
http://blogs.channel4.com/fourdocs/

Task: Once you have decided on the short film that you are going to produce, you must look into the different genres that may be suitable for your product. You should research three different genres and include the following:

• A working definition for the genre
• The reasons why you feel your product would be suited to the genre
• The origins of the genre and how the genre sits in the current media landscape (what types of products and styles are popular in the genre at the moment, how are they accessed, when are they aired, are they having any social impact?)
• You should write up a short analysis of product from each genre, that was made a number of years ago and compare it with an analysis of a modern product in that genre. (This should be done for each genre.)
• You should discuss any gaps in the market or different ways of presenting products in each genre
• Choose a genre or sub-genre to work in and explain in a summary why you have chosen this genre. (Gaps in the market, large market with huge consumption, so space in the market, rising trend, suitable to a particular medium, ie; internet programmes.)