Proposal

Aims

My main aim for the documentary is to find out first hand how sleep deprivation effects people, and mainly young teenage people. The main reason for this is because they are the people who stay up the latest and get up for school not soon after. The aim to show the 16-24 year olds that sleep is very important and by showing them real footage of someone going without sleep to the extreme it would help open their eyes to the problems of only have a couple of hours sleep each night.

Content

There are 3 main areas the content will be focusing in, the expert interview where i will go to experts to get reliable and more believable information on sleep deprivation and how it can be help though psychological nursing and chemical nursing. The next section would be the largest portion of the documentary  that would be the study itself. I plan to have a huge amount of footage to pick out from to use for the documentary to ensure progression is shown day by day. I will also include numerous mini interviewer lasting a sentence or a phrase, just to get outsiders opinions on the situation as well as inside information from people who are around the Sleep Deprivation people. The last section would be the introduction and conclusion of the study and documentary as a whole. I would warn the viewers of all the content in the show such as strong language and scene that could be viewed as unpleasant, as well as giving a good intro to why I'm doing the study (the Aim section above) and the conclusion i get out of it. Multiple warnings will be displayed not to try what i am doing at home.

Target audience

My main target audience is 16-24 year olds who watch BBC3. I will be keeping to this group from the brief entirely as the cast from the documentary are all between 15-19 with the exceptions of parents and the experts. The study will be carried out by people of the same age as the target audience ensuring the have a connection to the participants and the reason behind the study to explain to the target audience that, although work from school and university is important, so is sleep and it is critical to stay on top of it. The audience are male and female as the participants are 1 male and 1 female. I did this on purpose so that the different genders can be observed differently as well as giving the target audience a choice from what person they have more relation to.

Format

The mode i will be using is Obervational and Performative as i will focus the documentary mainly around myself, the presenter. As i will take part in the study and i will be being observed during the procedure.  By having the participant and I doing video logs it makes the footage more interactive than if it wad purely observational. I plan to use observation when a message or segment i can look back at is shown such as a phone call being recored where i just let the call play with graphics reading out what is being said.

Genre

This is going to be a documentary that focuses very deeply on a study. This is done as interviews will be shown though out the documentary to give facts as documentaries do as well as providing a narrative that is based on facts and figures, usually finding something out. For my documentary i am trying to find out and prove that sleep is important by not sleeping. Having a clear narrative will ensure the documentary is clear to the audience.

Style

The start of the documentary will start with a warning annotation, very similar to jackass's where i will explain that strong language is used and that it should not be copied at home or anywhere else. 

Jackass Warning message at start
and end of each episode & movie.

Once this is announce i will start the documentary by explaining the narrative and what i have already put myself though as i plan to record all the footage that is not directly linked to the study after the study has be carried out. This ensures that i am fine after the study but i can explain from experience what happens. I would have graphics under myself when first introducing myself as well as every character in the documentary giving them their title relevant to the project as well as their name.  i would use a dark royal blue that is transparent slightly to use as the banner of the labels with a clock at the left side of it. This template of a label will be used for the vast majority of titles. When i introduce the aim of the project i will then show the interviews with the experts so the audience can understand what is happening during the study when unusual things may occur.

The interview will be very professional and serious like any new report interview with a high ranking member of a company. I will do this to make sure this section of the documentary is serious so the audience understands that the information given is important and could benefit them and be important later on in the documentary. I would have very faint music in the background that is instrumental to keep the engagement of the viewer up without losing the seriousness of the situation.

The interview will end with a mentioning to the study such as "good luck" or a statement that would smoothly link in to the start of the study.

I would make the study displayed similar to BigBrother (shown in the video at 12:45) as i would have a graphic in the bottom left or top left corner stating the time in digital with an analog clock next to it with the day underneather. Big brother does similar as they display the time and mention the situation with a voice over. I plan to use a voice over when necessary to explain what is going on as i will most likely explain what is happening the first couple of days in the video logs. Each clip will be fade in and out at the beginning and end to give it a smooth transition to the real clips.  To split the study up it will up between the two participants with a large amount of cut aways to keep the documentary engaging and lively. No music would be played unless it suits the situation very well such as if a song was related to what was being said in a video. The footage recorded would be mainly hand held as the video logs will be done by the participants themselves and the camera language professional standard will most likely drop during the study as the participants will be less focused and struggle to use the camera properly. This is not a bad thing as it shows the development of the study. But to ensure good footage is filmed i will have the participants monitored most of the time during the day by another person so they can film them with good camera language. On the third day of the sleep deprivation the friends of the participants will spend a fairly long time with them giving me a good moment to make a montage of the day with multiple burst interview statements from the friends on their opinions.
When the study is over i will go though the study showing brief moments of it that was perviously shown, to back up the statement. This conclusion may also involve an expert checking in with me at the start and end of the study to show the difference in cognitive changes. After the documentary has finished i will once again fade in and out the Warning message, stating they should not try what had be shown in the documentary at home.