Formal Proposal

Topic

The topic of our documentary is coffee, we have chosen this because we feel that with this topic there are many different angles that we can take on coffee, one of our main angles is going to be, “could coffee drinking be seen as an addiction” and possibly a drug. Also everyone is familiar in coffee and has opinions on it therefore it will be easier for us to gain feedback from people on the street.

Type of Documentary

Our documentary will be a mixed style because we consider this to be the easiest and the most effective. It will consist of narrative voiced over by a male voice as we consider this to be the most appropriate to our style. It will also have interviews and archive footage. This will increase documentary’s trustworthiness by showing evidence. The editing we have considered will include simple, sharp cuts; fades and dissolves in-between interviews. We will also use voxpops. Music will be diegetic as well as non-diegetic. In the beginning we will try to gain the attention of the younger audience so we are going to use a song by Blur however during the documentary we are not going to use any music as this may distract and annoy our target audience from the topic. Also our documentary is informative and will be filmed in a formal, factual style.

Channel and Scheduling

We feel that Channel 4 broadcasting, is suitable and the best schedule time for our documentary would be in the hours of 8.30-9pm. We considered broadcasts earlier because people usually drink coffee in the morning but the audience would be small. The evening schedule we decided would be more likely to gain larger audience because people are not in work at this time - our younger as well as older audience. We also feel that our documentary should be aired during the Christmas period because television programme is more interesting then and it is more likely that people will watch our documentary.

Target Audience

We have had to broaden our target audience to an adult audience because feedback from our previous audience (teenagers), through our target audience questionnaire, was not positive enough for us to carry on aiming our documentary at that audience. There is a possibility though, of the group maintaining the previous audience as many may still watch our documentary at our proposed schedule time and our documentary has the potential to change our previous audience’s opinion of coffee.

Primary Research

Our primary research will consist of interviews and the general public’s opinions on our subject of choice (voxpops). An interview with coffee workers will be set in local coffee shops (Café Nero and Rhode Island Coffee Shop). This will be to present coffee in its most believable way because coffee workers have more knowledge as well as contact with coffee on a daily basis than everyone else. They will be a possible authority speaking for the coffee industry. During the interview there will be appropriate mise en scene which will include coffee shop in general as a location, coffee related objects in the background and probably their uniform considering most coffee shops have special uniforms for their workers. Framing will be as usual – talking head shot. Graphics underneath will show their position and name but this only will be for more important interviewees in the documentary.

An interview with a nurse will be filmed in her office. She will be sat in front of a computer to represent her authority. The interviewee will be wearing her usual uniform for work as we expect to film her during her normal hours of work. Title underneath will show her name as she is a very important figure in our documentary. We wanted to film an NHS nurse because she has knowledge on negative health effects of caffeine on our bodies and also how coffee effects a full time NHS worker. Another interview will present a man who is enthusiastic about both coffee and tea. He will be presented within a relevant mise en scene. This will be set in Priestley College because we need to use the blue screen and some quite place where we could film him. We think it is important for our documentary to present facts in unbiased way and inform people about positives as well as negatives of coffee, which is why we asked for interviews with a range of various people with different approaches to coffee. Our tea and coffee enthusiast will also be presented with a title underneath. We will create a set of questions for each of our interviewees as this will show our preparation for the interview and professional approach.

Secondary Research

Our secondary research will consist of photographs found on the internet, archive material of “How It’s Made” S11E3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1weA2J2DDK8&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41bBfFLQ594 ) and internet documentations found on various websites. During the editing process if we do not manage to take some of the pictures ourselves we will research them on the web and insert in relevant parts in our documentary. This will be called our cutaway shots. We have been researching different things on coffee since our initial idea was established and found internet very useful, i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

We will use some websites to enhance our knowledge on coffee. For example, we found this sentence "We do feel a boost from caffeine in the morning, but that's probably due to a reversal of the withdrawal symptoms” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6422279.stm ) and feel that we could use this in interview with NHS nurse or a coffee worker to find out what they think about it. Also we will use a footage from youtube presenting a civet and its faeces when interviewing a coffee worker as we already know what answer we can expect (What is the most expensive coffee in the world?), this source will be useful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK5-WQqOu58. We found a festival that happens in bath based on coffee, we will use this website http://www.bathcoffeefestival.co.uk/home/ to find interesting people who know more obscure things about coffee.

As we know one of our interviewees will be an NHS nurse we are going to be well prepared for it: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/food-aliment/caffeine-eng.php

Narrative Structure

The narrative structure of our documentary will be linear as this way our documentary will be easier to follow and understand for our viewing audience. The beginning of our documentary will be mainly focusing on interesting facts about coffee. The conflict will be in the middle where the NHS nurse will be talking about coffee addiction and will compare it to alcoholism. Here we are going to interview a recovering alcoholic who now drinks coffee instead of alcohol. After this we are going to balance this conflict with other interesting facts from interviews with Derek Stansfield artist who uses coffee in his work and Jose Melim on the hidden secrets of coffee. At the end we are going to deepen audience’s knowledge on coffee beans being defecated from monkey’s faeces and create a conclusion.

Outline of Content

In the beginning of our documentary we are going to have a montage of various coffee/kitchen-like sounds that are related to coffee so our audience gets introduced to the subject of the documentary. Most of these shots will be close ups or extreme close ups to focus audience’s attention. Also documentary will start with non-diegetic music over the top: Blur – Coffee and TV as this may attract younger audience as well as is related to coffee. Afterwards they will be shown a title made out of coffee beans and voiceover will start narrating as the first picture of coffee/coffee beans is presented on the screen. Other shots, than photographs we are going to film, will include people drinking coffee and archive material of a production line from How It’s Made. Then we cut to coffee shops in Warrington town centre and present voxpops. The general public will give their opinions on coffee, e.g. whether they like it or not. This will be shot with relevant mise en scene, i.e. coffee shop in the background. To increase validity of our statistics of who likes coffee and who does not, we are going to speed up our some voxpops because we realize that all voxpops we were told to film (at least 20) are not going to be in the documentary.

In the middle we will put our main interviews with coffee workers and an NHS nurse. We are going to put graphics (titles) to inform people about their positions and names, also this will improve their authority. They all will be filmed using a talking head shot as most documentaries use this technique. First person being interviewed will be a coffee worker from Rhode Island coffee shop who will be talking about how working with coffee changes your views on coffee and different tasting coffees with appropriate cutaway shots. Also we will show parts of interview with another coffee worker and the NHS nurse answering questions like ‘Why do you think coffee is so successful?’All sounds will be ambient to add up on documentary’s trustworthiness. Afterward the voiceover will introduce the audience to the next part of the opening sequence which is popularity of coffee amongst famous people. Here experts will share their views on this subject. We think a good cutaway shot will be simply a celebrity with a cup of coffee. As the Rhode Island manager tells us more about coffee we will present a cutaway of someone drinking coffee. Then the voiceover will introduce the audience to the most expensive coffee in the world. We will insert a photograph of coffee and money together because this will be relevant and then a coffee person will inform people of the most expensive beverage. During this we will insert an archive material presenting a civet and how coffee is being defecated and then processed. Then we are going to present voxpops where people would answer a question ‘Would you drink a coffee made from monkey’s poo?’.

At the end of our opening sequence we are going to present the whole interview with a coffee drinker and the NHS nurse. Interview with the NHS nurse will be mainly focused on negative consequences, health effects of caffeine overdose and what things we should be aware of which will be backed up by relevant cutaway shots. Afterwards we will interview a coffee and tea drinker who will be discussing pros and cons of both.

Resource Requirements

Our resource requirements will consist of a microphone and windshield, a camera, a tripod, tapes, Adobe Premier Pro, computers, internet, editing machine, batteries etc., permission to film on property, transport (bus service) to move around and blue screen for one interview.