Characters

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Molly

My main character will be Molly, a 19 year old girl from Sunderland. My documentary will follow her around the city as she explains her life and how she came to be homeless. At the age of 17 Molly ran away to avoid being taken into care. By the time the authorities caught up with her, she was 18 and could be classed as legally independent from her mother. Since then she had spent time in and out of shelters and women's hostels, and is no stranger to sleeping rough. She questions the attitudes of society towards the homeless, and agrues that for many homless people there simply is no other choice.

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Students

I plan to interview a handful of students from the college to get a range of views on homelessness in their area. I plan to ask questions such as does it affect them directly? Who do they blame for homelessness? and How do they suggest the issue is tackled? Hopefully this will back up Molly's argument that society does not know enough about the backgrounds of homeless people, and that they are 'invisible.' I plan to tie this into my title, 'The Invisible Girl'.

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The Campaigner

I plan to interview a campaigner for my documentary, that will offer some facts and figures that will validate my points. I have researched various  websites and plan to send emails hoping that one official will agree to answer a few questions to go towards my documentary.

Deconstruction of a Documentary

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The documentary I watched and deconstructed really helped me get my ideas together for what I wanted to do for my own product. The characters of the documentary were young people which gave it a fresh insight into street life, rather than getting facts and figures from people behind a desk. It also gave me an idea of how sequencing works within a documentary, as there seems to be a formula of making a point (eg. young youths tend to turn to crime on the estate) →  giving an example of that point (an interview with a youth who has turned to crime) → validating that point (statistics/interview with a youth worker). This has helped me with my script and story board as I can split my documentary up in regards to the points I want to make.

     It has also helped me with mis-en-scene and costumes for my product, as the Hackney documentary and my documentary are on very similar topics. I can take inspiration from the settings and camera shots (for example, high shots of tall buildings to give the impression of urban life).

Research On My Chosen Topic

I could use this information within my documentary as I can trust it to be official. This will allow my documentary to be as accurate and informative as possible. 

Research on Social Relisim

Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic.

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Who Took Your Pension? | Dispatches | Channel 4

I chose Social Relism as the genre of my documentary as I wanted it to be very serious and hard-hitting for my audience. The nature of my documentary deals with homeless people in the North-East, and this I felt fitted with the Social Relist genre as it is a social problem that everyone has an individual opinion on. Another convention of social relisim is to represent people who are not unually represented truthfully in the media, and there is a stigma atatched to homeless people that has been created by popular culture.

Trading Places - Eddie Murphy Bum/Racist Old Men

In this clip and many others like it, homeless people are portrayed as scammers, theives, and people to be avoided at any cost. They are usually minor characters, whos backgrounds are not explained. In my documentrary I aim to inform and enlighted my audience into the true lives of a homeless person (who will be played by an actor) by allowing them to speak to the camera and tell their story. My character will have a name that will often be refered back to, allowing the audience to form a relationship with them.

Forms and Conventions of a Media Documentary

A TV documentary is a form of film. However its style differs from both feature film and short film with a series of conventions. A documentary follows a theme or subject, for example, Word War 2. A documentary on World War 2 would focus on this era and bring to light a matters related to this subject. It also aims to be either informative, educational, or simply reflective. Common conventions of documentaries include voice overs, graphic elements, incidental music and interviews with people related to the subject of the documentary, for example professors or people with an opinion. The story is generally told using a range of camera shots, including mid shots for interviews and long shots to set locations. Audiences that documentary’s are aimed at differ depending on what the subject matter is. However it is generally an older audience who are interested in gaining new information on a subject, rather than the younger generation who would see watching a documentary as too education for their free time. However, they can be made appealing to a younger audience by their ‘shock factor’, such as Channel 4’s Super Size Vs. Super Skinny.

Proposal

I prose to write, direct and shoot a 5 minute documentary addressing the social issue of homless people in Sunderland. My documentary will follow one main character, Molly, as she explains how she became homeless and shows us what her life is like, adressing issues such as how she eats, where she sleeps, and her attitude towards homeless people and the society we live in. I plan to include facts and figures gathered from offical websites, such as; crisis.org.uk, sunderland.gov.uk, and homelessuk.org. Other characters within my documentary will include a youth I will interview, asking their thoughts on homeless people in Sunderland, and a campaigner.