Tuesday, 15 November 2011

9 Minute Factual Programme Ideas

A doctumentary on how the media portrays/stereotypes young people.

We will show:
  • How young people feel about it. -We will be using interviews to show this.
  • How elderly people think about it. -We will be using interviews to show this.
  • Riots - Did the media exaggerate?
  • Are gangs as bad as we think they are?
  • Would people be as scared of them if it wasn't for the media?

News show script.

News channel script
Voiceover headlines: (brief on what is coming up on the news today.) You are watching the news with Charlie and Annie. The headlines today…
Matt: (Video/picture comes up of Sainsburys) Sainsbury’s goes bankrupt. (changes to video of university) University becomes unaffordable. (video / picture of Olympic stadium in the process of being built) Will the Olympic stadium be finished in time? (video footage with an over shoulder shot of Jk Rowling signing a book) Jk Rowling’s opens up. And now to the studio…
Studio
Annie: Good evening to you all. My name is Annie.
Charlie: My name is Charlie and you are watching
Annie: Do you shop in sainsburys? Well not for much longer!
Charlie: Since June 2011 Sainsburys have secretly been rapidly losing money as a result they are selling off all of their chain stores to their competitors. We have more info on this, over to Charlotte who is in Henley-on-thames at one of the many supermarkets affected by this.

Charlotte: Thankyou Charlie, here I am with one of the many staff that have lost their jobs due to the bankruptcy
Charlotte: (turns to look at staff member) How are you going to deal with having no job at the moment? Have you been offered any other jobs?
Staff member: I’ve only just finished university and have been doing this job for 6 months hoping to pay of my debts to the university fees and start working on getting my own flat. What annoys me the most about what has happened to me and everyone else that works at Sainsbury’s is that nearly all of us have not been offered a new job or given advice on where to go looking for one.
Charlotte: thank you for your time. (the staff member walks out of the camera shot). You may want to take this next bit of news with a grain of salt because we are not 100% on it at the moment but it is believed that Tesco’s has been deliberately competing with Sainsbury’s to put them out of business and buy all of their major location chain stores of them which is exactly what has happened. Instead of Tesco’s hiring the Sainsbury’s staff to run the new chain stores they are advertising job interviews to work there which has upset a great amount of people who used to work for Sainsbury’s. Back to the studio.
Annie: More bad news for people who are intending on going to university in the future…
Annie: A large majority of universities based in the UK have heightened their attendance fees making it very difficult for the majority of people to afford it. So as well as it being difficult to get a place in universities it’s now expensive to get a place in university. A protest is going to take place in a few months’ time which I’m sure will mainly consist of students.
Annie: A lot of students have been applying to foreign universities in particular Holland because of their much smaller prices to go to university. The cost in Holland is about 1/3 of what it would cost in most UK universities. We have asked some of the Uk’s top universities for interviews on the matter but we were suspiciously declined by all. Over to you Charlie.
(Perhaps in this part of the news report we could have the narrator talking over footage that resembles the topic)
Charlie: As you should all know, The 2012 London Olympics is coming up very close, a month ago The Olympic stadium was going in the right direction for being finished on time, however a massive problem has occurred with the funding. Sainsbury’s which was the 2012 Olympics biggest sponsor and investor has gone bankrupt putting the 2012 Olympics into a debt of £300,000.0000. The government have promised to pay off the debt in the next year but said they would not be able to pay it off before the Olympics started.
However the building companies that are working on the stadium are protesting and have stopped building the stadium saying that they will only continue once their money has been paid off to them. This leaves the government in a sticky situation between paying of the debt for the Olympics or using that money to go towards Greece to help the country get its economy back up and running.
Here’s Annie with the final story of today.
Annie: Today in Trafalgar square Jk Rowling was doing a book signing for her famously known harry potter books which have been remade into films and loved by the public just as much as the books. JK Rowling is currently touring around the UK signing books for all her fans but today was different.
JK Rowling announced that she was making a new series of books based of the Harry potter novels but when asked more questions would not say anything else about the matter. And that’s it for now until next time.

Thursday, 10 November 2011

Aileen: Life and death of a serial killer


Questions on Aileen

(The opening 6 minutes)


Which types of footage are used in the opening? Why do you think the different types have been used – what is their function? Interviews, photo's - introducing the main players and giving the history and background.



What documentary techniques can you identify in the sequence? Voice-overs, photo's interviews and video clips of actual footage.



What information is given by the voiceover? What is the relationship between the voiceover and the images? The voiceover explains the images in more detail - He's diarising.



What do we find out about the central subject? She's a hitch hiking hooker that killed men but claims it's self defence.



How is the opening sequence of a documentary similar to the opening sequence of a fiction film? They introduce the characters - for example the family members, victims, voice-over and Aileen herself, you understand the 'plot' by the beginning and understand what she has done and a bit about what made her do it.

Make notes on the following as you watch the documentary (UPLAOD to your blogs under the heading Aileen: Life and death of a serial killer)
1. Name of documentary: Aileen: Life and death of a serial killer                                     
2. Date of production: 2003
3. Film maker/producer? Jo Human
4. Sub-genre(s)? Crime, mystery and thriller                            
5. Context of production: America
6. Purpose or purposes? To find out once and for all why she is getting the death century and why it was against her.
8. Use of selection: Only the media’s and Aileen’s point of view was in the documentary, this may have been so you felt sorry for Aileen even though you know you shouldn’t.         
9. Narrative sequence and editing? The cross cutting between nick and the news was really effective as you got both sides of the story from 2 different types of shows.
10. Narration/commentary? There was a lot of narration from nick which was a lot like the voice of God.
11. Use of interviews? The documentary had a lot of interviews in it which was really effective as you got the live feel.
12. Presence of crew? The only presence of crew you got throughout the documentary was nick while he was interviewing.


13. Non-diegetic sound and use of music? Most of the music heard was found in the video clips and pictures of her past but at the very end the song that played at her wake was played which may pull a few heart strings. This is when it feels real to me.



News stories
What are your feelings towards Aileen after watching the documentary? What emotions did it stir?
I found her quite distrurbing personally, I hated when she smiled and acted all happy, this made me feel quite ill how someone could do something like that and not feel guilty - This is when I realised how ill SHE is!
Did Nick portray the real Aileen in his doctumentary?
I think Nick did the best he could but i feel she had a lot hidden and i think he didn't include everything she told him for TV.
Do you believe she should have received the death penalty?
I agree in the death penalty and i do believe she deserved it, as much as i had to say it throughout the documentary she acted like a nice person and if i knew her before the killings i don't think i would agree in the death penalty.