DOCUMENTARY UNIT - Developing Our Idea

Today we had a 45min talk with Zoe about our idea. Along with talking about the specifics of what we need to include in our presentation etc we talked through our idea in more detail.

Firstly we talked about our idea of Abandoned pets / Bad pets and whilst Zoe thought the idea was interesting and could have a few possibly "BBC 3" scenarios we did come to the conclusion that it probably wasn't edgy enough for BBC and there was a limit about how interesting it could be. It could work in some forms for a different type of audience but we are getting too far away from the BBC3 genres.

Ethan talked through a few more of his ideas and Zoe seemed to like one about obesity in modern society. We talked about this further and thought that it had a better chance of fitting the required audience that our previous idea. This seems to be the route we are going to take for this project now and we have come up with 4 possible sequences to include in our show.

We need to narrow down our idea further to get the specific details but our ideas currently include.

1) A weight loss challenge. Myself and Ethan thought we could try 2 different ways of losing weight and see if either of them work. I would go down the more exercise route whilst Ethan would try "Slimming Tea" or possibly tablets but we need to make sure that it is safe. I already do a lot of exercise but I'd step it up to the next level as well as trying to "watch what I eat" a little more. It would be an interesting challenge that could also add a bit of comedy to our piece.

2) Cost of living "Healthy vs Unhealthy" We would go to a supermarket and see the cost of eating what is seen as "healthy". From the research we have done so far apparently it costs $1.50 more per day to eat healthy over eating the less healthy option. Over a year that would be $550 so it is understable why people choose the cheaper option if it is that much over a long period of time. For our test we plan to go to a supermarket and fill up a basket and see how much the price difference is.

3) Next up we would like to interview professionals, this being doctors who have to deal with the healthy and unhealthy and also we talked about the possibility of talking to people who have to be ultra thin and toned as a job, for instance a model and ask them how there diet effects them.

4) Lastly and probably the main part of our documentary would be talking to people who have problems with their weight and also talk through their aims and also what it's like to live their current lifestyle. We may go to a gym class and talk to people, I think it would be great to follow someone on their weight loss regime and see what progress they make, which would correspond to our challenge we're trying ourselves.

I think we made a lot of progress today on our projects, we just need a "headline" and goal for the project but the current ideas we have will fit in well with whatever our eventual strapline is. There is a lot that is talked about in the media to do with obesity and weight loss. George suggested the title "How much does your fat cost" which could work in a few ways so that could be our working title.

I also suggested it would be interesting to see if George could try the opposite and see if he could gain weight but he said that he can't and to be honest it's not too relevant to our project.

One of the ideas of a focus point is "How the media lie to us about losing weight" This would be to show that they seem to make it seem ultra easy to lose weight if you "try" but in reality it's much harder than that. It would also be to show the hypocrisy as through TV breaks with are show fast food ads etc which un-do any good they are trying to create.