Treatment

Who is your Target Audience? 

My target audience will be teenagers aged within 13-19 years old. It will be aimed at both males and females. I think that my target audience will be mainly teenagers who are interested in Mental Health and/or documentaries. From doing some Primary Research I have found out that my audience do watch documentaries, varying from ones about History to ones about my topic area of Mental Health. I also found out that my target audience know a lot of different names of Mental Illnesses but they would like to find out more because of the stereotyping and the fact that it isn't addressed much in society. As my documentary will be about Mental Health Stereotyping and Stigma, to appeal to my target audience I will use a variety of different shot transitions to make my work flow easier and look more modern and interesting. Another thing that I will do to attract my audience's interests will be to have interviews with people like those of my target audience to gather their opinions on the subject which will then help my target audience to start to get an opinion of their own or relate to a different opinion. My documentary will use songs to pull my target audience in, as they may like the song or have heard of it before which will hopefully draw them into finding what the documentary is about. By using a few different songs throughout the production then my audience will be drawn into it, the documentary will stay modern and will flow more effectively. My use of Camera Work will be modern and different yet comfortable, I will use a variety of different shots to make my audience feel intrigued by the documentary. Finally the use of graphics in my documentary will help to make my documentary more interesting and appealing for my audience. I will do this through the use of  bright colours, contrasting colour ranges, varying between high and low key lighting, the use of on screen text and my use of images which will shock the audience and help them to relate better. 

How will my documentary be better than others of a similar style?
I compared my documentary with others of a similar style and I found that there are a number of reasons why my documentary will be better than others. The first reason why my documentary will be better is because that I will use lots of different graphics, music and camera work to keep my documentary modern and appeal specifically to my target audience, this will make my audience bigger as editing is appealing to them directly. Another reason why my documentary will be better is because I am appealing to my target audience's preferences and interests specifically so the style, techniques and information I use will be for my target audience so it will be things that appeal to them rather than that of a documentary with a wider audience. A documentary that I have watched called 'Supersize Me' was successful in my opinion due to some transitions that they used in one of the scenes. In this scene there was a woman talking about stereotypical body image, whilst she is speaking images of women with the "right" body image appear layering over one another like a collage and as she finishes speaking the last image covers her face. Then the documentary carries on.In my documentary I want to use the same type of idea as I think it will help me to attract my audience . Also in 'Supersize Me' there was lots of talking without music or any on screen graphics which made parts of the documentary boring. In my documentary I will stray away from using shots with people just talking but interview people instead having on screen text appearing whilst they are talking, I will use different images and backing music/sound during the interviews. This will help to attract my audience's attention and make my documentary both interesting and fun yet also factual and educational for my audience which will help them to learn something from my documentary.

Plot/Outline

The documentary will start with a voice over talking about the definition for Mental Health and a summary of what the documentary will focus on. Statistics will appear as text on the screen expanding in size about prescription rates, suicide rates and the information about how many people suffer will mental illness will also appear in the same shots. As all of this is happening newspaper clippings and posters regarding mental health will be layering over the screen like in 'Supersize Me'. The last Layer will be The Title of my documentary in Bubble Writing, inside the each individual letters will be names of mental illnesses and headlines filling the letters. When the title is layered on top the other pictures will fade away at a medium speed and the title will remain for a few seconds. After this the questioning will flash on the screen quickly replacing the title. My documentary will be styled somewhat like an interview, it will have several people answering questions about Mental Illnesses. The questions will appear on the screen in a separate shot then the people will answer, the different answers will flick through overlapping one another and linking between the different answers/opinions.  It will be styled like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TJxnYgP6D8  It will flick through people holding up cards saying a Mental Illness they have written on it. Whilst it is having a montage of names of mental illnesses then a soundtrack will be playing, a song with a meaning relating to pain or battling through. The people holding up the cards with names of Illnesses on will appear like a grid on the screen as more appear they will all fit together like a picture. It will then zoom into one box with a person holding up a card saying "Types" we will then hear different people saying Names of Mental illnesses there will be facts that will appear on screen in little boxes about the different illnesses. Whilst this is happening we will get some personal experiences being shared from people who suffer, these will cross over flicking from the different people as they explain. After this section it will shrink back into the grid mode where it will then zoom into a new section entitled "Stigma and Stereotyping". This will return to people saying different names that people will Mental Illnesses have been called or referred to. Little boxes and bubbles will pop up containing information and opinions on stereotyping. A question will then be asked "do you know any famous people who have suffered with Mental Illness?" As they answer there will be photos of different celebrities with mental illnesses flashing through. Following this there will be a question asked to all the people being interviewed: "Do you think the media has anything to do with the growing number of mental illnesses occurring?" As we get the different responses on a voice over we will see archive footage arguing both for and against the media's influence on Mental Illness. The last question asked will be: "What is there to help people in similar positions?" whilst people are answering this question helplines and services will scroll along the bottom slowly. The people will talk about local units or help available. The documentary will end with all of the pictures from the grid moulding into the credits. Throughout the documentary music will be playing quietly in the background to make it more interesting. The documentary will roughly be around 10 and 20 minutes long . My documentary will be in observational mode the whole way through. 

What Your Audience Will Learn
Throughout my documentary my audience will learn about different types of mental illness, information on stereotyping and that we shouldn't do it and they will also learn about helping people who suffer from Mental Illness. They will learn this from the people who are being interviewed on both their opinions and on their knowledge on the topic. They will also learn facts about mental illness through statistics and facts that appear as on screen text.