Commissions Unit: Idea Development

General Approach

After meeting up with my fellow group members, we began to narrow down our choice for the project. We all came to the agreement that our project should try and include the following:

     - Controversy: something which will get the audience to discuss and talk about the issue in the
       documentary
     - Modern/presence: an issue which can answer 'why now' the documentary is being made. Is it a
       recent issue which has been cultivated within the media? Will the audience already have an idea on
       what the story is, or will the story in fact be something completely individual?
     - Unordinary: is the story we are going to use something which hasn't been used before - something which will instantly grab the audience's attention and make them want to learn more

Story Ideas

We then agreed to narrow down our choices into 2 ideas:

1) Potential use of an 'anti hero' - instead of following the idea of having an actual stereotypical 'hero', we decided to instead use a story of someone who is a hero to one singular person or group. An anti-hero who may in fact be controversial and argued that the person is not a hero at all - maybe because of the 'heroes' actions or something. For example, this could be perhaps someone like Hitler or even a mass murderer whose intelligence and slyness inspired someone. This we know will perhaps make some of the audience become upset because it can touch some people's emotions (i.e. the murderer), however this generally engages the audience with our documentary, thus showing that it is interesting and debatable, making it successful. Therefore, this we think could be very significant - there is a lot of research into the subject and additionally it is completely original. However, finding this 'anti hero' is of course going to be the tricky part - especially trying to make him/her be used and interviewed for our documentary.

The Justin lookalike, who spent $100k on surgery

2) Idea of a 'super fan' - this approach is completely different to our first idea. Here, we aim to find someone who is the definition of obsession - someone who finds someone to literally be a 'hero' for them, as if the person is almost god like and angelic. For example, there are several examples of this which have been shown via the internet. Justin Bieber, or should i say his 'Belieber' fans have been shown cutting there wrists when they find out about him retiring from music or about his drink driving incidents. Additionally, there is also one extreme case of a fan physically copying his looks by having so much plastic surgery that the fan looks exactly the same as Justin Bieber. To me, I think that this idea remains to be very interesting as well as entertaining, and is a story which you would likely to find on
BBC Three. It would fit perfectly for the target audience (likewise for the first idea) however there is just the problem of finding this fan to use, or at least finding a fan whom is as extreme and entertaining to fit the part. However, I am sure that if we find this fan (although unlikely that it will be like the Justin Bieber lookalike) the fan will be more than likely to be interviewed and used for our documentary.

Conclusion

To conclude, as a group, we have decided to go with the 'super fan' story for our project. This is mainly because we thought it will instantly attract audience's attention because of its originality, as well as this story being more realistic and importantly hopefully easier to find someone to talk about something which they love and won't get criticised to an extent by the audience (e.g. if the anti hero was used, the person may get criticised heavily say if the person found a murderer a hero). Nonetheless, the main issue with this story is finding someone whom conforms to this idea of a 'super fan'. The person must show a clear distinction between an ordinary fan to someone whom is an extreme fan. If we are unable to find someone who idealises someone to an extent, then are whole documentary won't be as effective as planned.