Idea:
My documentary idea is called 'The day in the life of a pianist', my
documentary will follow an aspiring, professional pianist Lewis Peart to see
how much time he spends practicing the piano and what his daily routine
consists off such of how he balances his social life with his dedication to
become a professional pianist. My documentary will show one individual person
creating his own path to having a career as a professional concert pianist. My documentary will be around 4-7 minutes long so that i am able to give and show the audience every aspect of Lewis life and make them connect in some way with Lewis to make the documentary more interesting.
Content/style: The content of my documentary will follow a journey/factual human interest style documentary due to it following the life of one particular person and the journey he is taking to become a professional pianist, The documentary will hopefully evoke emotion in the audience and make them relate to Lewis and inspire them to follow a career path they want to take. My documentary will include several codes and conventions of documentary film making such as observational footage/cutaways, Interviews, and a Voice over. The observational footage I will use will be cutaways of Lewis playing the piano and footage of his home and college to compare the different environments he plays the piano in. The observational footage will illustrate and show the audience what and how Lewis plays the piano to give the audience a better understanding of the skill and effort Lewis puts into playing the piano. I will also use observational footage to make my documentary look and feel more authentic and professional. I also intend to use observational footage to make my documentary more interesting for the audience instead of just using footage of interviews with Lewis. The style of the observational footage will look and feel as beautiful as the music that is associated with the piano due to me wanting the audience to be able to connect with the music and Lewis and to also make them be inspired to play the piano or some form of instrument.
Another convention I will be using is interviews. Throughout my documentary I will show footage of interviews with Lewis, I intend to use interviews is to give the audience more insight into the reasons why Lewis wants to become a professional pianist and information about how he started playing the piano. Interviews also are one of the main convention in documentary film making as they focus on the specific person the documentary may be on or to give information on what the documentary’s subject is which is what I want to achieve in my documentary due to my documentary being on one person and his journey to become a professional pianist.
The final convention I will be using is a voice over. The reasons I will be using a voice over is to narrate the situations and give information to the audience about the footage being shown such as facts and figures about Lewis or develop on the information he has given in the interview. The voice over that I will be using will also be the answers to the questions that I am asking Lewis in the interview over certain footage to make the documentary more interesting. The voice over will be soft spoken and relaxed to match the elegance of the music and to also make the audience feel relaxed and comfortable as well so that they are able to listen to the information that is being said.
Audience: From my previous research i have found that my documentary idea will appeal most to an older audience such as people who are in the age bracket 40+ or who are interested in the piano and the music it creates. I also found that my audience will be mostly lower to upper middle class due to the people i asked working in a form of managerial job and that people who are middle to upper middle class are the type of people who are interested in these type of documentaries and would find similar interest in watching documentaries with the same types of themes as my documentary. Looking at the NRS social grade i found my audience would fit into these category's: Grade A (Upper middle class), Grade B (Middle Class), and Grade C1 (Lower middle class).
Place of schedule: My documentary will be broadcasted and aired on the BBC at around 6pm-7pm due to that being prime time for my audience to watch the TV as they would of finished work and possibly eating their tea in front of the TV. I chose the BBC for my documentary due to the BBC being the place in which documentaries of my style and genre will be shown and where my audience are most likely to go to to watch this type of documentary instead of turning to channels such as channel 4 which show mostly comical and less serious documentary's that appeal to a wider less specific audience whereas documentary's shown on the BBC appeal to more specific interests of their audiences such as documentary's that focus on musicians.
