Vegetarian Documentary: An (Almost Completed) Evaluation.

Even though we haven't finished editing our documentary, I would like to reflect on this experience and talk about what I've learned and how we got over problems we faced.

I have been passionate about this idea from the start; however, I wasn't sure which part of the vegetarian lifestyle I wanted to delve into because I think I washed over the fact that there is so much information but at the beginning, I didn't want to believe that. I didn't want to feel like I had to pin myself down to one particular area of vegetarianism, which is why the range of questions I asked are quite broad. So throughout this process, ideas have constantly been thrown in by myself, Caoimhe my producer, and our tutor. It wasn't until we actually started editing that we were able to pin down exactly what we wanted to the audience to know. I don't particular think this is such a bad thing because I was learning so much throughout this process and I feel if I had of pinned down a certain area at the beginning, I wouldn't have learnt as much as I have done.

Our passion came through in the pitch which I had posted about before. We wanted it to be a pitch to remember so having our t-shirts with our ideas on them as well as food and beauty products brought into the meeting, done this. I do feel like we were given ideas to push us away from our original idea and while I do very much appreciate those ideas and they were great, I had a vision in my head from the start and I didn't want to veer from it too much or I would feel like it wasn't what I wanted anymore.

When we first put the ad up online at the beginning and we got two responses, I personally didn't think we would get any so when we got two people, I was over the moon. We were very organized and got to meet with both Richard and Lindsey a few weeks beforehand, we showed them the questions we would ask them over coffee and this gave them the chance to ask us any questions or express any concerns they had about it. They were both really interested in what we were doing because they've never had the opportunity to talk about or vent about being a vegetarian before. When we shot with Lindsey, we were quite happy on the day of shooting but I think Caoimhe and I both knew there was something not quite right but because we only had Lindsey and Richard, we both pushed it to the back of our minds, hoping that it wouldn't be as bad as we expected. When we went to watch the footage it was clear that no matter how much we tried to colour it, the lighting was going to be an issue as well as it not being the look I was looking for. We didn't use different angles so if we were to use the footage, we would need a lot of cutaways to cut the interview up or else it would just look like the footage was jumping, and whether that is on YouTube or a big cinema screen, it wouldn't look good and I wouldn't want people to remember "the documentary with the jumping shots". This show is the building block for us all as film makers so we wanted to make the best film we possibly can with our skills, budget and time, that we can, so I don't want my mistake of using the wrong person, dodgy camera angles and not the best lighting to ruin that. I would rather not show my work if that was the case.

I feel like both Caoimhe and I were organized, we were one of the first groups to film but we ended up being one of the last groups to film too. This definitely struck a cord with me because we had been so organized, we got an ad set up, we had our coffee meeting with both interviewees, we had very regular meetings even over Easter and whenever we were off, and both of us were very reliable. We can't say that everything goes perfect when making a film, but I think I thought that because we had been organized, that things would go smoother for us. A few people had actually said that "documentary was the easy way out", they did mean it jokingly of course, but doing a documentary is just as difficult as doing a fictional film. We may not need so many actors, but we still needed people who were willing to talk about the subject, as well as finding locations to film as well as the same problems as filming a fiction (Lighting, camera angles, people's appearance etc. etc.).

I have never been the best at taking criticism and I have had to deal with it more in this particular unit than anything else. Not necessarily against me, but ideas that we've had, footage that we've shot; when we talk about it in our blog or we say how well it went and then we're told that we can't use it or that we should try it this way, it does make you feel a little silly and makes me think "am I just trying to put a positive spin on everything even though it wasn't that positive". I'm not sure if I've gotten any better at taking criticism but I have learned not to take everything so personal, which I still think is a bonus.

I'm really happy with my producer Caoimhe, she has been there for me from the get go and even though she is producing some one else's film too and she has her own projects outside of the Final Year Film area, she has been very supportive and offering up suggestions to help make our film better. Speaking of reliability again, because we both know how people can let you down on shoots and having to work around people's schedules (In both of other projects that we are producing, we have experienced this), we thought it would be best to shoot it and record sound ourselves and I'm very glad we chose to do this. We only had the three of us to worry about, the interviewee was able to book it off work, Caoimhe was able to work us around her work hours and because I don't work, as long as I wasn't shooting something else, I was good to go. This enables Caoimhe to gain more sound experience for our sound unit whereas being on camera has always been one of my favourite things on this course to do, and even though I'm not the best camera person in the class, I think my camera ability was made better because I played around with shots and angles and didn't have to ask permission, I could just do it and if it didn't work, it didn't work, I wasn't wasting anyone's time.


Overall, this has been an exciting but stressful experience for me. I got to work with someone who I'm very good friends with, who was reliable and who was there to back me up when it came to talking about our documentary. The situation with Lindsey and the problems arising there did make me feel like I had done something wrong but I soon learned that this is just the way the business works. I have had different problems to this arise in past projects so I'm not totally oblivious to sorting problems out. I believe that I researched this subject quite well, I could have researched it further but due to other projects, I didn't have time but if I ever felt like I wanted to expand on the documentary in the future, I would know what other research I would like to go into to further the information I want. I'm extremely happy with the second interview footage we have and editing is one of my passions, for the majority of the time, it's quite relaxing so I don't find it a burden. Both Caoimhe and I are producers at heart you could say. Some just think about the story but don't think about the pre or post production work, whereas we thought about the pre and post as well as filming itself and this helped us greatly. The edit isn't finished yet but I can't wait until it is because so far, we are both very happy with how it is shaping up and when it's on the big screen, I will probably still be a little embarrassed, only because it'll be weird seeing my work up in the cinema, but even if it hits home with one person or if it makes one person think twice before making a vegetarian joke, then I feel like I have done my job: made an informative documentary that is still enjoyable and that people remember.

Scheduled Easter Meeting.

Caoimhe and I had scheduled to meet over Easter to film cutaways but unfortunately something had happened to the camera, so we were unable to do so. We still had our meeting, we just didn't get to film anything that day which I didn't mind too much anyway.

We sat down in a coffee shop to discuss more thoroughly what cutaways we wanted. We made out a list of shops we wanted to go to:

• Holland and Barrett.
• LUSH.
• Easons.
• Waterstones.
• Tesco/ASDA.
• Alley Cat.
• Restaurants in Victoria Square and St. Anne's Square.

We had a small number of concerns about these places. Firstly with Easons and Waterstones, it had been suggested to go into these book stores and look at their vegetarian book range but because of the internet, internet prices are much cheaper than in store places like both Easons and Waterstones. We didn't want anyone to see us in case they thought we were filming or taking pictures of the prices of books and going to buy them online instead. It sounds silly, but I feel like it is a huge concern for these shops and they could have thrown us out at anytime, even if we explain what we were doing.

The same type of thing we had concerns about for Tesco and ASDA. Obviously both these stores are much bigger than the book stores, so they have more security cameras and more people in store. Customers could report us or a member of staff could see us.

We were also worried about going around to restaurants and filming the menus. Again, the same price-comparison concerns were our worry, because I'm sure a lot of people go from restaurant to restaurant looking for the cheapest prices. 

The negatives and positives.

On Thursday 10th April, we had our weekly meeting with our tutor and I felt really silly if I'm being honest. She asked us how shooting went and I said it went well, the lighting wasn't great afterwards, but overall we were happy with how it went.

For this post, I'll post the negatives and positives of the meeting.

Negatives
She sat us down and told us that she thought it would be best if we didn't use the interview footage we had used. There's no doubt that the answers Lindsey gave us were very interesting and I was excited to explore them more throughout cutaways.

She listed her reasons and in the end, both Caoimhe and I agreed with her and why it would be best not to use it. One of the reasons was the lighting and we had tried out best to change it in the editing programme we were using, but after an hour, we weren't getting anywhere with it. I am very disappointed and I can understand why we can't use it, but I felt so optimistic about it all that even though I get the reasoning why, it's still a little disappointing.

Seeing that we were quite down about this conclusion, Sharon got in contact with her friend Julie who lives quite close to me, who is also a vegetarian. She seemed really up for being in our documentary so we got quite excited by it. Unfortunately we knew that she was very busy and it was coming up to Easter so we felt the dates she was available up to her and she never got back to us; and because of it, I didn't want to be on her back because she had a family and was generally very busy.

Positives
We still have Richard scheduled to let us interview him for Saturday 3rd May which we are very excited about because when we met with him for the first time, we was really looking forward to answering the questions because he'd never been able to have an outlet to talk about being a vegetarian.

We still plan to use Lindsey's interview but as research only. She gave us some fantastic answers and had a great story to tell, so we're hoping to look back on her interview as research for Richard's to help us improve in lighting techniques, camera angles as well as changes to questions.

Starting the editing process.

The next week I stayed in college after class to look over footage and to do a quick little edit on the smoothie and LUSH pot cutaways. But before doing that, I split up the interview to make it easier to edit later on. The lighting was a huge problem unfortunately and looking back on the day, I don't understand why I thought it would be a good idea to place her in front of the window. Maybe I just got over excited that I was finally starting the filming process for the documentary, but I tried to change it in Premiere Pro but it wasn't really working. The framing was just slightly off, I thought I had picked a tighter shot so when I seen the back door in shot, I was annoyed because on the camera on the day, I hadn't been able to see it at all.

I was really happy with the sequences I had filmed though, but whether or not I use them in the final film had yet to be decided.

Day Two: Smoothie and LUSH cutaways.

The next day I thought I would film myself making a smoothie to show that vegetarian food doesn't have to be boring. I know that a smoothie is very rarely unsuitable for vegetarians, but I thought it would be quite nice to film the process then speed it up to use possibly at the start or towards the end of the documentary.

Normally a smoothie takes me about ten minutes altogether to make but filming it, it took just under a hour because I had to make sure everything was in shot and I was cutting appropriately because most of the shots I had to do in one take, or else I would've been cutting up unnecessary fruit and wasting it.

After the smoothie, I thought I would take the good chunk of my LUSH pots and do a similar shoot. I would also speed this up in post-production and it would come out like a stop motion piece, which I'm very interested in. I had originally thought of doing a stop motion animation in the documentary but due to the large quantity of other work going on, I didn't feel like I would have enough time to do it, and do it properly. So doing this, it made me feel like I was still adding something different to the documentary, even if it doesn't get used in the final film. 

One of the main reasons I wanted to do the LUSH pots was because we had asked Lindsey a few questions about LUSH and she had talked it about it so we were thinking of putting this (sped up) in over her talking about it.

Day One: Lindsey's interview.

Filming day had arrived (Saturday 5th April) and both myself and Caoimhe were really excited. I picked them both up from Belfast and brought them up to my house.

It didn't take us too long to set up, and it was a really nice day outside so the sun was coming through the window nicely. Caoimhe was on sound, while I was on camera as well as asking the questions. We had originally planned to stop at every fourth question and change camera angles, and had fully intended to do this but we were too interested in her answers and it was just flowing like a real conversation, that we completely forgot to do so.

We then got her to cut up some buns that were vegan as well as gluten free, and I wanted these to be cutaways for when we were taking about desserts and buying food in general.

Caoimhe and I were really happy with how the day had gone, all three of us got on great and the answers that Lindsey gave us to our questions were great and quite eye opening.

The production meeting before filming!

On Thursday 3rd April, we had a small production meeting to discuss further details of our interview happening on Saturday 5th April with Lindsey.

We discussed where the interview would be and because of location constraints at Caoimhe's house, we decided that it would be easier to use my house since it would be free and no-one but us would be in. We made plans where I would pick Caoimhe and Lindsey up in Belfast and bring them to mine too. We also talked about possible cutaway locations, but these aren't nailed down until Lindsey answers the questions obviously.

Meeting Richard.

In our fifth meeting, Caoimhe and I met at the Linen Hall Library once again (Monday 24th March) and met with Richard, our second and final vegetarian that will be appearing in our documentary. He was really laid back, was pleased with the questions and actually gave us another question we could add, regarding Christmas dinner. Both Richard and Lindsey had spoke briefly about not having enough choice in restaurants over Christmas, so that question will be a nice add on.

Then in our sixth meeting on Wednesday 26th March, we went over our possible shooting dates as well as our pitching process. We had the idea of making t-shirts for the occasions and bringing in vegetarian food and vegetarian beauty products to show our tutor that we were expanding outside the food region a little.

Pitching Ideas for our Pitch.

Tying in with our morning meeting; after lunch Caoimhe and I sat and discussed possible ideas for our pitch next Thursday (Thursday 27th March). We're working around the vegetarian ideas and because real food is fruit and vegetables, this displays lots of bright colours and we wanted our pitch to be creative as possible. We found it difficult at first trying to think of ideas, but we came up with some good suggestions as to what we could plan.

With the pitch being next Thursday, we don't want to spoil what we will be in our pitch because then the judging panel (two of our tutors) wouldn't be surprised because they may have read our blog. We plan to post photographs of what will be involved in the pitching process and how we intend to grab their audience, once we have actually completed it.

Our Fourth Meeting.

Myself and Caoimhe had another very successful meeting yesterday morning (Thursday 20th March). We first had a meeting with our tutor to discuss how we have progressed throughout the week; we spoke about meeting up with Lindsey and how she was excited to talk about all the various aspects of being a vegetarian, not just the food side of things. We also said how we were planning on meeting up with Richard (another person who said they would like to be involved) on Monday morning.

Our tutor gave us the idea of just concentrating on Lindsey and learning more about her life and her hobbies. While I think this is a great idea, this would change the whole dynamic of the documentary and possibly become unlinked to our 'dislocation' theme. My original plan was to interview people and get their views on why do they think they are being judged for choosing this lifestyle, what problems with people have they encountered, do they think being vegetarian gets easier, why did they start and how did they start. These would just be a few of the questions but I was stream lining it on the fact that we were learning about the vegetarian lifestyle and that anyone who had had reservations about vegetarians or didn't actually know about the lifestyle, would watch the documentary and find out that it's not just about eating vegetables. However, if we just concentrate on one person and their life outside vegetarianism, I start to question what our documentary would even be about. I'm really passionate about learning more about the lifestyle because it's something I have wanted to learn about for a few years and if I can help even a little on reducing the stigma on it, then I will be happy and feel like I have created a successful documentary.

Production Folder Links.

This post will be used for me to post links to research and articles that I find online to print out at a later date for our production folder:

1. [19/03] (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Research Heaven!

The Vegetarian Society are a registered educational charity and have resources from little recipe cards right up to big posters for individuals, schools or parents to order for free. On the order form you have a huge number of options to choose from and there's no minimum or maximum limit to choose from, so you have as little or as much information as you wish. Everything I ordered arrived this Thursday (6th March) and I was shocked (The good shocked!) at how much resources there was, I don't remember everything I ordered, but I was blown away.

Below is a picture of everything I received then I do smaller group photographs of the leaflets/posters and books.

(Everything laid out together)

• Book One: Vegetarianism, a Project Book for Schools that contains nine recipes, a revision sheet, what a vegetarian is and why and information about nutrition.

• Book Two: Serving Vegetarians, this is geared towards restaurant, cafe and caters but if you have friends, family or even your children's friends coming over and they are vegetarian, this is a helpful tool. It contains six recipes, ingredients and meal suggestions and information about working with the society.
  
• Book Three: Veggie Kids' Kitchen, a book for children and young adults that they can read with their parents. It includes ten recipes, safety and hygiene tips for the kitchen and breakfast and lunch ideas for the lunchboxes. 

• Booklet One: Going Veggie... for the taste, that says "these recipes have been developed by chefs at the Cordon Vert Cookery School to inspire you to get cooking. Mouth-watering and satisfying, they each offer a balanced main meal with plenty of protein, iron and other essential nutrients". It contains seven recipes altogether.
  
• Booklet Two: Going Veggie..., is the essential guide for people starting to look into becoming a vegetarian. It includes what a vegetarian is, the first steps, what to buy on a big shop, misconceptions about some products, nutritional advice and information about their approved trademark.

• Three food comparison postcards comparing the nutritional values of certain foods that contain iron, protein and Vitamin B12. 

• Mini Book One: Veggie Guides for Teens (half of the book is for teenagers and when you flip it over and turn it around, the other half is for parents) is for both teenagers and parents. On the teenager side includes what a vegetarian is, tip for success in your new lifestyle, questions that people may ask you to challenge you about vegetarianism and a mini poster about nutrition. On the parent side it contains talking to your child, what you can cook and a helpful starting point for parents.
  
• Mini Book Two: Young Veggie Guide, is aimed at young children and children coming into their teenage ages. It includes a step by step guide into easing into vegetarianism, advice on how to eat when you're not at home, why people are vegetarians and three recipes.

• A pamphlet on the welfare of animals during the Christmas season.
  
• Four large bookmarks with a vegetarian nutritional food plate on the front and on the back of these, is a different recipe.

• A large sheet of pull out cards to give to restaurants and cafe with information on how to make their dessert menus more accessible to vegetarians (with many places not stating whether their desserts are vegetarian friendly or not).

(The front of one of the pull out cards)

(The back of one of the pull out cards.)

• Mini Book One: Meat-Free Made Easy, containing six recipes, a meal planner, ideas for sandwiches and more about the society.
  
• Mini Book Two: Why it's green to go vegetarian, includes information on how becoming vegetarian lowers your own environmental impact.

• A letter from the Vegetarian Society thanking me for contacting them and telling me more about their company.
  
• Mini Book: Healthy Eating for Vegetarians, gives you information on the benefits on a vegetarian diet as well as particular nutrients, a food plate guide, the special needs teenagers, children and pregnant women need and how to become a member of the society and the benefits.
  
• A Folded Poster: V-Healthy, a healthy eating plan with a meal plan and tips and advice on how to do shopping on a budget.
  
• A pamphlet: V-Healthy, this contain six recipes to go along with the eating plan in the bigger poster of the same name.

• An A1 poster of food comparisons with the nutritional values of food vitamins (Very like the food comparisons on the postcards).

• An A1 poster of food comparisons with the nutritional values of food (Very like the food comparisons on the postcards).

(A1 Poster: Enjoy Life, Enjoy Great Food)

• Three A2 posters (held down with other booklets because they were curled) with three different photographs used with the slogan "Your Future Matters")

In terms of research, I know this is just the starting point but I'm so happy with how much information I have that a charity was able to provide! If you want to find out any information about the Vegetarian Society, visit them at http://www.vegsoc.org 

The start of scheduling!

My producer Caoimhe and I sat down this Thursday (6th March) and started talking about a production schedule. We drew up a brief schedule (below) and later on that day Caoimhe made up a more professional looking schedule on Word. We made up this smaller schedules just so we could have the set tasks in front of us for each production meeting then we can update it later on that day on the more professional one (which will then go in the production folder).

Online Advertisements.

Tonight I wrote out a small advertisement for my documentary to post on both Gumtree and Facebook. My first option (after a lot of sitting down with myself and deciding what exactly I wanted to do) was to do a possible "Day in the Life" and an interview session with one person and find out about their journey with their lifestyle. Below are post the ads posted on both websites; I'm hoping that I'll hear something back because I'd love to explore and find out about some-one's views, experience and thoughts through the documentary.

(Facebook) 

(Gumtree)

I also tweeted it using the hashtags #vegetarians and #Belfast to make it easier to find if people were interested.

(Twitter)

Eating Local.

One of the benefits of researching my documentary idea, is that I get to go and try some new food. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to food in restaurants; you wouldn't exactly see me going for frogs legs but when it comes to food 'on the outside' if that's what you can call it, I'm pretty much up for trying anything.

I first started researching vegan restaurants and found a few Facebook pages, and the first page I came across was for "Check Out My Buns". They aren't a restaurant but they are a gluten free and vegan bakery who sell their goods at St. George's Market every weekend. Back in November, I got tested and was told that I needed to go gluten free immediately because my body couldn't cope with eating gluten, as well as not being able to eat soy or carrots too. So when I found out this company was not only vegan (relating well to my initial research) but that it was also gluten free, I was over the moon. On their "About" Facebook page, they said "Delighted to say we are now an exclusively Gluten/Wheat Free bakery, working in an exclusively gluten and wheat free space". This doesn't so much relate to my subject, but for me personally, it's such a good thing to hear and see from companies, especially since I know that cross-contamination won't happen (Not that I have dealt with this yet).

On Wednesday evening, I placed an order with them and picked up on Saturday afternoon at St. George's Market. I picked up some Cocoa Nut Amazeballs otherwise described as healthy nut/fruit snack balls. They are of course, gluten free and vegan but they're also dairy free, egg free, wheat free and no added sugar (The only sugar that's in them is the natural occuring sugars that comes from the dried fruits). So what you're eating is clean and natural, and isn't full of sugary preservatives. I waited until I got home to take some photographs of them:

They were £5 for 6 which is excellent value for something clean and delicious that caters to you. I've already had two but they're not like other snacks. I cut one in half and I felt satisfied; I didn't get that 'chocolate bar' or 'Jaffa cake' feeling, I didn't need to have another one, it just satisfied my sweet tooth for hours, so if you're thinking six isn't very much, it really is, because these will probably last you until the next week (if you don't share them, of course). They are delicious and I don't mean to say I didn't need to have another one because I didn't like them, because I actually love them, but because they don't have all the rubbish that's in other snacks, they left me feeling like I had something sweet and didn't have an addictive craving to eat the entire set (which normal chocolate or other sweet treats do).

I'm really happy with my first 'local' experience of vegan (and gluten free) food and I'll be venturing back next week to the market to see what else this company have to offer. I say 'local' because apart from fruit and vegetables and the odd cake (when I could eat gluten), I've never really bought local food before, but even just walking around the market, it really opened my eyes to local food, even if I can't eat a large majority of it.

To find out more about them; their website, their Twitter and their Facebook page.

Fictional Reality Twist Proposal

Original Thought (Initial Ideas)

A story about a young woman around sixteen years old talking to a friend or a therapist (adding a therapist could make this story cliche however) about what she's been going through lately. She's fallen out with one of her best friends, she's falling behind in school, she's fighting with her parents, she's just broken up with her boyfriend. As she explains what's been going on, she says how if she was a character in a TV show, it would be so much easier because things on TV are always easier. She then turns into a character on her own reality show and she discovers the real pit falls of some of her favourite shows, and tries to hide away from her problems. The cameras pointing in her face, the sound mics always been hooked up, the director forcing her to face people she doesn't want to; all these problems make her face the real problems she's had to deal with lately.

Characters (Names, Descriptions, Personal Profile, Sketches)

Young woman: sixteen years old, appearance and name hasn't been decided yet, dresses like a normal teenager girl coming into her own. She's had a lot going on in her life so I want to give the impression that she hasn't been sleeping and she's been worrying a lot.

Director: man aged between thirty and forty, stubborn, bossy, wants everything his way. Forces the unnamed teenage girl to call her ex-boyfriend, call her best friend that she's just fought with, even though she doesn't want to. He wants the entertainment and isn't concerned about how she feels.

Friend/Therapist: age unknown at this point, friendly, understanding, good listener, doesn't really say much throughout the story.

Best Friend (who she fought with): very much like the main character, she's been going through a lot but decided not to tell anyone. This comes out and the main character then realizes that she didn't understand why her friend was acting so weird but now she knows and understands, but she's going through the same thing.

Ex Boyfriend: We don't see him on screen, he just hear him on the phone, he doesn't sound like an unreasonable guy, he's a little older than her, she was giving him mixed signals and he didn't want to do that anymore.

Story (Start, Middle, End or Conflict and Resolution, or what happens to whom and what's the result. If a poetic idea, then talk about theme and emotion.)

(This is my first initial idea that I wrote in my notebook. I haven't fleshed out a middle or an ending yet)

• A girl is talking to a therapist or a friend about everything that's going on in her life, she says "my life's like a TV show" and says how everything on TV looks/sounds so much easier. As she puts her head into her hands, she sighs. She lifts her head up to see a camera has replaced the person she was talking to. It's clear that she's on her own reality show; she's been asked to adjust her mic, someone has come in to fix her hair; she walks out of the room to the director and he tells her that she needs to go home and ring the friend that she had had a falling out with a few days before.
• The end of the story comes when the girl walks into the original room complaining about what she's been through with the director; constant cameras etc. and she's asked by the camera person (who has now turned into the original therapist/friend she was talking to) "TV's harder than it looks isn't it?" She answers with a line saying yes and puts her head into her hands. She lifts her head up again and the cameras, scripts, sound mics, are gone' the therapist/friend then says something inspirational like "Now let's take this one step at a time. Soren Kierkegaard once said that 'life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced'."

Genre

I want this to be in the comedy drama genre. I don't want to say it will be completely dramatic because I feel like I would be limited in where I could go with the story if it is just drama, but if I'm able to add little comedic effects to it, the audience could connect with it more.

Audience (Who are they?)

I want my audience to be a range of people. I want to attract young people who are interested in reality shows like Keeping Up With The Kardashians, The Hills etc. and show them parts of the reality world that they may not seen or may not be aware of. I also want to attract people who themselves are going through things in their lives, and feel like they have had new problems hit them  to realize how to fix their original problems.

Why you think this is a good idea (Interest to audience, ease of production, simplicity of idea)

This reality twist on a fiction is a good idea in my eyes because it gives you the best of both worlds. It's not exactly a documentary but it has elements of documentary and things being staged as well as it being a fictional story too. For the production, I will need quite a few cast members and just as many crew members; which sound daunting but if I am able to flesh out the story and make it exactly how I see it in my head, I think it could be an interesting experience for everyone because we will be doing two formats (fiction and technically behind the scenes of a documentary style show).

Vegan/Vegetarian Documentary Proposal

Purpose (What’s my goal?)

My purpose for my chosen documentary subject is not only to inform the public on another way of healthy living but to educate everyone on what they may not know about vegetarianism or veganism and to break down some common misconceptions about these lifestyles.

Audience (Who will be watching?)

I would like a wide range of people to watch this documentary. It would appeal to younger people and their parents and to people who are looking to change their eating habits or maybe just don’t know anything on the subject, and this will give them more information about both lifestyles.

Content (What do I want to say?)

I want people to understand more about the lifestyles of a vegan or vegetarian; I want to be able to show more of a personal side of people. For example, I want to ask who I interview about how people first reacted to their change, why and when they started, how difficult or easy it is to go out food shopping or going out for dinner. I don’t plan on making this a scientific documentary, I’m not going to go into the science of the body or how food works.

Voice (How do I want to say it?)

This will be a documentary piece with the slight possibility of adding stop motion animation. This will all depend on what footage I film and the topics of conversation as well as stories that come up along the way.

Imagery (What do I want to say?)

I want to interview a number of people who are vegan or vegetarian or have been in the past. I would also like to get the opportunity to visit a few businesses who do vegan/vegetarian food and ask them questions such as: why did they decide to make this type of food, is there a big demand for it, how has it changed in the past five or ten years and if any of them or their employees are following the same lifestyle. Before I even start filming, I want to know what questions or how much information the public really know, so I wanted to create short anonymous questionnaires for people to fill out so I can cater the questions they have, to the documentary.

Style (How do I want to show it?)

I want it to look quite smooth, I don’t want it really slow but the only time I can see it going fast paced is if I choose and/or able to get a number of interviews, while editing their interview together, make their answers quite choppy and follow into each other.

Tone (How do I want the audience to feel?)

I want the audience to feel like they have watched a short documentary and they have learned something and they have a better understanding of a different lifestyle to what they may lead. It may also give the audience an opportunity to want to explore more lifestyles like this and possibly go to the businesses that I mention and try out something different.

Platform (Where will it be viewed?)

It will be shown in the Odeon, Belfast as part of the HND Film Festival and once it has been shown there, I plan on putting it on YouTube on my personal YouTube channel for more people to see, my personal Facebook page and my own Twitter page too.

Promotion (How will it be shared?)

I plan to promote this documentary on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and quite possibly, Vimeo, as well as the blog that I am using to keep track of my progress. I may also put it on a number of DVD’s and USB sticks.

Budget (What can I afford?)

I am not exactly sure how many locations I will be visiting, but to get to these locations, it will simply be using public transport, car or walking. I may also purchase some food from the businesses that I go to because I want to see what they offer as well as going in and knowing something more about them.

First Idea: Vegetarian and Vegan Documentary.

After taking some time looking over my spider diagram, I decided to first choose an idea that I want to find out more information about. In doing this, I choose vegan and vegetarian. For a long time I have been very interested in both lifestyles but I don't know very much about both so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to learn more about each or one or the other. I want to create this in a documentary format so that it is more informative and along with the research, if I choose to go with this documentary, throughout the process I will be able to find out new information about both subjects and it may even make me explore them more in my own personal life.

In my notebook, I took a few basic notes on my very first thoughts on the idea:

• Exploring the vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, how people react, the questions they get asked, their experience eating out and food shopping, is it as hard as people think it is.
• Interviewing shops/bakeries that make vegetarian and vegan food, how different or difficult it is, how in demand it is and possibly shooting them making the food. 

The theme of 'dislocation' shapes around this idea very well. A lot of people of vegetarians or vegans when asked by 'normal people' or meat eaters, are often questioned why they lead this lifestyle and are often told that they need meat or that "it's just a phase" so many people who live these lifestyles, I would assume, feel quite dislocated until they find people who live the same lifestyle, and don't have to worry about fighting their corner every time they go out for something to eat or if they are invited round to someone's house, for example.