Initial Ideas

Originally we looked at creating a music video for our advanced portfolio. However, having analysed & looked at many different music videos we decided that this wouldn't suit us. This is because a good music video generally needs a narrative and performance and we couldn't think how to combine this to create a music video. Therefore we decided creating a documentary would suit us better as it deals with facts and is a more formal production.

We decided to create an extract of a documentary but we had multiple ideas we could venture into. We mind mapped potential themes which would make an interesting topic. Our top 3 ideas from this pool was:

1- Is being healthy too expensive?

2- Are we becoming too anti-social by using our phones?

3- Is HS2 really worth it?

Our first idea was 'Is being healthy too expensive?'. This idea was very broad and could venture into nutrition and exercise aspects of being healthy. Although we thought this idea was broad and we'd have a lot to talk about, getting footage and creating picturesque montages would be hard to do. Furthermore, this idea would require a lot of research finding prices of different things and comparing them against the alternatives therefore this idea would require a lot of time to make this extract of a documentary.

Our second idea was 'Are we becoming too anti-social by using our phone?'. This idea would be very interesting however this would require extensive amounts of research. Even if we could find secondary research, the montages and cinematography would be hard to create. This documentary would suit the performative mode as it is opinionated and we would be trying to put the 'Yes' argument across as we are passionately involved in this subject.

Overall we chose to do the HS2 idea. HS2 will be the newest installment of rail infrastructure in Britian for many years and will reduce travel time vastly. However this comes at big expense for the country in terms of the cost. We thought it would be good idea to explore the pros and cons of the HS2 project as we believe everyone should know about the current affairs in the country especially the younger generations. We had lots of ideas of what we could film and where we could film. Some of the potential places we could film is Tamworth Train Station, Town centre and places affected by HS2. Furthermore, we thought that the topic is still current and popular and that it is affecting our local area, so this means it is easier to film and get genuine views from our voxpops.

We opted against the other two ideas because, despite them being quite interesting topics, they lacked the documentary feel and felt more like something you’d hear on BBC news.  In addition, obtaining footage in these two topic questions would have been harder as there was no substance to create a stimulating opening to a documentary.

Then, we decided to come up off other potential titles for the documentary which were more illuminating. Our top 3 titles were as follows;

1- Is HS2 really worth it?

2- HS2: The Railway that broke Britain

3- HS2: A White Elephant?

The first title 'Is HS2 really worth it?', we thought was good as it was posing a rhetorical question to the audience. By having this as the title the audience would know that we are coming from an unbiased stance due to the phrasing of the title as we were no making a statement. However, having looked on the internet, we found someone had already created a short documnetary called something similar so we decided against this option.

The second title 'HS2: The railway that broke Britain', we thought was okay but it was making a statement suggesting that we against HS2. We did not want to portray views upon the documentary as we believed people have the right to make their own mind up so we wanted come across as unbiased presenting pros and cons. Therefore we decided against this idea due to the biast statement we were making.

After a lot of consideration, we selected the third option. This is because it is an unique title, it uses a rhetorical question to get people thinking about HS2. Furthermore, people would be intrigued to find out what a white elephant means. The definition of a white elephant is a possession that is useless or troublesome especially one that is expensive to maintain. Using this title means that in the documentary, we're going to tell you the advantages and disadvantages to see which one outweighs the other and the audience can make they're own minds up.