1. My final idea is going to me ‘Weed: Is Marijuana safe?’, this documentary is going to
be a non-biased, investigatory documentary, investigating whether Marijuana is in
fact a safe drug to use. This is going to be primarily targeted at 15-17 year old boys. I
will be interviewing people like Managers/employees of teenage alcohol/drug
support groups as my expert opinion. I am also going to be interviewing the public
for their opinions on the matter also.
The question I am asking is ‘Is Marijuana safe?’. The answer I am going to find out is
whether the use of Marijuana amongst teens is actually safe to use.
My target audience is primarily 15-17 year old males; these males would be
interested in things like music, going/hanging out, my target audience would live in
an urban area, like London.
I am going to put my documentary on BBCThree this is because my type of
documentary is well suited for this channel as BBCThree already plays a lot of
documentaries, which are targeted at teenagers. As my documentary is quite a
mature topic, I am going to put it on at 9:30/10pm as by then I would have the
attention of the right audience. Your current outputs at this time are:
- Sun, Sex and Suspicious parents
- Transexual teen, Beauty Queen
- I want to change my body
- Snog, Marry Avoid?
Some other means for which i will promote my programme is:
Film competitions
Social networking sites
Video sharing websites
I have chosen to promote/distribute my documentary in these ways because I think
this because they are all free and easy to get into. I also think they are good
distribution methods because if you enter a film competition they will give you all
the support you need with things like equipment etc. They will also give you some
start up money to help you develop your film/documentary. Social networking sites
are a very good method to use as most of them have a substantial amount of
members; it is also free and easy to set up. It is very easy to promote things on there
as you could create a ‘group’ which is a page that is solely dedicated to your
documentary. Also if using Tumblr is a good way to distribute, Tumblr is another
social networking site which is mainly used by 14-19 year olds, both male and
female. Tumblr would be a good place to distribute teenage related
films/documentaries as it is easily viewable and Tumblr has a wide audience with a
substantial amount of members also. Video sharing websites are also good, for
instance, YouTube. YouTube is easy to set up, easy to use, easy to upload and easy to
search and also depending on how many subscribers and views you get you will get
paid from the videos that you upload.

2. The total cost of my documentary will be:
What I need Cost: Total cost:
Camera £6,231.67 £7,849.87
Sony EX3/EX1
Sound equipment £641.20
Sennheiser 416p Microphone
Tripod GB £1,022.00
Sachtler DV8 Tripod Kit
Camera man £250/per day
Sound operator £25/per hour
Some of the potential legal and ethical issues with my idea are that as I am doing a
documentary about Marijuana I cannot represent it in a positive way as it is illegal,
also an ethical issues is that my interviewees may not want to speak about
Marijuana as it may be a part of their culture, or it may be a strong factor they are
against in their culture.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you,
Yours sincerely
Demi Lowe