2. Survivors exist in many different forms. There are survivors of abuse, attacks,
illnesses like cancer, natural disasters, accidents and many more. There are a
range of people who have stories about their survival, however, their stories
exist in many different forms and are sometimes not for the ears of others.
Those who share their stories interest their minds of their audience as they’re
intrigued by things they may have never heard before; things that only exists in
peoples imaginations and things that are very rare in the news but are very real
to victims of the problem. This in-depth documentary follows one girl who shares
her story about her survival against flight IC605 that crashes and arose in flames
back in February of 1990. We hear her story about her experiences that day and
the days that followed after. This emotional episode is one of the many in the
‘Survivors’ documentary series as Tulsi Vagjiani speaks from her heart and tells
us how horrific the whole experience was for her that day as she long awaited
the return of her families who unfortunately became casualties of flight IC605.
The flight took off from Mumbai at 11:58am and was travelling to Bangalore
when the accident occurred and was noted as the 8th worst accident in India to
this day.
Synopsis
3. Target Audience
• My target audience consists of 16-60 year olds, both male and female. I have such a wide target
audience because most documentaries appeal to the mass general public. I decided to start my
target population at the age of 16 because I feel that some of the content of the clip and the
survivor stories may be somewhat distressing to younger viewers. As well as this, the emotive
language and unfortunate story may be hard to hear for younger viewers. The target audience goes
up to the age of 60 years old because it is commonly assumed that the elder populations tend to
watch documentaries more and tend to be more interested in the topics that they focus on. As well
as this, many people between the age of around 30-60 may have experienced a survival story that
is similar or even totally different to the one I discovered and therefore may find it easier to relate
or identify with my main character.
• I didn’t specify a gender as our target audience as I feel that both males and females would be
interested in watching my survivor stories and also because there may be people from either
gender that are able to identify with Tulsi and also may be able to relate to her story by having
encountered a similar experience or one of which they too have survived. On the other hand, as my
documentary includes a section where I focus on the burns that Tulsi received after the incident
and how she adapted to her scars; the female population may be of more interest due to the fact
that it is largely considered to be females that worry more about their appearance and the
cosmetic side to their overall look. Therefore it can be seen that females may have a deeper
interest to her overcoming her appearance and regaining her confidence. The channel I plan to
broadcast my documentary on is Channel 4, and their target audience tends to be based at around
18-30 year olds so it is clear that my target audience for the documentary includes that age range
as well.
4. Cast Profile
• Name: Tulsi Vagjiani
• Age: 36
• Occupation: Tulsi is a Pilates
instructor on Monday evenings
and a massage therapist
throughout the rest of the week.
• Part in production: Tulsi is my
main interviewee throughout the
production as the story is
primarily based on her and her
experiences. She talks about
the crash itself and her life after.
5. Influences
• My Documentary is inspired by ‘Isolation - A short documentary on
Depression & Anxiety’ which is featured on YouTube and produced by
Dillon Pearce. The documentary is emotive and captures a someone
experience from the main interviewee themselves. It begins with a time
lapse of the sky and as the narration unfolds, a series of object cutaways
are shown and put into focus. This was the main influence for the start of
my production as I liked the way the documentary was explained through
the narration and the cutaways as a whole.
• Another one of my influences is the ‘Sole Survivor’ a documentary which
again begins with a time lapse and was another focus point for the
beginning of my documentary. The documentary is about lone survivors or
a number of different situations that people have been through. A lot of
them consist of one survivor and the loss of all their families. This was
influential to me because Tulsi was also a lone survivor as she lost both
her parents and brother. Although the documentary is presented in a
different manner both the storyline and layout of the documentary are
what influenced me to follow up on a similar idea.
