This documentary will be expository. It will speak directly to the viewer proposing an argument to persuade the audience. All content included in the film will work towards reinforcing this argument. There will be occasional omniscient voiceover and the use of archival footage to string together segments. The reason I am using an expository form of documentary is because it is the best way to communicate the idea (of music and the industry) that has importance to me. This is because of the clarity and concision that an expository documentary lends. We will not participate directly in this documentary, because participant documentaries tend to create a personal perspective (of the participating person). I feel as though participating directly on screen would make the film less of an informational journey for the audience, and more of a story of the participant. It would possibly also convey our personal opinions, which is not what I want, I want the documentary to expose the reality of the mus78ic industry, rather than show my personal opinion. However, there still needs to be intervention from the documentary makers. This film will not be an actuality documentary, because we will be manipulating the film to adhere to what ideas we are conveying. An actuality may like the clarity, as we need to hold the audiences hand through some of the images they will see (through voiceover, titles etc.) We will also manipulate the style, which is another factor that varies from an actuality. It’ll have a cool, “finger clickin’” style. This will be achieved through post production editing mainly. We will keep the colours rich and interesting, and try to keep every shot lively and attractive.
You will need to discuss mood, structure, pace and documentary mode(s).
The documentary will have a subtle counter culture mood to it and from time to time the tone may represent society as a dystopia where the media is dangerous and in power to promote the idea that the world sucks without music and soul. This will be achieved by using footage of musicians advertising Pepsi to show the marketing side of the industry, and furthermore emphasizing on these ideas by using footage of comedian Bill Hicks talking about how much money comes into the 20th and 21st century music industry. Showing the reality of the industry through real life advertisement will help convince the audience, bringing them onto my side of the argument that selling-out is wrong. This’ll make the film better because it will show an internationally relevant instance where the music industry is more of a business than an art outlet, rather than sticking to our footage of local New Zealand artists and citizens.
I will include the following:
• Interview person (Interviewee) contributes ideas on relevant subject to interviewer through questions and discussions. This is important to collect a range of opinions that are relevant and reliable, and the audience will appreciate that. They will also appreciate our interviewees, because they are people of a fairly high status in the industry, Laughton Kora of a famous NZ band, and Dean McGovern who is the Productions Engineer for a large local radio station (Times.fm and the Rock)
• Short opinion interviews with members of the public. This will be used as a comedic break up between the two serious interviews. It will be funny to hear the opinions of public in juxtaposition with the opinions of the professionals. It is also relevant to get a broad public perspective.
• Expert interviewee with special knowledge or status. Again, this is to have a respected and reliable, informal opinion in our documentary.
• Title writing on screen to impart information or develop ideas. To provide clarity in the film, and distinguish what is a title from what is a part of the mise en scene. This is because we will be integrating real life objects as titles, such as the Times.fm logo on a hat as a title for the segment in the radio studio. Having title writing on screen in conjunction with this will compliment it, but also clearly show the audience that this is a title.
• Visual image shot to add interest
• Montage collection of quick cuts to give a strong impression. We will have quick short montages of both a range of musicians in Pepsi commercials, and also with quick short interviews with members of public, showing how they favor image in the music industry. We will do this because it shows the sheer amount of advertising in the media that utilize musicians, and also to show the amount of people on the street who obsess over musicians that are largely driven by image (such as Katy Perry, One Direction and more).
• Archival footage shots from previous productions or shoots. We will use the Pepsi advertising and also Bill Hicks’s stand up shows as archival footage. This shows the real life application of image in the media, and the impact it has on people (such as Bill Hicks) internationally.
• Voiceover person speaks over other images. We will possibly use this, depending on how it turns out. It depends on the sound quality we can achieve, and how our narrator sounds. We would use it just to tie in ideas we are conveying visually, add more structure to the narrative we are making and generally make the ideas more accessible to the audience, by having the voiceover explain them clearly.
• Narration voice that tells the story, fills in gaps, evokes ideas etc – speaker never seen. Same as above.
• Music often used for emotive effect or to add commentary. Music is obviously extremely relevant to the concept, and so it must be used often to enforce the concept. It’ll also complement the visuals well. We plan on either using smooth jazz music to give chilled out mood to shots of the city, or Clint Eastwood by the Gorillaz, which has a strong energetic beat that we could time shots to. This would make the shots of the city more upbeat, captivating and interesting. It depends which of these moods would complement the rest of the film as a whole product, which we can decide on once we have gathered all of our film.
This documentary aims to argue a relevant and interesting perspective on music in society, and has a very broad target audience, making it accessible for a large audience. It has strong ideas about society and the tone is very visually appeasing.