Documentary: Pitch (14/03/16)

As part of the pre-production for the documentary unit, my group had to pitch our idea to Simon and Helen.

THE PITCH

At the time of the pitch our idea was: Supermarkets VS Farmers Markets VS Allotments

To prepare for this pitch we created a shared presentation on Google Drive and assigned certain slides to one another. Cheyenne focused on the story synopsis; information on Farmers Markets (pros and cons); and possible filming locations. Saskia focused on Supermarkets; and character profiles. And I focused on Allotments; and the narrative/style.

When researching for the pitch I look at some statistics about allotments, and I looked at the history of allotments. I found some information about the "Dig For Victory" campaign that took place in WW2 Britain. I also found some interesting statistics about the amount of fresh home grown fruit and veg entering UK households. And finally, I looked at the pros of growing your own fruit and veg.

Next I focused on the narrative/style. I decided that we could tell the story using interviews, actuality and sequences, as well as graphics to show information. I also looked at mixing the three narratives (supermarkets, farmers markets, allotments) together to make for a good 10 minute story.

When it came to do the pitch, we felt as though we weren't fully prepared. We tried our best to explain our idea to Simon and Helen, and it seemed as though they liked it. However, it does still need some extra work as we still don't have a strong narrative. Also, Simon told us about a possible location near me that we could look at: The Windmill Allotments.

After the pitch we decided that we were only going to focus on allotments, and that we would put a few little facts about the other too in there, but not focus on them too much. I began doing some research into the history of allotments. I found some interesting statistics on the number of allotments in the UK. I found that since the 1930s, the number of allotments in the UK has gone from 1,500,000 to being only 330,000. I wanted to find out why this was and so as a team we decided that we would use those statistics to form the basis of our narrative.

The next step is to prepare for the tutorial with Helen.

My slides from the pitch: