Documentary

Missing: A Search For Matthew Evans

5 minutes estimated time

A2 Media Studies Conor O’Sullivan and Andrew Lloyd-Jones

For the main production we are going to be making our own documentary. The title of this will be ‘Missing: A search for Matthew Evans. As you may be able to tell the genre of our

documentary is an investigation on the disappearance of teenage boy, the documentary will look into the reasons why

he may have left and what the situation is at this current moment in time. Our main influence for making a

documentary on a missing person was the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence in 2009. We’ve watched the documentary

on her, and her disappearance and we feel the structure of the video is good, and we feel we can use similar ideas. The

structure of this documentary is very effective, with the use of arty shots, eerie music and voice-over interviews. We are also

looking at other documentaries, including ‘Missing: Race Against Time’.

Also, because we’re doing a documentary, it doesn’t necessarily mean we have to focus on documentaries on missing people. The ‘Dispatches’ series from Channel 4

provide a number of different genres of documentaries, which effectively engage the viewer. Therefore, we will look at

documentaries such as the ‘Bodyshock’ series, where we will be influenced by camera shots and styles, music and agenda.

We have both decided to aim our documentary on a varied audience, teenagers, parents and 20-60. This is because our missing person is a teenager, so therefore a wide audience

can be reached. It will enlighten teenagers into the dangers of ‘running away’, and make parents more aware and how to prevent such occurrences happening.

The mystery factor behind our story will broaden our audience as well. Anyone interested in ‘the unknown’ will therefore be intrigued to watch our documentary.

Below are examples of documentaries which our audience will watch.

9/11: State of Emergency

Bodyshock

Michael Jackson and Bubbles: The Untold Story

We feel that with the genre of our documentary we can use camerawork to our full advantage, we feel that it will give us the opportunity to include many interesting and arty shots. Some shots we have already thought about including into our documentary include, a CCTV type shot, which we will turn into black and white and use editing techniques such as the scissor tool to make this shot look very realistic. We will, as well as this,

use a number of establishing shots to show that our missing person could literally be anywhere in the world.

On the back of that we also feel that we can make some interesting decisions involving the sound. For example we are thinking about using a phone call to the police, which will not be a clear voice but instead a bit crackly, we could either use editing software to create this or another form before editing, such as walkie-

talkies. Eerie music in the background build tension and highlights the seriousness of the documentary.

We will both use a number of varied locations in order to make the documentary more interesting and appealing. The varied locations also suggests that our missing person could be at any place, and we aim to transfer this using interesting framed shots. We will vary our scenes, ranging from the countryside shots to the lit roads of our hometown and surrounding areas, to really illustrate that our missing person could literally be anywhere.

Costumes will be very naturalistic, mainly because it’s a documentary focusing on real life situations. The teenage character will clearly wear stereotypical teenage clothing, trainers, jeans etc. The parent(s) of the missing person will wear standard, everyday clothing, to yet again make the documentary more believable. For make-up and hair, similar to the costumes, it will be very realistic due to the nature of the documentary.

The lighting in our documentary we presume will be very realistic. We will use natural lighting purely because it makes the whole documentary that more realistic. However, if we feel as if something needs editing to make it more interesting and appealing, we shall edit the lighting to our standards.

Our actors performance will be in a realistic manner, because documentaries are both factual and believe pieces of media. The fundamental purpose of a documentary is to analyse, enlighten and broaden the perspective on interesting stories, past and current. Because of this, it is crucial that we get the acting as realistic as possible in order to achieve a successful outcome.

The narrative structure will be highly influenced by other documentaries which focus on missing people. Two main influences are from the Channel 4 documentaries ‘Missing: Claudia Lawrence’ and ‘Missing: Race Against Time’. Both have very interesting openings, which have highly influenced us into the production of this documentary. We aim to open the documentary with a self-made CCTV shot with a voiceover of a police phone-in we will create.

Followed by this will be a sequence of interesting and arty shots of locations, interviews from family members and images of the missing person. The fundamental purpose of the opening is to educate the viewer into the agenda of the documentary, so in this case we will combine camera shots and locations (both countryside and town centres), interviews, stories, facts and figures, in order to intrigue the viewer and question the whereabouts of this missing person. Of course, this is just the raw material, more ideas will appear before and during filming.

Ancillary Task 1

• Double page spread in a listings magazine- The first ancillary task will be a double page spread in a listings magazine. Our focal point will be on our missing person, Matthew Evans, and an article focusing on the story behind our missing person. We will include features of standard articles, quotes, facts and figures, images and graphology. It is crucial that our double page spread needs to be visually compelling, so therefore, graphological features are vital in order for an effective outcome. Colours and typography will reflect on the genre. We want it to look effective and professional.

Ancillary Task 2

• Newspaper Advertisement- Our second task will be a newspaper advertisement on our documentary. Our aim is to focus on newspapers which focus on our intended audience. As a result of this, because it’s such a broad audience, we will focus on tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, and broadsheet newspapers such as The Times and The Independent. Our production company will be part of the Cutting Edge Series on Channel 4, like the Claudia Lawrence documentary.

As a team, Conor O’Sullivan and Andrew Lloyd-Jones will both alternate the roles so that it’s equal for the both of us.

Camerawork- Conor and Andrew.Storyboarding- Conor and Andrew.

Missing person- Andrew.Reporting of missing person-Andrew (person taking the call) and Mrs Alison (reporting the

missing person)Interview story 1- Conor.

Interview story 2- Mrs Allison.

Of course, there will be more changes throughout filming, so the characters might alternate and change.

Altogether, we believe that producing a documentary will enable us to show our skills. The nature of the documentary provides us the opportunity to use interesting shots and framing. It will definitely demonstrate our

technical and creative skills, with the CCTV shot as well as a phone-in, making the documentary more believable and interesting. The unique selling point of our documentary will be the mystery factor. It will spark

questions as to the whereabouts of the missing person is. As well as this, the target audience is very diverse as well. It can relate to anyone, the missing person is a teenager so therefore reaches a teen audience, and it

would also relate to parents, and anyone else who is interested.