''Faith Off''

Faith Off is the working title of our documentary about religion. What we are planning to do is a mini-series where we bring together different faiths and put them against each other in situations and discussion about views in their religion. In the first programme or episode we will introduce what our idea is and also introduce the different religious faiths present in the world today and talk about them. After doing our religious survey this influenced us to go down this route. We were interested in how despite people saying they had no religious belief, they still thought of religion to be a more positive than negative force with 73% of our target group (student at our college) saying religion is a positive influence in the world. This may be our way of investigating as to why people think this way. In the follow up programmes or next episodes we plan to bring two people from different faiths together to discuss why they think that more people say religion is positive rather than negative in contemporary society, and also to talk about what makes them apart of their particular religious group or faiths. The idea is to use the 8 people from the people who answered the questionnaire (1 from each faith).

Our two ancillary products is what we are using to promote our programme. One of the ancillaries is a Poster. The poster we have decided with the help of looking at 4creative, which is a way in which channel 4 promotes and markets their TV programmes. The poster idea involves taking a selfie, a picture with each of the 8 people and combining them in strips of different parts of their face to make one face. The poster idea was influenced by a programme on Channel 4 titled 7 days who used this same method for the poster.
here is the of the Seven Days poster:

 

 

Our other ancillary product is a magazine article, giving an in depth detail on what the programme will be about. For this we looked at different magazines that had advertised religious programmes so we could get and idea of how it works. We looked some magazines like TV Choice and we found they advertised some religious programming like the new TV programme called Pilgrimage With Simon Reeve and another programme called The Bible. We saw how these programmes were advertised for example, they were some written parts where the actors gave an insight to the programme as they had experienced it first hand. This is what we could also do as we could interview our chosen group of  8 people and interview them and ask about what they thought about being in the programme and what they've learnt, mainly about experience, and we could gather images from the programme and send it to magazines like TV Choice. However we also looked at The Radio Times and we decided maybe this would be the best magazines to advertise our programme as it can give us a 2 page slot which magazines like TV Choice cannot and we are required to do this. Radio Times would be the better option.

 

 

Radio Times magazine:



 

TV Choice Magazine:

Finidings in Research

We have put the data of the people who have responded to our questionnaire together and have made an interesting discovery.
For our questions this is the information we obtained from our 3 questions:

1.       What is your religion?  (Even if you are not currently practicing)

Christian - 50%

Islamic - 9%

Hindu - 1%

Orthodox - 5%

Buddhist - 8%

            Other - 9%

               None - 17%

 

2.       How important is your religion to you?

               Very - 30%

              Quite - 33%

              Not very - 37%

 

3.       Do you think that Religion is a positive or negative force in the world?

 

Positive - 73%

 

Negative - 27%

 

 

Our interesting discovery was how many people thought religion was a postive influence in the world today. Most people who said they were not religious still thought it was a positive influence in the world today. Another result that was quite interesting was how important the religion was to the people. We had more people saying it was note very important to them than people saying religion was very important to them. Most of these came from people who said they were christian. This may agree with the article about the church becoming extinct as it is becoming less of an influence, de-instituionalised.

Brief

An extract from an original documentary TV programme, lasting approximately five minutes, together with two of the following three options:

• a radio trailer for the documentary;

• a double-page spread from a listings magazine focused on the documentary;

• a newspaper advertisement for the documentary.


This is from the specification of our examination board, OCR, and we have decided to do the last 2 options; A double page magazine spread and a newspaper article

Audiences and Religion

Recently there has been a video going around the internet, particularly on Facebook, that has a motive of educating the youth about religion. The video titled ''Racist White Girl Gets Owned'' is set in a university lecture room, hence educating youth or young people on religion in contemporary society. In the video there are 5 people mainly involved. A teacher who is a Pro-Islamist as well as a student who is a muslim and Three white americans who become engaged in a discussion about war, tragedy and religion.

In their discussion they talk about the 9/11 attacks, bombings in afghanistan, and the proposed hidden American motives in the middle east.

Channel 4 and Islam

Channel 4 decided to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer live every morning during Ramadan as a deliberate act of provacation to viewers who associate Islam with Terrorism and extremeism. Channel 4 tried to reinforce the message that the UK is a diverse country with an increasing amout of muslims. This was a programme aimed at a younger audience (Under 25).

Channel 4 to ''provoke'' viewers who associate Islam with Terrorism with live call to prayer during Ramadan

Channel 4 is a programme where we would like our documentary to air. This is because Channel 4 shows a wider range of faiths and this can help us educate more youth about the different faiths present in the UK.

The Sun, a british local newspaper, got a response from readers. Prompting the usual succession of Islamophobic comments from readers, starting with “i will never watch channel 4 again, this is a christian country”, followed by “It seems with every Islamic atrocity that takes place, instead of Islam being exposed for what it actually is… and we all know exactly what it actually is, despite what we are constantly told… it is pushed further into our faces by those who have the power to do so, the grovelling Islamophiles…”

 

 

 

Research

We have done some research on the students who board at our college and we just about covered 2 houses. In our research one of us did the survey in one house while the other did a survey in the other house. I used a more direct method to getting a response for our survey. I decided to go to each and every boarders room in my house and ask the questions myself. It was interesting because some people who were part of a religion saw it as a negative influence in the world and stated that it was not important to them. Some people who were not part of a religion saw it as a positive influence in the world today.

My colleague did his survey by handing out a questionnaire that consisted of the 3 questions to the other house. He found that most people thought that religion acts as a positive influence in the world today. However most of the people who live in both houses are international students which could agree with the daily mail article that religion may become extinct in the UK soon.

We will cover research in the 3 remaining houses as well as day students within the next few days and the after collecting all the data we will convert all our information into a chart to demonstrate the figures.

 

 

Young Peoples Attitudes towards Religion

We are going to do a documentary on young people and their attitudes towards their religious beliefs or faiths. Our idea is based on the recent article on the Daily Mail about the Church in England and how it nears extinction because their is a lack of young people, particularly teens, who are losing religious influence in contemporary society.

   

Church is on the brink of extinction 

Using students in our college as a sample group we have made a questionnaire asking them to identify their faiths and whether they see it as a positive influence. This may help us to identify why there is a trend in none religious faith in young people today.

After we have done this we will then proceed to start filming our documentary. The documentaries are part of a mini-series, where we introduce different faiths and religious that we will be looking at in the first episode. We will also be taking two faiths in each episode and bring them together. By this we mean bringing two people (one from each faith) and ask them questions and to share their views on religious affects on contemporary society. This presentation idea was influenced by 4thought which is a series of highly personal short films reflecting on a broad range of religious and ethical issues, and aspects of our spiritual lives. The way it is presented is quite similar to the way we would like to present our documentaries ecept they take one person to talk about their faith and the affect it has had on their lives in their programme ''God behind the bars?''.

4thought Website

 

 

here's an example of somebody who discusses their faith on 4thought: http://www.4thought.tv/themes/can-you-find-god-behind-bars/michael-dorian?autoplay=true

Audience Research

For our Religous documentary idea we have decided to do a survey asking people in our college a couple of question so we can identify the different types of faiths present in our college and we based the question around the UK census done in 2011. This is what we have come up with:

1.       What is your religion?  (Even if you are not currently practicing)

Christian

Islamic

Hindu

Sikh

Buddhist

Judaic

Other

               None

 

2.       How important is your religion to you?

               Very

              Quite

              Not very

 

3.       Do you think that Religion is a positive or negative force in the word?

 

Positive

 

Negative

South African television

I have researched South Africa as a possible site for my documentary idea. Local South African television is made up of 3 channels; SABC 1, SABC 2, SABC 3. I have looked at the differences between each of the 3 networks.

SABC 1: More Family based, documentaries on children, family life, educational. Films, mostly drama and action, also plays music. Made up mostly of two languages, Zulu and English.

SABC 2: Drama, Soaps, Shows that may have played on television 20-30 years ago. most of what is played is either in Afrikaans, Setswana, Venda.

SABC 3: More Women based, women talk shows, cooking and baking, foreign programmes, documentaries from around the world eg American, British etc.

South Africa would be a difficult site for a documentary on technology. There are not many documentaries shown on any of the 3 Channels that show anything on technology so it would be a tough audience to target.

VICE and The New York Times

A documentary about the New York Times and the decline to print journalism. A debate between an old-school New York Times jounalist, David Karr, and the VICE people. Karr questions them why they would want to work with CNN. An encounter between a news provider who has a younger audience and an old school what works in the news world today and what storeies should be published, mainly arguments abpout why they would choose to work with CNN answered that CNN liked their audience and their work. There is a problem with mainstream news today, there is not a lot of interesting stories being published for example ''Surfing''. Journalism printing is declining because of the lack of interesting stories that are being shared through news platfroms in contemporary society. Karr's argument is why VICE is going to work with CNN when New York Times do something similar with posting a wide range of interesting stories.

VICE New York Times

Production Research and Planning

Looking at how technology is represented in the media in TV shows such as the Gadget Show. The Gadget Show is a British Television series which focuse on consumer technology and which brand of technology is the best to use as well as what has been improved in certain products and comparing them with other products in the same category. For example, Apple's iPad vs. Sony's Xperia Z tablet. This show analyses how these devices or new technologies have benefited society with convergence of different media.

 

 

TechTv which is an American television comapany that involves shows and news about technology, computers and the internet.

Documentary Ideas

I have given some thought into my ideas and what I plan to do with either of them. I have decided that for my first idea "what irritates about where you and how could it be improved?" I have thought about comparing 2 different areas where I have lived e.g Cambridge, UK and Johannesburg, RSA. the ideas is to use these two places and show how lifestyle differs between the both of them and maybe interview people to discuss which one they feel most comfortable or enjoy living in and why they like it. The idea is mainly to try and get people who have lived in both places to compare them and weigh them up.


My second idea "Use of technology in Media and the impact its had in society" I want to show how different forms of technology have changed media in recent times and how much of an impact it has made in society. Also examining new forms of technology and how they work in the media.

Documentary Ideas

I have so far come up with 2 ideas for my documentary project. These are:

1. What irritates about the place you live? What could be done to improve it?
2. Change in Technology?

1. For example, I live in Cambridge, United Kingdom. There are a numerous amount of people who complain about living here. It would really interesting to find out more about the reasons why they do not like living in Cambridge and their views on what could be done to make Cambridge more appealing.

2. How tecnology has changed in recent years different types, convergence etc.

Radio Times

Radio Times is a British weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, founded and originally published in-house by BBC Magazines from 1923 to 2011 when the BBC Magazines division was merged with the into Immediate Media Company.

They also have their websites where you can view listing for TV Programmes.

http://www.radiotimes.com

This was the first ever published issue of the Radio Times in 1923.

Documentaries and Television

I've been going through TV listings for different channels on the internet such as BBC.
BBC has four televised channels; BBC One, Two, Three and Four. Each one shows different categories of things to watch.

• BBC One: the most watched channel in the UK. This is the BBC's main channel, which shows it's big budget / impact dramas (e.g. Sherlock, Luther), nature documentaries (e.g. Planet Earth, Frozen Planet), and mainstream entertainment (e.g. Doctor Who, Merlin, Strictly Come Dancing, The Voice)
• BBC Two: created to be an alternative to BBC One, showing more highbrow stuff, mainly documentaries (e.g. Horizon), artsy drama (e.g. The Hour, Parade's End), and edgyish comedy (e.g. Mock The Week, Extras, etc.)
• BBC Three: aimed at the youth market (16-30 I think), with appropriate documentaries, comedies and entertainment shows for that audience. I think the BBC also use it as a testing ground for new comedy (e.g. the Mighty Boosh, Gavin and Stacy)
• BBC Four: highbrow arts and archive channel - lots of documentaries, foreign-language imports (e.g. The Killing), archive msic shows, etc.

Differences between BBC channels


Charlotte Moore was Commisioning Editor for Documentaries at BBC but since June she has been controller of BBC One.

Charlotte Moore on BBC One  


Overview of BBC One, Two, Three and Four

Production Brief

An extract from an original documentary TV programme, lasting approximately five minutes, together with two of the following three options:
 

• A radio trailer for the documentary;

 

• A double-page spread from a listings magazine focused on the documentary;

 

• A newspaper advertisement for the documentary.

Visual Arts Exhibition

For our college, Cambridge Center for Sixth-Form Studies, we had to film our Visual Arts Exhibtion 2013. They were great pieces on show from our students, parents as well as teachers attended and even food was present.

We used 2 video cameras. One we placed inside one of our school buildings in one of the rooms at the top to film people walking in and out of the exhibtion. The other we placed inside where the exhibtion was taking place, this one was filming people observing the artwok and other pieces on show. Before the event as well as during the event we interview various peopleparents, students and teachers etc.