Lo1 - Mindmap for visual effects in documentary

Documentary facts

1 million seguls die every year from eating plastic

We are eating plastic - 1/4th of fish have plastic on their gut

We are drinking plastic - 83% of tap water samples contain plastic

We're breathing plastic - microplastics are linked to air pollution

Every 60 seconds 3 million plastic bags and bottles are sold

Lo1 - Treatment

Treatment - Plastic Pollution 

I might chose the name of my short film to be 'Plastic Pollution' due to the fact that the narrative of our short film will be focusing on the single use plastic waste in Sheffield in order to raise awareness about how we can change our lifestyles to accommodate the crisis of single use plastic and everyday unrecyclable products. 

We'll be approaching this subject from a youthful point of view in regards to how this will affect our future, we feel as though there's a lack of young people being educated on how plastic pollution will impact their future. We also want to show politicians the importantance of climate change since it often get's disregarded. The subject of climate change is currently very relevant in politics and current news, meaning, it's good timing to interview and ask Sheffield's citizens their thoughts, as we will most likely receive strongly opinionated feedback on the situation, giving us good content to add to our documentary and making it more interesting / relevant. We're thinking of starting the documentary with establishing and drone shots of Sheffield's city centre, focusing on litter and plastic in the streets, following this will be voxpops, interviewes with staff from the company 'veolia' and 'the bare alternative', then finishing off with solutions and things people can to do help reduce plastic pollution.

Our documentary will include interviews and Vox-pops from members of the public in order to gather thoughts and opinions from Sheffield's citizens, since this is a convention of documentaries, helping give our short film a more high-budget and professional denotation. We want to include establishing, drone and crain shots, zooming both in and out of the main focus point, as these camera angels and movements are conventional to documentaries, since they reinforce the main talking point. Since our documentary will be informing viewers about the impact of plastic waste in Sheffield, it fits the stereotypical documentary genre (educational)

The documentary will start an establishing shot of the Sheffield Amper Theatre and the name of our documentary placed on the screen through CGI during editing in software such as Adobe After Effects, following this we will be stating statistics and facts either through narration or  CGI subtitles accommodating different shots to go with each statement. For example when talking about how many plastic bags are unnecessarily bought every year we will show jump cuts of people walking out of shops with plastic bags or shopping or bags floating through the streets of Sheffield in order to create drama and reinforce the importance of the statement.
Moving forward we are thinking of doing voxpops in Sheffield city centre in order to gain the opinions of both younger and older people to see if they know how plastic waste impacts our city and / or if they care. We also want to visit a Sheffield based incinerator such as Veolia in order to show  what percentage of plastic gets recycled and what doesn't. This would help us physically show our audience how much plastic actually gets wasted and how much of an issue it is as visuals are more powerful and words. We'd like to use establishing shots of the areas we are visiting in Sheffield city centre in order to reinforce our Sheffield based target audience and allow them to relate to the locations we're at. The last interviews we think we'd like to do are with shops that enforce the use of alternative products to single use plastic products and ask them what our audience can do to make a change / how important it is that we do so.
Lastly we was to show moving scenes of how plastic destroys our city and the wild life living in it, therefore showing birds picking at plastic along with somber music in order enhance the mood and seriousness of the situation, finishing with a strong, short, snappy phrase such as "do your part" or "you van make a difference" in order to end the documentary dramatically and leave the message in our audiences head. 

Since of our target audience is of both male and females 15-25 year olds we want to ensure that we interview people who look like they're between this age range in order to make our documentary more appealing to our target audience since it will reflect them and therefore seem relatable making the content more enjoyable and enticing. We will also keep this audience entertained by using visuals effects such as CGI motion graphics when demonstrating statistics through graphs. this sort of denotation will keep our audience intrigued as 15-25 year olds are digital natives and therefore expect to see hyper realistic graphics within media products. Camera work such as time lapses will be used within areas such as the city centre and sky as this is a typical convention of documentaries plus they look visually appealing, helping give our documentary both a professional and appealing denotation. However we do also have a secondary target audience of 25+ males and females as we want to show politicians and an older audience the importance of climate change as it os often disregarded by themas it won't be their concern in the future, therefore we will include interviews with older audiences in order to make the content relatable to them.

The crew will consist of myself, Mia Rehman, Beau Longley and Mia Fidment. During filming we need roles fulfilling such as holding the microphone, doing the filming with a Canon 350 or Font x4 DSLR camera, holding equipment such as a tripod, chargers extra cameras, protective gear, lighting and SD cards. To finalise the documentary we will need computers and editing software such as Adobe Premier. Locations such as The Bare Alternative shop on London road, Veolia in Sheffield city centre, the Sheffield Amper Theatre, Fargate and the moor in Sheffield city centre are considered to be used in our documentary as these areas are strongly recognized by Sheffield citizens and therefore will help our audience relate to the documentary on therefore want to watch it.