Weed:

Is Marijuana Safe?By Demi Lowe

The working title for my documentary is currently ‘Weed: is Marijuana safe?’. I was inspired when I was reading through an article in the guardian called ‘Cannabis more damaging to under-18s, study suggests’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/27/cannabis-damaging-under-18s-study/print

This fills the gaps in the market because it isn’t targeted at adults, but its targeted at the youth of today. It also fills a gap in the market as there aren’t very many documentaries about weed.

Content and length

my primary target audience was between 14-19, however from looking at research it showed that 100% of the people who took part in my questionnaire said they were between the ages of 15-17, this has formed my target audience as I now know who to target and know that they would actually watch it. Also from looking at research it showed that 57.1% of the people who took part in my questionnaire were male, and 42.9% were female, these people also said they would like to watch my documentary, looking at this has also formed my research as I now know to target it to more males than to females.

Target Audience

71.4% of the people that took part in my questionnaire said that the documentary should be investigative, however 28.6% said that it should be informative, as the majority of people voted for investigative, I am going to be making my documentary investigative. Also many other documentaries regarding drugs have been investigative for example, ‘Drugs Live: the Ecstasy trials’, this mode would appeal to my target audience as 15-17 year olds are able to be distracted quite easily, having a mode like investigative would keep them engaged.

Mode

As my target audience is 15-17 I think it would be good for the mode of address to be informal, this is because it will relate/appeal to them more. Also, 100% of the people who took part in my questionnaire said that they would prefer it to be investigatory to anything else.

Mode of address

Conventions used

The conventions that is going to be used in my documentary are, music – this would include people like Drake, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Beyonce, Rita Ora etc. I am also going to use archive footage of lady gaga smoking weed on stage. Another convention that I am going to use is cutaways, these would include shots/quotes from articles about weed for example ‘Cannabis more damaging to under-18s, study suggests’, pictures of people smoking weed etc. The questions I would include in my voxpops are questions like ‘Do you think weed is safe?’, ‘what do you think the effects of weed are’, ‘do you know anyone that smokes weed, if yes what are their reactions/symptoms afterwards’ etc. I am also going to use expert opinion, I am going to interview Dr Austin Okonmah from Falcon Road Doctors Surgery, Battersea. I am also going to have a presenter, my presenter is going to be a 16 year old black boy.

My documentary is will fill a gap in the market because there isn’t a documentary like mine, all the other documentaries out there about drugs are presented/voice over is done by an adult, the USP for my documentary is that it would be from a teenagers point of view, it will be presented by a 16 year old teenage boy. It will appeal to a niche audience because there will be more to relate to as the presenter is a 16 year old teenager.

Purpose

My documentary would only last for about 5 minutes, I am going to distribute it on places like Cinemas, before the viewings of films, I would also put it on places like YouTube as my documentary will only be 5 minutes long so we couldn’t really put it on TV. I will also get this out by sending people it via Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. The majority of people I asked said that I should distribute my documentary on YouTube, social networking sites and at the cinemas before the viewing of films.

Distribution