Thursday, July 24, 2008

It's Almost August...Do You Have Any Ideas?

Every great documentary starts with a great idea. I know that some of you already have ideas that you want to propose for production this fall. If you haven't begun to think about an idea or two for possible development, now is a good time to start. Following is a short explanation from the syllabus about the treatment/proposal assignment.

In the real world of media production there is typically a great deal of paperwork associated with the production process. Time and resources are not usually spent without adequate research, planning and documentation to obtain the approval of those who control the necessary funds. For the sake of these class assignments, there will be several documents required before production commences. Be prepared to present these to me in class PRIOR to attempting to schedule production time.

One of the first documents required is a treatment. A treatment is a one to two page description of your story idea. Everyone should come to class the second week with two treatments for presentation/discussion.

One of the treatments will then be developed into a 3-5 page, PBS-style proposal containing the following elements:

  1. title
  2. rational
  3. goals and objectives
  4. project description (expanded treatment)
  5. key personnel
  6. target audience
  7. timeline
  8. itemized budget

Based on presentations, aka "pitches", of the proposals in class during week 3, final documentary project topics will be selected and teams assigned.

1 comment:

randyp311 said...

This seems kind of obvious to me and it might have already been done, but what about the Pinon Canyon controversy?