Formal proposal

There are a few topics running through our documentary, the most important theme is ghosts and the supernatural. these themes are throughout the documentary and there are other sub themes/genres such as horror and real life documentary.

There are two types of documentary featuring in this film, it is mainly an expository documentary we will have the voice of god narrating the documentary and help it move along smoothly however it is also partly a participatory documentary. it will be participatory because it will be us in the interviews asking people the questions and it will also be us should we go and collect real footage.

From our questionnairre we know that the channel best suited for this documentary would be skyLiving at 9 oclock out audience must have felt this was a suitable time and channel as people know this chanel is for these type of films.

Our target audience is people from the age of 16-26 we feel that this is a really good age group and we think that at this age people are more open minded about supernatural and topics such as this.

the main primary research in the documentary will be our interviews that we undertake and set up and the footage that we collect and edit should we choose to go onto location and shoot first hand footage. We will be doing secondary research by looking at films such as paranormal activity and finding out statistics from around the globe about what peoples beleifs are in the supernatural, our music is also included in this category.

The narrative is going to be alomst like a timeline starting from one point and ending when we reaqch the conclusion it is strictly linear. we will be using

Vox populi interviews, which translates as voice of the people, Type of documentary like expository and participatory, archive footage and music e.g. diagegetic and syncronus sound. 
We will need cameras, tripods we may need flashlights if we choose to go out on location at night to film a haunted location.

Questionnaire results

Presenting the results of questionnaire

this is the age question and as you can see out target audience is now 16-26 as these are the people who will be most interested.

as you can see from the pie chart below our audience most enjoy real life and supernatural documentaries we will have to try and incoreperate both of these into our documentary.
Paranormal activity was a huge hit in 2007 and scares most people, this uses hand held cameras and darkness to build suspense. this shows that people are interested in the paranormal.
Again this question just backs up the fact that people are facinated by the paranormal and would like to see a documentary with such themes.

 The amount of people that have said they have watched a paranormal documentary shows us that there is a market out there for a documentary like ours.

And possibly the most important question here, more than half the people we asked would be interested in watching a paranormal documentary, know we know people will want to watch it we need to put all elements, codes and conventions into it to make it great.
This question was split evenly with 15 people beleiving in life after death and 15 not.

Documentary research

Interviewees

Warrington Spiritualist church (not yet confirmed contact needed)
Chris Lee spiritualist medium (not yet confirmed contact needed)
Julie - spiritualist medium and psychic (not yet confirmed contact needed)
Employees for local ghost hunters(not yet confirmed contact needed)
The owner of walton hallLocations:(ideas)
Chester Ghost tour, thursday,friday,saturday at 7:30


The Pied Bull,chester,cheshire -As the hotel dates back to the 11th century, it has its fair share of ghostly goings on and paranormal happenings, warranting an investigation by the television show ‘Whines and Spirits’. The ghost of a man is said to haunt the cellar and the cellar seems to be the hub of all of the paranormal activity, with some staff members actually refusing to go down there alone. The man who haunts the cellar is thought to be named John Davies, and in 1609 it was reported that ‘he casually fell down a flight of stairs leading to the cellar belonging to the pied bull, and with a knife in his hand… and died’. As well as the ghost in the cellar, two of the bedrooms are said to be haunted by chambermaids who used to work at the hotel.

Pubs

George and the dragon,chester-Not far from Chester’s Northgate arch stands the George and Dragon pub, an imposing Victorian black-and-white building seemingly haunted by the spirits of long-dead Roman soldiers.Over the centuries, both landlords and regulars of the pub have heard the drum of marching feet beneath the floors – following the route of the old Roman road. Strangely, the sound seems loudest in the cellars, closer to the original Roman ground level, which once stood several feet below the modern surface.

The Bulls Head, swinton near manchester reports of several apparations, the building dates back to the sixtinth century. it is said that there are links to the nearby church and underground tunnels this would be a great place to investigate.


Halls and mansions

Walton Hall (ghost hunting group- http://www.ghostlyshadows.co.uk/)
this is the screengrab from the walton hall website that i took just before getting in touch with them.

Speke hall could use the location and possibly people that work there if we get permission.

Speke hall has featured on the popular paranormal show most haunted, this is what gave me the idea of contacting them at speke hall, this would be a great location and would look really great, especially if we was allowed to film and have interviews in room or the grounds which are supposed to be haunted.


Tatton hall is another location we have contacted.

(ghost hunting group- http://www.ghostlyshadows.co.uk/)

Running order

Running Order
Documentary: Ghosts, Ghouls and Paranormal Happenings
Channel: Living
Scheduling: Monday 31st October
Duration: 28 minutes including advert break

Montage of clips of what is coming up in the documentary. Snippets of interviews, locations, videos and still images.

The Documentary title appears on location shot, the title (graphics) fade or break away as the camera jump cuts to have the location in the centre of the shot.
The door of the location will creak open and the camera will zoom through.

Fast Motion handheld, the camera will explore the building/location this introduces the setting. Voiceover introducing the location.

As the Fast Motion stops the first interviewee will be shown stood either in a room or outside the location.

Interviewee will explain any paranormal happenings that happened at this location.

Reconstruction of the paranormal happenings.

The sun setting fast motion (elliptical editing) to night time, the camera crew and others are shown walking around the location at night with torches kind of like a ghost hunt, handheld to stay with the action.

A spiritualist interviewed explaining if they can feel a presence.

Further walking around the location handheld camera movement to stay with the action.

A shot of a séance/ Ouija Board handheld camera movement to stay with the action.

Advert Break

After advert break handheld (steadicam) walking through a graveyard. Voiceover statists of paranormal beliefs.

Vox populi interviews.

Voiceover explaining how these superstitions have inspired Hollywood cinema, paranormal activity, Ghostbusters movie archive material.

Fast Motion birds eye view over countryside leading to Chillingham Castle one of the most haunted castles in England.

Voiceover ghost story about the castle.
Sun setting elliptical editing, cut to spiritualist interview explaining some sort of presence in the castle.

Camera crew, film makers walking around the castle.

Sun rising elliptical editing, interview with spiritualist who adds on to the paranormal happening that happened at the castle in the night. Cutaways of images taken in the night, apparition shown and orbs.

Voiceover balanced argument of people who believe in ghosts and those who are sceptical.

To finish montage of paranormal experiences archive material (videos).




These are the different types of texts that we asked our target audience not only what type of text they would like but also what they think would be best for our paranormal documentary.

Storyboard

This is my groups story board, myself and alex worked really hard to make this look as good as we could as we knew that this would make it easier when we needed to film, we have confirmed that we can film at tatton hall and this is great as we have been before we know what types of decore and 'mise-en-scene' there is inside.

This is the first shot and it just shows the titles coming up onto the middle of the screen and these will then slowly fade away leaving an establishing shot of tatton hall in the background setting the scene so people will know where we are now based.

This is the second scene and it shows tatton hall, there will be quiet music playing over the background this is a medium long shot of the hall allowing people to see and possibly associate themselves with the hall.  the music being played will be quite creepy maybe violins, and other string instruments to build the tension, the scene will then jump cut to the next.

This third shot is a medim shot of the front door to tatton hall and this will slowly open, if the door doesnt creak then this will have to be a sound effect added later in editing.  again this is a stereotype that haunted houses are creaky and this again will help build tension, the door will be centred in the middle of the frame.

This shot will be quite long in time however alot of editing will be used, when researching we thought of a great idea to show off the hall quickly whilst looking professional, we will use the camera and walk around the hall into all the rooms and then stop in a haunted room, we will then speed this up after to show a really quick walk around, we will put a voiceover the top introducing the rooms and the stories.

This shows 2 different choices we thought we would put both in, we know that there are old bookcases and rooms inside so we know that we could shoot the interview in there showing it is old and this would link as it would be filmed in a spooky room, or we could shoot it outside however we have already had a shot from outside at the beggining so it may be best to shoot the interview indoors.

When researching again we seen in shows like ours that people used reconstrusctions not only to scare people but also to fill the space and also show that people are actually seeing what we are reconstructing almost giving the documentary a sense of authenticity.  there will be scary music on quitly and sound effects added later in editing. 

This is the last shot on the story board and it is showing the camera set up on a tripod and the sun going down, we have ecided to show this as it will show clearly that it is now nightime, as the next scene will be at nightime, this also shows that the narrative is runing in a linear timeline from day through the night.

Tatton Hall

Myself and alex have done extensive research into places that are supposed to be haunted or have sightings and records of paranormal happenings, we contacted places such as Speke Hall, Walton Hall and finally we contacted Tatton Hall.

Not all of these attempts to contact were seccessful,  speke hall said that it would not be possible, and walton hall said it would be ok but we had our minds set on Tatton Hall, then we received an e-mail from the manager of Tatton Hall saying that it was not haunted but one of the old buildings is. We contacted the manager of "Old Hall" and a man named Mick Ricketts, and he explained that we would be able to come and film at Old Hall.

We had a walk around Old Hall when we first arrived and he explained that the hall originated from tudor times and was built at the turn of the 15th century, history does not state who built it but that there was the stanley family around at the time, they were a very powerful and wealthy family at the time, however some say that it was Sir Richard Brereton who joined the Stanley family through marriage. Mick explained that by 1958 the hall had been converted by Sir Thomas Egerton who owned the estate and was now being used as a manor house. This made me think that this hall has been there for 600 years how many people have lived there and even died there.

Mick first shown us the Great Hall, this is said to be a bad place for women to be, there are many stories of women feeling a tightening around the neck and a tightening as if unable to breath, we know this as in our reseach we watched a show named Most Haunted that had also been to Old Hall just like ourselves, they did report that this and when we asked our guide to clarify if anything had happened in the Great Hall he pointed us in the direction of a woman who works keeping the area clean and entertaining visitors, we then interviewed her as you will see in our documentary.

 

It was said that this is the angry spirit of a man that walks throughout the Old Hall terrorizing unsuspecting visitors and more than often women, further through the house, we seen a photograph of a man on the stairs named "Tom", in life he was an alcaholic and a wife beater, this drove him to an early death, this also may explain for his hatred towards women that are walking around and exploring the property in once he lived. My group felt a wiered feeling when walking around, i found myself walking around alone and was scared when i realised i was alone however i realise that because i was told the ghost stories this plays on my mind and makes me scared even when as part of a group.

It is reported that i haunted buildings drain batteries in items such as torches and camera batteries, and the idea behind this is that the ghosts are draining the energy to make themselves appear or make things happen by using the power from batteries, and after filming for 5 minites our battery that was full suddenly drained and took 5 minites for the camera to come back on i found this really creepy as i knew that battery could not have drained that fast.

As a group we were really happy that they got back to us and allowed us to go and film there, we were not expecting to get the ghost walk we got, Mick first showed us the outside of the building and explained the history, when it was built, who by and who inhabitted it until now. we then went inside the building mick set up candles on the table in the great hall and we continued our tour into every room up and down the house, there was about 8 rooms in total, we could not have asked for a better guide and we were trul greatful for mick and other staff at tatton park taking time out of their day for us.

We had all of the footage that we could of ever wanted, mick explained that most haunted had been there 3 times giving us clarification that this was a haunted place if an established paranormal group had been back 3 times. Mick also told us that Tatton old hall

Poster research

It is important that now that we have a documentary that it can be seen by the people it was meant to be viewed by, one way that people can find out about our documentary is the use of posters and flyers,adverts on TV and the radio.  When choosing our documentary and throughout our questionnaire we found out who our target audience and who would be intersted in watching it.

This is an example of a paranormal shows poster, this is what ours should look like, it has the name in bold lettering at the top so that people know what it is, it then has the 2 investigators with an ominous building in the background, this helps set the tone for the documentary. The sky has been changed in a program such as photoshop, it has been made green like the ghosts in the background, however some of the most important information is at the bottom, it has the chanell that it is to be aired on and what time and day.