My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding - Documentary

Although the overall aim of my documentary is completely different to the one of ‘My big fat gypsy wedding’ I feel by watching different types of documentaries it will show me how to successfully convey my point of view in an effective way.

The documentary is focused mainly around following the lives of gypsies who are currently undergoing the build up to either their Wedding or Holy Communion, this documentary has been made by channel four to showcase and provide an insight to gypsy life and culture.

Many look upon gypsies and have a very opinionated view on their behavior and their attitude towards life however this documentary I see has begun to change people perceptions on their way of life. The documentary has illustrated how stricter gypsies are on young girls and their social decorum then many parents in society. Gypsy girls are unable to drink, date males and it is highly forbidden to have sex before marriage. If any of these rules are broken then girl becomes ‘tarnished’ within society, a girl cannot be seen in public on her own as they have to socialize in groups and must be chaperoned on dates with any male until she is married  regardless of her age.

 

This documentary has used extreme cases on Weddings and Holy Communions to show the outrageous lifestyle to show the contrast to general society I feel the channel 4 documentary has successfully managed to change many negative perceptions towards the gypsy life – this is a key aim for me in my documentary to show different sides of the tuition fees and hopefully change many perspectives on the issue.

Responses to my letter

Bristol UWE have been very helpful in my enquiry to finding out more information on the topic of tuition fees within the university community the admissions officers forwarded my letter to the university alliance and I instantly received many links via email on what they feel may benefit me within my research for factual evidence.

It is already beginning to highlight the significant divide in wealth and how they say it will not harm the poor as they do not need to pay until they earn around £21,000 – so why should they instantly aim at higher earning graduates – it states if they do not reach this standard wage then they shall not have to pay for their education – is this justifiable?

The first link I looked at was:

http://www.university-alliance.ac.uk/University%20Alliance%20responds%20to%20Commons%20vote%20on%20graduate%20contributions.pdf

"High earning graduates will now be making a significant contribution towards the costof their degree.”

"Low earners will be protected. Those who don't benefit financially, will never pay anything back. Safeguards for low earners include a minimum earnings threshold."

Questionnaire Results

From the audience research I conducted before creating my production I received several startling facts about Students and their concerns about university due to the increase in tuition fees:


->67% felt that they would have taken a gap year if the fees were not to increase in 2012.

->13% said that the increase in fees did not effect the choice to continue to apply to university.

->89% of students said they were seriously concerned about the debt they will face after university.

As concerning as these facts are the most alarming one which I received was that:

->8% of my peers had decided not to go to university purely based on the issue of money.

From this I have learned that it is shocking just how much of an impact this is having on the young academics of our country and those with great potential such as that 8% are consequently loosing their futures.

Ancillary Texts For Documentary

7. An extract from a new 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

To accompany my documentary I must create two ancillary texts, from the brief I have chosen to do:

•A Radio Trailer
•A Newspaper Ad

I have chosen these two because if I can successfully create at radio ad and a newspaper ad along with a documentary it shows a wide range of skills where as I made a newspaper and a magazine ad I don’t think it gives my final production the correct diversity nor would it give me the chance to try and gain new skills and techniques.

Questionnaire On Documentaries

1. Are you male/Female?
Male Female

2. How old are you?

15 or Below 16 - 18 19 - 25 26 - 35 36 – 45 46+

3. What do you look for in a Documentary?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

4. Do you tend to choose to watch documentaries or avoid them?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Do you prefer current topic documentaries or historical?
Eg. Tuition Fees (Current) or Hitler’s Rule (Historical).

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. How do you relate to documentaries?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

7. Do you prefer upbeat or emotional Documentaries?


…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

8. Do Documentaries persuade you to reconsider you view point?


……………………………………………………………………………………………………

9. What type of documentaries do you tend to remember?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

10. If you were to make a documentary what would your topic/aim be?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Letter

I have so far sent this letter to several university admission officers in order to find out any information I can about their views and potentially any increases in their admissions due to the high demand for places this year.


Date: 20/01/2011

Dear Sir/Madame,


My name is Emma Brookbanks; I am a student studying A Level Media Studies at the Marlborough School, Woodstock. I am writing to you as I am making a documentary based on the subject of the current increase in education and tuition fees for university. In order to create a documentary which can capture an audience I need many opinions and view points based on my subject matter. I was hoping that you would possibly contact me through email to possibly discuss your views on the subject, receiving any information or views would help me considerably and it would be widely appreciated.

Kind regards,

Emma Brookbanks

Diary Of Filming

This is my first post which I have put together in order to plan my time management and my filming time scale.


I aim to start film on the Wenesday 2nd February.

I hope to introduce Nicole to my audience through asking her the first few vital questions to discuss her views and her situation.

Filming Abbie Monday 14th February.

Again I aim to introduce Abbie to my audience although due to Abbie’s high level of intelligence and her views on the topic. I will only ask her a few basic questions compare to the other students.

This is because Abbie is for the increase in tuition fees and I don’t want to dwell too much on why some view them as important. I aim to use her just to illustrate that there is a counter argument and that some students support them.

I aim to film Emily on the Thurday 17th February.

I am focussing on Emily like Nicole as she is under pressure due to the fees which I think will show in her interviews, I aim to get all my introducing filming done by Friday 18th February in order to provide me with plenty of time to fill any gaps if needed.

A2 Presentation On My New Idea

Media A2 Production[1]

Student Protests - Too Far?

The Guardian News Paper Headline Read -

“Student fees protest: Man arrested over fire extinguisher thrown from roof.
Student held by police after fire extinguisher narrowly missed officers during protests at Millbank Tower”

Is it too far? Is it just passionate students trying to help themselves and the future generations to have affordable education which is by law a right to everyone?

OR

Is it a bunch of hooligans taking everything to far, they should just deal with the debt?

Why now has it come to the point of raising the student fees of up to three times as much a year? During the London protests this individual admittedly took the quite protests too far, but for that split second in his mind, it was a way to be notice and to try and get his voice across. By this individual’s actions he may however have jeopardised any chance of students being listened too, by acting violently and launching the extinguisher off the tower he has almost closed to the door on any consideration for the fees that may have been in place.

Change of Plan.

Due to my lack of enthusiasm i have decided to move my idea to a documentary. This is because I feel I will be able to excel in making a documentary as it has a more factual approach and that I can personally relate along with people my age to the topic in hand.

I have decided that the subject matter for my documentary will be the increase of Student Fees for university. The reason I have taken an interest in this is due to it highly interfering with my decisions on what to do post sixth form. I was convinced to take a gap year to learn a vital skill that I feel is important of sign language along with learning biology and photography at college to broaden my academic knowledge, as well as taking the opportunity to travel and spend 2 mouths in Australia. However due to the increase of fees I have had to skip this year and go into university before the increased fees come into place in 2012.


Why Student Fee Documentary:

- Current.
- Affects me/easy to relate to.
- Strongly opinionated people of the subject.
- Easy to speak to educators about their views.
- Controversial.