We have decided to continue with the dog hero idea. This is because of scheduling conflicts with our hero for the football story and without a clear possibility of filming it is better we continue to out our time and effort into our other equally strong idea.
This will also mean that we can utilise the contacts made from our work experience on Top Dog and hopefully create a documentary that will help these charities bring in some money to help other young people.
After googling some of the UK ability dog charities the ones that stood out to us as being slightly different were:
Ability Dogs for Young People - Ability Dogs 4 Young People is a newly formed Isle of Wight charity (started April 2012). We are training assistance dogs to enhance the independence of disabled young people living on the Isle of Wight. We are training assistance dogs to help people with physical or mental disabilities (or both), including cerebral palsy, autism and epilepsy. We are unique in our aims; we are the only assistance dog charity focused on providing assistance dogs for disabled young people on the Isle of Wight.
Medical Detection Dogs - 3 types of dogs:
Medical Alert Assistance Dogs - With their amazing sense of smell our Medical Alert Assistance Dogs support individuals who live with dangerous health conditions
Cancer Detection Dogs - Dogs can be trained to identify the odour of cancer. This allows the potential to develop a method of diagnosing cancer which would be simple and non-invasive
Bio-Detection Dogs - Used to detect bedbugs to help people with allergies and also to help create a revenue for the charity
We decided to contact both these charities in the hope that one would like to be involved in our film.
I wanted to look at the types of hero documentaries there have been in the past.
I already knew of one show which was a Mockumentary called We Can Be Heroes by Chris Lilley. It is one of my favourite shows and is an interesting take on heroes in the community and very funny.
Another documentary is a typical documentary approach that i found on youtube called 9/11: Heroes of the 88th floor. It is about the rescue attempts in the north tower.
Another documentary i found was called My Boyfriend the War Hero. This tells the story of a 16 year old girl who got engaged to her 18 year old boyfriend during a rest and recuperation period after his first tour of Afghanistan. 3 weeks later he was hit by a wire detonated bomb and lost both his legs and an arm.
Another look at hero's is to take a person and have them tell the story if their own hero. In this documentary Miranda Hart tells us about her Hero, Eric Morecambe.
Danny mentioned an article that he had read about Brighton & Hove Albion FC who regularly receive a lot of homophobic abuse. We managed to find the article and have a read of it again.
Here is some of the important information from the article:
'Fans of the club have historically been the target of disparaging remarks and slurs that refer to the city's gay population, and now the Brighton and Hove Albion Supporters' Association are attempting to raise awareness in hope of putting an end to this sustained abuse. The report offers several examples of the alleged chants Seagulls fans have been subjected to on a regular basis throughout the 2012/13 season so far, as well as documenting obscene gestures made by opposition players and threats aimed at supporters. "It wouldn't be described as "banter" if the taunts and chants were about skin colour and something would have been done by now to stop it. Brighton & Hove Albion Supporters' Club has spent over 15 years trying to get the authorities to take this regular abuse of one club's fans seriously.'
Danny and Mike both mentioned to me about a documentary that BBC Three had made in the past called Britain's Gay Footballers. The Documentary follows Amal Fashanu, Niece of Justin Fashanu who tragically took his own life after becoming Britain's first openly gay professional footballer.
Here is how BBC 3 describes the show:
'There are currently around 5,000 professional footballers in Britain, but incredibly not one of them has come out publicly as gay. Amal Fashanu, niece of Justin Fashanu, the only ever openly gay British professional, goes on a mission to discover why no gay player has followed in her uncle's boots in over twenty years.
Witnessing the typical chants from opposing fans on the terraces at Brighton, Amal can immediately see why gay players will not put their heads above the parapet. But one of Britain's most famous gay football fans, Matt Lucas, tells her that the problem extends beyond the fans.
Max Clifford, who reveals he has helped several Premiership stars keep their homosexuality secret in order to preserve their careers, goes further by insisting that the mentality of most people in and around the game remains in the Dark Ages. When Amal finally negotiates some access to straight premiership stars - from the Millwall dressing room - she learns that attitudes amongst many footballers may not be as bad as feared.
The Premiership's most controversial and outspoken player, Joey Barton, who like Amal has a gay uncle, expresses 'pity' for his fellow professionals who lack the courage to speak out on the subject, but blames the game's homophobia on some of the 'archaic figures' who run the game. Amal also gains access to a professional game official prepared to come forward and meet her to discuss life as a gay man inside the game, but the politics of the game prevent him.
Amidst these fascinating revelations about football's last taboo, Amal becomes embroiled in a deeply personal journey. For the first time she is exposed to the full truth about her family's darkest secrets.'
Here are the links to the show on youtube:
This was really interesting and although it is 1 hour long i feel will be really good research for us when thinking about a script and shots for our own documentary.
Another BBC Three program that relates to this topic is the Coming Out Diaries.
Here is BBC Three's own description of the documentary series:
'Coming Out Diaries follows the conflicts and dilemmas faced by three young people as they navigate their way through telling their family and friends that they are gay or transgender.
17-year-old Natalie was born a boy, but now wants to dress and live fully as a girl. Her mum Arlene is reeling from the shock of the news and is finding it very difficult to accept that her 'son' is now her 'daughter'. Arlene will not allow Natalie to dress as a girl at home and still calls her Kieran, Natalie's birth name. Natalie can only wear female clothes away from home so she gets changed in public toilets when she is out in town. The film follows Natalie's battle for acceptance and her mum's attempt to understand.
17-year-old Tori feels she was bullied at school for being a lesbian. She wants to come out to her new friends at beauty college so she can become closer to them, but she is terrified after her previous experiences. This is compounded by the fact that at beauty school all the treatments are intimate and she is worried that the other girls will not want her to practice beauty treatments on them in class.
19-year-old Jamie has not told his uni course-mates that he was born a girl. He loves being accepted as one of the lads and is thrilled that for the first time no-one has guessed his secret. But on the flip side, Jamie worries all the time that he is deceiving his course-mates and is thinking about coming out so he can stop feeling like he is living a lie.'
Looking at dog hero's in television there is Sport Relief's Top Dog although this is on BBC2. This show takes 2 teams consisting of a celebrity and their dog, a Specially trained dog & their owner and a talent family pet dog and their owner and pits them against one another. The specially trained dogs are often dogs that work in rescue situations or are trained to help their owner who suffers from a medical condition or disability such as dogs for the deaf or hard of hearing and Dogs for diabetics.
This is a game show formate and doesn't really go into a lot of detail with the owners about their dogs so it would be good to go into more detail in our documentary.
An online documentary shows the impact one dog has had on a young boy's life.
BBC Three is a mixed genre channel for young audiences.
We have three key priorities:
The channel needs to be disciplined about focusing on the young - its centre of gravity will be 16-34 year-olds: people who are young in spirit and mindset.
BBC Three is ‘Never Afraid to Try New Things’ and that’s why we will continue to innovate with breakthrough comedy, stand-out entertainment, brave documentary and intelligent factual formats. Our content needs to have potential to innovate across platforms.
BBC Three should provide an environment for the development of new ideas and talent and for existing talent to take risks, becoming a genuine laboratory for BBC One and BBC Two
I then wanted to look more specifically at Documentaries on BBC Three and from the same link found this:
Documentary and Current Affairs
Whether its matters of body or mind, bringing programming together around a single season or theme works well on BBC Three. TheCriminal BritainandThe Body Beautifulseasons were great successes and more recently we airedIt's a Mad World, an agenda setting season of thought-provoking and often uplifting programmes dedicated to debunking the myths and taboos around mental health issues. We are always seeking ideas for new seasons that will engage with our audience. And this engagement can also be more light- hearted. Our documentary seriesThe Call Centre, achieved high ratings with our audiences when, thanks to boss Nev, we got involved with the lives and loves of the very entertaining employees of a Swansea call centre.
We are also looking for ideas for single documentaries like the hard-hittingIndia: A Dangerous Place To Be A Woman and Petrol Bombs and Peace: Welcome to Belfast, as well as series that can shine a light on domestic and international issues such as Stacey Dooley’s three part investigation into drug trafficking. And we’ve had great success with fast turnaround documentaries reflecting big news stories eg Oscar Pistorius: What Really Happened? Horsemeat Banquet and The Cleveland Captives: What Really Happened?
I think both of the ideas we have will fit into the BBC Three Channel well.
Looking at scheduling i think that the Casey Stoney Story would work well on a Monday at 9pm.
Currently on in this time slot is a documentary called Reggie Yates's Extreme South Africa and looking at the next few weeks the other show that is coming into the time slot is another documentary called EDL Girls: Don't Call Me Racist. The Reggie Yates Programme is part of a 3 episode series where as the EDL programme is a stand alone show. It also has a strong lead in show for that time called Junior Paramedics which is a spin off based on the success of the show Junior Doctors. As these shows are popular is would help to increase the audience for the 9pm time slot with our one off documentary.
On rival channels at this time currently are:
ITV2 - 8:30pm - Dinner Date
9:30pm - Real Housewives of Atlanta
MTV - 8:05pm - Catfish: The TV Show
9:00pm - The Real World: Ex-plosion
E4 - 8:30pm - 2 Broke Girls
9:00pm - Revenge
E! Entertainment - 8:00pm - Miley Cyrus (Documentary)
9:00pm - RichKids of Beverley Hills
There is nothing similar on at this time on any of these channels and i think that with BBC Three already having this time slot for documentaries our shows would stand up well against these primarily American imports.
On the main Channels are:
BBC One - 8:30pm - Panorama
9:00pm - Silk
BBC Two - 8:00pm - The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure
9:00pm - 37 Days
ITV - 8:30pm - Coronation Street
9:00pm - DCI Banks
Channel 4 - 8:00pm - Food Unwrapped
9:00pm - One Born Every Minute
Despite other channels having documentaries in this time slot i feel our target audience (16-34 year olds) are more likely to watch our documentaries as they are more age appropriate and will be specifically made for that age group rather than a wider audience. One Born Every Minute will particularly be popular among women and especially mothers or soon to be mothers. This may cut into a portion of our audience but i feel that our ideas are strong enough and original enough to still work.
We have decided to continue with the dog hero idea. This is because of scheduling conflicts with our hero for the football story and without a clear possibility of filming it is better we continue to out our time and effort into our other equally strong idea.
Ability Dogs for Young People - Ability Dogs 4 Young People is a newly formed Isle of Wight charity (started April 2012). We are training assistance dogs to enhance the independence of disabled young people living on the Isle of Wight. We are training assistance dogs to help people with physical or mental disabilities (or both), including cerebral palsy, autism and epilepsy. We are unique in our aims; we are the only assistance dog charity focused on providing assistance dogs for disabled young people on the Isle of Wight.
Whether its matters of body or mind, bringing programming together around a single season or theme works well on BBC Three. The Criminal Britain and The Body Beautiful seasons were great successes and more recently we aired It's a Mad World, an agenda setting season of thought-provoking and often uplifting programmes dedicated to debunking the myths and taboos around mental health issues. We are always seeking ideas for new seasons that will engage with our audience. And this engagement can also be more light- hearted. Our documentary series The Call Centre, achieved high ratings with our audiences when, thanks to boss Nev, we got involved with the lives and loves of the very entertaining employees of a Swansea call centre.