3. Channel 4 Cutting Edge is a British TV documentary series broadcast by Channel 4, it has been a flagship documentary series since 1990 that focuses on political and social issues. Channel 4 have a very popular documentary series called cutting edge. We want our documentary to appear on this segment as tends to focus upon areas of more obscure interest and develops/ explores the topic in vey comprehensive manner.
4. Notable Channel 4 Documentaries The Men who Jump Off Buildings Concrete Circus
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Notas do Editor
We are pitching our documentary towards a smaller audience as our film is concerned with a minority interest. We want our audience to be as broad as possible from the teenagers and upwards, this is because we want to attract the younger audience who can relate to skate culture and therefore would have an active interest in the programme however it will be structured in a reflexive documentary style to give an older audience an interest to watch in order to learn more from a subject that they lack knowledge in or have misconceptions with.
because of this we have decided against the most popular network channels BBC 1 and 2 as they generally specialise in the more general casual viewing audience. Instead channel four seems a far more appropriate choice as they specialise in the part of documentary that concerns areas that have not been fully explored. Or give a new perspective on something perceived as strange by the public in an attempt to either change or give an altered outlook on what they previously believed prior to the documentary. Channel 4’s long standing cutting edge documentary series would be appropriate as the run time is usually 45mins to an hour with advertisement time and if we want to reach that older demographic it is unlikely that many would stick around more than an hour to watch a documentary on skateboarding. The series is also renowned for its mature film making qualities which would also be a draw to an older audience.
The Men who Jump Off Buildings and Concrete Circus were both channel 4 documentaries that revolved around an extreme sport that have made themselves prevalent only in the last few decades, like skateboarding. TMWJOB deals with what and why people are motivates to be base jumpers. It follows two friends and their own personal experiences and reason for them to be base-jumping, this relates to us and our documentary as we are trying to express similar views to a wider audience outside the context of skateboarding, showing why people feel the need to do something that can potentially seriously injure or harm you. Additional our focus is not just on skateboarding as sport but also the social and expressive side of it within the skate community. Concrete Circus looked at five different people involved in an extreme sport of some sort and followed them in the making of an extreme sport film, however this being said not all the focus was on that point. It was carefully managed and balanced with the social and psychological side of the sports in question, a point that we to want to reflect in our film. Like TMWJOB it expresses to the audience what the motivation behind these types of sport are, and why people find It relevant to being doing it today for fun and how they made it into a profitable full time profession. Although our documentary will not be going into the commercial side of things it is nice to demonstrate that extreme sports can generate income, once again discrediting the immature stereotype people have with the sport which is a point we can touch upon.
Our documentary will be a 45 minute film featured on channel 4 at 8:30 to catch the widest viewer demographic as 8:30 is the time when most people would be watching especially for the teenage to mature audience that our film is pitch towards. The documentary is to encompass the mind set of the type of people who skate and show how that the misconception of a skateboarding being a gimmick for teenagers that they grow out of is completely false. We want to address these misconceptions to a wider audience by keeping the film style as professional and comprehensive as a channel 4 documentary usually is in order to attract a more mature viewing audience. However we are also conscience of the fact that we do not want to alienate the teenage audience. This why we will have focused segments that will be based around the teenage skate culture however carefully balanced with a maturely narrated script and voice over to present a clear cut direction to both demographics.