Life in a day produced by Ridley Scott directed by Kevin Macdonald

One world, 192 countries, 80, 000 contributions, 20 languages, One day. 

“Filmed by You”

This documentary explores into the lives of people from all over the world; turning the camera on itself it brings across all aspects of cinema verite. The freedom of using the camera to envision their life and the different motive people have when going about their daily routine.  The idea was to create a piece of footage for a time capsule to show to future generations what it would be like to live in 24^th July 2010. 

Ridley Scott promoting his new idea for a film; Life in a Day filmed by you. His idea gets people involved and creating their own entertainment. The target audience is already picked as the thousands of contributors although not all will feature in the film, are keen on this idea to see what other people are doing in their lives on this particular day.

 Britain in a Day – a BBC and Scott Free production

Influenced and inspired by Life in a Day, Ridley Scott and Director Morgan Matthews came up with the idea to focus on the lives of the British population, directed in the same style as it’s sister film it is to be broadcasted on BBC Two and distributed in Cinemas across the UK before the upheaval of the 2012 London Olympics. The day will be 12 November 2011, where the people of Britain can go out with their phones, digital cameras, webcams document their life in that day then upload to YouTube site for the go ahead and the opportunity to be part of the film. 

YouTube hosts channels for documentaries and which gives people more information about the context of the film. Life in a Day's Channel includes tag lines to make the audience think about the message of the film, a synopsis to set the narrative, photographs of people who feature in the film to show the visual style. 

Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook attract thousands, sometimes millions of fans to one page, especially promoting a film or a documentary. In this case docu film Life in a Day has almost 20,000 fans who like this page. This Facebook page allows for interaction with its fans (audience) who can gain updates, post photographs and to see uploaded photographs of the people who participated in the film. It is easy to spread the word on social networking sites by simply sharing the link of the page or people talking about it on statuses.

Blogs  

Their are hundreds of blogs available to advertise freely such as Tumblr, Google Blog, Wordpress and the Guardian. Usually there is someone who updates the blog frequently to inform people the progress or thoughts on a topic. The Google Blog allows us to have a 'sneak peak' of the film to entice us to watch the real thing. This form of promotion is often available for everyone to see, you do not need to be signed up to anything such as Facebook to be involved in the updates. 

Posters  

This form of promotion can be distributed online - on sites such as IMP awards which hosts a variety of film posters, also printed often shown on billboards, public transport such as buses/taxi's. The visuals are a big part of the poster and simulate emotion. They can often give away the context of the story or alternatively be vague and create a sense of enigma, both motives work in terms of catching the audience's attention.

Trailers  

Often teaser trailers are shown; this is a short sequence of small clips placed together to entice people to want to know more about the film. Many websites such as IMDb, YouTube, iTunes and Total Film host film trailers. These websites often contain more context behind them such as comments, review, blogs where critics and the public are able to express their opinion about the film.

Other ways; BBC three and Channel 4 promote a lot of new documentaries through advertising in between programmes. They have a signature style - BBC three is creative using lots of animation and colour in the title sequence. Channel 4 also uses animated fx but show images of the real world. I believe both these channels appeal to the same target audience as the majority of programmes they show deliver in an informal way e.g Skin Deep: The Business of Beauty on BBC three and Landlords from Hell on Dispatches.

Above is a current Screen shot of the 'Life in a Day' Facebook page 

Above is a screen shot of the Google blog for 'Life in a Day' 

Above is a screen shot of one of the Poster's for Life in a Day  

Above is a screen shot of seven of the trailers for Life in a Day 

 Our Greyhound Racing Documentary 

This subject affects people in different ways, Greyhounds Racing is either celebrated or frowned upon, as a production we believe that in some aspects racing is exploitation of these domestic animals and used as an advantage to owners who go thinking with often the wrong motives this being the money and competitive enthusiasm. However, the same can be said with Horse racing, so it’s a sensitive and difficult subject to get our minds around. Taking into consideration of how the BBC portrays documentaries we have decided to be non-biased so not to cause offence or portray our primary source in a bad way. Our target audience is animal (dog) lovers, betting fanatics, and anyone who takes an interest in the wellbeing and perception of the life of a racing Greyhound. I have thought about ways in which we could promote our documentary to so people with positive, negative or balanced views on this subject and attend to inform and engage into their beliefs and interests of Greyhound Racing.

Idea 1. Double sided poster

The main focus would the be the greyhound - close up of the face so the audience will sympathise with this domestic animal. Behind the greyhound there will be two opposing images, on one side there will be a brightly coloured image of the track to connote happiness and freedom and on the other side it will be a darkly lit track with a faint image of a greyhound. This poster will portray the thoughts of the greyhound. As the greyhound is the important subject of the matter, it is vital we understand its lifestyle - getting to know the dog, its habits and its behaviour.  

Idea 2.  Blog  & Forum

I think a blog would be useful to make our audience aware about the life of a greyhound, updating with facts and information from all aspects of racing. The forum will give people a chance to express their views and get to know more about greyhound racing through any experts who may share their knowledge. As our documentary is going to be impartial and shedding light on the racing greyhound's lifestyle from all points of view we are interested to hear from everyone and anyone who is willing to share their thoughts on this topic.

Idea 3. Press Pack (online)

Synopsis of the film, teaser trailer, behind the scenes footage, primaries profile/fact file. These will be given out when we do our fundraising in January/early February. I think this will make the audience become part of our investigative journey and support us along the way. 

Further research…

Racing Dog Protection Act (RDPA) features a short investigative documentary on showing the cruelty to Greyhounds from UK and Ireland.  On the Line: Cradle to Grave (1993) This portrays the negative side, what happens to badly treated greyhounds once they are no longer able to race. We see they are abandoned/discarded, exploited to violence and often killed. We hope to investigate the reasons as to why this happens as well as show trainers who adore their greyhounds.