"Character Study" Documentary

My first project for the second year has been assigned. It entails creating a four-minute documentary style "character study." I will be filming in a group with four other multimedia students and my role in this film production will be the producer. Today we had to give a short presentation covering what we are planning to do, including what, where, who, how, and why. Here is a summary of the presentation:

The documentary will focus on one man's struggle with heroin, providing insight into the personal side of addiction.

The person we will be interviewing is a local recovered addict. The reason why we chose this person is because as a recovered addict, he has seen drugs through different viewpoints (person who has never used drugs, person who has, and a person who has been rehabilitated), and can speak about the experience from many perspectives.

The filming will take place in the city center of Nottingham. We chose this setting for a few reasons; Nottingham is where the person we are interviewing battled addiction, it is an area with high drug use, the urban setting compliments the tone of the documentary. We want it to look quite dark and grimey to accentuate the heavy mood of the subject. Urban music, specifically hip-hop and grime will comprise most of the soundtrack. This will give the documentary an energetic and slightly aggressive feel. Although we plan to highlight the dark side of the story, we would also like to achieve an uplifting feeling for the viewer at the end with lighter shots and music. Additionally, we plan to include pictures of Nottingham and possibly of the individual's life.

The reason why we chose this as our character study subject is to raise awareness about the personal aspects of addiction and to show it in a different light. Many similar documentaries do not focus on this and only focus on the drugs, rather than the person.