"It's like suffocating under a pile of poo."

An explanation for the title is probably required.

One of my creative flatmates took it upon herself to describe the effect that reality television has had on television in the last ten years.

I am currently constructing some backup ideas, should this idea fall through or, worse still, we end up doing single projects on our own. I absolutely adore television history, and I do think I could come up with a topic for a single dissertation, if it were necessary.

I've also looked at about six books, with regards to documentary theory. Having studied documentary quite thoroughly last year, I knew which books were the best ones for me to look at. Bill Nichols deals with documentary theory up until the 1990s, specifically looking at various modes of documentary. Through looking at each mode, I could quickly deduce that our documentary would probably fit into the participatory mode, as Leighton has put himself forward to be our presenter. Our only difficulty with this is that the film could potentially become a channel for the filmmaker's agenda.

In order to research this type of documentary in a more thorough style, I decided to watch the documentaries of Michael Moore. Suffice to say, I am not a fan of his, but for the purposes of this project, I will endure the suffering.

In the simplest possible terms, Michael Moore likes to be visually involved with his documentaries. Fahrenheit 911 and Roger and Me are prime examples of these. Moore (an excellent name, by the way) never claims to be impartial in his documentaries either, as each one has a political or social theme that Moore is pursuing.

I have more faith in Leighton than I would have in Michael Moore. We want to convey the story of Gelert in an impartial way and, in one way or another, we'd like to analyse how much truth there is in the story, without being too obtrusive.

References

Biltereyst, Daniel. "Reality TV, troublesome pictures and panics: reappraising the public controversy around Reality TV in Europe." Jermyn, Deborah and Su Holmes. Understanding Reality Television. 2004. 91.

Bruzzi, Stella. "New British Observational Documentary: docusoaps." Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. 2000. 75-76.

Bruzzi, Stella. "New British Observational Documentary: docusoaps." Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. 2000. 76.

Bruzzi, Stella. "The performative documentary: Barker, Dineen and Broomfield." Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. 2000. 177-178.

Ellis, Jack C and Betsy A McLane. "English-language documentary in the 1990s and beyond." Ellis, Jack C and Betsy A McLane. A new history of documentary film. 2005. 316.

Ellis, Jack C and Betsy A McLane. "English-language documentary in the 1990s and beyond." Ellis, Jack C and Betsy A McLane. A new history of documentary. 2005. 315.

Ellis, Jack C and Betsy A McLane. "Some other ways to think about documentary." Ellis, Jack C and Betsy A McLane. A new history of documentary film. 2005. 328.

Ellis, Jack C. "Postmortem: Assessments 1972 - 2000." Ellis, Jack C. John Grierson: Life, contributions, influence. 2000. 333.

Lopez, Ana M. "The Postmodern Documentary." Renov, Michael. Theorising Documentary. 1993. 153.

Rosenthal, Alan. "Royal Family: Richard Cawston." Rosenthal, Alan. The New Documentary In Action: A Casebook In Filmmaking. 172. 199-200.

Roger and Me. Dir. Michael Moore. 1989.

Fahrenheit 911. Dir. Michael Moore. 2004.