1. Nintendo Documentary Pre-Production
By Daniel Adams

2. Synopsis
My topic of the documentary is to look at the game company Nintendo: their start, success, controversy and failures. There is so much to talk about with this company; their impact on culture and their worldwide influence is outstanding with games and characters such as Mario and Zelda to name just two. The consoles that they create revolutionise the gaming industry (for the majority) and allow people to enjoy games in new, creative ways.
 Some topics I will include are:
The fan base
Their experiences with competing companies
The consoles, the success (are they just a gimmick that fades away?)
The popular characters and their influence on culture
Controversy and failures
New ventures into the mobile gaming industry (Super Mario Run)
Nintendo going forward

3. Target Audience
My target audience will be for teens and young adults, so an age range of 16 – 24. The reason for this is because a younger person of the age of about 16 won’t necessarily know a lot about the Nintendo company in it’s earlier life and the early consoles and handhelds, as well as information about the company earlier on in its life. The older side of the audience will be able to appreciate the topic of the documentary because they grew up with Nintendo systems in their homes and generally in their lives, and may want to reflect on their younger days and gain more information about the company that progressed with them. In terms of a specific social class, the documentary will target D class and above because those are the classes that would have been able to afford a Nintendo console throughout the years as it evolved and will therefore be most attracted to the subject.

4. Influences
There are a number of influences that came together to inspire the idea for my documentary.
 Bowling for Columbine
 The way that footage is used in the documentary to put across points and set up the idea of the piece of film was a big influence to me in terms of how I want to structure my film. The voiceover over the footage while letting it reinforce what Michael Moore is saying is, I feel, a great way of getting across a point and immediately reinforcing it. The visual evidence is on screen as the viewer listens to the point that Moore makes.
  Blackfish
Blackfish is a good influence because of its difference to Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore’s documentary is very much presenter led, with him driving the speech and topics, while on the other hand, Blackfish is interviewee led. There is no presenter, instead just a voiceover narrator that sets out the events that happen. While the Blackfish, just like Bowling for Columbine, definitely takes a side in the argument it presents, it is not from the presenter/voiceover himself but instead from the actual previous workers at SeaWorld.
 The History of Nintendo – YouTube Documentary
  The YouTube channel GAMERANG has a series of documentary style videos that it uploads to its channel about various game companies, including Nintendo. I hadn’t heard of this channel or video before starting my Pre-Production work, but finding it allows for me to watch the hour and fifteen minute long documentary and see what works well in it, and what doesn’t work so well and see how to make mine with this. Current view count: 432,979

5. Primary Research
For my Primary research, I created a survey using the Survey Monkey website in which I created ten questions that all relate to the planned content for my documentary.
I put the survey on my class Facebook group and also my own Facebook profile. The reason for this was because the vast majority of the friends I have on Facebook are the correct age group that my documentary aims at. In their teenage years, they are in the right generation to have grown up with Nintendo and play the games and use the consoles.
The survey gave me some really positive results for my documentary:

6. Question 2
This question allows for me as the documentary maker to see the most popular consoles within the target audience and shape the information around lesser known consoles and handhelds. There isn’t any point in providing information or focusing on stories or topics that the audience already has a good amount of knowledge on.
For example, looking at this question, we can see that I won’t need to focus at all really on the Nintendo Wii or DS because the large majority of the target audience have one.

7. Question 3
This question allows for me to see whether or not the target audience knows anything about the Nintendo Company that isn’t about the positive and successful things that they have done. I originally wasn’t sure if I was going to include this as a possible topic of the documentary, but seeing the lack of knowledge on it made me choose to include it.
Not a single person answered Yes, so there is little to no knowledge of any controversy. 52% said that they might have but aren’t too sure, again illustrating to me that there is space for me to show these facts and stories to the audience.

8. Question 5
I wasn’t sure about including failures of the Nintendo Company (Virtual Boy, Wii U etc.). But looking at the results, I can see how it would be a great thing to include. The majority of the survey answers (61.39%) show how the subject is interesting to the majority, but I also have to take into account the around 40% who answered “No” or where middle ground. As long as I go over the subject in the right way, so staying impartial and simply presenting the information and the stories that are interesting to the target audience, I believe that these results show that the topic can work well.

9. Secondary Research
For my Secondary Research, I looked into some stories that will help my choose what subjects to talk about in my documentary, and whether or not there is enough information to make a section for it in the documentary. These research topics included:
Nintendo’s “Silent Approach” – The firing of a Nintendo employee and how Nintendo stayed quiet throughout the controversy
Failed Nintendo Products – The Virtual Boy and The SNES CD ROM Drive
The facts and statistics behind Nintendo’s most popular franchises (Mario, Zelda, Pokémon etc.)
The research showed to me that there is a lot of content to just these topics alone, so I should have no problem meeting the required length of the documentary with the other sections I plan to include.
(A lot more detailed research information on the Blog)

10. Shot List
Some of the shots that I aim to include are: -Close ups (people, objects etc.) -Establishing -Wide and Very Wide shots for setting up the location of an interview and the people involved. -Cutaways -OTS (Especially for an interview, add some more variety than just a Close up) -Point of View Shot (A concept for one of the opening shots, from the perspective of someone playing on some of the Nintendo consoles) -Time lapse shots -Cut ins (perfect for a potential fan interview, showing them playing the console at the same time as the interview)

11. Legal and Ethical Considerations
Legal Considerations: -Libel: Need to make sure that none of the content that I make for the documentary falsely damages someone's reputation (Interviewees, the Nintendo Company etc.) -Slander: I need to make sure that I don’t verbally, falsely damage someone's reputation. -Discrimination: It is illegal to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of sex, age, disability or ethnic origin. So obviously I won’t include anything discriminatory at all.
Ethical Considerations
Impartiality: With a story that possibly shows a controversy story by the Nintendo Company, I will have to show both sides of the story fairly.
Truth: Any facts or statistics that I use in the film, I will need to make sure that they are correct so that I don’t mislead the viewer and cause them to form the wrong opinion.
Privacy: Anyone that I interview or film, there Privacy has to be fully respected.

12. Production Schedule Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Weekends/Mondays
2nd May
Filming
3rd May
4th May
5th May
Possible Filming (6th-8th May)
9th May
10th May
11th May
12th May
Possible Filming (13th-15th May)
16th May
Editing/Reshooting
17th May
18th May
Editing
19th May
Possible Editing (20th-22nd May)
23rd May
24th May
25th May
FINAL SCREENING

13. Thank you for listening, any questions?