Institutional Research.

PRODUCTION COMPANIES

In my Institutional Research I found out about a production company called 'Betty TV' (http://www.betty.co.uk/flash.php). I think I will produce my documentary to be targetted for this company. 'Betty TV' has produced documentaries for BBC and Channel 4, as well as others. It also appears to have already been involved in a number of documentaries which are similar, either in style or themes, to what I am intending to create for my documentary- such as Freaky Eaters 2, and Spendaholics.

Through doing this part of my Institutional Research I have found that every production company has a very individual style to its creations, I also found that the style of documentaries made/ involved with 'Betty TV' is similar to what I'm aiming for.


CHANNELS

I also did some research into what TV channel I could aim to create my documentary 'for'.
I found that 4 (Channel 4, E4, More4, Film4 etc..) as a company shows the greatest number of documentaries on similar themes to my own idea (mental health awareness).
Recently, 4 has shown documentaries such as True Stories: The Bridge, as well as the Bodyshock and Dispatches series.

http://www.channel4.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4

I also looked into the BBC because I had previously seen their documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, whilst doing Product Research. However I found that the BBC, whilst showing about the same amount of documentaries on relevant topics, that the style of BBC documentaries tended to be much more 'serious', and more reliant on location and presenter, and I'm not sure that this is an effect I could achieve myself...

Whereas the style of Channel 4's documetaries (in a generalised way!) seems to be, not less serious, but more of a accesible style, and seems to rely more on speaking... which, would also be difficult, but I think that it might be be easier for me to create a realistic looking documentary by following this style.