Eleanor and Jayden - the chosen idea.

After a pitch and treatment session we quickly decided to focus on the first idea - Baby Jayden and his mum, Eleanor. We already had the consent in place and Eleanor was more than happy to let us film her. We came across a fund raising page that she had set up and decided that this could help us to think of some questions.

We thought that creating a video that she could use on her websites such as the one above would help her cause and raise awareness about the cancer itself and just how it affects their family. As a group we decided that we wanted this piece to be straight to the point rather than an emotional journey. This would help tell the story better in 5 minutes and also better grab attention. We decided that asking particular questions via interview in their home would help focus the story on them rather than other voices. We wanted Eleanor and Rebecca to be the focus as we realised how this must have affected their life. We quickly created a list of questions to create 2 interviews. We also wanted information about Jayden that wasn't interview based such as medication he was on. Also, the key point was how you can raise money.

We created a list of around 20 questions to give us lots of footage to work with during the edit. We thought really hard about the questions - thinking about what would be key to know about this story as an audience. We also had contact with a doctor from the charity "Star Throwers" who agreed to send us some information based on questions we sent him. We thought this was important as it gave us correct information on the cancer Jayden has.

We want the documentary to be observational rather than participatory. This is because we want Eleanor to feel comfortable and tell us her story. Using observational will make our story flow better and not seem so rehearsed. Especially as we are filming in Eleanors home we feel it's important she feel natural and tell us her story in her words. We also wanted to observe her environment so it feels like a day in her life. We were informed that her other 2 children would be on set when we got there and we wanted to involve them as much as possible to show that they're a loving and close family.

The outline:
The outline we intend to use for this documentary is set in 3 parts to cover the key information. By doing this it doesn't throw the audience and they can easily follow the story and feel more compelled to help.
- Introduction to Eleanor and her family. E.g. Who is she? Who is Jayden?
- Jaydens cancer. - How has it affected the family?
- Information on the cancer and how you can help. - Facts & Figures, websites, what the cancer affects and why it's so rare.

Although the initial response to this idea was a little uncertain due to the nature of the topic we still went with this idea as we thought as a group that it was more important to us that we create a piece that will actually help someone and raise awareness on a serious subject. It also pushed us out of our comfort zones majorly as we were all used to creating more artistic pieces of work. Overall, this will help our development as filmmakers.