COMMISSIONS DOCUMENTARY UNIT: Research

My group and I decided to do the BBC3 "My hero" idea for our documentary. So, we each went and searched for ideas so we can then show the rest of the group what we think would be a good idea to produce. So I sat down and jotted down some potential ideas that I personally thought we're not the type of ideas that are 'typical' or in any way types of ideas that other students may think. With Sam what we said is to go for something original but meaningful and so when we show our documentary our audience is captured by the originality and depth of our documentary/story.

My main idea is inspired by the movie, My Sister's Keeper, which is about Anna, a young girl that was conceived to be a genetic match for her older sister (that is suffering from leukaemia), to donate compatible organs, blood and tissue in order to keep her sister alive. (Trailer below)

So my idea basically is about family heroes; siblings trying to save each other, parents trying to save their children and vice versa.
But through a lot of research, and after watching similar types of movies to get into the mood, I thought it would be a great idea to focus more on people with terminal illnesses that in some way 'survive' or have 'extended' their life time till their final days.
Stepmom is one of my favourite movies of all time that I've watched many times, mainly with one of my mum's friends that was suffering from cancer at the time and though the doctor's told her on many occasions that she only had 3 weeks left she always proved them wrong as she lived for another 15 years after her first diagnosis. She's my personal hero as she never gave up, never allowed the negativity of her illness to affect her and always tried to do what she loved: travel, food, fun. 
I remember that we always used to watch the movie Stepmom when she had to announce that her condition has getting worse, but she always had a significant smile and she always joked about it constantly. 
So Stepmom is about a terminally-ill mother that has to settle on the new woman in her husband's life, who will be her children's new stepmother. Throughout the movie we see this vulnerability
through the mother's character which, I personally think, is the main reason why it engages the viewers so well. (Trailer below)

Another example is the movie, The Fault In Our Stars, which is based on the book by John Green and will be coming out soon (June 2014). This vulnerability and this desperation to not face reality but to carry on with your life even if you're suffering a terminal illness, is the message I want to show through our documentary. My main goal is to capture this intense atmosphere of how current sufferers are coping with their everyday life but are trying to overcome or ignore the negativity that comes with it. 
The Fault In Our Stars movie's pitch however is: "Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten."
(Trailer below)

Thank you for reading, and I will surely be posting more soon.
Yours,
I.