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Story Genre and Medium Assignment 2

Nonfiction proposal
1. Title, one-liner and synopsis.

Title: Everyone’s Environment

One-liner: A voice of the people style web series that explores people’s perspectives of the
environment, its issues and what they do to combat these issues.

Synopsis: Andrew, like millions of other Australians, is aware of global warming and its effects. By
changing his diet and riding his bike to work, Andrew does what he can to minimise his contribution
towards greenhouse emission. But does he believe what he and the government are doing is enough
to prevent climate change? Everyone’s Environment is a vox pop inspired interview web-series that
explores a different individual every episode and their beliefs of their ability to change the world.

2. Rationale.

The chosen format and medium for Everyone’s Environment would be an online web series. Each
webisode would centralise around one individual and explore different aspects of their life and
beliefs regarding environmental issues, mainly climate change. Since the interviewees would cover a
number of demographics and will not be interviewed for their professional knowledge, the
interviews would mostly be in the style of a vox pop discussion on the street, with certain segments
dedicated to parts of their lifestyle filmed and presented in more of an expository, educational
documentary.

Having this nonfiction story presented online would best suit the story for several reasons. As
opposed to television which has a scheduled air time, a video posted online could be accessed at any
time and almost anywhere. Even though many television channels have their own website or
streaming app, YouTube is still the most popular platform, accounting for eighty percent of the total
time spent on the top ten video streaming apps in 2017 (Burgess & Green 2018). For a webisode
about global environmental issues, there is no other way to broadcast this story than on the most
popular video-sharing website around the world. Furthermore, some television streaming apps
require signing in and creating a paid account which makes it more difficult to share videos with
family and acquaintances, which is a source of reach and coverage for Everyone’s Environment.

In addition to the incomparable global accessibility that comes with YouTube, presenting this
webisode online would also provide viewers with the ability to play and pause the video as they
wish. An educational documentary on the web would allow viewers to research or clarify any ideas
brought up by the interviewee during the videos if they wish to further their understanding or
investigate more through links to news articles, scientific findings, online stores and related videos in
the video description. An online video-sharing platform such as YouTube would best suit this
documentary webisode because it would aim to encourage viewers to do their own investigating
and educating. By using the features mentioned, the viewers would be in an “interactive position
[which] is the first step to deeper learning” (Orús et al. 2016).

By focusing each webisode on a single individual, this would allow the viewers to compare their own
lifestyle and beliefs with that of the interviewee on screen. Instead of presenting the effects of
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climate change and broad approaches of combating it, through this webisode, viewers would be able
to witness how people alter certain aspects of their lives and by analysing these behavioural
changes, it is easier for any inaction from psychological barriers to be removed (Gifford 2011). The
goal is to ultimately encourage viewers to adjust their lifestyles to become more environmentally
aware.

There are many YouTube channels that are known for their political and social awareness vox pop
style videos such as Asian Boss’s Street Interviews (BOSS 2019) and Steven Crowder’s Change My
Mind (StevenCrowder 2019). These are often different individuals being asked the same question,
whereas Everyday Environment would ask a set of questions to a single individual. Other influential
environmental awareness nonfiction television series include Showtime’s Years of Living
Dangerously (2014) with its educational aspect however unlike this documentary series Everyone’s
Environment would feature ordinary Australian citizens instead of celebrities.

Everyone’s Environment would best suit its chosen form and medium as a voice of the people online
webisode because it would allow easy access regardless of location and time while also allowing
viewers to further their own research. Using these benefits, the webisode aims to break down
psychological barriers preventing many people from acting against climate change.

References:

BOSS, A 2019, What Does Democracy Mean To The Chinese? [Street Interiew] | ASIAN BOSS, Street
Interview, YouTube, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl59t---30g>.
Burgess, J & Green, J 2018, YouTube : Online Video and Participatory Culture, Polity Press, Newark,
UNITED KINGDOM, <http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=5502950>.
Gifford, R 2011, 'The dragons of inaction: psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation
and adaptation', American psychologist, vol. 66, no. 4, p. 290.
Orús, C, Barlés, MJ, Belanche, D, Casaló, L, Fraj, E & Gurrea, R 2016, 'The effects of learner-generated
videos for YouTube on learning outcomes and satisfaction', Computers & Education, vol. 95, pp. 254-
269.
StevenCrowder 2019, THE STUDENTS DEBATE! (Part 1) | Change My Mind, YouTube, YouTube, 28
April 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiqD56BL614>.
Years of Living Dangerously 2014, television program, Showtime, CBS Corporation, New York, 13
April 2014
3. Treatment.

Andrew Wilson stand on a busy Melbourne city street dressed in his formal work clothes. The sound
of pedestrians and trams fill the air. Through voice over, Andrew introduces himself, his age, his
work and where he lives. Then in a talking head shot, he provides his own definition of climate
change and states that he believes climate change is the main important environmental issues. In
the background, you can still see and hear the busy Melbourne street.

The sound of the Melbourne city streets continues, this time with a focus on the vehicular sounds at
the same time as a montage of passing trams, bikes, cars and buses. Andrew describes how he
travels into the city, how he usually rides his bike while onscreen is a montage of him riding his bike
through different parts of his route to and from work. He then explains how he takes the train on
other days in voiceover over footage of him boarding a train carriage in the city loop. While walking
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past the Metro Tunnel construction site, he states that if the public transport infrastructure was
improved, he believes it would encourage even more people to use it.

Andrew describes his current lifestyle habits, beginning with recycling and reusing plastic bags. The
interview in voiceover continues over b-roll footage of news clips about Woolworths and Coles
changing to reusable bags. A statistic text box appears with facts such as “3.2 billion plastic bags
were given out by each chain supermarket” while the narrator describes the positive and negative
effects of the ban including the environmental footprint of the green bags. The narrator concludes
by stating how many times each type of bag should be used in order to negate the negative effects
by providing a timeline. Andrew then describe the hard rubbish he has witnessed around his
neighbourhood in voice over as a montage depicts him searching through some hard rubbish on
natures strips and pointing out items in good condition. Andrew continues to explain his new diet
with less meat and more plant-based milk. Another statistic box appears indicating the greenhouse
emissions of the dairy and alternatives industries while the narrator adds that there is more to the
environmental impact such as deforestation for farmland and ultimately with the exception of
people with dietary requirements, plant-based milks have less of an environmental impact than
cow’s milk.

We hear the sizzle of oil from a saucepan. Andrew cooks in his kitchen. He talks while he’s cooking,
explaining his progress to a more environmentally friendly diet. He also describes the recipe
concisely as he prepares the meal by chopping the vegetables. He places the chopped ingredients
into a pot and mixes them. His dog watches hungrily at the edge of the kitchen. Andrew chops up
some tofu and throws them into the frying pan. The meal is finally cooked and Andrew gets his plate
ready. He says that he prefers this dish with some hot sauce which he pours over his food. He
recounts the website he found the recipe on which he recommends and suggest that people should
not only look into recipe ideas from the website but also adopting a healthy diet with less meat,
adding that in general, reducing meat consumption should not have negative health effects if done
properly. A statistic text box pops up and a narrator voiceover support this claim.

Andrew walks along a busy street with fast food outlets and restaurants. He points out a few which
have vegan options; Lord of the Fries, Grill’d. In the street interview setting, he describes what he
knows is being done on a larger scale, such as vegan and vegetarian options being more prevalent in
mainstream fast food stores. He then describes the shift towards electric vehicles from his
perspective. In a statistic text box, statistics regarding the rapid expansion of electric vehicles’
popularity is presented with projections for the next few years. The narrator also describes the
benefits of having meat-free options for restaurants.

Andrew adds his opinion about these larger scale changes, that he supports these changes however
he believes more should be done. While standing on the city streets he describes that he thinks
climate change is a hard subject to combat because it is not the only issue of importance for
everyone and he believes that cultures take time to change, over cutaways of crowded Melbourne
streets. He adds that despite these barriers preventing society from moving forward as fast as he
hopes, he believes that large scale changes can be achieved if enough people began making smaller
scaled changes in their lifestyles without waiting for government action.

In an op shop while browsing through clothes Andrew describes some of these smaller changes that
he believes he should do more, one of them being op shopping. He shows a couple of barely used
shirts he found that fit him, noting that buying from an op shop not only saves him money but
means he can continue recycling in different ways. He also describes how he would be open to the
idea of introducing bugs into his diet, however he states that this would be hard for him to currently
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achieve since it is not so widely available. We cut away to a quick montage of news clips about
eating insects and a text box appears listing places around Melbourne which sell insect-based foods.

We return to Andrew on the city street. He goes into detail about how much he is willing to sacrifice
and repeats, in voice over, that he believes people making environmentally conscious choices would
be enough to cause changes in industries and governments – taking small steps would make a
difference in the future, while we have a glimpse of other people ordering vegan options at burger
restaurants, buying from op shops, using their own shopping bags, boarding trams and trains in a
montage. We cut to Andrew as he signs off. Behind him, the pedestrians of Melbourne walk by.

4. Interview.

Interviewee will be Andrew Wilson.

(To-be included as warm up question) Do you prefer if we use ‘climate change’ or ‘global
warming’?
1. What is your definition of climate change?
2. Where does climate change rank in relation to other global environmental issues? (Follow
up: Are there other more important issues that should be addressed?)
3. What are some examples of sustainable lifestyle choices and habits you have developed?
4. What is being done on a larger scale (community to national level) to combat climate change
that you are aware of?
5. What is your opinion these measures?
6. What should be done differently at an individual level in the future?
7. What lifestyle changes should we all adopt?
8. Do you believe if we adopt certain choices, we can see some changes occurring in major
companies (i.e. major polluters)?
9. Would you be willing to sacrifice parts of your current lifestyle, if say more drastic measure
were put in place by government?
10. Since climate change is a constantly evolving issue, do you see yourself changing any habits
in the future?
Anything else?

Interview audio file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16rHBAj_l6_4e4b1x2t28XpNXhiPq6rhC/view?usp=sharing

5. Academic Integrity Awareness Micro Credential

http://t.cred.ly/l/7dc126a0-a31c-48a7-9a01-8757a12bb381