3 Minute wonders research

What is a 3 Minute Wonder?

Shown on Channel 4, a 3 Minute wonder is a short piece of film directed by an unknown or up and coming director in the aim to show off their work to the public. Since the segment is shown during prime time then the director is able to get the most and the most reliable feedback from the public. Channel 4 offers new directors up to £4000 from which you can use for travel or costume etc. plus you get Channel 4's assistance with filming and editing. The 3 Minute Wonder is then aired on Channel 4  between 7:55PM and 8:00PM every day of the week.

What is the purpose of a 3 Minute Wonder?

The purpose of a 3 minute wonder is to bring attention to a unique director in the hope of gaining both publicity and renown and it is a stepping stone for filmmakers to getting into the industry.

What topics would you expect to see on a 3 Minute wonder?

The topics shown on a 3 Minute wonder tend to be the subjects that are of an unknown and interesting origin hence the term wonder. Usually factual in content although sometimes for example can be purely voiced opinions. 3 Minute Wonders can range from the lighthearted to the completely serious.


My favorite 3 minute wonders

2 of my favorite 3 minute wonders are from the same 4 part series 'The Wall'. In this series we are shown  4 different pieces of street art by 3 different people and 1 team of people. I have learned about the reasons why people have go into street art and the techniques behind the creation of pieces. The people in this series are not all the sorts of people you might associate with graffiti for example you might assume them to be: young, thuggish and of a low class. However we can see that street art has a wide range of age and class groups that all share a common admiration for what many consider as vandalism. Now what these people do is actually street art and brings joy and admiration to and from the public, this is not the standard 'tagging' in which thugs write mindless swear words or meaningless signatures; as though they are proud of their antisocial behavior. These are exactly the types of graffiti that gives street art a bad name. The style of documentary as far as I can tell is that of an interactive origin, this is because the artists are directly addressing the camera.

TV listings for Documentaries/Factual programming research

According to my Primary research, Channel 4 shows 565 minutes of factual/documentary based programs. This is equal to 9 hours and 41 minutes which is 39.23% of all programs broadcast within a 24 hour period. This is a substantial amount and shows that there is a huge market for factual and documentary based programming. Channel 5 on the other hand shows 370 minutes of factual/documentary based programs, this equates to 6 hours and 16 minutes which equals to 25.69% of all programs broadcast within a 24 hour period. Although not quite as high as Channel 4, 25%+ is still a massive amount in the grand scale of things.

Here are some really interesting BARB figures about the top 10 viewed programs on a given night:

8/10 of the top ten programs listed on March 2nd were ither documentaries or factual based programs which is actually quite a surprise, I didnt realise quite how popular the genre was.

Market Research

After searching onYouTube for potentially similar 3 minute wonders I stumbled upon quite a little gem, it follows two serious body builders one is male and the other is female and it tells two very interesting stories about how they became addicted to the bodybuilder lifestyle. I felt quite bad for the guy since it had caused him body dysmorphia; a condition where when looking in the mirror you see something different to what the world sees and so he never feels like he is happy with his own body. Now I found that strange, I thought people that trained on their physique would be happy about how fit they were so it was an eye opener definitly to see the adverse effects of bodybuilding. Although there were only short of 1000 views on the video there were no dislikes present and a good few likes which does show that people enjoy seeing into the lives of bodybuilders. I think I can take some inspiration from this 3 minute wonder and given its mild success I have had a little boost of confidence added to my project which is always a bonus.

I also found another one which is more similar to the sort of thing I aim to do with my documentary it is pretty well done and was actually done as a student project similar to what it is that we are doing, although ours will focus on multiple people a different gyms so there are some similarities but there will also be some uniqueness to mine aswell. This one was recieved fairly well again with a low view count but regardless it again shows that people share an interest in the gym as far as documentaries go.