Task 2: Treatment for a television documentary.

I’ve Seen Dead People

We rarely consider the impact of discovering a dead body. Those who are unfortunate enough to find a corpse are fleeting characters; rarely do we get to know their names or face, their feelings flit past unexplored and unreported. 

This chilling documentary, produced for Channel Five’s Extraordinary People strand (weekdays 21.00), goes back to the people who have made the discoveries to some of the most notorious murders in Britain. Through interview, actuality and stylish dramatic reconstruction, we explore the effects that discovering a murdered corpse can have on human life. 

We have access secured for our three main contributors, as well the local police authorities who were responsible for each crime scene. We also have secured an expert psychologist who’s role it is to make sense of the experiences and emotions that our characters are going through.

We begin with an introduction to our three characters; their names, age, place of residence, what they do for a living (before and after they made their discoveries). We then make a transition into a more visually stylish dramatic reconstruction, where we set up the scene for each character’s story in turn. A number of dramatic devices are used to build suspense and hold audience attention until the point whereby the bodies are discovered. Once each story has been told and reconstructed for the audience, we are then going to find out how their lives have been changed since. We will take each character back to the scene of their respective discoveries and through interviews with them, the police and a psychologist, the audience will unearth a glimpse of what it must be like to discover a dead person in such disturbing circumstances.

Trevor Saunders, discovered Gemma Adams- the first victim of the Ipswich Serial Killer.

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