You can pitch ANY KIND OF DOCUMENTARY FILM, any style, any subject matter, set in any country. It must somehow be connected to the theme of ‘Beautifully Engineered’ though. Remember, you can creatively connect nearly any story in the world to this theme. If not through the topic, perhaps through the way you might structure the film?

It doesn’t matter if you have started filming already, or if it’s a gem of an idea that you know you could do justice to. The point is to express your intentions within a film format, rather than on a piece of paper, or a chat over tea. Make a clip, upload it and email over the link to fourdocs@channel4.com with ‘Beautifully Engineered’ in the title line. Entries need to be in by 6pm on 28th of November 2008. The winner will get £5000 to spend on a camera of their choice. I’d be choosing the Sony Z7 I think, how about you?

As we’re drawing a close to our 3MW My Home Town competition, I’m sure you’re wondering what we’ve got up next for you. Well, we’ve teamed up with Passat, who sponsor documentaries across Channel 4, and sorted out a pretty amazing prize, and a new type of competition.

Instead of submitting a finished 3 minute film, we want you to pitch an idea for a longer documentary that you want to make, loosely based on the theme ‘beautifully engineered’. However, you need to make your pitch online! What we looking for is people who think filmically, so this is not the place to just talk us through your idea.

We want to see your style and flair, or meet your character, or understand a little of what the film might feel like. Rather than a taster tape, what we’ll be looking for is a visual mood board that will convince us that you’re a creative director with vision and a story, who needs to be let loose. Then, in November we’ll pick the best pitch, and give them £5 000 to spend on equipment to get the film made. How does that sound?