From December 2012, I have been working on a
2-minute introduction for my television series. The narrative is about a
distraught young man seeking revenge following the murder of his best friend,
which is common in gang related violence in the British society. I decided to work with Silver Line Productions
who have created programmes that have appealed to a young audience.
I found 5 television programmes, 2 of which
were pre-watershed and 3 that were post-watershed. While watching these shows I
made comparisons and discovered that they all had elements of action and
thriller, this featured scenes of car racing, people fighting and violence. I
also noticed that post-watershed programmes had more of an advantage to include
other elements such as strong language, sexual content, frequent scenes of very
strong violence and drug use. I feel my programme would lose a sense of
realism, as it would not imitate the typical urban drama that teenagers are
used to watching. There would no strong language, or the use of recreational
drugs, or sexual content featured in my programme. I wanted my programme to
inform and educate the audience on gang and knife culture, which is an important
issue that affects many teenagers today in the British society and felt that
this would help raise awareness. My drama will also be appealing due to the
action packed thriller included entertainment purposes. As a result of
following my ideology and beliefs I decided to air my programme on BBC Three as
they also have a mission to inform, educate and entertain by featuring
documentaries and drama which attracts their young audience. For my audience
research I created a focus group and pitched my ideas to them and got feedback. Some of the comments made
from the focus group, were to include actors from a different age range who are
to make the programme or realist and more appealing to more teenagers. The
title need to be changed to “The Devil’s Playground” instead of ‘My Loving
Heart” Feedback suggested “My Loving Heart” would have mislead the audience
into believing it was romantic short film instead of an urban teen
drama. Lastly another comment made was to include more female characters and attract
more female viewers as it has a dominant male cast.
I decided to target the a demographic class
of C2, D, and E are the semi-skilled, educated I felt my storyline will be
appealing to males between the ages of 14-25 as they can relate to some of the
events occurred in the programme. However BBC Three targets AB and C1 these
include people who are skilled and educated professionals. The series not only
is targeted for my audience for entertainment purpose but it will also inform
and educate them on the gang related violence which is apart of British society
today, an on-going issue with great impact with today’s youths. Young people
are attracted to a certain lifestyle of riches and designer clothes and my
programme will reflect the brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Hermes.
These brands are not affordable to these youths but will feature affordable brands
like Duffer, Nike, and Adidas. I know my audience will have watched programmes
such as Top Boy and My Murder because of the relatable concepts as they would
have had a mainstream audience. Many people have talked about these programmes
stating that they were dramatically appealing and had a great storyline. One
thing I would have done differently is to include more women in the programme. Blumberg
and Katz: user and gratification: this is targeted at those who hare want to be
secure in life they want to be safe from those on the street. As a result of
this I have lost the female audience as they felt the show was more appealing
to males and also thought that I was portraying the wrong message about
females.
Youths are
represented as violent and dysfunctional with some having anger management
issues and has little effort in their academics studies but aspires to succeed
in life by getting rich off music, acting and sports. Because of the high unemployment
rate, society will think negatively of them suggesting they cause a nuisances
within their community, get in to trouble with the law and dealership and misuse
of drugs which is a stereotype which also leads to the theory of moral panic
(Stuart Hall) as the media created a dominant reading on teenager misbehaviour.
I reinforced into using a black males, this was done deliberately as I wanted
to give the audience what they have stereotypically though of black males
causing trouble and submitted into a gang I personally feel that in the black
community there is a major media focus on “black on black” violence with the
youths of today and felt this would be appropriate to use in my story. And I
feel I am judge on the colour of my skin and stereotyped to be a dysfunctional
person. But on the other hand I also wanted to include other ethnicities to
reach out to all races among the targeted audience and included 1 Asian, 1
Mixed-Race and 2 Black males.
The Internet
has become easier to access using smartphones, tablets and laptops, which is
used for social networking, research and other things. This has become apart of
general life today amongst young people. I learnt that I have a young audience
who use e-media site to communicate and socialise with their peers and
though this would be ideal to use this to promote my programme more
productively. As well as having T.V adverts I would create a page on Facebook
and Twitter that will include trailers, behind the scene videos, biographies on
different characters, competitions and link to charities such as The St. Giles
Trust and The Safe Network, some youth centres also offer workshops to support people
who are in gangs or being pressured in to joining one. The services offers 1-to-1
meeting with mentors which help identify the reasons why that have chosen the
paths they have and also find different activities to help motivate and steer
away from joining gangs. The NHS and other organisations also offer counselling
support on bereavement and ager management.
The scene of Tyler being stabbed was one of
the hardest scenes for me to do, which was due to the timing, lighting and editing,
as it was a non-linear scene. The recording of the scene was unable to brighten
up when using the editing suite and also found the continuity of the story was
not effective. In this scene I applied Propp’s theory as the protagonist hero
was waiting for his friend. His friend then decides to go home leaving the hero
own his own. To set the conflict between the characters I used Todorov theory.
The villains confront the helper causing disequilibrium. The helper has been having a relationship with
the villain’s girlfriend and at the end; the helper is stabbed by the villain,
creating an enigma code (Barthes) for the audience.
The scene of Anthony going to the graveyard I
felt it was one of the most effective scenes. This was due the shots I
achieved, this is including different background shots of the area, the
atmosphere particularly the weather, this had a great effective has it was a
cloudy day which reflects on the actor’s emotions which enabled him to delivered
a good performance. The lighting was also adequate on this day. The grey
colours in the frame connote, sadness, depression and anger and collaborated
well with the scene. When editing and placed all the scene in order it was
continual to the story. I set the auto-contrast on scene as it looked more
natural and set the genre as it felt like it had the ‘urban London look” to the
story.
To produce my magazine I used Adobe Photoshop
to publish my magazine. The captured a close up imagine of the protagonist’s
face and imputed text of their name in bold fonts to stand out from the black
and white contrast. The magazine also featured a double page spread about the
upcoming actor’s performance in “The Devil’s Playground” and also gave his view
on gang culture in today’s society. I wanted to use the black and white
contrast as a reflection of the protagonist’s emotions. They layout and
structure of text and imagery is easy to read and understand. One of the things
I found difficult when using Adobe Photoshop was that the text would not fit at
the front of the page due to the size of the front, solving this problem I
thought that if I reduced the size of the masthead I would be able to fit the
on the page. I had to change the font of the text to make this easier for the
reader. One of the codes and convention on the main imagine, if it is
appealing, this will act as a magnet for readers to want to purchase a copy.
Also I include a title of the television
drama in the programme at the end of it, as it informs the audience what the
drama is called and the scenes before it show what the narrative is about.
However when look back at some of the shot I took for my programme, I was very
disappointed at myself as I could of done and produced better shot to show the
narrative of the programme. I also had to find the right parallel sound to blend
in with each scene, as it’s very important as it expresses the emotions of the
actor.
I felt that I meet some elements of the
original brief such as the print and some aspects of the 2-minute introduction
but though I could have done better on the introduction. The house and
graveyard scene was the two that I put the most effort into due to the
cinematography and the editing, I thought I did very well on this. I feel that
my product will be successful in the media market as it as a good narrative
that many people can relate to and will be appealing to my young targeted
audience.
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