Main idea

The storyline in this video will be about a group of teens who meet up before getting the bus to college. The main character, Seb, is having problems with his parents at home and he is woken by his parents arguing. He gets up and gets ready for college, he leaves and meets his friends at the bus stop. Sebs friends will be sitting on the bench at the bus stop waiting for him. Sebs friend, Luke, tells Seb he has some weed and he pulls it out offering to smoke some with Seb and Beth (Lukes girlfriend). The bus then comes. Beth gets on the bus and Luke and Seb decide to smoke lukes weed and not go to college. The boys then get hungry and go to the shop where seb says he has no money as his parents wont give him any so they seb has to decide whether he is going to steal it. The boys get caught stealing and get chased out of the shop. I want the characters to act unknowing of the camera at until the end where I want one of the main characters to voice over the party montage talking about life as a teen and to talk about the issues touched in the video. The issues I am going to be touching will include drugs, sex and how easily tempting these things can be to a teen of my age. I want the piece to include a few decisions that have to be made by the character that will effect the way that the story plans out. I want to touch on the idea that a lot of teens have nothing to do outside of college and how easy it is/ can be to go and get some drugs to pass the time. I want to follow 2 maybe 3 of the characters so I can show how each teen experiences something different even though they may live fairly similar lives.

Magazine

My video will be taking a lot of inspiration from the film "kids" by Larry Clark. I have decided that I will take some inspiration from the film cover and other forms of advertisement for the film. I have decided to do this because our films have a lot in common style wise and this has been specifically made for a documentary type drama. I like the idea of having the characters faces in the title this is something that I would add to my magazine spread as it is a good way of determining the main characters. The cover also has a large variety of colours which adds energy to the poster and emphasises the "kids" idea as the colours are very generic. The photo on the cover is interesting as it has a vignette round the image which is a photography technique where the image slowly blurs out. This is not a very modern technique so I will not be using this. I will be trying to make my poster look modern (to emphasise that the film is about modern youth) but will include elements of this poster. I want my magazine spread to emphasise the idea that my film is a social documentary/ drama so the audience is taken in by the idea that the characters are real people. The quotes at the top may be the way that I decide to portray my ideas as this is a good way to show off any USP without it looking too over the top trying to show off loads of ideas.

I have decided that for my double page spread I will be interviewing the actors that take part in the filming. I will be talking about what it was like to be part of the filming of the video and the actors views on the ideas in the video as the "actors" are teenagers that are experiencing the topics in the  video first hand. I will be asking them if there is anything in the film that was left out or that should have been put in. I will also ask them about any personal experiences that relate to the film/ video to give a first hand account of a teenagers life.

I plan to lay m double page out something like this. I will do a photo shoot with the characters in the locations that I use. The text in the bottom right will be the interview and the text over the page will be showcasing the video and all of the unique ideas surrounding it.

Looking at this advert for I am legend shows a photo of the film being shot which I think is interesting as it is not something you see everyday you only see the final outcome. This is something that I am looking to incorporate into my magazine spread as it will draw peoples attention and give them an insight into how it was made.

The story line

In each scene a different topic should be touched. I want the first scene to touch on the idea that if your life at home or situation with your parents is bad then your decisions throughout the day could easily be affected. In scene 2 I want to express how easy it is to be persuaded into doing things like smoking weed. Scene 3 I want to express the idea that a lot of college students are broke and some resort to stealing. I want the end to talk about how all these things together can be




Scene 1 - Sebs room
Cinematic shots of Sebs room while you can hear Sebs parents start to argue.
Main character (Seb) is woken up in the morning by his arguing parents. He rubs his eyes and sits up (looks frustrated) stands up, puts a tee shirt on and walks down stairs. A montage of Seb getting ready for college with parents arguing the whole time then starts and finishes with him leaving the door (parents arguing is inaudible). Seb then gets his bike from the garage and we have a shot of him slowly bike off towards college.


Scene 2 - Rec bench
Seb pulls up on bike to see luke and beth on a bench. They greet each other but Seb seems to be upset or annoyed by something. Luke brushes it off and starts talking about his night last night mentioning he has some weed left over. he pulls it out and sparks it. Beth gets ups and says she needs to go to college and asks if Seb and Luke are coming. Luke says no, Beth then asks Seb and Seb stops to think (Can hear his thoughts) "go to college and be miserable or stay with Luke for some weed which will make me forget about my parents". Seb chooses to stay with Luke. Luke says he has decided not to go in either as he hasn't done the work and doesn't want trouble. They talk for a little.
Scene 3 - They get hungry and go to a shop. Seb explains that he hasn't got any lunch or money for lunch as his parents were arguing this morning and he didn't want to be near them. Luke says its fine and goes to distract the shop keeper while Seb goes in and takes some food. The shop keeper notices them but they run off and do not get caught. Luke "mission success".

Aims and Intentions

I am producing a social documentary about life as a teen at college and how life at home can affect someone's behaviour outside of the house. The key idea is to mix concepts from a documentary and a drama together. I took this inspiration from a producer called Larry Clark who created a film that was filmed with some actors and some non actors who would reacted to the story line based off of their actual personality. I like this idea as, to the audience, the people are real people and the stuff happening to them is also real. This will make the audience feel more for the person and will grip them in, this is the unique selling point. This idea will also give the audience a good idea of what a teen is actually like outside the home which creates the documentary aspect. I will be using a documentary format but using dramatic elements to create suspense and too make it more interesting. I plan to use low-key lighting to create a dark tone to the visuals. I plan to use a variety of shot types and angles to make the video aesthetically pleasing and interesting for the audience. Another typical trait of a documentary is hand held camera shots, this adds a real life feel to the video and will make it feel more as if what they are watching is real life.




I will not need to construct many representations of people however I will for the people I choose to use as actors. However I will construct the most real and truthful representation of young people in the video as I want people to see that although some might do bad things their is a reason for this be it for attention, because they are struggling mentally or to try and fit in. I plan to give a balanced view on the topics shown as I feel that this is what a documentary should do. I plan to show that teens can and will be trouble makers however a lot of the time there is a reason for this and that there could be an underlying issue with the teen.


My target audience is 18-30 YO millennials and I intend to target this audience by using taboo topics that they can relate to. I plan to use this video to give viewer a nostalgic feeling and to remind them of how it felt when they were a teen.




My final product should conform to channel 5s industry context as channel 5 airs a lot of documentary videos and I feel that as mine is unique with the aspect of drama it would stand out. I decided to choose channel 5 as I feel my idea fits into its style. To decide this I looked at channel 5s commissioning page to see what type of programmes they are looking for.

Pitch

Title: TEENS


Logline: A documentary about a teen who struggles at home with his parents and we look into how this relationship effects his behaviour outside of the house and the knock-on effects this has.


Genre: Social Documentary


Audience: 18-30 YO Millennials who went to college/ sixth form and have indulged or experienced some of the topics touched on


USP: My unique selling point is the idea that most of the people in my piece are improvising scenes based on their real character this tells the audience that what is going on in the persons life is real giving the audience more of a feel for the character.
Convergence

Brainstorm for storyline

This page is going to be used to try and come up with a fitting storyline for my documentary.

• Teens preparing for a party the following night

• Teens with nothing to do looking for something to do (end up going and getting themselves in a bad situation)
• Teen struggling at home with parents and goes out to see his friends (how his relationship with his parents effect his decisions when with his friends)
• Teen falls out with mates and finds new friends that are a bad influence
• 
  

I will keep adding to this page until I have decided which story line I will use.

Treatmeant page

The Show: Urban Youth: Outside of closed doors
Channel 5
Target Audience:18-30 YO
Form and Style: (Genre) Fly on the wall style documentary
Duration: 2 minutes 30 sec to 3 minutes
Visual elements: Natural lighting (documentary style), and low-key coloured lighting for party environment.
Settings: recreational grounds, houses, college (maybe)
Audio elements: Diegetic sounds, non diegetic voice over
Inspiration: KIDS

I want to create a short film/ documentary style video that captures youth under unsupervised conditions and follow some people through day to day life and other environments. The aim of this documentary is to enlighten the audience into some important issues that teens face in and out of college. I will be planning a rough story line for the video but want the story line to seem natural (to create the documentary aspects) so I will be leaving some of the storyline or script to the people in the video and tell them to act how they would without the camera.

As the target audience is 18-30 year olds I think this idea will be very interesting as it will make them reminiscent of their teens and will show them how times have changed since they themselves were teenagers. Considering the audience is quite young I am expecting them to be quite open minded to some of the stuff that will be seen (especially some taboo topics) as I will probably touch on things such as drugs, alcohol and sex which a lot of people can relate to but not a lot of people talk about especially for my age group.

Documentaries

Looking through a selection of channel 5 documentaries I see a lot of them contain recreational videos that are created by actors. I plan to change this for my project as I want to look into using non actors that still express the views and facts that I want to perceive in this work. I want these people to be as natural as possible to show how teens actually are around one another. I feel that as a teen myself, for adults, I am usually a very PG version of myself which would rub off on the documentary and would give a false view of what life is like. I may even use a hidden camera at some points to give the audience a real insight.

Another thing I noticed about these channel 5 documentaries is that a lot of them do cover controversial topics and topics that have an obvious meaning. This tells me that I need to come up with a clear idea of what I want to get out of this documentary for the viewer. I think that if i went into detail about one of the taboo topics I am going to expand on it would fit nicely along with the other channel 5 documentaries.

Also in these documentaries most of them have a "voice of god" or a voice narrating the video. I think I will find someone with a good voice for this and go to a recording studio and record these clips. I will write a script for this and I will makes sure these facts are strong and contain interesting numbers/ statistics that make the walk away from the documentary thinking about these facts.

KIDS 1995

Kids is a film by Larry Clark that is about the youth of New York in 1995. The film touches on subjects of STDs, drugs, stealing and other issues that the youth of this era have to deal with. The film is given a main story line where one of the characters is faced with conceiving the HIV virus from another main character (Telly) and the film is about the girl trying to get hold of and find Telly to notify him about the STD. The film includes a mix of actors and non actors that would improvise to create the documentary feel to the film. This is the aspect that I am hoping to take for my idea. I want to create a piece that touches on subjects that the youth of today have to deal but with a story line that grips the viewer. 

Channel 5 Commissions

Emma Westcott – Commissioning Editor, Factual

I am looking for:

• Broad, robust documentary series for 9pm with clear irresistible proposition and intelligence at its heart, e.g. Shoplifters and Proud, Store Detectives
• Returnable 8pm series, some access or lightly formatted in broad subject areas that reflect who we are and how we live, e.g. Cowboy Builders, Gibraltar: Britain in the Sun, The Railway: First Great Western, Benidorm ER
• 10pm entertaining documentary series or one-offs, e.g. Hens Behaving Badly
• Schedule stunts with fast turnaround news documentaries, e.g. Philpott Housefire, The Ohio Slave Girls

Greg Barnett – Commissioning Editor, Factual Entertainment

I am looking for:

• Younger skewing entertaining ideas for the 10pm slot. Not necessarily studio based or your typical “shiny floor” show and not necessarily long runs. Could be an observational documentary or a soft format. Celebrity Wedding Planner, The Bachelor and Celebrity Super-Spa have all performed well in this slot.
• Shared viewing series ideas with broad appeal for 8pm. What are the current talked-about territories we are not covering? Is there a specialist or expert, or just a good soft format that’s so reliant on its casting that it feels consistently fresh?
• A witty and intelligent talent-led passion project for 9pm.
• A returnable series with broad appeal for 9pm weeknights.
• A new male skewing factual entertainment proposition for weeknights at 8pm.

Guy Davies – Commissioning Editor, Factual

I am looking for:

• 8pm: popular returnable documentary series in Channel 5 heartland areas. We have a number of strong, straightforward hits at present which hit our audience right between the eyes and dependably rate over a million e.g. ‘Yorkshire Vet’, ‘Traffic Cops’, ‘GPs: Behind Closed Doors’. So what are the new areas which have characters our audience will recognise and identify with, and which are broad in appeal to set up a strong evening’s viewing?
• 9pm: formats with real purpose and returnabilty. Tone needs to be more life affirming and key in to current concerns e.g. ‘Rich House, Poor House’, which found a highly successful way of exploring the wealth divide, class and happiness; or ‘The Great British Benefits Handout’ which rolled on the benefits genre into a ‘golden ticket’ experience changing lives for the better.
  • Reputational one-offs (90’or 60′ slots) which reinforce our commitment with first class talent to ‘state of the nation’ documentary and could fall within our new ‘Modern Britain’ occasional strand. Recent successes here include ‘The Accused’ and ‘Slum Britain: 50 Years On’.
  • Popular observational documentary series with big ratings potential that re-invent familiar territories, such as law and order, crime, medical, transport; connecting to our audience and their lives seen through a Channel 5 lens such as ‘Inside King’s Cross: The Railway’, ‘The Tube: Going Underground’, and ‘Squaddies at 16: Raw Recruits’.
  • Presenter-led series which allows us to explore big ideas and new territories in a Channel 5 way such as ‘Secrets Of The National Trust with Alan Titchmarsh’ or Ruth and Eamonn’s upcoming series on marriage.
  • ABC1 treats, mainly for Fridays such as ‘Britain’s Greatest Bridges’ and urban explorer-style history series ‘Inside The Tube: Going Underground’ and ‘Michael Portillo’s Abandoned Britain’.
• 10pm: intelligent, controversial and innovative series ideas which can punch above their weight in terms of noise, reputation and ratings – both for young skewing and ABC1s  e.g. ‘Gangland’, ‘Inside The Sex Business’ as well as true-life crime focusing on big stories interpreted for our audience such as ‘Fritzl: What Happened Next’ and ‘Soham Revisited 15 Years On’. And younger appealing returning series like ‘One Night With My Ex’ which entertainingly explored a well-established theme in a new and contemporary way.

Lucy Willis – Commissioning Editor, Factual

I commission in a range of areas, from specialist factual to documentary, popular documentary to light formats. I am looking for:

• In history, I’m looking for popular ideas with a unique take, fresh insight and a compelling approach e.g. ‘Elizabeth I’.   I’m also looking for some strong reputational history series on broad subjects and event pieces which could be stripped across the week.
• At 9pm, I’m interested in observational documentaries and lightly-formatted series made with style and intelligence but with broad appeal e.g. ‘Rich House, Poor House’, which has been a recent success for us and ‘The Hotel Inspector’. I’m also very interested in docs with strong storytelling e.g. ‘Inside Scientology’, and ‘Escaping the Witnesses’.

I’m always on the lookout for access to popular institutions and companies that will resonate with our audience e.g. our recent series on ‘The Tube: Going Underground’.

• For 8pm I’m looking for warm or funny (or both) popular returnable factual ideas – like ‘The Yorkshire Vet’ and ‘Celebrity Carry on Barging’.

Sean Doyle – Commissioning Editor

 I am looking for:

• Ambitious, brave and talked about series ideas that jump out from the schedule ideally for 8pm and 9pm Monday – Thursday, particularly male-skewing series for Mondays at 9pm.
• Counter-intuitive talent-led vehicles.
• Intriguing and compelling one-off documentaries that provoke a reaction, whether they are individual character- driven pieces or access pieces set in a world that provokes genuine intrigue.
• If ideas are in a territory that has already been explored by Channel 5 then what is the innovative twist or concept on how we tell the story?

Adrian Padmore – Commissioning Editor

I am looking for:

• Access-led or softly formatted 8pm series with universal appeal which have the potential to become popular returnable brands.
• Enjoyable popular-factual series for 8pm and 9pm with warmth, humour and loveable characters. A real treat for the channel which might also showcase established talent. Upmarket thoughts are welcome.
• Ambitious 9pm observational documentary series that offer a unique view of modern Britain. Surprising characters, clever storylines and territories that feel connected to the way we really live today.
• Returning 9pm factual or documentary series. Intelligent and compelling ideas with an unmistakable proposition.
• Upmarket entertaining factual ideas for 10pm with a populist tone.

Highlighted is the points that I decided were important to my decision of whether I go with Channel 5 or ITV

18-35 YO Millennials

The Brief to this project says that what I create needs to appeal to 18-35 year old millennials. This section will be for looking into this target audience and helping me decide how this will shape my end product.

According to https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/millennial.asp :

"Millennial is the name given to the generation born between 1982 and 2004."

"Millennials are so named because they were born near, or came of age during, the dawn of the 21st century – the new millennium. As the first to be born into a digital world, members of this group are considered "digital natives." Technology has always been a part of their everyday lives – it's been estimated that they check their phones as many as 43 times daily – and serving them has been a major contributing factor to the growth of Silicon Valley and other technology hubs."

I think the fact that "technology has always been a part of their everyday lives" is important as it could mean I look at different types of advertisement techniques for my show that incorporates technology.


Source: https://www.bustle.com/articles/136001-14-incredible-childrens-shows-every-millennial-watched-in-the-90s

To get an idea of millennials I decided to research programmes that they would remember from their childhood as I thought it would give me a good idea of the stuff that they would have grown up with and that would shape the sort of things that they watch now.

Arthur- "Based on the books by Marc Brown, these are the adventures of Arthur, an 8-year-old aardvark, and his family and friends as they grow up and learn how to be good neighbours to one another."    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zkX6kfnWbk

Recess- "Comic tales of a group of good friends, 4 boys and 2 girls, during breaks in primary school, as they grow up, relate to each other, and have brushes with authority."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zObiglKZKZc

Blue's Clues- "Blue's Clues is an American live-action/animated educational children's television series that premiered on Nickelodeon on Sunday, September 8, 1996"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34iAB-aaHcQ

 

ITV / Channel 5 4th June

ITV - Monday 4th June


6.00am Good Morning Britain - Non Fiction
8.30am Lorraine - Non Fiction
9.25am The Jeremy Kyle Show - Talk show - Non fiction
10.30am This Morning - Daily magazine presented by Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby - Non fiction
12.30am Loose Women - Topical chat show. Today, singer and former member of five star Lorraine Pearson joins the panel - Non fiction
2.00am Judge Rinder - Camera follows a criminal barrister Robert Rinder as he takes on real life cases in a studio court room - Non fiction
7.00pm Emmerdale - Fiction - Debbie fears that Pete will reveal the truth, while Chas holds out fro a miracle
7.30pm Coronation Street - Fiction - Rosie faces a race against time, and Gail fills in a loan application, putting Roy down as her employer
8.00pm Give it a Year - Business series, Karen Brady meets an injured sportsman with a new method of teaching tennis - Fiction


Channel 5 - Monday 4th June


11.15am Can't Pay we'll take it away! -Non fiction
12.15pm GPs Behind Closed Doors - Documentary Series, An ex-prisoner who has fallen back into a drug addiction seeks help - Non fiction
1.10pm Access - Showbiz news and Gossip - Non Fiction
1.15pm Home and Away - Fiction
1.45pm Neighbours - fiction
21.00pm The secret life of George Michael - Non Fiction
2.15pm Cagney and Lacey - Fiction
15.20 My Gal Sunday - Fiction
20.00 The Dog rescuers with Alan Davies - Non fiction
15.20 Her sons deadly secret - Fiction

my next steps

This page will be used for establishing what my next move on my project will be out of lesson time




20/06/2018 - Create some polls to establish what people want to see from my coursework, talk about the sort of programmes you see on channel 5/ ITV
25/06/18 - Look at some TV shows that millennials will know or will remember from their childhood.
26/06/18 - Research into channel 5 and ITV http://www.channel5.com/commissions/
https://www.itv.com/commissioning/ (this will give me an idea of what type of shows ITV and Channel 5 are looking for, for their channel.

Repsonse to Brief

After reading the brief, I am looking forward to going ahead with this project. My initial thought for this was a documentary style video as I feel like this would be interesting to make and to learn about the different aspects of making a documentary. However, I will need to look into whether the style of documentary and what the documentary is suitable and is relevant to Channel 5 or ITV.

Introduction to my Blog and coursework brief

My name is Owen Lupton-Pike, I will be using this blog to track my progress throughout my media coursework and will update this every stage of my coursework.


The coursework:
"You must complete an individual cross-media production, applying your knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework (media language, representation, media industries, audiences)."
"A cross-media production for a new television programme in a factual or fictional genre (or sub-genre/hybrid) of your choice"
"Create an audio visual sequence from a television programme and associated print materials to promote the same programme."
"You should create a cross-media production for a mainstream commercial broadcaster (either ITV or channel 5) targeting and audience of 18-35 year old 'millennials'."