Audience feedback

Newspaper advertisement production

 

The poster was created by using the photographs above. Each photo, in Photoshop, was edited by initially removing the background then changing the colour of the person in the photo. This was done by changing the hue/saturation levels (as seen in image) by simply moving the sliders until the image was right.

Each image of the models was then inserted to the canvas and edited in the same way.

 

 

 

 

After the models were in place, the black block and white text was then inserted to be displayed in the same ‘house style’ as existing channel 4 posters.

To give the poster its finishing touch, a simple channel 4 logo was added to the top right corner of the overall image, with it blending into the white background, it matches the poster and gives it a real professional touch.

Drafting newspaper advertisment

Codes and conventions of newspaper advertisment

All forms of entertainment have some advertisement in one way or another, so it only makes sense for us to get the word of our documentary out there. Without strong advertisement, nobody would hear about the film being aired, and therefore people will not be able to go out of their way to view the documentary.

Our main form of advertisement for the project is a poster, but before we began drawing up ideas we had to conduct a small amount of research on posters for other documentaries already being broadcasted on TV. We analysed around 5 posters with topics that have relevance to ours; one being the well known TV drama Skins.

By viewing and analysing professional posters we were able to easily understand the codes and conventions that must be included in a poster of our own. We focused on documentaries that air on Channel 4 on a regular basis such as 'Dispatches'. The reason we did this is because the majority of Channel 4's programmes have a very similiar target audience, ranging from 18-25.

Recording and editing radio trailer

Scripting radio trailer

*Background music throughout – “Jungle”*

00:00 – 00:03 = BBC News London Riots audio “You can see a police.. car being.. attacked”

00:03 – 00:10 = Voiceover “Are you a young criminal? Are you a chav? No?.. I thought all teens were..”

00:10 – 00:14 = Interview audio of teen “I think the youth of today, get quite a bad name”

00:14 – 00:21 = Interview audio of teacher “There is financial pressure, to lead the kind of lifestyle, that teenagers want to lead”

00:21 – 00:24 = Background music lyrics “You don’t wanna spend the night round here..”

00:24 – 00:30 = Voiceover “Kids These Days, Wednesday 16^th of January, 10pm, on Channel 4”

The radio trailer will be due to play on the following radio broadcasting stations:
Wire FM – Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn
Wish FM – Wigan and St. Helens
Capital FM – Major cities of the UK (and surrounding areas)
Key 103 – Manchester (and surrounding areas)

The reason for these stations being chosen is to spread the word of “Kids These Days” as much as possible throughout the UK, with Capital FM being the major leading broadcaster as it reaches the most people of the UK. The radio trailer will be unable to get broadcasted on major stations such as BBC Radio 1, the reason being for the BBC running it and the documentary is due to be shown on Channel 4.
The prime times for the advert to be aired are:
Early mornings (6-8am) – When drivers have the radio on in their car
Midday (12-2pm) – when workers across the UK have radio on in the workplace or are on a lunch break etc.
Tea time (5-6pm) – When drivers are returning home from work through “rush hour”.

Codes and conventions of radio trailers

Our radio advert is 30 seconds long. I believe we were set this task of making sure it was this length because the majority of adverts are between 10-40 seconds longs. In hindsight, I would have used the same narrator as the documentary to create a relationship between the radio trailer and the documentary itself. Instead, we used a variety of voices. By doing this, we showed the audience that more than one person is in on the project/research. This will make them feel like they are missing out, and therefore feel obligated to tune in to the programme. Every single aspect of the advert was included as it relates to our chosen target audience. Even the backtrack audio is relevant; Plan B has had a history of violence and street crime and is also involved in many films aimed at a similiar target audience to ours, therefore grabbing the audience's attention instantly. We also used audio clips from the interviews within the documentary itself to create a connection between the radio and the finished product.

• Usually involves some form of narration/voice over
• I have discovered that in the majority of radio adverts, a female's voice is used.
• Rarely monotone. The narrator will have revised the script and practiced and how present it.
• Rhetorical questions are sometimes included to get the audience thinking, therefore making it harder for them to forget about the radio trailer
• Presents the audience with questions (not always rhetorical)
• Slang words are used to connect to the target audience (18+)

Scripting Voiceover

Documentary Script

Start at 0:11:17 - A phrase used by the adult generation almost everyday in Britain; Kids These Days. More often than not, the youth generation are portrayed negatively in the media, the London riots being a prime example of this. Aside from this, many young people have taken a much more constructive and positive outlook on life, creating their own fun which is generally organised via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Finish at 0:35:25

00:47:02 - The younger generation have a great creative flare. The things that they have achieved could be seen as outstanding but continue to be unseen by many. Countless young musicians are pushing themselves off the streets into the intimidating world of professionalism.  01:02:00

01:09:17 - For example, a group of youths have organised, set up and hosted an event free of charge for their friends. This includes shelter, music, light and special effects 1:20:19.

Editing

This is the finished documentary, showing to be exactly 5 minutes long (showing 2 milliseconds over which couldn't be changed/closest to show proof).

Edit Decision List

Filming

Planning

Storyboard of title sequence

The first scene shows archive footage from BBC News of the 2012 London Riots. This will be an image of a main street which is crowded with many young people with police cars/vans all round.
The second scene is again footage from BBC News of the Riots but this time focuses on a youth smashing and causing damage to a police car. This is to show just how far the youths of London at this period of time, were prepared to go to show their "stand".
The third frame is where the title of the documentary "Kids These Days" is initially shown. The background will be black with multicoloured text, causing a contrast and independence of the text.

Storyboard of reconstruction sequence





interview frame drawings

The first interview will be of a teen female, standing outside of a college building to give the impression of her being in "free time" or socialising. This gives the viewer a feel for how a typical teen spends their free time inside and also, in some cases more importantly, outside of college.
The second interview is again of a teenager, who this time gets interview in a corridor against a plain wall with a poster of the college council displayed. This poster is of relevance in the mise-en-scene because the interviewee is part of the college council; but will also go on to mention about out of college activities and their view on youth culture and how youths are portrayed today.
The third interview will be of a teacher within the college. The mise-en-scene for this interview in set within a classroom with a computer and whiteboard in the background; giving an image of day to day life and the tools used within that teacher's life. Also, this teacher will be giving an opinion of today's youths and the balance between education and a social life.

Interview Questions

1. Why do you think teenagers should balance out their social life with their education?

2. How can a teenager’s education be affected by their choices of social activities outside of college?

3. Which is more important in your opinion?

4. What is your opinion on the youth of today?

5. What do you do in your spare time?

Running order

Footage of riots from BBC News. Shows a police car being attacked and also crowds in the street	10 Seconds 00:10
‘Kids These Days’ title screen is shown	5 seconds 00:15
Voiceover starts along with cut scenes from a rave and further London riots and social networking image as narrator explains points to link.	25 seconds 00:40
Footage from a rave shown with various camera angles including being in the crowd itself. Narrator continues.	40 seconds 1:20
Interview of teenager outside.	15 seconds 1:35
Archive material of newspaper article shown with voice-over explaining further into the story behind it.	25 seconds 2:00
Interview with another youth, member of the college council, showing the good/productive side of youths.	20 seconds 2:20
Reconstruction of a drug deal shown.	20 seconds 2:40
Video to still image revealing real life statistics and figures of information gathered by ‘The Guardian’.	25 seconds 3:05
Interview of an adult (teacher) at the college, giving their view on youth culture. (B-roll footage over the top).	1 minute, 20 seconds 4:25
Text on screen to play part of a link to following material of teens/young people on a skatepark socialising, making good use of their free time.	15 seconds 4:40
Footage of skatepark.	20 seconds 5:00
Cross dissolve to footage *courtesy of BBC3* from ‘Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents’ of young people in Malia (drunken misbehaviour) with voice-over	1 minute 30 seconds 6:30
CCTV footage of UK convenience shop being robbed/looted by hooded teenagers. Voice-over interview from shop keeper.	30 seconds 7:00
commercial break	3 minutes 10:00
Recap of footage shown in part 1 w/ voiceover	1 minute 11:00
Cut scene of 3 different young people’s stories of their summer time holidays being spent volunteering to aid university acceptance.	4 minutes 30 seconds 15:30
Linking into the volunteering, information of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, showing previous young people who have achieved the gold award.	2 minutes 17:30
Clip of the gold award being presented by the Duke to 20 young winners.	30 seconds 18:00
Commercial break	3 minutes 21:00
Recap of part 2	1 minute 22:00
Interviews/vox-pops at a UK college showing how extra curriculum activities have been taken part in by students. (clips of activities)	1 minute 30 seconds 23:30
Screenshots of teens writing out CVs in order to get part time work	30 seconds 24:00
Interview of one teenager explain his trouble with finding part time work	45 seconds 24:45
“1 month later”.. clip showing the same person now in part time work at a local supermarket & view on current life status	1 minute 15 seconds 26:00
“week in the life of” style clips of youth ‘James Parker’	2 minutes 28:00
James Parker interview on life aspirations and intensions of being you MP	30 seconds 28:30
Summary of documentary and equal side of youth culture shown	1 minute 15 seconds 29:45
End credits.	15 seconds 30:00

Research for Documentary

Primary Research:

We located very single interviewee in the documentary on college campus. This route was as college is a prime location for to find young people willing to provide their opinion on the subject; enough to pick and choose which footage to use or which will be the most We also found people in the older generation (teachers) who understand the current lifestyle of the youth as are paid to deal with them on a day-to-day basis. The locations for filming  include typical educational backgrounds to provide us with the mise en scene required; places such as college classrooms and corridors as many teens walk through day to day, and in a classroom. The teacher’s interview was in a classroom with a computer and whiteboard in the background for mise-en-scene. This was to portray his role as a teacher and so viewers can clearly get an image of what he did. The student interviews were filmed in a corridor with a poster next to one of the interviewees, which showed off her role in the college council as she explained her personal life. Another interview was carried out outside with brick wall in-sight, giving the impression of a vox-pop style interview from being caught off guard whilst having social time.
There was also footage from a skatepark of youths socialising filmed at a local park, showing their skills off to the camera as to what some teens do in their spare time. Alongside this external filming, there was a typical scene of a busy street with cars on the road driving passed, a series of shots taken to put a mini-film of a reconstruction together, and finally footage from a rave. The rave footage was to show the independence of youths today as they set this event up themselves and also provided a shelter, music, lighting and other equipment. This was to show the “let loose” side of teens and how they can express themselves without doing any harm to other people as the older generation typically think teens do these days.

Secondary Research:

This research equipped us to have plenty of relevant archive material to use within the documentary. There were a few pieces of music gathered which fitted into the documentary and radio advert extremely well, these being ‘Plan B – ill Manors’, ‘Porter Robinson – Language’, ‘Linkin Park – Numb’ and finally ‘Maverick Sabre ft. Professor Green – Jungle’. These songs were chosen for their relevance of lyrics to the visual material, tone to visual material, and lyrics/style to the overall meaning of the points being made.
The visual aspect in terms of secondary information, brought us footage from the London riots (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm8r8I7ApDQ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7H02HSip_c).
The others were not videos, more images to show a point being made by the voice-over, for support; these being a social networking image, and a screenshot of an online news article relating to an adult’s view on the younger generation in a negative way.
To be added to our original footage, we has statistics shown on screen from the following website (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/26/drug-use-england-wales-2011-12). 

Formal Proposal for Documentary

After much consideration, we have finally decided on a subject to base the documentary on. Our initial idea was snowboarding or winter sports, but we somehow incorporated this idea into Youth Culture due to it's relevance to keeping the youth off the streets. It will be an extremely informative expository documentary on how the media portrays the stereotypical image of the younger generation, involving the views of the older generation. We have planned to launch the documentary on Channel 4 as this broadcasting company airs similiar programmes to ours; the most well known being the ongoing series of 'Dispatches'.

Another contributing factor which influenced us to choose youth culture is the London riots which took place in August 2011. This is because events of this size can quickly change an older person's views on the youth, making them feel uncomfortable in even the safest of public places. It involved extremely negative behaviour being used by thousands of teenagers, and due to the media's strong coverage of it has become one of England's biggest mishaps in the 21st Century so far.

The documentary itself would be broadcasted from 9pm onwards due to the watershed being bypassed at this time. This was put in place to safeguard young children from being presented with explicit images or language on the TV.

Our target audience is 18 and above. This is because many younger people have yet to experience the life of a teenager, whereas people over this age will have a better understanding of the subject as they have been through it themselves; proving that things do indeed change over time. 30 years ago, teenagers would be put into work or further education and have a considerably less amount of time on their hands than we do today. We aim to show the older generation how we, the teenagers, are not as bad as they believe.

Our primary research into this subject is mainly taken from the interviews we have conducted to make sure we have an accurate response on the subject. Due to targeting teachers and people alike, we can get a range of answers from people who spend their lives with the younger generation; and therefore having a better understanding of what is important in their lives and what is not.

We have gathered the secondary research from information archives online, such as old and new news articles, archive video footage from online newspapers, and footage from news broadcasts.

The structure of the documentary's narration will be based on the most important parts of the documentary. One example of this would be talking through the general stereotype of the younger generation whilst showing footage of teenagers showing a positive attitude to society. We aim to show a balance of the respectful and positive side of the younger generation, whilst contrasting material that shows the stereotypical and negative side of them.

The resources that we require to create the documentary to the highest standard we can include high spec video cameras, modern editing software, microphones and tripods which are being supplied to us by Priestley College.

Brainstorming of content for documentary

Target auidence reasearch

Media Questionnaire Results

Before we began to create our film, we conducted a questionnaire. The reason for this is to collect the views and opinions of our target audience on what they would like to see documented. We would not be able to find the specific information anywhere online, therefore making sense to create and conduct our own to receive exactly what we want. In my opinion, the main reason a questionnaire is important for this project is because creating a survey is the most effective way to collect information that is not available elsewhere as a secondary resource. In hindsight, I believe that we should have created a hypothesis to then compare what we previously thought to the results of the statistical study itself. We chose open questions rather than closed; this increases the range of information that we can receive, and therefore giving us a better image in general of what our target audience would like to see.

Our questionnaire was this:

1)      Are you male/female

2)      How old are you?

3)      Are you concerned with you culture today?

4)      Do you think the London riots were negative

5)      Do you think there is enough help for struggling teenagers be it social/economic

6)      Would you say that students need too balance their time between work and socialising?

7)      Do you think a lack of education has links with crime?

8)      In your opinion does the Government do enough to prevent youths falling into a life of crime and deviance?

9)      Do you think that youth culture is a big problem within society today?

10)   Would you watch a documentary on youth culture

In conclusion we found that the vast majority of people would be very interested in watching a programe about youth culture. For exmaple there is a lot of contradiciton within peoples opinions that our documentary discusses. From the results of our questionnaires it clearly states that youth culture is a subject that isn't fully understood and very controversial. This greatly benefits our documentary as we can answer the questions and show both sides of the argument.

Initial Plans

Initial Plans

From day one of hearing about the assignment, the topic was set to Snowboarding. It was chosen because a considerable amount of knowledge on the subject was known within the group, and due to the intensity and danger of snowboarding, we intended to produce an extremely interesting and high speed film. Due to the interest in the assignment, we drew up ideas with a spider diagram on an A3 piece of paper so that the ideas and brainstorming were safe on paper.
Due to the level of organisation and money involved to film this topic, we opted to change the topic and began writing down further ideas. We eventually came up with a new topic of youth culture. By doing this (if we wanted to), snowboarding could still be added to the film if we had any archive footage that suited. The topic we have chosen focuses on how young people are stereotyped to be completely negative with no form of positive attitude on lifestyle whatsoever.
Our target audience is 18+ due to the aim being to get the message our to the older generation. The film is expected to be broadcasted on Channel 4 at a scheduled time of 9pm onwards, being after the watershed to avoid any offensive material shown to minors. The documentary will be named Kids These Days, taking the audience straight to the point, whilst also keeping its relevance to the topic. 

Brainstorming

Winter Sports:

·         Snowboarding and skiing

·         The dangers

·         Extreme skiing/snowboarding

·         Origins of the sports

·         The best venues

·         Events relating to them (Freeze)

Tattoos:

·         Extremism

·         Tribal’s and the meaning

·         Tattoos as a fashion accessory

·         World records

·         Celebrities

Dugs

·         Effects on people

·         The risks

·         Addiction

·         Drug related crimes

·         Government prevention

University fees

·         The increase

·         Government reasons

·         The effects on students

·         Why it has gone up

·         How much more will it increase

Take That

• The members
• The history
• The comeback
• Gary Barlows career
• The Robbie Williams situation

Music industry

• Illegal downloading
• How music has changed
• Controversy
• Genre stereotypes
• Differences from old and new