Insipration for A2 coursework

The inspiration I got for this idea is mostly off watching a lot of CBBC dramas when they are on, things such as The Sarah Jane Adventures, which has a sci-fi element which is close to a supernatural element, this gave me the inspiration for the older teenager because it has 3 older teenagers and one grown up and they go out and try and save the world, you could also say that I also got the inspiration for the part of one being more left out then the others, this is because in many of the episodes one character called Clyde  gets left out a lot when they go out as he always becomes a liability to the rest of them and is less intelligent. Another children’s TV drama that I got inspiration from is The Sparticle Mystery which is the programme where 10 kids are left on earth by themselves because everyone over the age of 15 has disappeared, I got the inspiration for using a younger cast for the children’s TV drama because everyone in The Sparticle Mystery is under the age of 15 and some of them are dressed like they come from a typical lower class background and others come from stereotyped upper class background. Another children’s drama which is like the narrative that I thought of is a series that was made last year and only made one series called postcode which focuses on the different social gangs of a certain area, in one part of the area where some children and teenagers live in well-off families and in the other part of the area is where other children and teenagers live in an area which is full of gangs and crime. This was a teatime drama which drew in a younger teenage age group. This links in with my idea of the 4 characters being the main gang which they all come from one of these areas which are run by gangs and this other 5^th character living in a well off family. But unlike the series Postcode which had only a small age group from younger to older teenagers say about 12-15 the programme series that narrative describes should attract 7-15 yrs as it has supernatural stuff and it has the lessons which older teenagers can look at and think ‘’that was me’’. Plus supernatural stuff can also attract the older teenager as they still are interested in stuff like that. That’s why The Sarah Jane Adventures was so popular until it finished.

The front cover nof the first series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. As said in the pitch for the DVD cover I want this kind of thing making one thing stand out on the front cover and making the others as part of the background. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7yBXPam6L4-trailer for series 3 of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Ideas on the title sequence and for the DVD cover.

This is the DVD cover for The Sparticle Mystery, it also has the same sort of idea that I had in mind with making 4 of the main characters stand out and making the other characters hidden in the background or not as bright as the other 4 main ones. It also gives the idea of the cast I wanted for my product.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBmTI1KfXqw- Trailer for TheSparticle Mystery

The main cast for the series postcode. Seeing the way they are dressed in the photo gives ideas for what the characters in the product that I want to create.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrXy5VAzJE4 - Trailer for Postcode.

Pitch for A2 coursework

For my chosen brief I will be trying to get the genre of a supernatural drama to the children’s TV drama as this genre seems to be very popular with channels like CBBC and other children’s channels but most of children’s TV dramas seem to be on CBBC and seem to be on at tea time or when schools finish. The age range I was going to aim for was going to be 7-15 yrs, I wanted this age because in most other children’s TV dramas this is what the age range comes from in the products that already exist.

The storyline that I thought of was 5 kids, 4 of them that are close together and the other who is a bit of an outsider to the other 4 but is close to one of them and is the only one they can trust. The 5 kids all come from different backgrounds, the 4 from a counsel estate where they have a tough life growing up and the 5^th being the one who is well looked after and is more upper class. The 4 group of friends wanted to escape home life so decide to go for a walk and the friend with the 5^th most unpopular person of the group decides to take as the other group of friends if the 5^th person can go for a walk with them. On the walk they get caught in a thunder and lightning storm where they leave the 5^th person to find where they are as they ran off with a pocket watch from the 5^th person, during this time when they reach the top of the bank a lightning bolt strikes them and blasts them away from each other. After they all end up in hospital together for a few days they all discover that they all have some sort of power, which are the 4 elements: fire, water, air and earth. These characters have these powers because getting hit by lightning is a natural disaster so when they got hit by the lightning they also became part of nature’s elements. They also discover that the 5^th person that was behind them had went missing the night that they were dragged into the hospital. As they try and control their powers, they come across an older teenager that has the same problem. The older teenagers power is that of lightning because he was the only person there when this character got hit however when the group of 4 friends get struck by lightning it’s almost as if the lightning split into 5 parts and gave the group of friends their supernatural powers. The older teenager gives them some pointers on how to control their powers, but this is when this older teenager is kidnapped by the 5^th person and his group of minions, the other 4 though don’t know that this person who kidnapped the older teenager was their outsider friend. The 5^th person has got the power of changing time in anyway of any person, the reason the 5^th character has these powers is because as the 4 other characters had his watch it also got struck by lightning and became electrical and when the character went to pick it up of the floor this character got an electric shock and also became filled with some sort of supernatural power to change time with his now magic pocket watch. The 4 friends decide to go on a hunt for the older teenager and to find out who kidnapped him. This is what I am thinking of for the narrative as it has a supernatural feel and it involves children/teenagers so that the audience can relate to the story a little bit, and especially relate themselves to one of the characters whether it is one of the 4 tight group of friends or the 5^th person or even the older teenage character, an older teenager may relate to the older teenage character because to the other 4 characters the older teenage is the type of person they want to look up to.

 For the cast, the 5 main characters will have to be children about to hit the teenage stage this is so the older teenager can actually look like an older teenager and look like the more responsible one. For the genders of the cast there could be 2 girls 3 boys as in some children’s TV dramas there seems to be more boys than girls this maybe because the genre of drama it seems more appealing to girls than boys as most boys these days would rather play video games or go outside then watch TV. Another part of the narrative maybe that the friend that is closest to the 5^th character which could be one of the boys of the cast, the friend could be one of the estate girls and has a soft spot for the 5^th person as they have a crush on him, and that is the reason that she is so nice to him. This adds more of the drama to the children’s TV drama. Then in the cast there are 2 more boys and one other girl. The older teenager can be another boy as it seems more sensible for the older teenage character to be a boy rather than a girl as although more females watch TV dramas, more males will watch a programme with supernatural elements in than females especially when they are at the age of playing with lightsabers and trying to be Harry Potter (one of my personal experiences growing up with my brother and his friends) and going back to the point of making the older teenager being a boy it would be more suited as this character isn’t going to be one of the main cast but is going to be important character and boys who will watch the programme and the other 2 boys in the main cast will find it more easy to look up to him then to looking up to a girl.

For the locations and settings for the product is mostly going to be outside as the series is focussing on what children get up to when they are at the age the characters are at and if the viewer and characters are from different backgrounds it will also have a lesson in it for viewers to learn off the characters. The most important setting that will be used is some sort of bank where the characters get struck by lightning. Another setting we could use is a small bedroom of one of the group of friends, or maybe just someone’s house in the sitting room where the friends could meet up. Another seen that could be used is a park or an open field. For the filming part and pictures we could either have a sunny forecast or a rainy forecast as it would all fit in with the storyline, so the filming could either be done either some part during the autumn or sometime during the spring as these are times when it most rain. The filming and pictures would also have to be taken during the day especially the outside parts if filming inside it can be day or night. The only part that may need a nice day on either cloudy or sunny is a part of the title sequence I am thinking of which is a part where we see the 4 characters using their powers when they first discover them.

For costume make up and props, the product needs to be as realistic as possible even though there is supernatural element, so there won’t be any super hero costumes or anything like that, the 4 characters that come from a counsel estate background could be dressed in stuff like tracksuits or stuff that almost scruffy, like trainers with holes in them and clothes that’s are too big for them so they look like hand downs from older people in their family. For the 5^th character he would have to wear more upper class stuff like jumpers and smart dressy shoes to shoe the audience that he is more upper class. With the older teenage character he could dress like he is trying to fit in with everyone who is around him so stylish clothes skinny jeans smart shirts that kind of thing. With the props most of the camera shots will have some sort of special effects on, as on the DVD cover I will have all 4 main characters on the bank where lightning struck them with them with all their powers so for example with air the character which has been giving the power of air will almost be floating off the ground. The 5^th character will also be featured on the front cover but almost hidden in the dark so you can’t exactly see his face but the focus is going to be more focused on the pocket watch that he will be holding in his hand which will be positioned in front of him as if he is trying to control time through the photograph. So one of the props will have to be a pocket watch so that it becomes the main focus of the ‘bad guy’ in the narrative and it also represents his supernatural power, with the older teenager, he will be in the background so you don’t really focus on him much but mostly the 5 main characters of the narrative. As I am trying to make it as if the programme was real to the children watching the drama the makeup will be minimal but there will be lots on the 2 girl characters as they need to look as ‘chavy’ as possible as that is what their characters are like.

Proposal for A2 coursework

For my A2 coursework I was thinking about doing a children’s TV drama as it looks interesting to do, plus there is loads of different children’s TV dramas about so I will have more choice on inspirational texts to choose from. Plus a children’s TV drama is a very specific target audience so will be easier to bring through in the final product. With the type of children’s TV drama I have picked is a sort of supernatural themed product as this type of children’s drama seems to be very popular with children. What I want to achieve with the coursework is to make sure I hit the proper target audience and make sure that it comes through in me work. This means looking up as many children’s TV dramas that I can find and relate it back to mine. Also I have decided to do on the brief the opening title sequence which is needed and the front cover to a magazine for the series and the DVD cover for the series.

Reflection on AS coursework

When I was doing my AS coursework I know I should of put more work into it including doing more research into working on target audiences. This is because I believe that in my magazine the target audience wasn't met with the magazine I was doing. I also think I should of put more time into the blog work.