ALL CAMERA WORK AND ORIGINAL CUTS AND REHEARSAL SHOTS ETC.
Friday, 11 September 2020
WEBSITE
https://bradleybissett.wixsite.com/website
Can view main product half way through the home page, in a bright E4 purple colour, as a Vimeo clip and also at the end of the Cast and Crew page as it's mentioned in the interview.
Audio Visual at the bottom of the 'Cast and Crew' page (or by pressing 'Interview with Bradley')
PLANNING PRODUCTION
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Above are the original plans/story board based on my original plan of a school-based, COVID affected show... some of the original shot ideas such as the opening shot are still in the final production.
It was important to me that not all scenes/moments were rehearsed/scripted to truly achieve a realistic reality-show feel... hence why a lot of the moments came from just filming for hours and seeing what I say or do as I really wanted to achieve as many moments of natural comedy as possible... below is a folder full of clips and videos that I had to deal with when editing and choosing what moments made the final production cut.
The above link also contains many cuts and drafts of the coursework on which I have improved every time and taken advice of peers in the target audience to make the final production.
Original idea for intro/title sequence, a rough design and can use videos of moments/characters that didn't make the first 3 minutes in to the production...
original cut didn't have a seperate title sequence but it felt flat and after watching other shows realised it needed a unique title sequence in the first 3 minutes but I really wanted to keep the cold open I had already filmed so put it after the cold open.
AUDIENCE PRODUCTION
Using a demographics table I identified that the audience for this documentary laid in between categories C2 and E. 16-25 year olds are the target audience because young students would want to see how other schools learn and organise themselves. Ex students of the school also might want to explore the progression of the school and be able to highlight the differences and similarities between when they attended. The main point however we think is that the youth can relate to the people being shown on the programme hence the varied representations in the show. The young audience finds themselves comparing their school life to the ones being shown on the screen.
The theme of Covid means it would still be enjoyable for the people at the upper range of 16-25 year olds too, as Covid has affected every person in the last 2 years and 2021's TV viewing figures showed that a Covid-themed programme proved to do well with viewing figures... with 'Finding Derek', ITV's Covid docs and the Casualty Covid special in the top 25 viewed TV shows of 2021.
We are also able to get a rough idea from Educating Yorkshire, fellow E4 school-based reality show, which had an identical target market and raked in regularly over 2million viewers.
Due to wanting to create a genre-hybrid it was important to watch, research and borrow from the most popular shows from both the Mock/Documentary genre and Reality Shows...
I focused my attentions on- Love Island (The modern hit for the bottom end of the demographic), Big Brother (The Original hit reality show for the upper end of my target audience), I'm A Celebrity (The timeless classic), The Office US (The best example of a hybrid genre- Mockumentary and Sitcom), The Office UK (The inspiration for the mockumentary hybrid and controversial characters... Brent-Inspiration), Drive to Survive (A popular documentary with interviews and ,manipulating real footage to create narratives/drama)
To see what I borrowed from each show I researched see C+C Production.
C AND C WEBSITE
I had to borrow the same codes and conventions used by Channel 4 on their website due to taking direct inspiration from their website due to my show being a product from E4.
Purple and Black Colour Scheme- BRAND IDENTITY. It was very important to maintain the black and purple colour scheme as those colours are directly linked to the Channel 4/E4 brand and in the TV world those colours are connoted with the Channel 4 brand, much like red with BBC.
Centralized design- The E4 website has a very centralised design with the website being divided by strips and rows down the website with different boxes and TV shows
Advertising- The real website is littered with other E4 shows to watch and advertising their other products however although it was crucial to maintain this to an extent, hence me having a 'More like this..' section to provide links to watch other E4 shows like mine, I used less than the E4 website as mine was focused on pushing the release of my new show rather than being a promotional tool for the channel itself.
Cast and Crew- As E4 don't have specific detailed pages with full run-downs of all their reality shows I also had to borrow conventions from the MTV website which has specific pages for each of their reality shows which is where I got the idea of a Cast and Crew page... They have an area for each of their shows to look at the names and pictures of the cast and crew and had interviews with certain people hence my Audio Visual element of my website...
Interview- Director- As it is a new show I thought it was important to have an interview with the person behind the show rather than on the screen. Someone who can advertise the show and has the best idea about what the show is all about and gives us opportunities to push more clips and moments from the first series that maybe wasn't in the released first 3-minutes as it feels like an exclusive.
C AND C PRODUCTION
When creating a popular reality show it is important to use codes and conventions of the most popular reality shows on TV from the past 15 years and also borrowing C+C's from doc and mockumentaries
as I wanted to create a hybrid-genre show combining certain mockumentary features but using real non-scripted footage making it a reality show. The reality shows I prominently used were Love Island, Big Brother and Educating Yorkshire and also borrowed conventions from The Office (mockumentary and Brent-Esque characters) and Drive to Survive which uses real footage and interviews to create narratives and storylines even if they're slightly exaggerated or manipulated.
Interviews- A crucial part of both reality shows and documentaries therefore had to be a fundamental part of the opening of the series... made popular by 'Big Brother' but used in all the shows I was inspired by.
Cold-Opens- Less of a reality-show feature but inspired by The Office which always opens with a quote from an interview with one of the 'stars' and the naturalistic 'pre-action' interaction between crew and star is common in many documentaries including Drive to Survive which is popular with the same target audience as my show.
Fast-Paced- Due to comedy being a crucial part of the show, it was important to me to make the show fast-paced (borderline Sitcom-like...The Office US) as this also emphasises the slowing of pace for comedic effect. As my production was an opening 3 minute sequence it's even more important to keep the pace up as I liked the Love Island convention of a short action-packed montage of the best bits at the beginning of each episode as it keeps the audience waiting for those moments throughout the episode and clearly works as it has been the highest viewed UK reality show for the past 6 years.
High energy music- Another Love Island convention... Where they layer topical music under the action and helps to keep the pace up.
Free hand camera movement- A very important Code and Convention I chose to utilise as it increases the 'realness' of the peace and makes it feel like a reality show rather than a high production documentary and that is why all the 'scenes'/moments are one shot as it is important we capture real moments rather than a 'slick well-rehearsed multi-shot scene).
Direct address- A convention heavily inspired by The Office (David Brent) in which certain characters (in our case students) can't 'ignore' the camera and have an urge to acknowledge the camera with a 'wink' at the end of the 3 minutes or the character who turns around to the camera when he gets sent out of the classroom... happens twice in the 3 minute montage I produced.
The Title Sequence- The most iconic reality show title sequence is I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! so I borrowed ideas from that... an introduction to the stars the audience will meet throughout the series and the perfect synchronisation of the visual goings-on and the music (School's Out) as each Video, Word and Picture arrives and leaves the screen perfectly in time with the beat of the music... much like the falling letters in the I'm a Celeb title sequence.
School-Based Reality Show- The 'Educating' series which spends a year in the most difficult schools in the country is very popular on Channel 4 but because it is popular and has already been done it was crucial to combine it with the Mockumentary genre with a focus on comedy to differentiate it from its competition as it is different from anything else on TV.
STATEMENT OF INTENT
How do you
intend to use the four areas of the media theoretical framework to communicate
meaning and meet the requirements of your chosen brief?
In my TV show, I want to present a realistic, yet dramatized
perception of the previous year at school for sixth former's who missed their GCSE’s
due to the Covid lockdown and them adapting to Sixth Form life. The opening
sequence will be to a ‘Educating Yorkshire’ style show, which was also shown on
E4, which is the channel my product is for but this sequence has a
sitcom-mockumentary feel to it, with a cold-open interview and a montage of
dramatized situations, it is a montage of the best bits from the episode/series much like many modern popular reality shows such as Love Island. It would be successful, financially and critically, due to
the lack of mockumentary-style reality shows on TV at the moment and the success of ‘Educating
(Yorkshire)’, from which it is heavily inspired. I want to portray realistic
and varied representations of teenagers, as they are the target audience, and
will want to be able to relate to the characters and recognise values in
themselves and their peers in the characters. The characters will be from a
range of social groups as made clear in the title sequence of the first episode, although the first episode focuses on one character mainly the title introduces a wide range of characters you'll meet throughout the series and due to the preferred pluralistic view I want the
audience to have, their will be a range of stereotypes and countertypes in my
characters, as the audience will be aware of the variety of characters and
personalities in a school. Because of the 16-25 year old target audience,
making the characters stereotypical would be a mistake as they have witnessed the
school environment first-hand recently and will not be convinced by weak,
stereotypical perceptions of teenagers.
My website is simpler than my TV show production due to the
show being restricted to a specific channel, E4. My website will be heavily
inspired by the E4 website and will advertise their other shows and stars.
Their will be an overview of the show and an idea of the making of the show at the start of the website, partnered with the opening sequence of the show as a Vimeo clip to grab
the audience and see if the show is for them. The website will have a button
that will lead them to a ‘Meet the Cast’ page with exclusive interviews with the director of the show. It will also have links to the stars social
media, because we want the target audience to be emotionally invested in these
star’s lives and social media is a way of reaching out to the 16-25 year old
demographic. Also, as I'm taking heavy inspiration from the Channel 4 website, I advertise other E4 TV shows similar to 'Class of Covid' much like they do on the actual website.
How do you
intend to link your media products to demonstrate your knowledge and
understanding of the digitally convergent nature of your media production?
Because my main product is the opening sequence to the pilot
of a longer TV series, it will be available to view on the website itself, as it encapsulates the whole nature of the series and
will give the audience an idea of the cinematic style of the series and a rough
idea of the characters they will be following over the episodes as much like many popular reality shows- the series starts with a preview of the series as a whole. The clip
will be a Vimeo clip , therefore leading the audience to the TV Show’s channel, with sneak-peek’s, interviews and behind the scenes footage,
which is the key to the wide-spread popularity of a TV show, aiming for the
16-25 year old demographic.
Coursework Brief
You work for an independent media production company. You have been given the task of producing a three-minute opening sequence of a new reality television programme for E4, and two pages for the working website for the programme.
Opening sequence of a pilot for a reality television programme: One, three-minute opening sequence. • Broadcast channel and time: Content must be suitable for early evening viewing on E4. • Number of web pages: One homepage and one linked page. • Cross-media production target audience: A primarily 16–25 year old mass market audience that expects to be emotionally engaged.
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