Market research....

These are the questions and results before being put onto the graphs above....

Are you male or female?

Male                      □   12

Female                 □ 8

What age range do you fit in?

12 and under     □ 0

13-15                     □3

16-18                     □11

19-21                     □ 4

22 and over        □2

Do you watch short films?

Yes                         □4

No                          □16

What two genres of film do you prefer to watch?

Comedy□9

Adventure□2

Action□3

Sci-Fi□1

Drama□4

Romance□4

Western□0

Horror□6

Urban□2

Documentary□2

Musical□5

Historical□2

On average, how often do you watch Urban Realist films?

All the time□1

Often□3

Every now and again□7

Rarely□6

Never□3

Where do you prefer to watch your films?

Cinema□5

TV□6

Online□7

Portable Device□2

Would a movie poster influence you to watch a film?

Yes□12

No□8

If a film got a bad review would that influence whether you watch it or not?

Yes □5

No□15

Are you more likely to watch a film because of..?

The poster□2

The trailer□5

Review□1

Word of mouth□2

The message of the film□2

The Plot□8

Focus Group questions and answers....

Inspitations....

This video has plenty of statistics about the 4 main types of child abuse.

There was a film that i saw not long ago called precious which is about emtional abuse from a parent to a child. And reminds me of the film that we are making becasue of the accpect of emotional abuse and how it can make you stronger or make you weak.



Research into Child abuse....

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child.Child abuse can occur in a child's home, or in the organizations, schools or communities the child interacts with. There are four major categories of child abuse: neglect, physical abuse, psychological/emotional abuse, and child sexual abuse.
The four main types:

Neglect: Child neglect is where the responsible adult does not provide adequately for various needs, including physical, educational ,or medical .

Physical abuse: Physical abuse is physical aggression directed at a child by an adult. It can involve punching, striking, kicking, shoving, slapping ect.

Child sexual abuse: is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent abuses a child for sexual stimulation.

Psychological/emotional abuse:  It could include name-calling, ridicule, degradation, destruction of personal belongings ect.
Out of all the types of abuse we decided to do it on Physcological annd amotional abuse because we felt that that type of abuse takes place more frequently and affects many people in some sort of way.

Statistics into physcological abuse:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/01/baby-p-abuse-children-care-statistics
In sept 2009 there was 699 kids put into care becasue of child abuse in the Uk alone. Approximately 46,700 children in the UK are known to be at risk of abuse right now.
One in four young adults (25.3%) were severely maltreated during childhood.

Additional statistics:
18-24 year olds
One in four young adults (25.3%) had been severely maltreated during childhood.
One in seven young adults (14.5%) had been severely maltreated by a parent or guardian during childhood.
One in nine young adults (11.5%) had experienced severe physical violence during childhood at the hands of an adult.
One in nine young adults (11.3%) had experienced contact sexual abuse during childhood.
Almost one in 10 young adults (9%) had been severely neglected by parents or guardians during childhood.
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/statistics/prevalence_and_incidence_of_child_abuse_and_neglect_wda48740.html

Feedback from our first draft....

In class me and my group presented our treatment and script to the class and teachers and we recieved a variety of comments they liked the fact that our film had a strong message and theme however there was things that we could change for the better.

Main Character: At first the main character being abused would be a female but there was some comments about how the main charcter being a girl is too typical and how we could change that stereotype to a boy since even though child abuse is rare on males it still happeneds. So that gave us something to think about.

Our Focus: In our film we had the idea of the main character being abused both at home and at school, however considering that it is a short film  and we only have 5 minutes both the abuse at home and school maybe too much. So we decided as a group to just focus on the parent abuse at home. 

Our audience: The teachers thought that we had to pay more attention to our target audience more, because we used a couple of swear words and graphic imagery which maybe too much for the audience that we wanted to attract. So we decided to steer away from the swearing and the graphic imagery to be more suitable for our audience which is teenagers aged 16-20.

Our message: our main message was 'for people to speak out when facing abuse' and our film didnt really bring that message across since all you saw was the girl hanging herself at the end with not much explaination why. So that needs to be brought out more.

So the feedback was very helpful in making our film better and more suitable for our audience.

First Idea's for my short film....

Treatment 

The Title- Speak 

What happens- The film is set in multiple flashbacks. We begin with what the audience believe as an ending of a diary entry, followed by a massive ‘crack sound’. It is then rewound back into an altercation between our main character and intoxicated mother, showing a very abusive relationship, and showing the protagonist in their room, trying to cope with feeling depressed (unloved/unwanted/abused). We are then shown another flashback of our main protagonist being bullied and beaten to a pulp (through dialogue we know this is not the first time). Back to their room, where it seems this time, there’s no way of coping, uncontrollable tears until... they stop abruptly. We are then shown back to the first scene, where we realize, it’s no longer a diary entry, but a suicide note. We then see the ‘crack sound’ of the young protagonist hanging themselves, breaking their neck.

Message- Speak out if you’re suffering from abuse.

Mother-   Addicted to pills and alcohol. Her background has unfortunately been rough, dabbling in prostitution, drugs, etc. She’s well known for being with different men and an overall bad influence on her daughter. Although she temporarily got her life back together, with a job and a new flat, she’s recently been made redundant putting her back on the road to destruction and addiction, worse than ever. Thus taking out her anger and frustration on what she believes to be, the biggest mistake she made- having her daughter.

Main Character- Dealing with an alcoholic mother and constant bullying by peers, our main character is a victim in every shape and form. Viewing firsthand through her mother the ‘wrong side of life’, she has been determined to make something of herself, working hard and focusing. She’s coped with bullying and bad treatment most of her life with ex-boyfriends of her mothers, and never really making any friends, however she believes she can cope with it, on her own, like she always has done. But abuse daily, from everyone, everywhere takes its toll on our poor victim who’s coping has subsequently failed now. Tired of being alone, unwanted, unloved, and just not good enough, she feels life is just not worth living anymore, and ends her life to ends the pain and torture of her daily life.

Bullies- Group of 5 girls whose aim in life just seem to be, to make (name)’s life miserable. Picking on everything she does, says, and everything she doesn’t do and doesn’t say. They bully her appearance, sexuality, mother’s reputation, the fact she doesn’t know who her father is, they steal her money, her work, her cherished item(maybe a necklace or ornament) . They’re angry, intimidating and very threatening, as theyre very tall, giving off a sense of cold heartedness. 

  

Codes and conventions of short films...

With short films there are many features, I have found while watching short films that there is mainly just one or two characters in the film, and there will most likely be a central protagonist who will remain centre frame throughout the film. Another thing i found with short films is that there is always a message to the plot so for example with 'Miss Newton' the message is to prevent young suicide.

With short films because most of them are funded by not so famous companies their budget isnt high so they tend to use point of view shots and handheld shots because they cannot afford the bigger more technical equiptment.

Voice overs are a very popular method of sound in short films because it is cheaper to record a voice over than use a high tech boom, however in most short films there is hardly any dialouge used at all. 

A short film tends to be between one to five minutes long.
A last point I have found with short films is that most of them are low budget, and this can be noticed wile watching them, there are no expensive titles used, but instead the ususal white font, black background. It is also very noticeable that in quite a lot of short films actors tend to be quite young (age 16-24)  

Examples of short films...

                                                    
                                                                        New Boy.....

This short film Captures the experience of being the new kid in school through the eyes of Joseph, a nine year-old African boy. Winner of Best Narrative Short at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and nominated for an Oscar. This film was giving a 7/10 rating. This short film shows how it is to be a new student at a new school and the problems they will face at first but later on it will be sorted. It is an urban realist film which you can tell by the way that it is filmed that it is not an expensive film to make.

                                                                   Miss Newton.... 

This short film was directed by a young man called Moufy, he came from a family where his father was in and out of the picture, Moufy does an excellent job depicting the trials and tribulations of everyday teenage life. Moufy’s ability to tell a story in the form of song is something that is hard to come by these days, with this short film he expresses the problems that young tennage girls get into drinking and sex so young and in turn leading to suicide (Newton is town in America where it was famous for young girls commiting suicide) so the message he left througn this song is very powerful and memarable. This is also like 'New boy' a urban realist film it is almost like a music video you dont view it as a film straight away.