Production Schedule

Analysis of my final question (initial idea)

When I finally pieced together my first idea I decided to ask my target audience one last question, whether or not they liked the idea. I did this by typing out my initial idea (as shown below) and asking the participants to tally in either the ‘yes’ column or the ‘no’ column depending on whether they liked my idea.

Would you watch a drama with the following narrative?
After reading the following please tally your option in the table below.

Jimmy was born into a Romany Gypsy family and inherited a vibrant and loyal culture. But when his beloved father as tragically murdered in a bare knuckle fight, Jimmy is taken to the heart of Manchester to start a new and exciting life with his mother.

Soon after the young boy’s life is, yet again, turned upside down when his mother meets a common gypsy man with a history of secrets and abuse.

In no time Jimmy is being taught the true but cruel way of traditional Romany Gypsy life leaving his feeling frail and worthless.

Eventually Jimmy is left to make an agonising decision – to stay and protect his mother but keep secrets never to be told or escape the world and journey through the rest of his years in search of somewhere he could truly belong.

However, on his epic journey he sees himself stumble across a variety of communities, cultures and race but meeting new people, as we know, cannot always be a positive thing.  

Will Jimmy regret sacrificing his nomadic life?

YES	NO

My results were as follows:

• Out of the 30 participants I asked only 2 said they didn’t like my idea
• When asked what the reasons were for not liking it they replied with “I do not understand the gypsy lifestyle therefore I don’t think I’d understand the programme”
• Out of the 30 participants I asked a massive 28 said they liked the idea and said it was “creative”

A 16 year old student commenting on my initial idea:

Permission from the participant that I can use this video of him:

From this it is clear I do not need to adapt my initial idea to suit my target audience as the majority think my idea is good and suitable.

My initial idea

Throughout my media product I will be showing the following teenage life struggles:

• Drug problems
• Teenage pregnancies
• The struggles at home
• The struggles at school/ education

 The narrative

Jimmy was born into a Romany Gypsy family and inherited a vibrant and loyal culture. But when his beloved father as tragically murdered in a bare knuckle fight, Jimmy is taken to the heart of Manchester to start a new and exciting life with his mother.

Soon after the young boy’s life is, yet again, turned upside down when his mother meets a common gypsy man with a history of secrets and abuse.

In no time Jimmy is being taught the true but cruel way of traditional Romany Gypsy life leaving his feeling frail and worthless.

Eventually Jimmy is left to make an agonising decision – to stay and protect his mother but keep secrets never to be told or escape the world and journey through the rest of his years in search of somewhere he could truly belong.

However, on his epic journey he sees himself stumble across a variety of communities, cultures and race but meeting new people, as we know, cannot always be a positive thing. 

Will Jimmy regret sacrificing his nomadic life?

Costume ideas:
I got my ideas for Jimmy’s costume from one of my favourite books, Gypsy Boy, which was written by a Romany Gypsy boy Mikey Walsh. Due to Mikey Walsh being a young Romany Gypsy boy I believe the representations are true according to his life.

To help me with this task I have read the book and chosen specific quotes that will justify my idea.

THE FAMILY

The young Gypsy boy

Jimmy:

To begin with I decided on the name Jimmy from the quote “My mother didn’t fancy the popular Gypsy names like Levoy, John, Jimmy or Tyrone.” This is because I needed a popular Gypsy boy’s name for my character. 

• Scruffy look – dirty, ragged clothes
• Long sleeved t-shirt
• Quarter length shorts
• Jewellery (rich) – “was to place around my neck a gold chain with a tiny pair of gold boxing gloves on it.” And “charging ridiculously large sums of money for small jobs.”
• Little bruises and scratches à this is from both being a young boy therefore from playing and also through his mother’s boyfriend when he has been teaching him the Romany Gypsy lifestyle

The step-father (mother’s boyfriend)

Blake:

• Rough looking – “dried out and rough as sandpaper.”
• Dirty – he had dark brown eyes, with yellow whites and they had dark rings sunk deep around them” and “his hair was black and shiny with grease”
• Petrifying/ feared by many – “making them protrude and giving him a frightening glare” and “his family, once well respected, has become feared.”
• Aggressive – “smashing the poor man’s teeth out”
• Envious – “he would beat up every travelling man who so much as stood near her”
• Generally wears work clothes
• Scarred – “no matter how little chance he has of winning, he must defend his honour, even if he simply end up a bloody and battered notch”

The mother

Maggie

• Generally wears an olden looking dress with a small and dirty pin apron over the top
• Hardworking – “kept a proud, clean home and looked after the children”
• Saddened and heartbroken from her first love’s tragic death

 THE PEOPLE JIMMY MEETS ON HIS JOURNEY

The thug

Jerome:

• Smoker/ abuses his body with bad substances – “they had affected him deeply, both physically and mentally”
• Wears a uniform (as Jimmy will meet Jerome in a school environment) à untucked shirt,  big knotted tie, undone top button, big gold chain and black trainers
• Walks with a self-confidence and arrogance

The following representations of teenagers were created after analysing my stereotyping questionnaire.

The pregnant teenager

Sadie:

• Simply wears day-to-day, casual clothing/ a uniform
• Stressed
• Holds and runs her belly frequently
• Secretive: she believes she will not be able to cope with the population knowing about her pregnancy due to her age
• Continuously on edge/ nervous à walks quickly, doesn’t talk to many people, keeps her head down

The geek

Arthur:

• Excellent role model for the younger years in his school
• Perfect uniform à tucked in shirt, tie has a small knot and is the perfect length (finishes at his waistband), blazer buttoned up
• Carries books/ folders
• Shy, bully victim and intellectual

The snob

Burdine: 

• I got my clothing idea from the Wild Child character, Poppy Moore.
• “Poppy Moore (Emma Roberts) is a seemingly spoiled teenager living in Malibu, California with her father Gerry (Aidan Quinn)
• Designer clothing/ bag
• Loves the colour pink
• Likes to get her own way
• She attempts to modernise her uniform

The setting

Before Jimmy and his mother move to Manchester

• Caravan sight – “Home was a caravan park just a few miles outside Reading.”
• A big piece of land (field)

“They earned enough to buy a piece of land. And they turned that land into a home; a camp for Gypsies, to take them off the roadsides, farmers’ fields and lay-bys.”

Case Study: Byker Grove

Referenced from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byker_Grove

Byker Grove is a British television series which was broadcasted between the years of 1989 and 2006. It was broadcasted at 5:10pm but later moved to the time of 5pm on CBBC and BBC One and had a running time of 25 minutes. The dramas target audience was older teenagers/ young adults due to the serious and controversial storylines.

The main setting was a youth club, and it was rare that that the children were shown in school, in Byker district of Newcastle upon Tyne. The programme was the original idea of the TV executive Andrea Wonfor. In 1987, she approached the soap writer Adele Rose and by working in partnership they created a single pilot episode featuring children aged between 8 and 11 at an out of school club. From their hard work they gained the approval of the Head of the Children’s Department at BBC Television, Anna Home. Again, like Grange Hill, she decided to give Byker Grove a trail run of six 25 minute episodes which was broadcasted by the BBC. After support from the first producer-director, Matthew Robinson, the age of the main character was increased from 12 to 16 therefor the programme targeted at young teenagers crossing the bridge from childhood to adulthood.  

Anthony McPartlin (“P.J”), now commonly known as Ant, and Declan Donnelly (“Duncan”), now commonly known as Dec, found there fame and career from being popular characters in Byker Grove. It also featured actors like Jill Halfpenny, Donna Air, Andrew Hayden-Smith and Emmerdale stars such as Dale Meeks, Charlie Hardwick, Chelsea Halfpenny, Laura Norton and finally Victoria Hawkins.

The first writer was Adele Rose – in series 1 she wrote episodes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 with her daughter Carrie Rose writing episode 5. The most prolific writer was Brian B.Thompson who wrote 50 episodes over 12 series. Furthermore, Tom Hooper directed four episodes of the show in 1997 and Charlie Hunman now stars in American TV series Sons of Anarchy.

The actual youth club where filming took place was in Benwell, this was known as The Mitre which used to be a nightclub and a pub before it was bought by Zenith Television, who film the drama. In the build up to the final episode of Byker Grove, on 7^th October 2006, Richard Deverell (hea dof CBBC) was interviewed on Newsround about the decisions to axe the series. Tim Holloway produced the eughteenth and last series of Byker Grove and he then went onto produce Casualty until 2002. In 2008 it was rumoured Gallowgate Productions,  a production company owned by Any McPartlin and Dec Donnelly, purchased the rights to Byker Grove after the prouction company made it into liquidation in 2007. This has never be confirmed nor denied by the duo.   

Throughout the series Byker Grove tackled some controversial issues such as:

• Drug addiction
• Child abuse
• Homelessness
• Teen pregancy
• Abortion

In fact, Byker Grove was the first Britith drama to attempt to tackle the subject of homosexulaity when Noddy Fishwick kissed his close friend Gary Hendrix. This scene caused major outrage, for example the Sun Newspaper editior called for the producer to be sacked. However, the drama stuck with the storyline and ended up getting countrywide suuport for all homosexual people and their parents. Another storyline tacjling homosexuality is that when Bradley agonised over his sexuality and eventually coming out as being gay to his girlfriend, Sadie. Furthermore the series frequently ruined the lives of many chararcters by the bad things happening to the good people, such as Flora dying from an unfortunate brain tumour, Greg falling from the roof of the Grove leaving him paralysed from the waist down and the youth leader’s death in an accidental gas explosion. 

Case Study: Grange Hill

Referenced from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grange_Hill

The British television drama series, Grange Hill, was originally produced by the successful BBC. The show began being premiered in 1978 on BBC1 and was announced one of the longest running programmes on British television when it finally ended in 2008. It was created by Phil Redmond, who is actually responsible for Channel 4 dramas Brookside and Hollyoaks, and he worked alongside other notable production team members throughout the years. Including produced Colin Cant and script editor Anthony Minghella. After a long 30 years the show was finally cancelled and the last episode was aired on 15^th September 2008.

The series was centred on the fictional school which included and dealt with secondary education with children of all abilities from a particular area. When the drama was being filed it moved to Liverpool from North London in 2003 and ceased to have any specific location after that. Initially, the series was called “Grange Park” which would go on to be used as the name of the school in another Redmond creation, the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside (1982-2003).

Grange Hill was originally conceived by ATV comedy writer Phil Redmond, whose first approach was to try and sell the drama to various television companies but was unsuccessful on many occasions. Finally in 1976, he managed to sell the idea to the BBC and the children’s drama executive, Anna Home. She decided to give the series a trail run on nine episodes, the first being broadcasted on 8^th February 1978.

Since the first episode of Grange Hill it has caused much controversy for its real life, gritty portrayal of school life which people believed differed from the idealised portrayals of earlier school dramas. This lead to Redmond not being able to push the boundaries until later on in the series.  However, he was later forced to tone things down by the BBC otherwise no more episodes would be aired.

Grange Hill’s highest profile period was during the mid-late 1980’s where one of the most famous and talked about storylines was that of Zammo McGuire and his heroin addiction. This storyline ran over 2 series (1986-87) and focused on Zammo’s descent into drugs and how this put a major strain of his relationship with fellow characters Jackie and also his friend Kevin. Throughout this storyline other favourite characters were shown. Later on, the script editor Anthony Minghella worked on a series for several years (during the 1980’s) which focused on Gonch and his attempt at money making schemes, which were very unsuccessful, this managed to show the drama having an element of comedy involved.

Throughout the 1990’s, Grange Hill unfortunately did not get as much media attention as it did just a few years back. The teachers were not equal in the narrative with their personal lives taking up almost as much time as those of the pupils. But in 1994, new disabled characters were introduced (Denny Roberts who suffered with dwarfism and Rachael Burns who suffered with cerebral palsy). Both of these were presented as being one of the gang and hated any special treatment they got due to their circumstances.

To celebrate the dramas 15^th anniversary the first ever 15 episodes were repeated during CBBC’s Sunday and during later Saturday slots on BBC1 and BBC2, these repeats ended with series 16 in 1999.

By 2001, the series was mainly issue led and the decision to try and tackle the issue of rape upset a lot of their audience. When Redmond took over production in 2003 he hoped to get the show back on track therefore he toned down the issues and focused the episodes more at the younger generation. In 2006 it was announced that a film of Grange Hill was going to be produced and released in 2007 focusing on the lives of the former pupils of the fictional school. This has still not yet happened.

 “For the first 25 years Grange Hill was produced in-house by the BBC, then the show was made independently for the corporation by Mersey TV, the production house founded by Redmond (and later renamed as Lime Pictures), hence the production move.”

The issues covered:

Very controversial

• Students throwing benches into the swimming pool this lead to letters of complaints from teachers and parents
• Rape, heroin addiction, Asperger’s syndrome, knife crime and attempted suicide this lead to complaint and upset from a numerous amount of viewers
• Introduced a gay teacher
• Introduced a deaf character

In 2008, Grange Hill cut back on the hard-hitting issues and concentrated more on the early years of secondary school

• The final series: lighter aspects but still dealt with some social issues such as a Year 6 pupil battling with dyslexia whilst it turned out the school bully, Chloe Moore, had to care for her disabled mother.

The original theme music used throughout the years of 1978 and 1989 returned for the final series in 2008, this track was named “Chicken Man” by Alan Hawkshaw. Grange Hill was the first programme to use it as their theme tune. Despite it already being played on Grange Hill, ‘Give Us A Clue’ decided to use the same track but a less dymanic arrangement and keeping it more with the style of the light entertainment programming.

From 1990 a new and more present sounding theme (written directly for the series by Peter Moss) was used. Prior to this he had already written a special track for a storyline in Series 11 for Grange Hill. His latest theme music lasted until 2007 even though it became unpopular, this may have been because the drama’s opening sequence was continuously getting shorter therefore less and less of the tune was heard. The final version was no longer than 12 seconds.  

The last four notes of the initial theme tune song were heard when Brookside, on of Redmond’s other TV series, aired its final episode in 2003.

Questionnaire: Consulting my Target Audience

I have decided to consult my target audience through the use of a questionnaire based on two professional teenage title sequences. I will use pupils from years 7 to 11 form my High School (ages 12 to 16). I will collect 15 pupils from each year group.

Firstly I will show the group a PowerPoint consisting of two slides, these being a slide with the title on to make sure they know they are at the age that my target audience are on and the other containing two hyperlinks of Waterloo Road’s and Hollyoaks’ title sequence.



The group will then be shown the two title sequences and then asked to complete the questionnaire I have provided them with.

I believe this will help me to adapt my initial ideas of my title sequence to suit my target audience, for example what they enjoy and what they dislike about title sequences and teen dramas. This will make me ensure I do include certain aspects and do not include some.