Statement of Intent

Truth Be Told

For my trailer, I plan on using a low-budget means of filming and distribution to promote my 90 second coming of age drama that I have called 'Truth be Told' which is meant to be able to be broadcast before the 9am watershed. This means I will have to ensure no sexual content, violence, graphic or distressing imagery and swearing are shown within the trailer. The reason behind the title is to shed light on the fact that not all stereotypes are negative (Perkins). This idea helped me form the slogan 'A day in the life of a young black male in West London trying to break away from the negative stereotypes'. With the coming of age dramas I was inspired by I noticed they use cuts, speech from characters (diegetic) and fast/slow paced non-diegetic soundtracks to heighten or lower then intensity for the audience. I aim to ensure that the driving force behind my trailer is centred on the actors’ voices - due to the production being aimed at young black youth coming from a troubled background. I believe this would be an effective way to gain person relationships with the characters stated by Bulmer & Katz as one of the factors that captures the audience’s attention. 

In order to engage my youth target market, I will be using elements of personal identity and diversion from Bulmer & Katz: uses and gratification theory. I think it would appeal to more of a C2DE audience between 12-25 as I aim to explore topics that happen within our everyday life but seem to go unnoticed. However, the production could also appeal to an AB audience that are within the reformers category who may be interested in gaining further knowledge on how the youth of today think and act. Usually the best coming of age dramas use Neal’s 'Repetition & Difference' to show the same conventions but just in a different way to reinforce typical stereotypes linked to black males as well as subverting them to create new meaning. They usually do this by converging comedy with drama but I aim to use Commons approach in 'Letter to the Free' by sticking to the seriousness of the topic at hand.

Throughout the trailer I aim to use a multi-strand narrative in montage form to show how different aspects are linked together. One the films that I found helped me to create a foundation for my trailer was a British film production called Kidulthood which was the first of its trilogy - also another West London production with similar genre conventions. Within the media black youth are labelled as criminals, lairs and a nuisance to society but never seems to promote those who aim to break away from the cliché stigma given to young black youth. The three locations I plan to use within my production are: a football pitch, a casual outdoor setting and a council estate being the middle ground for good and bad (binary opposition - Levi Straus) not by choice, but by circumstance. In order to make full use of these locations, I intend to use Props character theory to assign roles to individuals within my production and Todorov's theory of equilibrium to create narrative for the audience. Usually the protagonist is seen as the hero but I aim to play with roles and make the protagonists (the princess) as he's the one trying to not get caught up in the situations revolving his area - which is why he's the one that needs saving. As the trailer is only meant to be a short condensed glimpse of the film, I plan on leaving the trailer on a cliff-hanger to generate enigma codes that can help entice the audience so they want to watch the whole film and see what the full narrative behind the plot - a typical conversation within movie trailers.

In terms of distribution and funding, I believe the best chance if gaining a budget would be through the Pathe film programme to encourage young film makers in London. In terms of distribution, it could be broadcast by companies such as Film4 as it would have more modern art-house feel that emphasis on narrative and cinematography. Also, the film production could gain wider awareness through platforms like YouTube and Twitter which would increase their social media coverage as it is easily accessible world-wide. Now that “every consumer is also a producer” (Clay Shirky), audiences are now able to leave feedback on which could be helpful for future film productions with similar genre conventions.

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Add paragraph on posters and how it links to the genre conventions or integrate it into one of the paragraphs above.