AS Media Urban Drama Survey Source Of Inspiration

Urban Drama Survey Source Of Inspiration

Brief

As a group we finally decided on creating an urban drama, as we felt horrors are constantly created by media students and we want to present original ideas about our own views of real urban issues. Consequently, we came up with a ten multiple choice question survey to collect ideas that people would expect/like to see from an urban drama film opening.

Outcome

I will be analysing 100 of the responses collected at the time of 21:12 on the 10th of November 2016.

We agreed that our target audience should be around our age group of 15-17 years old, therefore, as 39% of the responses we received came from people not of this age group, we may seem some results we were not expecting from our target audience. I presented our results in a pie chart below.

The next question we asked was about the age of our actors. The results can be seen below.

A large proportion of the results displayed that they wanted to see actors of a young adult age. However, we chose to cast ourselves as Emma Fuller as the main protagonist. This is because she is in our group and, therefore, is more reliable when picking filming dates etc.

We chose to use Emma who is soon to be 17 years old, as if we wanted to create a vulnerable victim then a younger looking character would probably make the audience feel sorry for them, this is supported by the idea that Emma is female. Besides, the second most popular age was 15 - 17 years old and Emma is on the cusp of 17, which is fairly close to 18 years old. If we want a more intimidating character like a gang member we can use Angel Limbu who is also in our group or Emma's brother, Matthew who is within the 18 - 24 years old category.

Next we asked about the locations the audience expect to see. The results were all very much similar as a person can answer with multiple choices and the choices were fairly common conventions of locations in urban dramas. The following amount of responses made the below pie chart:

• City centre - 49 responses.

• Subways - 31 responses.

• Abandoned buildings - 25 responses.

• Council houses - 36 responses.

• City outskirts - 26 responses.

Because of this we will use a wide variety of the locations on the multiple choice list. As urban dramas are very character driven we could perhaps create a film opening where the protagonist is running away from a gang, linking to the victim idea. Or we could even just create a montage of locations the character has to live in, hence, portraying the realistic expectations of life as youth in poor urban areas.

We will most likely not use an abandoned building as we felt this is more like a convention of horrors. Although some derelict sites are used to show isolation and poverty, this option was the least popular with 25 responses.

Despite, gaining 36 responses and being the second most popular result with 21% of votes, we will also not use locations of council houses as we thought this could be offensive to film violence etc. in front of someone's house. Council houses are mainly also used in films which mocks 'CHAVs'. We would prefer to create a serious urban drama, similar to a social realism film. Instead of these locations we will use more well known city locations like London. This convention of easily identifiable places allows for a better realism aspect.

Question 4 allowed us to discuss and decide what issue we wanted our social realism film to present. Influenced by my previous blog researching some urban issues, we created the following options, some were also inspired by urban drama films and common conventions. This question was also a question where multiple answers can be selected. These are listed below along with the relevant number of responses:

• Homelessness - 38 responses.

• Violence - 46 responses.

• Gangs - 54 responses.

• Drugs - 57 responses.

• Alcohol - 42 responses

• Bullying - 46 responses.

• Family issues - 39 responses.

• Prostitution - 24 responses.

This resulted in the below pie chart. As shown below, the most popular choice was to focus on drugs. However, with iconic films like "Trainspotting" we felt that this was commonly done, similar to those like violence, gangs, alcohol and bullying.

Al though, we had undecided ideas and research based on some sort of unaware psychopathic killer that targets victims like drug addicts, we felt that we could create a more original and realistic piece by conveying ideas like homelessness. As producing a film which is commonly done, especially over done with comical features like in "This Is England", would lose its realism.

We decided not to use the idea of prostitution as not only was it the least popular choice, but we felt that prostitution would be uncomfortable to film and watch. Because of this, I think the audience would not take the film opening very seriously. 

Consequently, we decided as a group to focus on homelessness. This would work well with our chosen vulnerable 15 - 17 years old actress, Emma. Fuelled by this idea as well as the idea of family issues, we came up with the following plot that Emma will play a homeless character that has lost her parents. 

In the next question we came up with a list of props that could be used to portray the above issues. This question was also one where multiple options can be chosen. This led to the following results:

• Money - 63 responses.

• Knives - 54 responses.

• Pills - 51 responses.

• Beer cans - 46 responses.

• Guns - 38 responses.

• Needles (injections) - 34 responses.

However, at the time we were unaware of the plot idea based off homelessness, looking back on this list, I believe more props suitable to each urban issue should have been an option. In other words, the options were predominantly props seen to convey alcohol, violence, drugs and gangs. We could have included props like a sleeping bag or a sentimental item to present issues like family issues and homelessness.

Therefore, we will ignore the responses displayed in the below pie chart, and focus on props associated to our homeless idea. Additional deconstructions and research would have to be done consequently.

The next question was another that I felt was fairly confusing. It asked about how we wanted the characters to look like and then provided mixed and limited options that varied between personalities and stereotypes to costumes. These can be seen below swell as their responses:

• Young and vulnerable - 52 responses.

• Attractive and rugged - 31 responses.

• Drug addict - 10 responses.

• Tattoos - 7 responses.

• Buzz cuts - 0 responses.

I think to improve these options we should have focused on just personalities and worded the question better to something like "What characteristics do you wish the protagonist to have?" or "Who do you want the protagonist to be?" or "What type of characters would you like to see?" 

I liked the options of drug addict and young and vulnerable, despite the age of the actors being discussed in question two. From these we can then decide on costumes. But, the other options confuse the purpose of the question. Based off these answers, we could have included varied responses like "an abusive partner", "a loud best friend", "a struggling alcoholic single parent" etc.

Despite, this we have decided to cast Emma as a young and vulnerable homeless protagonist that has no parents. Although we could say that the poor wording of the question could have affected the results, this option of presenting the character as young and vulnerable was the most popular, as presented in the below pie chart.

In addition, question seven had some slight issues to the production of the question. I believe, some members of the group didn't really take the task very seriously and lacked understanding that this survey will be used to help us decide on a plot, locations, costumes, sound, props etc. which at the time we were very indecisive about.

In this question we wanted to find suitable diegetic and non diegetic sounds that will be used in our film opening. Yet, in this question we focused more on the genre of music that will be relevant to urban dramas, providing odd options like K-Pop. Using researched stereotypes and conventions of urban dramas we already know that urban dramas revolve around rap, grime and hip hop culture.

Instead, better choices could have been produced like "loud sirens", "shouting", "traffic", "gun shots", "ringing, metallic noises" etc. which we gathered from many deconstructions like "American Horror Story: Murder House". Though non-diegetic sounds vary from genre and title credits to openings. Consequently, altogether I believe this question is not very helpful to our film opening. Regardless, below is a pie chart of the responses. One person skipped this question.

As some of us didn't take the task very seriously, I believe that some of the results were not reliable as 3 people chose that they expect to hear K-Pop in an urban drama which is questionable. Therefore, in conjunction with the plot, we decided we will include isolation, muted traffic sounds in scenes where the character is alone etc. and loud urban sounds, some examples were given above, to show the harshness of reality of being a homeless teenager.

Due to my editing practical and deconstructions of violence and 'confrontations' we had ideas of a mugging, where a sentimental item like a locket is stolen, emphasised by loud, bass like non diegetic sounds and shouting. This would allow some sort of introduction to a plot while still being character driven. Yet, we also felt this may complicate the character based plot and make it seem too much like a short film, which is the reason why we chose not to do a horror opening, which easily becomes too drastic and complex despite supposedly being a first scene of a horror film.

The final three question are ones that sadly I believe had no relevance to support our research and decisions for creating this film opening. I felt question eight and question nine could have been better phrased as well.

Question eight asked about the arrangement of the title and asked whether it should be one or two words long or more than two words long or other, rather than give specific examples. Although we had no definite plot and therefore no name, we should have either provided a stronger worded question that would help us or remove this question. Perhaps, we could have asked about the typography, which would be more relevant. We already know a one word title is common for 'slashers' like "Maniac", so if we were worried about the "arrangement" or number of words in the title, we could deconstruct titles in urban dramas like "8 Mile".

The choice of other response allowed the user to specify their ideas, these included:

• "Words and numbers"
• "Something like Straight Outta Compton"
• "Horizontal"
• "Bultaoreune"

These were either vague answers, responses that shows the confusion of the question or responses that make no sense i.e. "Bultaoreune" is a K-Pop video, evidence that some didn't take the survey seriously.

Question nine was fairly relevant and worded better. It asked about the type and number of other characters expected to see. I felt this could have been decided in an improved version of question six.

In this there was another option format where the user can write how many secondary characters they wish to see. The following responses are seen below, I only counted the explicitly numbered responses and if it said 3-4 I would add the response to both 3 and 4. This option was not included in the pie chart of all responses.

Below is a pie chart of the total responses. At the time we were still questioning the idea of a mentally unstable protagonist/antagonist that kills targeted victims like drug addicts, therefore, these responses would be helpful. But after changing and deciding on homelessness, this is less relevant as we hope to focus on just one young and vulnerable protagonist. To include pedestrians and perhaps the occasional disgusted bystander or a mugger and remove any secondary characters like gang members or other homeless youth we can enforce the sense of isolation and helplessness.

Finally, the last question is fairly relevant as it is about the expected lighting in the film. We could have added more specific examples like "neon lights" or "extra, over the top lighting flares" etc. as from some of the group's lighting practical tasks we know what light is best for the location etc. and it also depends on the scene and camera.

Over half of the responses said that they expect to see scenes set in the evening. Although, the whole night life idea is stereotypical for urban dramas when crime and violence is a key feature. Yet, if we did it midday and late morning, we would achieve maximum light to film outside. Having changed our plot idea to focus on homelessness, choosing a light time of day may lose the tense atmosphere of sleeping rough in the streets at night. But it would allow for the idea that even though the homeless character is exposed she still appears invisible to the public. This could be emphasised by point of view shots of her walking through crowds in broad daylight and seeing their reaction that they don't care i.e. by not looking in her direction.

 

Personal Comments

Overall, I felt the survey produced some responses which allowed us as a group to decide on plot and ideas. Though, I felt as we didn't provide relevant questions with varied responses, some of the answers would not help us with the new plot of a homeless character. I also felt some of us as well as the people completing the survey wasn't taking it very seriously. This could be perhaps due to our informal introduction and some spelling mistakes. We should have taken more time to create a professional survey format.