Coursework idea Development - Limbo

Name: Limbo

Genre: Thriller/Horror Supernatural

Themes: Friendship, survival, determination, teamwork, hope

Audience: Teenagers from 15-19 years old who are interested in the thriller or horror genre and perhaps have watched TV series such as the walking dead or teen wolf so they are familiar with the supernatural creatures.

Setting: The series starts on an isolated, country road in Britain in 2014 before the crash happens. When they are in the gameshow it is set in a fictional arena, they leave a empty building that is completely white on the inside with black writing in paint on the wall with either "Who will survive?" "Hunt or be Hunted". When the first character leaves the building the area of the arena looks like a destroyed city.

Music: When the teenagers are in the car, pop music will be played at a very high volume causing a distraction. However when they are in the empty building classical music will play to create a eerie different tone to the tone that was in the car.

Comparables: The Hunger games - Both are set in an arena where they have to try and be the last person to survive.
The Walking dead - When the protagonist leaves in the first series he wakes up in a hospital and when he leaves he notices the city is destroyed and abandoned.
Flatliners - In this film the narrative is that they die and find out where they go and what they see when they die. This is similar to mine because when my characters die they find out what they have to go through in the attempt to return.

 

Character Development: 5 school friends
David - 17 years old, he is sporty and confident, his sister is Katherine, he is driving the car at the time of the crash
Zak - 16 year old, Joker, sociable, energetic
George - 17 years old, nerdy, Charismatic
Natasha - 16 years old, girly, dumb, sensitive
Katherine - 16 years old, reliable, practical, her brother is David - she is the first character to be featured within the gameshow.

All the characters are fictional and although other teenagers feature during the gameshow, they are not protagonists and will not necessarily be featured much.

Episodes: The first episode will be called 'The beginning of the end' and in this episode the car crash will take place. The 5 teenagers will be shown joking about and laughing in the car, they all get distracted and they are hit by a car/truck that crosses their path. Katherine will be shown waking up in a completely white room. As she gets closer to the exit of the building black writing in paint can be seen on the wall. It reads 'Who will Survive?'. When she leaves the building she can only see huge trees standing in front of her. There is a tape recording that explains where she is and what she has to do. The game show has now started. She starts off in the area with zombies, she only has one weapon to help her survive and the fight for survival has begun.

In other episodes each of the 5 characters are shown in their starting area of the arena with the setting and supernatural creature. Along the way other teenagers are met who are in the same gameshow through a different situation. All their difficulties and challenges are shown along the way. The final episode will be the winner and their return to earth. They will not remember anything that happened and the rest of the teenagers except them will still be in the fatal accident.

If another series were created then another group of teenagers will be in a different tragic accident to put them into the gameshow. The arena would have changed with more supernatural fictional creatures and different  challenges in order to survive.

Coursework - initial idea for a teen horror/supernatural tv series

For my media television series I have decided to create a series called Limbo. It will be a teen supernatural horror/thriller. The series is about the space in-between life and death which is Limbo but in this situation when you are in Limbo you are in a game show. The plot is about 5 teenagers who are in a car crash and end up in limbo. There will be more teenagers in the show who will be met throughout.
The game show is set in an arena which is split into different sections. Each section has a different environment and supernatural creature in it. The environments and creature in each section will change every day. For example: one section may be set in a forest environment with vampires. They must all try and survive both the supernatural and the harsh environments. When they first enter the arena they will each be given one weapon that they can use to defend themselves with. It’s survival of the fittest. Only one can survive and gets to return back to earth before the accident and does not get into the fatal situation that put them in limbo in the first place. The rest however will face their fate; death.

Grayson Perry: Who Are You?

Grayson Perry: Who Are You is a three part documentary about identity. In class we watched the first part of the documentary.

Executive producer: Dinah Lord
Director: Neil Crombie
Camera: Louis Caulfield, Marcus Plowright

During the documentary Grayson Perry meets 4 individuals who are struggling with their identity. Perry meets Chris Huhne, Rylan Clark, Kayleigh and Jazz. Perry gets to know all of these individuals and gets an insight into their lives. The aim of this was so Perry could create a piece of art that represents each person, that will be put into the National portrait Gallery in London.

The Ashford Hijab

This piece was made for Kayleigh. It explores her journey as she makes the decision to convert to a muslim.

The Earl Of Essex

This piece was made for Rylan Clark, a TV presenter. It was made because Rylan spoke about how he deliberately acted fake on TV so that people would like him, so the fact that Perry made Rylan 'The Earl Of Essex' it also shows a false representation of him. I shows Rylan as he see's himself.

I Am A Man

This piece was made for Jazz, who was born a female but wanted to be male. The piece takes the shape of Peter Pan, a character who Jazz was very fond of. The fact that the statue is blowing a horn may represent Jazz sharing and being proud that he is a man.

The Chris Huhne Vase

'The Chris Huhne Vase' was a piece of art created for Chris Huhne a politician. Huhne was sent to prison at some point but declared he didn't care. This is why the vase has been smashed and put back together to show how he has cracks but he fails to show them.

This program shows how we may see ourselves differently to how others perceive us. It shows that we may deliberately represent ourselves differently in order for people to like us. The documentary represents a range of very different people and shows the struggles they have trying to find their identity or in Rylan Clark and Chris Huhne's case, hiding their identity.

I enjoyed this documentary because it gave you an insight into the lives of other people and what they go through in order to find their true identity. It was also good because it showed you how some people felt they needed to change and others didn't. This was especially obvious when it came to Chris Huhne; Politician and Rylan Clark; TV presenter because Chris did not feel that he needed to change himself in any way although he committed a crime worthy of a jail sentence. Rylan however felt he needed to act fake on TV so people will like him. Each portrait was very different because they all had very different issues regarding identity.

Representation of gender in the media

Representation of Race in the Media

Testament of Youth review - BFI film festival

Adapted from Vera Brittian’s memoir, Testament of Youth focuses on the life of Vera (Alicia Vikander) and her memories of the First World War. The film Testament of youth was directed by James Kent and is a biographical war film which includes the main themes of friendship, love, betrayal and sacrifice. Friendship and Love are themes shown throughout the whole film whilst betrayal is shown only during one scene where the man she loves leaves her earlier than she expected to fight in France and sacrifice happens as a big event because she gives up her dream in order to save those in awful situations. Choices and duty are also recurring themes as all the characters in the film have their youth taken away some way or another.

Before the war Vera spends her summer studying and spending time with her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) and his friends Victor (Colin Morgan) and Roland (Kit Harington). Throughout the film Vera is shown to always be fighting against the conventions and stereotypes of what is expected of a woman in the 1900’s. She was a feminist, who strived for an Oxford education rather than to sit around, play the piano or become someone’s housewife.  

Vera refuses to stand around and do nothing when Roland, Edward and Victor find themselves duty bound to sign up and she hears of all the fatalities that have already taken place a few months into the war, so she decides to help and chooses to abandon her university life that she worked so hard for and volunteer as a nurse. She was pre-judged at Oxford and proved them wrong and now again as she enlists as a nurse she is almost dismissed due to her upbringing but this only drives Vera to work harder.  Kent presents the female experience of war with tactical practicality, likening the nurses’ hospital training to a kind of rigorous boot camp as the head nurse walks up and down the line of women who’ve volunteered as nurses.

At the start of the film the war is over and Vera is shown standing in the middle of the street surrounded by people cheering in happiness. However the sound is drowned out and quieter than it should be so that all the focus is on her rather than the end of the war. The drowning out of the sound shows that at this moment Vera is in a daze and that she isn't thinking straight, she's unable to focus on what is around her. It also shows that vera does not feel like the others, she is not as happy that the war is over due to the torment that she went through during the war.

The performances were stunning especially from Alicia Vikander who played Vera. She gives such a humbling and compassionate performance. The emotions she portrayed were very believable and they caused me to feel upset. I did have an emotional attachment towards all the characters because they all showed themselves to be caring and loving people, so when the news came in that they were hurt the emotions did kick in. I liked the scene where Vera is rubbing her hands and feet in the mud as if she is trying to put herself in the position of the men at war. This really made Vera seem strong-willed and courageous as if she wishes she was there with them before the deaths.

Mark Kermode (Observer Film Critic) says:
"The entire ensemble cast work hard to inject personal passion into the stiff-upper-lip storytelling, and individual moments are haunting. It's a powerful story, and one that deserves to be told and retold, albeit in rather more adventurous fashion."

In my opinion I thought the film was really enjoyable. The characters emotions really shone through. It also showed how difficult it was to accept the concept of war and to convey how much it consumes leaving nothing but heartbreak, grief and suffering.

Him. Magazine

We were given a week to create a magazine in groups. The members of our group consisted of: Ben, Helena, Michael, Anna, Nick, Rebecca, Alex and myself.

We all had individual roles within the completion of the magazine:
Ben: Music - Top 5 Songs
Helena: Editor and Fashion
Michael: Sports article
Anna: Health and fitness - later changed to sexual facts
Nick: Game review
Rebecca: co-editor
Alex: Game - influential games
Myself; Technology article

We looked through a variety of magazines too understand how we needed our articles to look. We focused on mainly magazines targeted at men because our audience for our magazine was 16-19 year old males.
We called out magazine Him. and our front cover was a photo of the four boys in  our group. We took it inside the college because that would show that our audience was their age range/and college students. The back cover was all the boys in the same position but from behind. The photos were then taken to Photoshop and edited by Helena.
We had 6 articles based on different topics: Technology: Iphone 6 is it really worth the money?, Game: Top  most influential games and Shadow of Mordor game review (This was our main article), Music: Top 5 songs of this month, Sport: England vs San Marino, Health: Health and fitness with Dr.Wilson and Fashion: This season's fashion inspiration.
The health article however was changed into sexual facts and the fashion article did not make it into the magazine because the completion did not meet the deadline this was because this article was being written by the same person who was the editor for the covers of our magazine.

My article was about technology and the Iphone 6: Is it worth the money? I feel the article worked well because after looking at what I did before and after a big change is obvious. In my final article I made sure that everything was more interesting and different. I made the background of my article look like an Iphone but the layout of the page stayed the same as everyone else's with the blue bar behind the title and the blue writing for the subheading.

What went well:
 I think that we all worked really well as a group and helped each other out on the design so that the layout on every page looked the same. We also ensured the font was the same. All the pages included a picture/s so that they wouldn't look boring and our titles were made large and appealing. I think the final magazine defiantly  linked with our audience because it didn't look too upper-class.

What could be improved:
I think that all our articles would have been completed it we hadn't spent so long on our magazine name on the first lesson. We should have added a contents page and some advertisements to give the magazine a more completed realistic feel. Overall we could have worked quicker as a group when deciding fonts etc. so articles could have been completed earlier.