Context- Ideologies of the Elderly

In our film we also want to challenge the dominant ideologies around the elderly generations. Nowadays the stereotypical elderly woman is seen as 'a cute little old lady.' Obviously, with most stereotypes this isn't the case and we are going to put this across in our film from going from one extreme to another- from 'little old ladies' to 'gangsta grannies.'

We are hoping that the extreme, comedic way that we are portraying them will give a light hearted, funny feel to another ideology that we are challenging. All of the characters in our film are extremely based on stereotypical ideologies of what the person should be like. This will allow the audience to immediately recognise who they are and to make assumptions about them. This will then shock them after the big reveal at the end.

Stereotypical Characters:

• Grannies- old ladies, perms, floral dresses, tea and cake etc
• Young Adults- hoodies, rioting and looting, dangerous
• Newsreader- well learned, speaks in received pronunciation, suit and tie

I have been researching some examples of other media products that have used the idea of turning the ideologies to the other extreme when involving the elderly generation.

The Mighty Boosh- 'Nanageddon'

Black Adder- 'Hell's Grannies'

The films that I've found that use the concept of 'evil elderly' are both comedy sketch shows. They use the comedy to give the subject matter a light hearted, funny feel to it without seeming offensive and discriminatory.

By Colette

Risk Assessment

 Today the visited the locations we are going to film at and filled in Risk Assessment forms for them. The forms are scanned in below:

Filming in the Living Room will be relatively low risk, we will just need to be careful of furniture and wires around the room. There are facilities for cast and crew and catering facilities.

The Kitchen is a higher risk than the first location- their are lots of dangerous utensils in it and also we need to be careful around the gas hob on the cooker. Again, there are facilities for cast and crew.

Filming in the alleyway will depend on the weather- we will not be able to take the equipment outside in the rain! There is no electricity available. There are no facilities for cast and crew at the location, but there are catering, dressing and waiting facilities next door inside the house. We will have to look out for horses as they are kept at the bottom of the alleyway and also the uneven ground.

Weekend Shoot

As we have booked out equipment for friday-tuesday, we need to plan what we are going to shoot & when. We have previously done the spreadsheet below:

Detailed shoot plan:

Sunday AM

• Scene 3
• Scene 5
• Scene 7

These are all cross cutting scenes and don't need actors. They will probably take an hour in total to complete. We will also be using a voice recorder to experiment with possible foley effects for our film. 

• Scene 1 
• Scene 9 

These are establishing shots which focus on props rather than actors. They will be reasonably quick to do, however we may take quite a few shots of the same shot so we have a lot of footage to choose from. 

Sunday PM

• Scene 6 middle/end

1. Looters doing graffiti on a wall 
2. Fire shots with yobs
3. CCTV shots 

Monday PM

• Scene 2 
• Scene 4 beginning 
• Scene 8 beginning 

These scenes involve the news room so we will have to set this up  and then set up the lighting etc. This will be one of the most complex scenes to film.

Blog Twitter

We have a twitter page set up where we post regular updates on what we're doing on here and whilst filming etc. Please feel free to go on it and follow us!

http://twitter.com/csshortfilm :-)

Character Development

In our film, the majority of the information that the audience finds out about the characters is created from their own opinions. We formulate these opions by designing the characters to be a certain way, look a certain way and sound a certain way.

The news reporter:

The news reporter will be based on how news reporters used to be represented - that they think they are better than everyone else, and look down on the younger generation. He would speak with an opininative tone like you might read in the Daily Mail newspaper. His appearance will also reflect this, as you can see from the costume, hair and makeup designs. When speaking about the news - predominantly the "youth" riots, he will talk with a slight sneer at the younger generation.

A BBC news reporter from 2002


The roaming news reporter:

The roaming news reporter will be your average roaming news reporter -someone who will take any story they can find to work their way up to ladder to the news room. This will be percieved by how the story is delivered - very keen and excitable. He will be dressed roughly and look scruffy - as if he is right in the moment (the riots).

Scruffy news reporter at the riots for Sky News

Looters

The looters/general rioters will represent the general imrpession of young people that is generally delivered in the news - particularly in newspapers such as the Daily Mail. They will be dressed and talk stereotypically - just as the audience would expect them to.

Looters in the London riots

Grannies

The grannies in the film will be very stereotypical. They will look and sound the way that everyone has an impression grannies should be like - but aren't really. E.g, grey curly hair, pink makeup, posh accent, saying things like "Darling that dress looks wonderful" etc. The words they say and their names will also reflect this stereotypical view on grannies - e.g. the name "Mildred". Of course, this will initially be disguised - by the clothing the looters wear - but this will be revealed at the end.

 

A stereotypical granny

 

By Shannen

Context- Ideologies of Young Adults

Here are some interesting links about the context of our film. I feel that, although the riots were extremely wrong, the media played a huge part in creating a new ideology concerning young adults. They spread the attitude that all teenagers are yobs; stealing, fighting and gang wars. This is the main ideology that we want to challenge as it's something we feel very strongly about! Nowadays, most elderly people won't even look at you for fear of being attacked.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/parenting/3754104/How-DO-you-stop-children-brgoing-off-the-rails.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2011/sep/16/uk-social-media-chiefs-questioned-video

The link above is very interesting- social media chiefs were being questioned over the misuse of media during the riots. Social Media has been described as 'a way around complying with the law.) Rioters used their mobile phones to inform their friends and to get them to join the riots.

Shooting Schedule

Now we have finished all our pre production planning we can start filming our short film. As we are using a variety of different shots and actors we will need to plan when we are filming and who with. To help us to stay organised and on top of what we need to do we have created an Excel Document with the information of the scene, props needed and actors needed.