Planning and Research

Now I have looked at several different Children's TV Drama's I have begun to think about how I will achieve my own.
I will need to recruit actors and with this in mind they will most likely be children so the target audience can relate to them. I haven't thought of a specific target audience yet but I no it will be young as I want the Drama to relate to the audience in some way. If I want actors under 16 I will have to send letters to the parents of the child asking for permission to use there child for the filming of my drama.
I will have to be very organised with times and dates as I don't have a lot of time and I want to get the best possible outcome from the making of this drama and while completing the coursework I want to learn how to use new equipment and prepare myself for the exam next summer.
I have also been thinking about locations which will be very hard to decide on as every location has a different atmosphere. At the moment I think the most ideal location would probably be in a school environment as its an everyday experience in children's lives.
Below are a few rough ideas I have thought of for locations.

I have now made a few decisions on what I will be doing for my Children's TV Drama. After talking to my little brother and his friends who are 11 I have decided to use child actors as they said they would enjoy watching a programme with someone there age as it makes them relate to it more. I will now need to think about who my actors are going to be and how I will approach them. I have also decided on the type of location I will be using which will be a school.

I have chose this because in the week I carried out an experiment by walking around my local area and seeing where children like to hang around with their friends. I found that most kids like to hang around town and on parks with their friends. With this in mind I went to parks and in town with my brother and his friends and watched them to see what they get up to. From this I noticed nothing entertaining really happened apart from talking and playing.

However the other day I was walking home with my brother and I asked him how his day was and to my surprise he told me all there stories about his life at secondary school and how it has changed him so much. He told me about evil teachers, crazy friends and weird adventures. I felt like a light bulb was shining above my head and at this point as I knew the location I will be using is a school.

School is where loads of different children come together to socialise, learn and have fun. This would be ideal to use in our Children's TV Drama as we want our target audience to feel apart of the drama and I think a school as a location is a great idea as it achieves this.

My next step will be to try and get permission to use a school for filming and I will probably do this by letter and e-mail.

Media studies research
Children’s TV opening

Firstly I’m going to look at my target market. The target market for a child is between the ages 0-18. This means its going to be really hard to appeal to the target market as most kids from 16-18 like adult TV dramas as well.

What is a child?
A child is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. "Child" may also describe a relationship with a parent or authority figure.

There is a list of the top 100 TV shows. The Simpson's and Doctor who are in this however the creators of this programmes don’t count these as real.because of this the top order was redone by E4 in 2005. Addition changes were made to suit these changes however this does concept the changes of the new shows by increasing the top order of more children’s TV dramas e.g. mi high and Tracey beaker. Grange Hill got into the top 5 which is the highest children's TV drama. The Simpson's and Doctor who where classed in these show, however the creators got the wrong target market or creates a range of children who watch older programmes.

By looking at these different types of opening it is quite clear to see how different TV dramas get into the top. It appears the Children’s TV Dramas that make it into the top spots are dramas targeted at the younger child target market at around 5-10. These shows also seem to be cartoon based with non-human characters.

Brief history of TV drama shown on Wikipedia
The history of children’s TV dramas started with the BBC in the 1950s. These dramas were for large based audiences not just the target market. The first children’s TV dramas where front loaded by books, Most of these early productions were adaptations of turn of the century literary standards such as Little Women (BBC, 1950) and The Railway Children (BBC, 1951, 1957, 1968), there therefore resulted in the children turning channel to ITV.ITV at this time was offering a more adventurous children’s TV drama the adventures of Robin Hood (1955-60).

After this failure of the BBC children’s drams they gave up on this department and its funding was given to adult TV dramas. As for the time since the BBC were not funding children TV dramas, ITV were still leading the way with Enid Byton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven. These were books which were a series of 21 individual books. BBC had come back with a small budget series called Carrie's War in 1974 however this was still a front loaded series based on the origins of an authors work. This was one of the series which made children’s TV drama a more emotional piece rather than just a happy programme where nothing went wrong ,this triggered the change in the way how Children’s TV dramas where shown.

In the mid 70s the change for children’s TV dramas changed when they became more charactieristics of the children who watch the programmes, so as a result the realism was more working class characters. The late 70s had some of the huge successes such as Golden hill (ITV, 1975) which featured a local gang and its council and ‘while A Bunch of Fives’ (ITV, 1977-78). At this time the BBC launched one of the most famous and long running children TV dramas Grange Hill (BBC, 1978-present), which dealed with real issues they faced such as bulling, drugs and under age pregnancy.

The golden age for the children’s dramas has at its peck with both ITV and BBC coming out with some more unusual programmes including fantasy and sci-fi children TV drama. ITV was doing a special drama which was just aimed for a children’s market.

In the mid 80s the BBC was at a peak turning out series after series of British TV drama, they and a series called a box of delight (BBC 1984) which was a spin off series of the chronicles of Narnia. These were supported by the help of America funding. The BBC had following successful series which had hits in America such as Tom’s Midnight Garden (BBC, 1989), The Borrowers (BBC, 1992-3) and The Phoenix and the Carpet (BBC, 1997).

In 1989 BBC put on air Byker Grove, which was about a youth club. This therefore was queried if it was more like a soap opera rather than a children’s TV drama. The BBC was turning out 20 episodes a year which was dominating the market with spin off series of selected characters of play in real life. The change the BBC had made they were making programmes the Children could relate to.

In the present day there of course is a huge more amount of channels including sky and free view. This creates a lot more opportunities for new programmes for children TV dramas. There is a lot more American children TV programmes such as Zoey 101 or Genie in a lamp. These programme Americans the TV drama TV market. This is how the messages and views are Americans. By the use of technology they can use green screen and animation to create new programmes. Stars that start in children’s TV programmes end up in the end moving Into Hollywood productions or adult TV.

Taking this research above into consideration I think My Children's TV Drama will have a mixture of fantasy and reality in my Children's TV Drama as it is different to what has been done and is unique and looking above you can see that over the years there has been a pattern; the more unique and fresh the programme the more successful it will be which I am to do.