Treatment

Working Title:
"Changes" influenced by the David Bowie song like "life on Mars"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3vxEudif8

Concept:
A 30 second opening sequence of a Children's TV Drama under Lego animation

Purpose:
To be accepted by the CBBC as a Children's TV Drama

Desired Outcome:
To attract the target audience into viewing the drama and make a large profit

Genre:
Drama as after doing lots of research they are the most successful Children's TV programme.

Social class:
C1 as it is aimed at a young working audience

Target Audience:
5-11 because we want a target audience that are still in education and are about to or have started secondary school.

Narrative:
In the world of Lego a young superhero is transformed into a human after being shot with a human ray gun from an evil villain. He wakes up in a classroom as an 11 year old boy and finds out its his first day of secondary school. He must learn to adapt to school life and face any challenges in his way if he wants to return to his old life.

Influences and challenges:
Our idea was influenced by the British TV Drama "Life on Mars" as we liked the idea of someone being taken out of their comfort zone and having to learn to live a new life which our Children's TV Drama is all about. Another influence is from the Children's TV Drama "My parents are aliens". We liked the idea of a "alien" being thrown into everyday life and seeing how they would cope and how others around them would react.
However our idea challenges Children's Drama's like "Grange Hill" as we don't want ours to be typical and original like "Grange Hill" (a normal school life). We want to twist ours so the target audience will get something different and special to see which will hopefully increase the target audience!

Technology:
We will be using lots of different and new equipment during the making of the Children's TV Drama as we want to experiment and develop our skills.
All the following technology will accessed by the media department in college:

# Lighting- used in both Lego animation scenes and real life scenes

# SLR camera- used to film the Children's TV Drama

# Green screen- used as the background setting for the filming of the Lego animation

# Computer- used to upload the Children's TV Drama and finalise using Premiere Pro






Logistical Issues and Arrangements:

#Transport: All filming is being done in Worcester and with me and my partner Zack living less than mile away communication is not a problem. Filming will be done in two locations, one a school and one a college next to each other so moving equipment round like lighting wont be a problem. We both live less than a mile away from the college and school and would be able to walk there in less than 40 minutes from our homes so transport is not a major issue.

#Props/Clothing: As the drama revolves around a school we will need to use tables and chairs which shouldn't be an issue as long as we ask. Also we will need a school uniform for the main actor. This shouldn't be a problem to as my 11 year old brother is a student at the high school we are filming in so we can use his school uniform and everyone else will be wearing the same uniform giving a more real approach. Our main prop will be the Lego were using in the drama. We wont need allot but we will need a Lego setting and Lego characters to complete the Drama. I have some old Lego but not allot; were thinking of buying some.

#Lighting: We are going to book the lighting equipment and film in and outside college hours. The lighting equipment is free to use which is a bonus and we have had practise on how to handle the equipment appropriately in the past. We will be using the lighting equipment in all scenes of the drama including Lego animation as we wouldn't like unwanted shadows.

#Actors: We only need one key actor to play the role of the human boy who was once Lego. As we are only filming the opening sequence of the Children's TV Drama we believe only one actor is necessary as more than one will mean more recruiting and this would waste our valuable time. We already have the actor in mind to play the role and it didn't take long to think why. My younger brother Jordan is 11 and has just started high school just like the boy in our drama so it shouldn't be a problem fitting in as the role of the character. He has done allot of acting in stage performances abroad and at school so he knows what hes doing and will be very professional. He is experiencing high school life and can give us details of what he has to cope with which will benefit us when making the drama. He is willing to give anything a go and he would travel with me so transport isn't a problem. All we have to do is write a letter to my mum and dad asking for the permission of using him in our Children's TV Drama.

#Locations: We will be filming in two locations. One location will be Nunnery Wood High School, this is the setting you will see in the drama. We will need permission to film there so we will send a letter asking if we can film on site. My brother is currently a student there and I was once a student there and we know the staff really well so we should be able to use the school when filming.
Our second location is Worcester Sixth Form College. This is the location you will not see in the drama as its the setting for the Lego animation. We have booked the photography rooms which are big black rooms with cameras and lighting equipment. The reason you wont see the photography room in the drama is because we are creating a mini Lego setting and placing this on green screen. So when we have finished filming and put the film on the computer we can choose a artificial background to suit the atmosphere of the scene.

#Letters: Me and my partner have to send out a few letters asking for permission to do things such as:

1st Letter- A letter being sent to my parents asking if we can use my younger brother for the production of the drama.

2nd Letter- A letter being sent to Nunnery Wood High School asking if we can film our drama on site not during school hours.

3rd Letter- A letter being sent to Lego asking if we can use there products in our Children's TV Drama.

4th Letter- The final letter is being sent to Nunnery Wood Primary School asking if we can give out questionnaires to year 3-6 which is our target audience, so we can get some feedback and make changes to our ideas if necessary. We have designed a questionnaire which we hope to hand out to our target audience. It only has 5 questions as we don't want loose the kids attention. The questionnaires are very simple like "which TV programmes do you watch" and "when do you watch TV". From this we can get some interesting information and use it to alter our drama to suit the target audience and also increase the target audience.

Costs of the Production: We are very lucky when it comes to costs as we don't need to pay for transport, equipment, settings, props/clothing or even the actor! However we will have to buy some Lego as we don't really have any and don't know anyone who does. We will try to buy some off eBay as it will be cheap, we don't aim to spend over £20.

Timescale of Events and Deadlines: We will be filming the drama over half term from the 24th of October to the 2nd of November and aim to finish within at least two weeks. The filming at Nunnery Wood High School should take about a day or two also the filming of the Lego animation should take around a day to film. However after those few days it will take over a week to edit and change on Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. Before half term we will be practising using green screen and stop motion animation which I will upload to the blog saying how I got on.

Health and Safety-Risk Assessment:
We have thought about what could go wrong over the coursework and have thought of a few possible solutions.

#Breaking the equipment/Injured by the equipment- Be very careful when handling the equipment and always use and transport the equipment in pairs. If anyone is injured we have access to first aid kits in both Nunnery Wood High School and Nunnery Wood Primary School.

#Someone getting injured- Like I stated above we have access to first aid kits but if the injury is that severe we will have mobiles to phone the hospital which is only less than 5 minutes away from where were filming.

#Someone getting lost- This should be easily prevented as we will always stay together and we will all have mobiles phones with each others numbers so we can meet up with the rest of the group if we get lost.

#Fire- This is very rare, however it can happen. If there is a fire in the location were filming at we will evacuate the location immediately and meet at a large open spaced area outside.

Overall I believe the final idea is simple as it is not to complicated but very effective as it relates specifically to the target audience which we wanted to achieve.

Below is the link to the pitch:

http://www.slideshare.net/AaronWise240/introduction-of-pitch1