Treatment; A Childhood Never Goes Away

A synopsis of 'A Childhood Never Goes Away' is that it is an extended advert campaigning against child abuse that will show the efffects that child abuse can have. The advert will be approximately under a minute long and will only contain two actresses so that the stroyline will be easy to follow.

 

The target audience that we are aiming for is between the ages of 18 and 55+. We chose to have a wide audience age range so that it includes students, working people and people who may have retired. Due to this we haven't got a set social grade as we are hoping to have audiences in all social grades that can either donate money to child abuse charities or have more awareness.

 

The content of ‘A Childhood Never Goes Away’ is to show how child abuse effects the rest of the persons life. The content is going to show this by showing the present and past life of a woman who was abused via a series of flashbacks. The audience will know that the woman and girl are the same person by some of the shots that we intend to use, for example at the start of the advert you see a close up of the little girls eyes change into a close up of the woman's eye. Another example is where we intend to put the only dialogue that the abused girl and woman speaks right at the end, as they both say a line to 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', that follows each other.

They sing to this particular song as I chose to have the piano version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” play throughout the advert rather than speech, as we thought music would be far more powerful than what words could be in a child abuse advert. We do have clearance to use it as we are only playing part of the song. 

After researching into times that adverts containing content of child abuse are broadcast, I have found that due to the Committee of Advertising Practise (CAP) our advert would be shown after 9pm. The reasons for this is that the advert may cause children who are watching stress, therefore the advert will be broadcast later on in the evening.

Broadcasting Time Rules

Children

Advertisements that might frighten or distress children or are otherwise unsuitable for them (for example because they refer explicitly to sexual matters) must be subject to restrictions on times of transmission to minimise the risk that children in the relevant age group will see or hear them. That
does not preclude well-considered daytime scheduling for such material but broadcasters should take account of factors, such as school holidays, that could affect child audience levels. Material that would be incomprehensible to pre-school children and could, therefore, reasonably be broadcast when they are viewing or listening with parents, might be more problematic in relation to older children.
For the avoidance of doubt, any given timing, programme category or age band restriction subsumes any other less severe restriction. Thus, on television, a 9.00pm restriction subsumes both a 7.30pm restriction as well as the restriction on scheduling in or adjacent to programmes commissioned for, principally directed at or likely to appeal particularly to children below the age of 16 or to programmes likely to have a significant child audience. Special care needs to be exercised if a programme for, or likely to be of interest to, children is transmitted late in the evening or in the early hours of the morning, for example at Christmas. If such
a programme is transmitted after 9.00pm, no advertisement carrying a timing restriction may be transmitted in or around that programme.

 

http://www.cap.org.uk/The-Codes/BCAP-Code/BCAP-Code-Item.aspx?q=Test_Scheduling+Rules_32+Scheduling_Children

 

 

Research Into Existing Child Abuse Adverts

Before we finalised what content was going to be shown the group and I thought it would be a good idea if we reseached into existing child abuse adverts to see their content.

Barnados; Break The Cycle



• Shocking
• Shows same clips repeatedly
• Hear the same noises such as an old fashioned kettle, which tensifies the advert and builds up the tension.

Barnardo; Child Prostitution

• Shocking
• Left to the imagination
• Disturbing to watch

Pre Production Paperwork

Today I began working on some of the pre production paperwork. I filled out the storyboard, shot list, location recce and risk assessment. Before completing some of the paperwork out the job roles of the group was given out, I am the producer and co editor of the production.


We also finalised the cast members for our production today. We are using a woman and a young girl who look similar, as they both are fair with blonde hair and blue eyes. I thought this would be a good idea as this way it wouldn't confuse the audience as they will know that they are the same person.


The woman is played by; Amy Bland

The young girl is played by; Sapphire Allen

Possible Shots

1. High angle shot a young girl playing with toys on the floor. The door squeaks.
2. Medium shot of the young girl looking upto the door. (Facing camera)
3. Goes into a close up of the girls eyes as she blinks tightly. Her eye is slightly bruised.
4. Close up of the womans eyes as she blinks tightly.
5. Shot zooms out into a medium shot as she stands up off the bed.
6. Close up of her hand smoothing out the creases on the bed.
7. This is now a medium shot, as she turns from the bed. She knocks somethings onto the floor which makes a noise.
8. That shot fades into an empty black screen, like a blink. You hear her deep breathing as well as banging on the door. You hear a man shouting, her father, "Let me in!". His frustrated, angry.
9. The woman looks at the floor to see what she had knocked over, where she notices a teddy. A medium shot shows her picking this up.
10. She smiles at the ted and strokes it's face.
11. This quickly fades into a shot of the door still being repeatedly banged by her abusive father. She is tightly sqeezing her teddy (the girl). Shes singing, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Her eyes are tightly closed.
12 A close up of her mouth as shes singing turns into the womans mouth.
13. The woman sings, the ted is still in her hands, she tightly squeezes it. She sings "how I wonder what you are".
14. Blank black screen reading, "A childhood never goes away."
15. "Please help put an end to child abuse."
16. Shot of the teddy in her hands. (The young girls.)

A Childhood Never Goes Away.

I chose 'A Childhood Never Goes Away' as the name of the extended advert as the advert shows the effect of child abuse of a woman's life, shown through a series of flashbacks of when she was a young girl being abused.

Songs (If any)

As we have chosen to do an extended advert on child abuse, I thought it would be a good idea to look into existing adverts to see whether music was played in them and what type of music. I found a few songs which I thought the lyrics would be very suitable for this type of advert as sometimes music can be much more powerful than dialogue between the actors.

Casting Crowns; Does Anybody Hear Her

Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
Or does anybody even knows she's going down today
Under the shadow of our steeple
With all the lost and lonely people
Searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?

Sarah McLachlan; In The Arms of an Angel

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there

Martina McBride; Concrete Angel

She walks to school with a lunch she packed
Nobody knows what she's holding back;
Wearing the same dress she wore yesterday,
She hides the bruises with the linen and lace;
oh
Somebody cries in the middle of the night,
The neighbors hear but they turn out the lights;
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate,
When morning comes it will be too late.


Twinkle, Twinkle

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

Production Management Project

Today I was given a brief for a production management project and we could of made anything that we wanted to. I originally had ideas of making a short film about child abuse to show how it can effect a person throughout their whole life, however my group and I decided to make an extended advert showing this instead.