Treatment

Product: The product is the film, Distraction a SitCom/Slapstick comedy about a boy called Joe who needs to get to the toilet but with constant distractions stopping him getting to the loo along with being zapped back to where he started. Our target market for this film is the teenage group, ranging from 12-15. For the film to be a success the marketing needs to be on a large scale for it to reach our target audience. TV is one of the biggest and powerful media platforms for advertising and enables us to reach our target audience. Posters are also another power advertising technique, with posters that can be posted anywhere such as buses, London Buses and bill boards. Social networking is also another powerful tool for advertising and the best way to reach the younger generation that our film is aimed at. These are the best ways to get our product advertised to our target audience and will advertise our film successfully. Target Audience: We have aimed our film at the age group 12-15 as although it is a comedy and comedy can appeal to all age groups, this type of comedy would be better suited to the younger age group of 12-15, which makes it a 12 BBFC. Our filmed would be more enjoyed by the 12-15 age range as the content would appeal to that group as the context exceeds common sense. There is a childish sense of humour that would not appeal to the older age range, as it consists of toilet humour and unrealistic situations. The age group of 12-15 would respond better to our film as they would enjoy the humour more than the older group would and properly relate to it more than the older age group would. An average school student in the years of 7 10 would like this as it is set in a school and most students could relate to the situation of trying to get to the loo but cant because of the distractions. Most people in this age group would find the misfortunate of others funny (our character not getting to the toilet). Going to the toilet is a common situation people find themselves in and of you add in the element of not been able to go you get a funny situation for other people to watch. The gender of this film would be both although males would favour it more though as the character is a male and the distraction of the female eye contact is a stereotypical male tendency. The male character is also the one who is looking to go to the loo, so males could relate to this more. Looking at these males would relate to this film more than girls but the film is targeted at both genders as the humour involved can be found funny by both genders. From researching the comedy genre, most comedies mock day to day situations and often exaggerate the situation too, and in our film that is what we have done, and by doing this technique it will make our film a successful comedy. Although a comedy there is a plot line and an audience will be interested to see the climax of the film- which is whether he make it to the loo or not. People who would 1

enjoy our film the most would be the 12-15 target audience, and short film enthusiasts. Short film enthusiasts would enjoy distraction as it is a typical short film that can be found in the comedy genre short film section. We would like our target audience to respond to our film by finding the short film funny and the idea of the film funny. We would like them to also laugh at the intended comedy side of it. As our target market is 12-15 school students we want the film to appeal to them, we would achieve this by the ways in which the film is advertised such as the billboards and film posters. The posters must look funky and eye catching to the target audience in order for the film to a success. On the posters the theme of the short film will be highlighted along with the characters and a catchy catch phrase, with all these marketing techniques this short film should appeal to the target audience of 12-15 years. The advertising would be on a wide scale to promote and attract the desired audience for our film. We aim for our audience to be a mass audience as there is 12-15 yr old across the country that would like our film. The research we have done is to understand the comedy genre and the many types of comedy to dark/black comedy, slapstick, stand-up to SitCom. We did this research to understand the many types of comedy and the elements of each type of comedy for example in dark/black comedy the main story deals with drugs, murder, war, violence, sex and the supernatural with the added element of humour added in to the film/TV programme have more charisma, examples of this type of comedy include True Blood and Dexter. Another example would be the slapstick, which involves exaggerated movements and exceeds common sense; a famous face for this type of comedy involves Charlie Chapmen and his films. We did the research to understand what each comedy requires and what type of comedy we would want to do in the environment we are in (the school). We also did research into what type of comedies like and why, most likes the day to day issues such News and common family situations like getting a job. We decided to do a slapstick/SitCom as we felt that this mixture would work in our environment and that it would be popular with audiences. We also did research in the comedy genre as we will have to know how to market the comedy film and what questions to ask in the questionnaire, and what type of comedies would suit certain audiences. Context: Our film would most likely be seen on streaming on line and at the cinemas. These are popular choices for watching films. The advantages for watching the film at cinemas is that it will be shown on big screen and in good quality. As our film is targeted at the younger audience, it would be ideal if they could download there film as this is the most likely way they would watch the film. Before the film is available for downloading we have to make sure the marketing was a success in order to make awareness to the target audience.

Media Concepts
Representations: In many short films there are representations that are shown to audiences to throughout films. In our film the character Joe is represented as innocent and is being tormented by the problem he having by not going to the loo. From researching the comedy genre many people watch programmes and find it funny by other peoples misfortunes. Using this common theme, that is what has happen to Joe his misfortune is the audiences humour. But Joe is represented as innocent and also represents a typical male gender with typical male tendencies such as the attraction and eye contact towards the character Hannah. The target audiences could relate to this as well. In the short film the girls are represented as typical average school girls, with having the body language of standing in a semi circle, and talking and giggling. We have used this typical image of schoolgirls and used in our films. Our audience with relate to this typical stereotype. The cleaning lady is another character in our film and we have represented her as slightly grumpy which as typical stereotype of a cleaning lady and we have used for our film. The target audience can relate to this, as cleaning ladies are common site in schools and educational environments alike. The caretaker in our film is represented as grumpy and slightly mean as he does not allow Joe to go to the loo and that is why the curse falls to him. With the caretaker being mean this could also add humour to the situation. Mr Bromley represented as dominant which a typical feature of a teacher that also many of our target audience could relate to. He represented as dominant when he calls over Joe for the detention. From the comedy genre, what makes a comedy funny is having the stereotypes of groups of people exaggerated, and we have decided to true to the comedy genre as we know that theme works. Genre: When we research the comedy genre we found lots of sub genres such as black comedy, slapstick, stand up, Sitcom, Satire and spoofs etc. There were lots of types of comedies; we decided to do a SitCom slapstick mixture. SitCom is a Situation Comedy, and we thought that this would be the best type of comedy we could do, with the added element of the zapping back, this exceeds common knowledge this fitted to the slapstick genre. With the sort short film its going to be it was best to be a mixture of the both types. What makes a slapstick a slapstick comedy is the iconography of the it, in this type it uses exaggerated movements and exceeds common sense and we have stayed true to this genre by adding in these elements such as the zapping back all the time and the exaggerated movements of running towards the toilet. Although there is slapstick elements it is mainly a Sitcom as it is a situation in that has been exaggerated and again we have used these typical iconography to show this in our film such as the whole film it self is a situation. 3

For comedy any location can be used, but for our film Distraction we have used a school, as our target audience are many school students they can relate to the situation more then somebody who does not go a school and sees the location everyday. We these added typical elements to make our film instantly identifiable as comedy also with the stereotypical elements of the comedy sub genres. Our comedy is a fast paced comedy that would attract our target audience as well, in the film the pace will pick up as Joe struggles to go the toilet. We decided to go with theses comedy types as we felt they would be the most achievable for the facilities that are available to us and location as well. We have made sure that we have stayed true to the comedy elements by using typical comedy genre iconography in order for the film to be a success for the target audience.

Institutions:
Our film Distraction is a comedy film and would be best suited to the comedy market. The name of our production company is : Jokesmith Productions. We chose this name as we felt it fitted to the comedy theme. Media Languages: We will use bright lighting as comedy is bright and happy, and also ties in with the school setting which can be a place of brightness and happiness, and foreshadows to the audience that it will happy and funny film. We use a range of camera shots during our film, such as Long Shot, Medium Close Up, Extreme Close Up, Medium Shot and Point of View. Structure of the clip will involve short clips flashing from mission, this also adds to the fast pace of it, which is the desired effect for the film, which also builds up to the ultimate climax for the end, such scene would be where Joe finally goes to the toilet at the end and feels triumph. With the all funny elements this should make the film a success to the target audience. By Chloe Wakeling