Unit 21 Response to Brief

 Unit 21: Response to Brief

The Brief:

The client for this unit is BBC Three, an online streaming platform that will return to air on television next year. 

The requested product is to plan an idea for a Television Drama series that appeals to the target audience of BBC Three. BBC Three's target audience is 16-21 year olds, aiming to get young people back to the television industry, which has been showing a negative trend in recent years due to rising popularity of online streaming services and social media.

BBC3 has specified a few important factors that will guide the planning and production process:

-The production budget of the series will be relatively low.

-The programme must fit with BBC3's existing content, ethos, style and target audience.

-The ideas will be formally pitched to a BBC3 executive.

The ideas should be presented using a range of mediums for the planning, production and post-production stages, for example photos, video clips and notes to showcase the development of my production.

For this unit, I will need to generate ideas for a unique television drama series based on the above and discuss the strengths and weakness that different ideas have. Then I will need to create a formal proposal of the idea to support the eventual pitch for the product which I will need to create and showcase to the client in a presentation. Finally I will then evaluate my pitch based on the feedback from the client.

Response:

The most important aspect of the product that I must consider is making sure that my proposed product fits in with both BBC3 and television dramas as a whole. This means that I must ensure to adhere to the style and ethos of BBC3 and to the conventions of TV dramas. The elements listed below are all aspects that I should aim to include while generating ideas.

BBC3's style and ethos:

In order for my proposed programme to be suitable for airing on BBC3, it must fit in with BBC3's existing roster of programmes. The client has already specified that a tv drama is to be proposed, so I should use BBC3's existing selection of tv dramas to guide the production of my product.

Modern - An underlying pattern in BBC3's dramas is that they are usually set in the present day, often exploring subjects that are relevant in today's society like technology, discrimination and political issues.

Local - Most of the drama's settings are somewhere in the UK. This is due to the BBC's focus on UK broadcasting since it is nationally funded by the UK government.

Grounded - Although there are certainly outliers, the majority of dramas on BBC3 are grounded in reality, composed of events are plausible of happening in real life.

Gritty - This is also a general trend of today's dramas, but BBC3's dramas are often dark, gritty and brooding programmes that lean into negative themes like tragedy, rather than having more light-hearted content (although there are a few dramas of that kind.)

Conventions of TV Dramas:

I have previously explored the conventions of TV Dramas as part of my case study analysis, so I will just briefly list the main ones found there.

Episodic structure - The story can be segmented into equally sized episodes to be viewed sequentially to form the overarching plot. Each episode has it's own sub-plot that plays into the wider narrative.

Tension - The creation of tension is a key tool in the content of Dramas, pushing the narrative and making the programme entertaining. This tension is most often in the form of social interactions between characters rather than actual events.

Narrative - TV dramas almost always follow a fictional, character-driven narrative that is grounded enough to allow the audience to believe that the events that occur throughout the program could happen in real life.

Character archetypes - The characters in tv dramas usually follow common archetypes, especially the use of stereotypes to easily identify characters to the audience. Levi-Strauss' theory on binary opposites explores this, and how it is the clashing of binary opposites that creates the tension in the programme.

Sub-plots - The programme has a main narrative that features in every episode, then also has branching sub-plots focusing on other characters that break up the focus on the main story and expand the story into other directions, tying in to the main narrative to provide new information to the audience.

Target Audience

BBC3 has clearly defined their target audience in their remit, detailing that their programmes are aimed at 16-35 year olds. In the brief, they have narrowed that window further to 16-21 year olds. This audience, especially in today's society, is vastly segmented in many ways, so appealing to the whole audience at once is not realistically achievable. Instead, BBC3 creates a variety of content that appeals to a range of different places on the demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioural spectrums. However, there are some common elements of BBC3's programmes that help appeal to as much of the target audience as possible. I will need to do the same if my programme is to be suitable for the diverse audience of young people.

Modern - Already an established style of BBC3's content, the use of a modern-day setting and the exploration of subjects relevant to modern society is a key factor in appealing to young people, since they are less likely to be able to connect with programmes set in earlier time periods.

Relatable - Following the tangent of audience pleasures, another important aspect of appealing to young people is to make the content of the programme relatable for young people. This can be more difficult to do than relating with older generations because young people have experienced less, so therefore have less that they can relate to such experiences.