Public Service Advertisements show a subject that is associated within society, or a dominant ideology of society that needs to be exploited, due to content being perceived as morally wrong. In the past Governments have failed to capture the main ideology of society and have focused on their parties belief’s and stance on issues. In our project we will try to show how racism is wrong, and the effects it has on people’s lives. We will use shocking images and statistics, along with suitable music to allow the audience to feel involved but also feel a lot of sympathy towards the characters within the Advert. I believe that the audience will understand the message being portrayed and will identify the problems that racism brings about.
I am working in a group of three students and after careful consideration about the topic of the project, we have decided upon many methods in displaying our message successfully. As a group member, I will be involved in all aspects of the project, but my main responsibility will be the production. This involves organising filming, soundtracks and mise-en-scene.
I have researched the topic area fully and have found some interesting facts:
Racism is a developed set of attitudes that include aggression based on the supposed superiority of one group or on the supposed inferiority of another group, based solely on skin color or race.
Parents are the earliest and most powerful source of racial attitudes (positive or negative), while peers run a close second as racism exists and may be on the increase in public schools and the frequency of racial jokes and slurs, derogatory racial stereotyping and (less often) violent acts are frequently left unpunished by school authorities.
Children from dysfunctional families are particularly susceptible to peer pressure to adopt a racist posture. They may express fear, loathing and hatred for persons who are of a different race or ethnic background.
The representation of the main characters in our production will be created through the audience having pity and sympathy towards the individuals. There will be a huge emphasis on understanding towards the victim as this is our main focus. The bullies will be verbally and physically violent, and through accurate camera angles we will focus on the victims expressions to show their grief towards their tormenter. This will be distressing, but moving for the targeted audience. Once the audience recognizes who is being victimised, the narrative should show the events in a way that will be easily understood.
We will use a digital video camera to film the project and capture the footage we need. By editing the footage we have collected, we can make the advert similar to the storyboard we made in the pre-production of the project. The storyboard will give us a clear outline to the structure of the narrative. We have considered many locations to do our filming, and have decided on Bridgewater high school being our prime location due to the familiarity of the people and surroundings.
The narrative of the advertisement is straightforward and therefore, easy for the viewer to understand. We will use slow music towards the beginning of the advert to show the victims being tormented, and we will focus on their facial expressions to create more sadness. We will then show a series of facts related to multicultural racism. The advert will show a series of clips, with mixed race individuals, so it appeals to a large range. Towards the end of the advert, we will show a montage of clips, with a more up beat, song in the background, so the advert concludes on a happier note. I believe that our advert will be both hard hitting, and effective towards our targeted audience.
As a group, we aim to create an educative production that is informative, and effective, and allows the audience to see an area of the issue that hasn’t previously been portrayed. With our knowledge on the subject and through accurate research, we should be able to create a successful and accurate piece of coursework that is both educative and touching to our targeted audience.