Questions I was asked by the client:
Could you explain the title please?
A casual state of mind - comes from the alternative name for a football hooligan which is a 'football casual'
What is the message of the overall theme?
The overall message for my media production is to show how people can be influenced into self destructive behaviour to gain a sense of belonging and security. When Joe dies at the end of the first season it goes onto season 2 and shows the redemption of the other 3 characters and how they realise the death of joe was caused by them and shows how they move out of the life of crime.
What is it that motivates the characters (hooligans)?
After research into the culture of football violence and hooligan firms i believe that the thing that drives them into the firms and what makes them stay is due to many reasons; the first one being to gain a sense of belonging this could be due to rejection at school or home or based on issues with there biological family, another reason is to escape from the normal lives they lead and do something that is completely separate from there working lifestyle and finally alot of the motivation comes from the rush and adrenaline factor of fighting itself and people enjoy the action and danger they put themselves in.
What about representation of females or other groups (not just white males)?
The target audience for my film is primarily male that is who i am trying to represent. If I was to create a media piece to accommodate to every person within the media audience and represent everyone then the story would suffer and the plot would become complicated at many would loose interest. The culture surrounding football hooliganism is a male dominated world and there is rarely any females in the firms however, a strong female character is Joe's mum who works hard to pull Joe away from the firm but due to the arguing just pushes him further away and into his new 'family' the firm.
Do your primary audience relate to the characters (gain personal identity)?
I think that although the audience will not be able to relate to the characters involvement in football violence and crime they will however be of the same age and likely be the same gender so the will experience some of the same issues that the characters will face in there lives. This can be from issues at home and school to felling as if they don't belong to anything. This TV series could also help teenagers in the life of crime relate to the character and see how it negatively effects not just their life but the lives of there loved ones and people around them.
Do you think there is a risk that the topic is remote from the lives of the audience?
Partially yes because the audience will not have experienced this for themselves first hand but that is where the audience pleasure of surveillance comes into the picture and also partially no because although it will be remote people watch action and crime dramas about many topics that are no longer relevant in this day and age and yet they still bring in a large audience.
What attracts people to this type of show?
i think what attracts people to this show is the genre, people will be attracted to the action packed and violent scenes and also the drama side of the show rather than the culture of football hooligans, a large percentage of the audience will be people interested in the culture itself but also a lot f the audience will just be people who enjoy action and don't know a lot about football violence.
To feel relevant do you think it could be used as a metaphor for extremism?
Yes, i think it could be used as a metaphor for extremism as it shows how easily a person can have there view changed and they can take on extreme views and actions in order to gain a sense of belonging. A lot of people who become involved with gangs or extremist groups do so because they want to be apart of something bigger than themselves.
How I will use this to develop my idea:
The client feedback i received when pitching my idea to the BBC 3 representative has been very helpful in the further development of my idea.
The first point i would like to develop is that the show would not be suitable for BBC 1 or 2 because of its variable lengths, this is because i pitched my idea to have 30 - 40 min episodes. the reason this makes it suitable for streaming services like BBC 3 or Netflix is because they are not based on specific times but TV channels like BBC 1 and 2 run on set timings so the show must last a specific length to fit it into a schedule. After some thought i think that the ideal running time for my episode would be between 30 and 32 mins, this allows the pilot episode to establish the theme and introduce characters and also allows the episodes to be long enough to have an in depth plot and character profile to comply with the need of diversion.
The second point i would like to address is the lack of female and minority group representation, to combat this weakness i have had the idea to include Joe's mother as a much larger part, she will feature in more episodes and the relationship between Joe and his Mother will be further developed, she will play a large roll in the show trying to pull Joe away from his current lifestyle choice. Secondly in the next season when the boys are looking to remove themselves from the situation due to prison threats, criminal records and the death of their close friend the social worker attached to the boys will be a strong woman lead and she will almost be like a mother to the lads as they have been rejected at home.
The show could be related more to current times by being used as a metaphor for extremism because its about finding an alternative family and belonging to something and this is just like when people are brought into extremist groups and develop extremist views because they are looking for a group of people they can call there own and the fact that a vulnerable person is looking for something to be apart of and this allows them to be manipulated and convinced of things by people they believe are there friends or people they can trust.
Another point for development brought to light by the client is what is the characters motivation to join the firm because if he is 17/18 then he will be in collage so he must have some motivation to stay on the straight and narrow. Because there must be something quite extreme to drive someone to become part of a firm and go out fighting every weekend. I think to improve and address this the best option for my character is to develop a deeper back story of his home life; Joe's dad could have died in the army and as a young lad he doesn't quite know how to express his anger and pain because he doesn't want to look weak so he keeps it all bottled in, this leads to him having a terrible relationship with his mother and he rejects his step farther and is angry at his mum for meeting someone new. all this anger and pain and also the difficulty at home would then give Joe the motivation to join the firm: it gives him a new family, the fighting allows him to get rid of his anger he has had kept in for so long and it also allows him to get away from the house and away from his parents.
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