9-7-09 & 10-7-09

Our next project is also going to be a competition with other schools in Essex. It is to produce a film of 3- 10 minutes long based on underage drinking.

Underage drinking has become a major factor within the UK in these present times, and we need to start bringing awareness to all those who participate. The charity that came up with this idea of project are called 'Alcohelp'. The website containing a full brief is www.alcohelp.co.uk/consider

Our target audience for this project is 13 year olds, which personally thinking about it i think this is a too young of age for them to start drinking alcohol as it will damage them later in life, therefore bringing the awarness of alcohol effects will help them realise how bad the problem really is, whether iot be on a regular basis or once in a while. We then thought of things to include in the film about the aspects that cause underage drinking to start with to bring awareness to those involved.
They are:
- Peer pressure
- Violence
- Long term health problems (e.g- liver damage)
- Truancy
- Binge Drinking
This is to raise awareness of the different issues. We have to portray how underage drinking does have serious consequences. For a homework task, we were asked to research into the topic thoroughly and find statistics that will shock our audience.The main one young people do not realise when drinking is that it can cause them permanant brain damage and they have a higher risk of becoming pregnant and having sexual intercourse as they are under the influence of alcohol and dont realise their actions. Young people do not realise these consequences, and until they see it to believe it. Statistics also shown in my homework were that many young children these days can buy alcohol within a shop without being questionned of their age. This makes it easier for underage drinking to occur, as parents do not have control of their actions if they do not know what they are actually doing when they are out socialising. Another fact that shocked me was that children as young as 12 have been admitted as alcoholics due to excessive drinking on a regular basis. This is hard to understand as i stereotypically think of young children being innocent and well behaved and may just go to the park with friends to have fun, and not to binge drink. Many young children say they do this because they have no other activities they can become involved in.

In the second part of our lesson, we started to brainstorm and think about what different aspects of the film could make it more 'realistic' using several techniques. We looked at how documentary type films often use interviewing techniques, cutaways, and still images to get the message across clearly. I like the use of voiceovers and making it repeptitiveso it sticks in the viewers mind. This could be affective when producing the alcohol awareness, as many of these techniques could attract the target audience and inform and also show them of the effects their drinking will have in the future.