PRODUCTION: Genre

GENRE 

Akin to the question of whether 3/5 act structure are important is the discussion around the importance of genre in modern art/TV. Genre serves various functions but one of the most obvious is that it brings codes and conventions, sometimes regarding form, story or characters. Jordan Peele describes this as "a contract with the audience", (1) horrors will have gore, thrillers will be tense, actions will be fast-paced and punchy and to break these can startle audiences, sometimes for good or sometimes for bad. Genre can also help to place a show, by relating it among similar shows, you can help can draw audiences of those shows, hopefully building your own fanbase. 

 However, it may not always be easy to relate your film to others. Some, like Darren Aronofsky, believes they do not follow genre(1), saying that ESPN did not recognise The Wrestler as a sports movie, because they do not class wrestling as a sport, which lost him their production credit, and that his Black Swan is technically hard to place among a specific set  genre. Following conventions and an expected path that audiences have seen before can seem boring and unimaginative to a writer. "Tension between creativity and commerce, tradition & its subversion radiates across all of art." (Source, Into the woods) By trying to not necessarily find a new way of approaching a story, but instead find a fresh way, an inversion on an existing trope or different way of tackling it, can prove challenging but creatively liberating. This can also help set your show apart from the shows that help place it, but may also swallow it up in a highly saturated market. 

PARENTS 

In British youth drama, adult characters – usually parents – play an important role, even if it isn't always glamorous or perhaps similar to representations across another genre. Typically, these characters are “carefully written and elaborated” Creeber, G. (2015), this partially for development over the ongoing serial format but can also help to accommodate the “double address” of youth drama, speaking also to older audiences that relate to the parents but also youth characters as they themselves reminisce on their adolescence.  Division between youth and family drama comes from focus on youth characters. 

Filmmaker Taika Waititi is incredibly skilled in writing child characters that are nuanced and fallible and commonly and clever relates and contrasts these same traits in their adults. In an interview ith BAFTA Guru, he says that he learned early that grownups are fallible and untrustworthy, spent a lot of time leaning to survive by himself, channelling this into Boy, a comedy about child neglect. He says that because of different cultural approaches to comedy, US audiences were made uncomfortable, but NZ and UK had found it funny as hoped. 

I wanted to try and reflect a variety of capabilities through the adult characters in my series, from Sarah's father, image obsessed and immature to Jack's, whose grief sent him down the neck of a bottle or Natalie's whose strong Christian morals maintain them a moral standpoint. Sarah's mother stands distanced from her child compared perhaps to a more typically written parental figure, to reflect Sarah trying to carve her independence and reject her mother's new family; however, as Sarah tries to reject family, she finds herself heading for the arms of her estranged father. Upon realizing what a let-down he is, but mostly noticing their similarities and seeing him as a projection of herself if following her path, rejects that notion and side of her - returning to the maternal figure that had protected and loved her all along. 

 NARRATIVE 

First person narration and diary entries are a very common tool in Youth dramas, seen in mad fat diary, inbetweeners. It's a common mode of address used “as a direct expression of subjectivity and teen self-hood" (Creeber, G.) Shows like Inbetweeners and I Am Not Okay with This, contrast device with sudden punchlines contradictory to protagonists' beliefs for humour. The intimacy provided by this device provides audiences with a direct line to the protagonists' thoughts, usually increased by British behaviours. I specifically decided to avoid this trope within my own show, hoping to create a disconnection between the audience and Sarah, as they hope to understand her actions and thoughts, reflecting perhaps unclearness to self. I also thought that the idea of Sarah keeping a diary could prove contradictory to the mental disconnect she presents; she doesn't keep a diary because can't face thoughts. I considered having Ryan keep a diary when I initially considered following the Skins approach of centring each episode around a different housemate but decided against this, choosing instead to make Sarah's journey the focus of the series. However, I did hold onto this idea, keeping it if - in a real setting - a second season was commissioned. In this case, I could explore the supporting characters in this time, using Ryan's diary as a conflicting idea to his hyper-masculine pretence for both comedic purposed but also to let audiences in on his growing mental awareness as his tries to circumvent being honest with a diary. 

 My general approach to the show is also quite uncommon in youth TV. Frequently filmed on location and featuring high-drama stories, I wanted my show to almost be the antithesis to this. With a dialogue heavy show, set almost solely in one location I wanted to reflect a more laid-back approach to youth drama, while maintaining similar storylines that explored the movement from adolescence to independent adult. 

 1) The HollyWood Reporter, Youtube, (2018) 'Full Writers Roundtable: Jordan Peele, Darren Aronofsky, Emily V. Gordon | Close Up With THR' {online] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB3nfc1tQ0E [accessed 18/5/2020) 

Creeber, G. (2015) The Television Genre Book. (s.l.): Bloomsbury Publishing.) 

Youtube, BAFTA Guru ‘Director Taika Waititi | Screenwriters Lecture’. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-3ozJZ4zWs [accessed 21/5/2020]