Treatment and Narrative Structure

Positive 

Title
We chose the title 'Positive', this connotes that although the storyline itself isn't positive, the theme of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases may be involved, it gets the audience thinking without giving too much away. This title is conventional for the BSR genre as it one word, two syllables so it is quick and easy to remember, it is really effective in getting the audience to think about our storyline, characters and themes. It will appeal to our target audience because they are young, and straight away will associate the word positive with not only good, but with the elements that will make up the film.

Target Audience
Our target audience is 16-24 year olds, as it focuses on mainly adult themes, but still has an element of corruption of youth as the characters included are still young students. We have also aimed at female viewers as it tackles the struggles that are more common amongst females. Our target audience will also be interested in watching other films which present real life struggles, perhaps presented in a documentary style, Britain has a sky-high level of teenage pregnancies, with 2.9 out of every 100 girls aged between 15 and 19 giving birth every year. The class of our audience is middle and working as the characters will also reflect these classes, so they will be able to relate to what they are going through. Our film will appeal to our target audience as the themes involved are young and current, along with the characters themselves. We hope to represent our characters truthfully so that our audience can easily relate to what they are going through and find similarities between the film and what they have seen or even experienced themselves. We also want our character to represent that teenage pregnancy isn't always their fault and how they are so easily judged before they know what caused it.




Our unique selling point is that in most teenage pregnancy themed films, the girl falls pregnant from having sex with her own consent with knowing the consequences, for example Juno, For Keeps, Precious. But our film will denote her pregnancy in a totally different perspective. We will watch these films in order to help us differentiate our own film from theirs and give it a clear USP.





Technology
We have an idea to film certain parts of our film on a mobile phone that belongs to one of the characters at a party, the footage would be raw, hand held and gives the audience a different perspective of what is happening. A good example of this is the opening of Harry Brown which creates a really on edge atmosphere for the audience through this type of footage, which is what we would like to achieve in certain areas. A limitation of this is that it could look amateur and not create the atmosphere that we would like it to.

Representations
Our key character is a 16 year old girl, Becca, who becomes pregnant. She is the protagonist as she is young and vulnerable, although she is not treated as this because everyone has taken a dislike to her and treats her as if she has done wrong. The antagonist in the film is firstly the rapist, as he takes advantage of this young girl, but no one knows his identity so is not treated as the bad guy. Aswell as him, we have bullies and keyboard warriors who attack her for her pregnancy. 
We will apply BSR archetypes to the characters in our film by firstly having the failing man, Becca's Dad, he is a single parent struggling to provide for his daughter, and panics at the thought of having to supply for a grandchild. The weak but aggressive man will be the Rapist, who is shown as weak by taking advantage of a girl much more vulnerable than him, but aggressive through the act of rape. The Savior is the boy who falls in love with Becca despite her pregnancy, he helps her to overcome the bullies and what she has been through. The follower will be her best friend who has now turned her back on Becca because of her pregnancy, and instead follows the crowd and bullies her. 
Our film will challenge typical representations of teenage girls who carelessly become pregnant, instead it will show the hardships that some young girls are forced to face.

Narrative
Our film is about a 15 year old, Becca, who is raped on her way to a party, she keeps the rape a secret but is still bullied at school and online for being made out to be promiscuous. The enigma code of our film is that the audience will not know what Becca will do with the baby or who she will tell, leaving them intrigued. In our opening sequence, it will begin with a text asking Becca to come to the party, to a flashback of her getting ready. It will then go back to current time where she is doing homework, and takes out a pregnancy test. Later on it will cut between her waiting for the results and flashbacks of the rape.
Our characters and themes are introduced but not fully exposed, and we will use super imposed graphics so that it is more interesting to watch. Our opening will be non linear as it will include flashbacks from the rape and will not follow on in chronological order, after the opening, the rest of the film is a linear story. We aim to create verisimilitude through our actors to make the audience feel a sense of realism when watching, our locations will also be real locations as it will not be filmed on set, this should make the audience believe that the story is more real.

We have designed a narrative structure so that we do not give too much of our story away in the first 2 minutes, our opening will consist of only the exposition and the agents of change.

Conventions

We will conform to typical BSR genre's as we will use themes of Corruption of Youth, unwanted pregnancy and sexual abuse. Our film will have elements of romance but in a more unexpected way than most romantic films later on. A non linear opening and music which sets the appropriate atmosphere . Our credits will be super imposed, black or white so they do not attract attention away from the film.

Style and Iconography
We are going to use two different types of camera work, still and handheld, this should give the audience different perspectives and create different atmospheres throughout. We will use mostly cuts and cross cuts so that our shots are short and fast paced in the montage to make the audience on edge. Our characters will be wearing average priced, non branded clothes to signify reality and their average earning families. This is different to most BSR films as they are mostly denoted wearing tracksuits and we find this does not portray reality accurately. When the girl is taking her pregnancy test, we can hear her shaky breaths, showing her nerves. The music contrasts with the rape scenes as it is not as aggressive, but still makes the audience feel sorry for Becca.

Institution 
Film 4's ethos is to help out small British directors and their films are not usually suited to family audiences with only a small budget. This will impact on our film because it impacts the themes we have used as they would not be suitable for younger children, our budget is low so it comes across as more realistic. We will distribute our film in an independent cinema as this is what Film 4 mostly do, if the film was successful, we would go on to exhibiting it in larger cinemas for wider audiences, Netflix, Sky Movies.