Deconstructing our micro-drama

We created our mini movie incorporating Propp's study of there being seven
basic archetypes in fairytales. In our movie we included a villain, the princess, a
false hero, a magical helper, the princess' father and the donor. Some of the
characters in our movie adopt the characteristics of multiple archetypes. We
used Todorov's narrative formula in creating a storyline for our micro-drama.
This is shown at the beginning, the princess (Mercedes) is with her boyfriend
(Gaz [the villain]) and they are admiring her ring. There is no real emphasis on
anything being odd or problematic in the situation, it is just setting the scene.
This is the equilibrium. The dis-equilibrium is when conflict arises between 'Gaz'
and 'Mercedes' due to him stealing her ring and selling it on the internet.
'Ralph' was the character who informed Mercedes about it and was a friend to
her in her troubled time. The story resulted in them becoming best friends, this
is the new equilibrium. Our movie also features Binary Opposition. We see this
toward the end when Ralph who would be stereotypically a 'geek', becomes
friends with Mercedes who represents a 'chav'. There's a suggestion of
narrative enigma right at the end when Ralph is threatened by Gaz. The
audience should be left wondering what will happen to Ralph.

We used a few costumes to try and clearly distinguish the characters. These
were items such as oversized lenses for the geeky character and sports clothes
for the 'chavvy' character. The set/location of the movie was in school. This
gave the movie a sense of verisimilitude as it is where young people spend
most of their time and also the only time when two very different groups of
people may interact. The set was obvious because a section was filmed by
lockers. There was a deliberate contrast in setting where Gaz and Mercedes
were introduced and where Ralph and Eugene where pictured. This was to
show the difference in characters; they prefer to be outside to maybe look
tough or cool because they are away from everyone else and Ralph was inside
because it is more practical when studying.

The target audience for our micro-drama is pre-mid teens as they would be
able to relate to the characters. There was no target gender audience; however
I assume it would be like more by girls perhaps because of the comical element
of girls acting as boys. The upbeat, non-diegetic, opening theme song indicates
the young target audience. It resembles the opening theme of 'The
Inbetweeners', this is a subtle intertextual reference.
On screen, the social groups we have stereotypically represented are 'geeks'
and 'chavs'. The chavs were represented as a people group with poor dialect
and an aggressive nature. This is quite a wide generalization and not all people
who wear sports clothes behave in that way, but it adds a comical element to
the movie. There are many comedy's which feature geeks as a type of hero
such a Napolean Dynamite. Our movie has a flavour of this. Where some may
think its making fun of them, others may look at it as empowering the typically
unpopular.