Practical Production Evaluation - ‘All for a Boy’

For my practical production, I worked in a pair and produced a short Docu-drama called ‘All for a Boy.’ It represents a 15-year-old girl who is more concerned about make-up, boys and fashion rather than school, education and her future career. In order for us to relate to the docu-drama, we thought it would be good for the title to be called ’All for a Boy’ as it would relate to our primary target audience of teenage girls.

Whilst we were deciding on the roles and responsibilities, Jasmit and me agreed to share all of the tasks equally. However, as the narrative and roles became more clearer, Jasmit was more responsible of the filming and focused a lot on the camera work, but during that time I was responsible for logging shots, making the story boards and writing the script. Whilst we were editing our production, our original idea changed so much that it was difficult to keep up with the narrative but all of the new ideas fit in perfectly well compared to what we had originally thought.

The opening of our documentary is a montage sequence showing different shots of Zara (protagonist) getting ready for school. We included this so that teenage girls could relate to the protagonist. In between these shots are small previews of scenes, which happen later on in the documentary. We specifically chose shots of the protagonist with her boyfriend, her class mate Saman, (played as an opposition) her teacher, and, when she gets her results because these were all important parts in the documentary. We decided to end the montage and introduce the title ’All for a Boy’ by having the results clip because in that, Zara looks shocked and with the title coming straight after that clip would create a sense of enigma and make the audience think of what the outcome may be. We decided that we would use a song called ‘Crazy in Love’ because it is showing how Zara is ‘crazy in love’ and doesn’t care what is going on around her.

As our production is a Docu-drama means that we could not use many of the conventions that a normal documentary would contain. Although, we did try our best to include as much as possible. We used point of view shots so that the audience could see what the characters are thinking of/doing etc. We used flashbacks so that it created a sense of irony and the audience were getting a clear picture of what was really going on. A clear example can be seen as when Zara is getting in trouble from her teacher, she lies about the bus being late whereas she was with her boyfriend. We also used cinema verite style footage, when Zara is seen running away after she receives her results. This shows that this footage was real and had not been mediated, which creates a sense of authenticity and realism.
When it came to deciding how we can compare how different Zara and Saman are to each other, we decided to use Strauss’s Binary Opposition technique. When we studied ‘Bowling for Columbine’ (2002) in Module 2, Michael Moore was shown in a more positive light to Charlton Heston and that is exactly what we did with Zara and Saman. Michael Moore also used techniques like voiceovers, which we included in the beginning. We decided to open the drama like this because we can instantly see when Zara walks in late on the phone, that she will choose boys rather than education. We did not pay much attention to detail when it came to one of our scenes; after we had changed the narrative, whilst editing we noticed when Zara has to sneak into her house, her clothes were different from the night before. When she was with her boyfriend she had her coat on, but this can be easily explained by saying that because we said ‘The following morning’ the night before Zara may have left her coat at her boyfriend’s house as she had obviously stayed out.

I believe that our Docu-drama does tell a good story, because it has a beginning middle and an end. If we include Todorov’s’s narrative theory along with Rabiger’s suggestion it is clear to see that because we had a equilibrium of Zara having a negative attitude from the start but then a dis-equlibrium; when Zara receives her results and notices she has messed up ‘All for a Boy’. We also used Propp’s narrative roles, as Zara being the hero and binary oppositions showing the differences between Zara and Saman.
The differences between Saman and Zara were shown like good vs. Evil. We decided that we would make the characters do different things to make the audience aware of how they are completely opposite to each other. We have a scene where Zara is in her bedroom using the Internet, and Saman is doing her work. The audience must notice the difference between both characters surrounding environment. We paid close attention to detail during filming, because Zara’s room was pink, which would connote how ‘girly’ she was. On the other hand Saman’s room was plain and had teddy bears surrounding her, which could mean that she has a simple life but has a warm heart.
All for a Boy will be shown on a public service broadcaster (PSB) and a commercial channel such as channel 4. We thought this would be a suitable place to show our docu drama because a lot of documentaries are shown on this channel already. We decided it was best to create a docu-drama rather than a short film because we have followed well, such as ‘Big Brother,’ which is one of channel 4’s own reality TV shows. Some of these techniques included face-to-face interviews; In big brother there are diary room entries when the house mates get to talk to the camera, in our documentary Zara is seen speaking to the camera (when she is running away after her exam results) which shows that she knows her life is being followed up by people.

Overall, All for a Boy was produced so that it can educate our primary target of girls that they should focus on what is important right now; their education, everything else comes after that. It will also teach our secondary audience of boys, how easily girls get attached to them and how they should also focus on education at this point of their lives. This was represented through Zara failing her exams because of this boy. Finally, I feel that our production did tell a good story and will definitely entertain the audience just as we planned.

By Zara Sayed Word Count: 1128