Synopsis of Characters and represenatations that will feature in my video

Synopsis of Characters and representations that will feature in my video

Characters

Benedict

Benedict will play the role of a young adult, who is torn between his love for basketball and his insatiable appetite for narcotics. I got my inspiration for his character from the 1995 American coming of age drama 'The Basketball Diaries'. I am mirroring Benedict to the character of Jim Carrol played by Leonardo Di Caprio. I am aiming to raise awareness for homelessness within my video. I am aiming to successfully present a stable family who have been broken by drugs leading to homelessness and the harsh reality that millions across the world face daily. Benedict’s character will an aspiring basketball star who is pressured by his successful mother to achieve. However, owing to the basketball team he plays for he is surrounded by acquaintances who get him involved in both deal and abusing drugs, forcing him off his successful career path and heading towards a dark future. I want to capture the horrific consequence that narcotics can have on an individual. I believe I can capture this through a set close up shots of Benedict sleeping rough on the streets looking emaciated. Benedict’s narrative will highlight the detrimental impact drug abuse can have on an individual’s confidence, rationality, mentality and innocence. I fell it is imperative to include Benedict’s mothers’ shaming reaction which leads to his homeless, owing to 68% of homeless people in the U.K. experiencing substance abuse. This shocking figure will accurately allow me to link substance abuse as a major contributory factor to homelessness, creating a true picture. Benedict will be clothed in materialistic clothing at the starts of the video which will reinforce his established middle-class status in addition to his ability to buy narcotics. However, as the music video progresses he will start to look emancipated and haggard which will show the audience the disturbing physical impacts an addition can have on an individual’s appearance.

Lily

Lily will play the character of an economically deprived laundrette, who is battling both financial and mental difficulties. I want to capture how the strain of being under the bread line can cause damaging consequence on an individual mentality. Lily’s character will be battling with depression before she is evicted from her flat owing to unpaid rent. I hope to create a realistic scenario that many world-wide may be facing.  I want Lily’s character to capture her distaste for her mundane job. I believe through juxtaposing old home footage against Lily working a mundane job, I will be able to shows the joys of childhood whilst dreams are still prospering, and the future seems an irrelevance. Through having Lily evicted in her narrative, this will strengthen my theme of awareness of homelessness, widening the presumptions that not all homeless people are idol and that individuals fall onto financial hardship of no fault of their own causing poverty and displacement. Lily’s narrative will be contrasted against Benedict’s showing the effects of self-inflicted poverty juxtaposed against those individuals who are forced out by councils owing to their inability to pay their rent. Lily’s character will be dressed in warm clothing which signifies her unaffordability to pay for heating and the how many in society maybe facing tougher times in the winter months owing to their harsh conditions. 

Representations

Age

Age is the first representation I am aiming to contrast.  I want to create a realistic view of how homelessness is becoming an increasing issue within the United Kingdom for young adults. This is primarily owing to two contributory factors that are: extortionate housing prices and the dramatic increase in the consumption if narcotics leading to substance abuse. Homelessness has increased by 75% since the Conservative government took power in 2010. This increase has coincided with an increase within drug abuse. There has been a 58% increase in drug abuse deaths since 2006. This both reinforces that drugs are easier to access and the volume of consumption to inflict as fatal overdoes has risen astronomically. Age will be contrasted through the both the juxtaposition of old home footage and how I convey a mother reaction to finder her son unconscious on the floor owing to an overdose and how she as a mother she deals with her son relapse. The use of old home footage will enable me to accurately compare the direct actors I will use this original footage of them as children to create a unique and authentic music video. I am able to do this owing to having a camera which I have used since I was three, which I filmed my siblings growing up and every family holiday I went on form the years of 2003-2010. The old home footage will allow audiences to sympathies with Benedict who has h aquired drug additions as it connotes that anyone can fall onto harder time. Drugs are an addition, which means all rationality is abandoned and they their mentality becomes dependent on the consumption of narcotics. Through the representation of age I am not willing to focus on how the character developed an addition, but rather the mental and  pyschological impacts it can have on young adults. The second narrative within my Music Video will be focused on the financial strain that many young individual may face leading homelessness. this is extremely relevant in modern day Britain owing to the the price of rent within London being hugely inflated forcing the displacement of thousands to the Home Counties, leading to an increase in homelessness.

Gender

Gender is the second representation I will differ to conform to the brief of my music video. I am aiming to juxtapose  Benedict's narrative against Lily's narrative. Both narratives will related to homelessness but convey two vastly different reasons of why they have ended up on the street.  Benedict is a middle class male in his earlier 20s.  I will conform to male stereotypes through both showing Benedict playing basketball, which in the United States is a male dominated sport owing to the National Basketball Association. According to Dr Adam Winstock who conducted the Global Drug Survey concluded that men were three time more likely to regularly consume narcotics on a regular basis that women. However the rate for the consume of drugs for both males and females are rising at a similar rate. Owing to this it is suitable and accurate that Benedict's narrative is associated with substance abuse.  Benedict's mother will be shown as a maternal character who is unable to cope with her son addition forcing her to throw him out as he is unable to holt or even control his addition. The emphasis on his narrative will mirror that of the basketball diaries where Jim Carrol's mum is unable control him and his addition throwing him out in the hope that he would have but in fact cause further detrimental consequences. Lily's narrative will focus on her mundane job at a laundrette. I opted for Lily to work at a laundrette as it conforms to conventional stereotypes constructed by traditionalists who believe that women perform the expressive role within the family. I believe it is imperative to included gender as a representation as it allows me to create an accurate view of a post modern society in which gender is redundant and its is an individuals own personality and determination that results in whether an individual will succeed.