Presentation

A Taste of Honey is quite an old play, based in the 1950’s so obviously adapting it enough to make it appealing to people of this generation is quite a challenge, due to there being different popular interests and there is an obvious difference in language and social standards. 

Due to the play being quite old, the audience that is most clear to us is the elderly, due to them being teenagers when the play was first made into a film. Making it into a TV series will hopefully spark their interest in wanting to know how it’s been adapted and how the storyline has been changed.  Typically this type of audience would be in-between the ages of 50-80 and would be typically British, due to this film being hugely popular in Britain as it was based in Salford, Manchester. 

However, due to us wanting to expand the audience for A Taste of Honey to make it more widely popular and appreciated in modern society, we have adapted the play to bring in more modern aspects towards it, such as modern technology, gangs/local thugs, school councilors, actions taken towards breaking the law etc.  This brings in our main target audience- young adults. In secondary school, most students are taught about A Taste of Honey in English, so it would be good for them to have something else to use for research and referencing, as well as for entertainment purposes.

A Taste of Honey is quite an old play, based in the 1950’s so obviously adapting it enough to make it appealing to people of this generation is quite a challenge, due to there being different popular interests and there is an obvious difference in language and social standards. 

Due to the play being quite old, the audience that is most clear to us is the elderly, due to them being teenagers when the play was first made into a film. Making it into a TV series will hopefully spark their interest in wanting to know how it’s been adapted and how the storyline has been changed.  Typically this type of audience would be in-between the ages of 50-80 and would be typically British, due to this film being hugely popular in Britain as it was based in Salford, Manchester. 

However, due to us wanting to expand the audience for A Taste of Honey to make it more widely popular and appreciated in modern society, we have adapted the play to bring in more modern aspects towards it, such as modern technology, gangs/local thugs, school councilors, actions taken towards breaking the law etc.  This brings in our main target audience- young adults. In secondary school, most students are taught about A Taste of Honey in English, so it would be good for them to have something else to use for research and referencing, as well as for entertainment purposes.

Another way that we aim to appeal to the young adults of today is the themes of the play. Like the play, we are keeping the original themes of racism, underage pregnancy, homophobia, abuse and neglect. This is still easily done because these themes are still a big issue in modern day. We are going to use these themes in a sensitive way because the target audience is heavily surrounded by it and can easily be affected by it.

Underage Pregnancy- This will come in to act regarding Jo's pregnancy and the way she reacts, and the way her mother, Geoff and Jimmy react towards it. Has we are trying to bring theater in education into this piece, we will be looking at the morals of underage pregnancy, society’s attitude towards it, and how it effects those involved.

Racism- this is regarding the fact that Jimmy is black, mixing in with the fact that Jo is having his child. Helen is a racist and we see this from her reaction to Jo's child. Peter is also a racist and we see this through his relationship with Helen and through how he treats some of the students at his school, by how he will favorite white students over black ones and how he sees the black students has trouble. We will also see this through the way jimmy acts around Helen and Peter compared how he acts with Jo.

Homophobia- This comes into play with Geoff, it shows how Jo doesn't have a problem with it, but it mainly comes into play whenever Peter and Helen are around Geoff are together, we also see it with how Geoff acts around other students and how they act with him. also how Geoff takes it all in and how he deals with it. 

EMOTIONAL ABUSE

this involves the relationship between Helen an Jo. an how it is not a conventional mother and daughter relationship, though it leaves both members scared it effects Jo more then it affects Helen,

SINGLE PARENTING

this comes into play with Jo and Helen, mainly focusing on how Helen treats Jo, and how there mother daughter relationship isn't correct in societies eyes, and is in no way pleasant or a positive environment to raise a child, this will show the negative effects Jo's upbringing has on her

First link- this comes into play with Jo and Helen, mainly focusing on how Helen treats Jo, and how there mother daughter relationship isn't correct in societies eyes, and is in no way pleasant or a positive environment to raise a child, this will show the negative effects Jo's upbringing has on her

Second Link- The second’s location is in Greater Manchester M3 this is 10-15 minutes so traveling to film the street locations will be easy. In this location for our project  we will use the Club Space: £1,400.00 + VAT p/d and Gallery space: £650.00 + VAT p/d but we wouldn’t need to have both on the same day we could use the gallery space for the bedroom scenes and then the club space for the school/ counselor’s room and then Geoff’s home.

Insurance- Insurance for covering, costume, prop, equipment such as physical loss or any damage to the equipment while traveling. cover for theft from an unattended vehicle or fraud are normally excluded likewise damage caused but mechanical or electrical breakdowns as well as general use. Our insurances should also cover the cost of damage to the negatives and videotapes. We will cover ourselves for employer’s liability because if someone gets hurt or dies during the process of the production we will be asked to pay compensation for this. Public liability, for any damage that may be caused to the public. insurance for the local area. 

Jo, a 15 year old schoolgirl from Manchester, already had a troubled relationship with her mother, Helen, an escort who resorts to drinking and partying on a daily basis, before Peter, a controlling and mean alcoholic who also happens to be Jo’s head teacher starts a relationship with her mother.

 This leads to Jo rebelling against her mother, resulting in her starting a secret relationship with Jimmy; a boy in his late teens, from a local gang that is looked down upon by the locals. This relationship leads to an under-age pregnancy, and the boyfriend ends up being arrested for statutory ****. Jo suspects that the anonymous phone call reporting the underage pregnancy was made by Helen, and pushes Helen even further away, resulting in Helen marrying Peter and moving out. 

Throughout all of this, Helen has been confiding in her school councillor, Geoff, and because she no longer goes to school, she moves in with Geoff, with him becoming her foster parent, because he wants to support her and the baby, not because he has any attraction towards her, due to him being openly gay, but because he truly cares about her. Geoff feels so strongly about supporting Jo, because he was kicked out of his home at a young age when he ‘came out’, and doesn’t want Jo to be alone in this.

When Helen finds out that Jo is living with her former councillor, she and Peter pay them a visit, which mostly consists of Peter mocking Geoff for his homosexuality and Jo for her pregnancy, and Helen putting down Jo for her life choices. It also starts to become apparent that Peter is showing more of his real personality, arriving at Jo and Geoff’s home in a drunk and abusive state, repeatedly putting Helen down and telling her to come to the pub with him for a drink. Helen at points does seem to show sympathy and tries to give Jo some money to help with the pregnancy, which Jo turns down. 

Throughout the last few months of the pregnancy, Jo starts to become more and more depressed because she hasn’t been allowed to visit Jimmy and the hormones from the pregnancy are heavily affecting her, especially as she is only 15 and her body is finding it difficult to deal with everything. Geoff becomes worried about her as she spends all of her time at home not wanting to do anything, and she is also spending a lot of the time thinking about how the baby might be black and how the father is in prison.

During this time, Helen discovers that Peter is having an affair with one of the young teachers at his school, and when Peter finds out that she knows, he kicks her out, resulting in Helen going to Geoff’s house and asking Jo for a place to stay.

 42 years old

 She is an escort

  She does not support Jo’s pregnancy 

 She is very controlling with Jo 

 She realise on her male costumers for money which often leads to dangerous or unusual relationships 

 She is neglectful towards Jo

 Due to her line of work and her living circumstances and her relationship with her daughter she is an alcoholic

 She is a heavy chain smoker

 this leads to them being evicted from various places because of not being able to pay the rent and because of noise complaints

 she is very unhealthy and unhygienic

 after meeting Peter she sees him as a way of escape from her line of work and her current circumstances 

 she also takes small interest in Jos school work but only after she finds out that Peter is the headmaster of her school

 15 years old

 School girl – favorite subject is art 

 She is pregnant with Jimmy’s child

 She is not officially in a relationship with Jimmy 

 Lives at home with her mother

 She does not have a good relationship with her mother 

 The person she is closet to and trust the most is her councilor Geoff

 Her friendship with Jimmy is secret and she uses it as a way to rebel against her Mother

 Her mother later moves away leaving Jo alone and pregnant for a time, Geoff later becomes her foster parent

 Jo is very insecure and the pregnancy doesn’t help, she talks numerous times of killing the child

 24 years old

 Councillor at Jo’s school

 He is a Homosexual

 He really cares for Jo and her future, he is very supporting and enjoys their meetings

 He is upset with jo and Helens relationship and really wants them to get on better, but Helen never comes to any of their meetings

 After Helen moves away Geoff becomes Jos foster parent by choice

 He turns Jos flat in to a safe and healthy environment to raise a child

 He is very supporting of Jos pregnancy 

 And often sees himself has a father figure for Jos baby

 He often gets upset at jo for her lack of parenting and care

PETER

 32 years old

 Headmaster and Jos school

 He is supporting of Jo at first, and is very keen for her to follow a career in art

 Peter is also a heavy drinker, he can get violent after getting drunk

 After meeting Helen at a pub (whilst Helen was at work) Helen finds out that he is the headmaster of her daughters school

 Peter is attracted to Helen

 He is very insulting and offensive

 He is homophobic

 He is insecure and paranoid 

 After meeting Helen he also uses her as a way to meet Helen, he then stops caring about her future and losses interest in her entirely

 He is very rich because of his job and because of his parents

 19 years old

 In a gang

 He is black

 Makes money from drug dealing, mugging and selling the stolen goods

 At first he likes jo and considers her his girlfriend

 Later he sees her has a way of having “fun”

 When she gets pregnant he decides he doesn’t want to have anything to do with her and leaves her

 Later he goes to prison for **** and sex with a minor

 He thinks that Geoff has something to do with this

•http://www.prokit.com/products/sony-ecm-vg1-camera-microphone-kit.html£144.00 this works with the camera, but is also suitable to using a with boom poll meaning that we will be able to save even more money   •http://www.prokit.com/products/rycote-a3-boom-pole.html£102.00  this boom pole is light, affordable and easy to use. A boom pole is an essential item when filming  •http://www.prokit.com/products/boom-buddy.html £60.00 this accessories would be useful with the boom pole because there will be scene with some movement an example is the park scene where we could be filming for some time it would be impractical to have someone carry it around and during the bigger scene such as when Helen come to visits jo  we have 4 people in this scene all over the set but the all have to be heard using this would make it a lot easier.    

•The camera’s I recommend using is the Sony PXW-X160 Camcorder, for the price of £3,708.00 we get a camera that is good multi propose camera. It works in all lighting situation from the dark and dirty flat, outside in the park and to the bright school, its use able. You can get it with a mic so we may not have to purchase a boom mic or we can hire one for the outdoor, and more open spaced scenes, its useable with a tripod as well as held, to also has a wide lens so that we can get good landscape shots just to show the environment

•https://creative.adobe.com/plans?store_code=uk the monthly rate of £26.68 •Editing software is a must for any filming project because without editing software our professional recording could have dips in quality. Some examples of how editing can improve your recording, sound checking, some times during recording sounds can be picked up by the microphone which you didn’t want in someone in the back ground shouting traffic, maybe one of the actors moved away and the mic didn’t pick them up you can manually turn their volume up, you can add music to the recording any sorts of musical or visual effects. Speaking of visuals, you need to change the brightness you can in a second, cutting everything together, you would have to be the best camera men, sound operator, director, perfect actors and amazing recording conditions to be able to get everything in one go. So without editing you would have one chance and that’s it, while with the magic of editing you can re-do scenes. That a hour long film and cut it down to 40 minutes.        

Using professional equipment often re-quires training to use properly and effectively, especially if we are using a camera which cost over £3,500 we should invest in getting a proper crew who are all capable of using cameras, sound equipment, lighting equipment and getting a studio so someone can edit the footage.

I suggest using crewing agents such a if we needed an easy quick and simple solution for getting equipment getting crew for camera op, editor, sound assistant, sound recordist, gaffer (chief electrician in a film or television production unit) make up artist, Runners and hair. While we could do some of this we do not have the experience in doing this professionally.

•http://www.prokit.com/products/ikan-compact-interview-kit-1.html£1,318.80 this should be all the lighting we need if we are filming in the recommended rented accommodation we many not even need all this but it not having any lighting will drastically reduce the quality for the footage. But if we have to hire out a space we may have to invent more money into lighting such as this http://www.prokit.com/products/ikan-large-location-kit.html£2,244.00  this gives us complete control over how bright we want the space and gives a good wash of light. • Also while filming outside we may want to film in the dark we cant bring out the big light screens we have to use other source of light so I suggest we get a camera top light using one of these we provide enough light to work with, it runs off battery's so we wont need to bring a power supply out with us, it can also doesn’t need to be attached to the camera so if we need to go in for a close up we can just detach the light and keep in out of the performances face http://www.prokit.com/products/bebob-lux-led-light-kit.html £594.00    

Using professional equipment often re-quires training to use properly and effectively, especially if we are using a camera which cost over £3,500 we should invest in getting a proper crew who are all capable of using cameras, sound equipment, lighting equipment and getting a studio so someone can edit the footage.

I suggest using crewing agents such a if we needed an easy quick and simple solution for getting equipment getting crew for camera op, editor, sound assistant, sound recordist, gaffer (chief electrician in a film or television production unit) make up artist, Runners and hair. While we could do some of this we do not have the experience in doing this professionally.

http://www.2000television.co.uk/crew-enquiry/    http://www.thecrewingcompany.com/

•The some format’s for recording that I believe could be useful are a Multiple-camera setup this is the same format used in Friends and Seinfeld this would be really useful for the flat scenes and counsellors room as it could save us time with editing and producing the  and money.  with only one half and we will only need at most 4 camera’s most likely 3, using this style will be very effective to show   

1st- this is one location, it’s about 25 minutes from Salford, the rates are £1000 per day but that would include the contents, allow filming and insurance on the build and contents, while this is in a very good condition and meant for one home we could very easily make it look like a multiple occupation home, by using cinematography, throwing beds around and covering the walls up and removing some of the contents and turning the lights off or having some on a controlled setting.

2nd- The second’s location is in Greater Manchester M3 this is 10-15 minutes so traveling to film the street locations will be easy. In this location for our project will shall use the Club Space: £1,400.00 + VAT p/d and Gallery space: £650.00 + VAT p/d but (we wouldn’t need to have both on the same day we could use the gallery space for the bedroom scenes and then the club space for the school/ counsellor’s room and then Geoff’s home. 

3rd-1 bedroom apartment to rent

Apartment 6C The Study115Pendleton Way, Manchester, M6 £60 pw| £260 pcm

location three is a cheap and affordable, with the laws in place it is perfectly fine filming in rented accommodation as long as the landlord knows and agrees, there is no logs shown, neighbours around know that filming will be happening and when it happening. We chose this as a possible location due to the location being near Salford near where the OG was set, there are schools located near the properly if we needed to film around there and it’s not far from a canal and tiling in to the OG, the housing fits the OG well, little space shared accommodation.

1 Bedroom Apartment To Rent                                                                                                              £400 per Calendar Month
Property Address: New Cross Street Salford M5 5EU

Location four is placed right in the centre of Salford we could quickly move from our outside location and school, with basic furnisher we could remove them pretty easy or use them. It’s a single bedroom house going with the original. Its open placed some throwing some boxes around will cause the property to look dirty and unclean.      

Also I’ve looked at insurance for covering, costume, prop, equipment (such as physical loss or any damage to the equipment while traveling, we should make sure what kind of cover we get because theft from an unattended vehicle or fraud are normal excluded likewise damage caused but mechanical or electrical breakdowns as well as general use.  Your insurances should also cover the cost of damage to the negatives and videotapes. We will need to cover ourselves for employer’s liability because if someone gets hurt or dies during the process of the production you will be asked to pay compensation for this. Public liability because if you hurt a member of the public they will try and sue you so by having money from insurance put aside use that. We should also make sure that we have got insurances from the local area                                                                                                Note: you should always read the exclusions that apply to your insurance policy, for instance acts of terrorism are not usually covered.

Schools:

Because we had the idea of using school as one of the focal points (having peter the head teacher, him meeting Helen vie the school and having jo meet Geoff because he is a counsellor brought in by the school) I thought it would be wise in partnering with a local school so that we could use their school as a film site and the children as background characters. For example jo could be running through the school with some child’s and peter shouts at them and tell jo to come to him office, it could also be used as character building is jo lonely, does she have lots of friends.           

http://builehillvisualartscollege.co.uk/

http://www.allhallowssalford.com/#  

http://www.channel4.com/producers-handbook/c4-guidelines/working-and-filming-with-under-18s-guidelines

http://www.channel4.com/media/documents/commissioning/LEGAL/GuidelinesForWorkingWithUnder18s.pdf

If this was to happen we would be working with children under 18 and we would need a specialist license to work with children and these links give us a guidelines of what we could do with getting content from the parents or gardens