The Band Age: a proposal for a crossmedia project

The Band Age:
A Cross-Media Project for Teen-Agers

PROJECT AIMS

The project aims:
- To produce a cross-media program that will educate the young audience in an entertaining way
- To present a program that will help adolescents face a range of developmental issues such as in the areas of work and relationships, intimacy and commitment to goals
- To present issues to the young audience that will help them develop their awareness and management of their emotions, help them in setting and realizing their personal goals and to provide models for decision making and responsible behaviours

TARGET GROUP

Adolescent youth (male and female) aged 15 to 24 years old.

According to the 2000 Philippine PopCom report:
Our youth comprised 15.1 million out of the 76.5 million Filipinos enumerated in the 2000 Census. This number is expected to double in 33 years. There were more males than females; 102 males for every 100 females. The median age of the youth population remained the same from 1980 to 2000 at 20 years. This means that half of the youth population was between 15 to 19 years old, the other half was between 20 to 24.Of the 16 regions in the country, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has the highest (22%) and Eastern Visayas has the lowest (18%) proportions of youth population

It is at this age that young adults enter transitions with the goal of becoming independently functioning adults. They are constantly striving to meet evolving personal and career related needs. It is a must that the developmental issues they are encountering are addressed in such a way that they will be receptive to them.

They are exposed to mass media and rely on it for their entertainment, surveillance and socialization functions. They have access to new media such as the Internet and mobile phones. They have the potential to be active consumers and producers of content for these new media.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

“The Band Age” is a crossmedia project that makes us of different media platforms in telling the story of five teen-agers who are in a band. Primarily, it is a teen-age drama program that will tackle developmental issues in teen-agers.

Monique de Haas, in her website, Crossmedia Communication, defined crossmedia communication as "communication where the storyline will direct the receiver from one medium to the next" making it possible to transform the sender-receiver form of communication to "multi-dimensional communication".

The project is educational because common teen-age developmental issues are presented through the experiences of the characters. Viewers are expected to learn from the experiences of the characters. The program will also provide positive role models to the youth.

The focus of the project is on adolescent developmental issues such as:
Self-identity
Self-expression
Coping with their emotions / Intimacy
Interpersonal relationships (family, friends)
Sexuality
Coping with peer pressure
Drugs
Alcoholism

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Through exposure to our project we would like the target audience to:
Identify and understand the changes that they are going through – physically, mentally, emotionally
Learn how to maintain interpersonal relationships – family, friends, team, intimate
Realize and set their goals and aspirations and make concrete steps in attaining them
Identify their role in society and recognize their capacity in contributing to the betterment of society

COMMON PROBLEMS ADDRESSED BY THE PROJECT

It has been said, “children are our future”. So much is expected of the youth that it is crucial that they are prepared for the role they have to undertake in nation building. It is of great importance therefore that young adults are prepared, well adjusted, responsible and well educated before they embark on this role. Before they can take on any role, it is imperative that an individual is aware of himself and is able to evaluate his capabilities, dreams and limitations.

It is said that the most difficult stage one goes through while growing up is the adolescent stage or one’s teen-age years. It seems like everyone; teachers, parents, even teenagers themselves, have trouble understanding them.

The adolescent stage is the step next to the adult stage, the last step before being an adult. This time is crucial for young people because they are undergoing changes in all aspects of their totality and it is a time for them to start making decisions. (ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education)

It is at this stage that teen-agers encounter different and first experiences:
§ First love
§ First sexual encounter
§ Alcohol
§ Drugs
§ Going to college

All decisions they have to make at this point all determine, or at least contribute, to the outcome of the rest of their lives. Decisions they make at this time are critical to their future.

Unfortunately, it is also during this stage that adolescents start wanting to spend their time alone, assert their independence and explore possibilities in their lives. Resisting adult supervision, the teen-ager is left alone to make decisions that are vital to his existence. Common companion to the teen-ager at this time are their friends, and in most cases, the mass media. They unconsciously emulate the characters they see on TV, seek information through the Internet, bare their souls to online friends, keep in touch through their mobile friends. (Borgen and Amundson)

FILIPINO YOUTH SITUATIONER

The youth comprise 46% of the total population of the Philippines, 17% of which are between 12 – 19 years old. The Philippines, like the rests of the world is experiencing pervasive socio-economic and cultural transitions brought about by globalization.

Due to impact of broken families, absentee parents and lack of role models young people face issues of sexuality alone. Filipino youth are exposed to sex and sexuality earlier and in larger doses. The average age for the first sexual encounter for both men and women is 18, but some start as young as 12 years old. Pre-marital sex is also becoming more accepted. Sex is often unplanned, sporadic or a product of either being carried away or peer pressure. (Chan, “Perils of GenerationSex)

Filipino youth rely on technology to keep in touch. They are a high tech generation that is adept at computers. They use new media as the venue for exploring and defining their own identities and establishing their independence. It provides several ways for young people to communicate with each other, interact with what is on the site. They can create their own content. Relationships are characterized and even built on text messages and electronic mail (Pabico, “Virtually Yours”).


According to the 2006 McCann Inter-Generation Study, a new trend across all generations is emerging, the generation R (r for reality):

“They are aware of and are worried about more things than ever. Armed with more information from more sources along with the ability to choose the content they want to consume, one cannot mask, sanitize or romanticize things for them. They cannot be fooled because they know what is real. It is not a surprise that the reality TV genre is a hit. Moreover, the internet has become a more credible source of information whereas ads are seen as fabricated. Consumers can take more. They don’t need to be sheltered, contrived upon, or patronized.”

Increasing modes of consumption, cheap labor and globalization brought young people to call centers where most of the youth are employed, forced to changing their body clocks and compromising their relationships even their formal education for money. (Santiago, “Finding Spaces”)

30 hours of the young Filipino adults’ life weekly is spent on broadcast media. Among the varying TV shows, most appealing to the youth are sitcoms, news, variety shows and romance/drama shows. Least interesting to them are the talk shows as well as educational and documentary shows. Adolescent radio listeners mostly do so for music and to a lesser extent, news. (Cruz et. al., “Family Influences on the Lifestyle of the Filipino Youth)

TELEVISION PROGRAMME PROPOSAL

TITLE : The Band Age
PROGRAM LENGTH : 1 hour show
GENRE : Drama

PROGRAMME DESCRIPTION

“The Band Age” is a teen-age drama show that taps lives and sensibilities into the adolescent youth. It is about the lives of five (5) teen-agers who are trying to make a band. These five teen-agers are of different personalities and circumstances that make them unique and appealing to our young target audience.

Steven
Steven is the leader of the band. He already 22 years old and works as a computer technician. He likes his job because it gives him time to rehearse with his band. He lives in a boarding house managed by a family friend in Sampaloc. He is easy-going. He doesn’t have any angst. He can easily make friends. He is very organized. He easy to talk to, the typical “kuya” However, Steven has problems with commitments.

Eric
Eric lives with Steven. He is a budding filmmaker. He’s the joker in the group. He loves taking videos of him playing practical jokes on his friends and posting them online. He maintains a YouTube account where he posts his practical jokes and his video diary.

Adi
Adi is a Muslim. As such, he is expected to follow and respect his parents. He is struggling between following his parents and his religion and doing what he wants. He is into photography and music.

Frankie
Frankie is the “perfect girl”. She is pretty, intelligent and popular. She is the daughter of very doting parents and she appreciates everything they do for her. Her parents are very proud of her. Frankie maintains a blog which she regularly.

Chris
A single mom raises Chris. She thinks her mom is annoying and doesn’t understand her. Chris just transferred from another place and the members of the band are her only friends in town. She always in touch with her best friend, Kit, through instant messaging all the time; their correspondence acts as her diary.

Ariel
Ariel is the “role model” of the group. He is the “cool” older person; the type all the five teen-agers aspire to be. Ariel is a radio announcer and has a radio show. He also acts as the band’s manager and adviser.

TREATMENT

The TV show will be treated as a dramatized-montage with testimonials from the video diary and the YouTube posts of Eric, video storytelling using Adi’s photographs and screen captures of Frankie’s blog and Chris’ IM sessions with her best fried. These will be interspersed with third-person perspectives of the whole drama. All of the media that are done by all characters can be accessed through the Internet (see proposal for the Internet). The different media done by the band members gives the story flexibility by having it told from different perspectives of the characters.


RADIO PROGRAMME PROPOSAL

TITLE : Ariel’s Radio Show
PROGRAM LENGTH : 1 hour show
GENRE : Magazine

PROGRAMME DESCRIPTION

Ariel’s Radio Show is magazine show that encourages participation from teen-agers. It capitalizes on the personality of the programme presenter, Ariel. Ariel is hip; cool and can speak the language of the teen-agers. The program intersperses music and factoids with an advice segment wherein he encourages teen-agers with problems to call him and ask for his advise. Ariel not only gives his own advice but also gets the advice of experts, which he translates the language teen-agers understand.

The program likewise solicits what other teen-agers think by running a poll of what the teen-ager with the problem can do, listeners are given four choices of what they can advise the other teen-ager and are given a chance to text in the letter of their choice plus a short justification of their advice. The texter with the best advice wins something.

INTERNET PROGRAM PROPOSAL

The project capitalizes on all the free websites that are available to teen-agers around the world. These websites are popularly used by teen-agers on a regular basis to keep in touch with friends and express themselves. All these free media will be visibly used by the characters in the TV show and can be readily accessed by the viewers. The non-viewers of the show or non-listeners of the radio program can likewise access the web pages. The following are the internet components of the project that is a hybrid of the television show and is maintained using the free websites:

· Frankie’s Blog
o Frankie maintains a MySpace account where she keeps a blog. Wikipedia defines MySpace as “social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos”. Here Frankie can post her profile, pictures and a blog. MySpace has a Groups feature which allows a group of users to share a common page and message board.
o Frankie’s MySpace account will be regularly updated, following the events of the TV drama. Viewers can invite Frankie to be their friends and be regularly updated on her blog entries.
o It is also an opportunity for Frankie to speak “casually” of products she has tried recently. Sort of testimonials for sponsors.



· Eric’s YouTube accounts
o Eric, the group’s resident prankster and budding filmmaker, maintains two YouTube accounts. Wikipedia defines YouTube as “a popular free video sharing Web site which lets users upload, view, and share video clips.” Eric’s first account contains all the pranks he played on his friends. This is to create traffic on Eric’s YouTube account. In the TV drama, we will show Eric playing pranks on his friends and posting it on his YouTube account. Viewers can access these pranks and watch them online.
o Eric’s 2nd YouTube account will be of his video diary. Eric will maintain a videoblog. Wikipedia defines a videoblog as “a portmanteau combining video, web, and log, (usually shortened to vlog) is a blog that includes video.[1] Regular entries are typically presented in reverse chronological order and often combine embedded video or a video link with supporting text, images, and other metadata.” The TV drama will include snippets of Eric’s video blog on the show but they can access full versions of it through YouTube.
o Frankie’s MySpace account will have a link to Eric’s YouTube accounts.

· Chris’ Yahoo Messenger account
o In the TV drama, Chris will be seen as constantly being in-touch with her best friend in the place where she came from via Instant Messaging. Wikipedia defines instant messaging or IM as “a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.” Chris will be using this a lot that it will almost be like her diary.
o Although the viewers cannot access Chris’ conversations with Kit, her best friend, Chris will maintain a Yahoo Messenger account that viewers can invite Chris to have a “chat” with them. Chris will be available in the virtual word as a friend who also has her hang-ups they can identify with.

Website of Ariel’s Radio Show
· Aside from the free Internet websites that we are using, we will also create a website of Ariel’s Radio Show. Where radio listeners can:
o Listen to a live broadcast of Ariel’s Radio Show
o Chat with Ariel or other listeners of the radio show
o Send an email to Ariel asking him for advice
o Get information on the band that Ariel is managing
o See pictures of Ariel and the band
· The website can also be an opportunity for sponsors to advertise

OTHER MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES

· Mobile Phone
o The radio show has an SMS component where in listeners can text in their advice, the texter with the best advice wins a prize
o Viewers/listeners can subscribe to a mobile service which will allow them to exchange SMS with their favourite characters from the show
o Subscribed viewers/listeners can regularly receive updates on the show and the characters

· Recording
o The band can issue an album containing all their compositions
o A compilation album of all the songs used in the show can also be released
· Print
o Portions of the Frankie’s blogs can be printed on some magazines as insert or a regular column in a newspaper
o Frankie can run an advise column
· Concerts
o The band can hold mini-concerts in malls and campuses to promote the show and the other media

PROJECT COMPONENTS AND TIMELINE
The project will be carried out using different platforms. Specifically, they are the following:

1. Television
§ Teen-age drama about 5 band members
§ 1 hour weekly show

2. Radio
§ Musical-talk show
§ 1 hour weekly show

3. Internet
§ Will use existing free websites such as Blogspot and YouTube because they are easily accessible to the target audience
§ Creation and maintenance of a weekly blog by one of the characters on the television show
§ Creation and maintenance of a weekly video diary by one of the characters on the television show

4. Print
§ Creation and distribution of a “fanzine” by one of the characters of the television show
§ Every two weeks

5. Mobile
§ Sending out of mass texts by one of the characters on the television show

Other possible initiatives in the future:
§ Concerts
§ Phone Helpline