Planning- casting document

Casting document

This is a casting picture of the first female model/character in my music video. The girl`s age is 17 and this is appropriate as it matches the age demographic targeted as mentioned in the NEA brief which is 16-25 year olds. The girl is furthemore, from a white background therefore as theorists such as Gilroy state, characters from Western and white backgrounds are dominant in the media texts such as movies or videos. This would therefore appeal to the audience especially to the `Mainstreamer` audience, as these are the traditional views they hold, with having people from white background being the superior and expecting to see this, showing how they prefer the traditional practices seeking security and therefore are less likely to take risks. 
Also, the main role of the video will be given to this character- protagonist this will further conform to the views they hold. Therefore, a reason for having my female character being white skinned is because as the colour codes theory of bell hooks suggests that lighter skinned women are considered more desirable and fit better into the western ideology of beauty which means that this will be matching the expectations of most of the audience, as they will be expecting to see a white females.

The socio-economic of the girl is grade D which is unskilled manual worker. The girl is a part-time worker as well as in full-time education therefore her social grade matched one of the 3 targeted socio-economic grades for my music video, which are D, C2 and E.

  This is a casting picture of the male model/character in my music video. He is 21 years old and therefore he portrays the upper part of the age demogrpahic that the video is targeting. The male character comes from a black ethnic background demonstrating the black people will be equally targeted just like the whote authority. This clearly shows that my video will be trageting all ethnicities rather than targetting an ethnicity in specific portraying it as dominant. This would therefore, show how the video will be portraying the diassproval of racial discrimination and will have this present by the use of a character from a black background. 
The boy is employed and occupies the C2 unskilled manual worker social class as well as being in full time education. This will also challenge the stereotype held upon working class black males as being hopeless individuals as the male is in edcuation as well as working.

The ethnic background that the boy comes from, would reflect how my video will be open and targeted at all parts of the world and not just the UK. 
Furthermore, including a character that comes from an ethnic minority in my video will appeal to the `Explorer` as this is a group of people that seeks to discover new things and seek for new experiences and are attracted to new or innovative products, seeking discovery in general. This will appeal to them having a character from an black ethnic minority will show new conventions and innovative ideas, which will lead to them finding new experiences after watching my video. The Explorer is the second audience category that my video is targeted showing how i will make my video appeal to them as well with new aspects and not only appealing to the `Mainstreamer`. 
The use of this character in my music video will challenge stereotypes of black people represented in negative ways as in my case his representation will be positive. The postive representation will also challenge the theory of Gilroy of how black people in media are represented as dehumanised or marginalised. This will be challenged as the second main role will be occupied by this character. Furthermore, the story of the music video will not be the same without him therefore this symbolises his importance in the music video. He will also be dressed formally therefore this will portray him in a proffessional and formal way rather than as `poor` which is a stereotye held upon black people.

This is the second female that will be one of the characters in my video. The model is 18 years old, fiting in with the target age demographic of 16-25 year olds and therefore reflecting the lower part of the age demographic. As, this model is of a different age from the other 2 models this shows that my video will be targeting all of the ages that fall under the group of 16-25 year olds.

In addition, the girl is from Latin descent which will once more show and prove that the music video will be targeting all regions around the world and all ethnicities that audience may come from.

The model, fits and occupies the C2 socio economic grade which can lead to the audience identifying themselves with the characters from ym video as a high number of the target socio demographic mainly people at ages between 16-20 are most likely to occupy this socio-economic grade as at those ages people are more likely to be still in education which will in most cases allow them to be unskilled manual workers.
As this model is the second female that will be in my video, this shows how the video will be promoting the empowerment of women as they are usually oprressed and dominated by men, however through my video i will show that women should be as equal as men.

The theory of Levi Strauss of the binary opposites explains how all narratives are based upon binary opposites and they are all organised around the conflict between binary opposites such as white vs black and this can be seen in my video. In my case, the binary opposites of white vs black is seen in terms of the skin colour therefore race. The usage of a white female and a black male reflects the present conflict between the two races in today`s society and in my video this conveys the message of how all races and ethnicities must be respected and that my video is targeted at all races. As well as that, this can be seen in the video`s race hierarchy as the girl is most likely to be viewed as the dominant character in that situation therefore occupying the main role and being the protagonist of the video.