Why Do People Protest?

Other sociologists like Katz believe that people commit crime to be a break from boredom and everyday life. This links to the idea of our film how these students do not realise what they are doing. They are disconnected from reality and can’t see the difference between what they were protesting for and what  they were actually doing, making it more romantic, thus not seeing the harsh reality. This is like Jane who can see the harsh reality of what they are doing while her brother’s friends only see the romantic side of the idea of going to protest and looking ‘cool’ in front of there peers like Cohen suggested about the 1960’s mods and rockers riots.

UK 2010 Student Protests

The 2010 British student protests were a series of demonstrations that began in November 2010 in several areas of the United Kingdom, with the focal point of protests centred in London .MPs were asked to approve a motion tabled by Vince Cable, the business secretary, allowing universities to increase tuition fees to up to £9,000 from September 2012. Student groups said that the intended cuts to education were excessive and broke campaign promises made by politicians, amounting to "attempts to force society to pay for a crisis it didn't cause." Approximately 30,000 to 52,000 protesters attended the demonstration on the streets of central London. Further protests were held on 24 and 30 November, and 9 December, with students holding rallies and occupying government and university buildings. Organisers said that most of the protests were peaceful, but sporadic acts of violence and vandalism were reported by authorities; protesters and police officers alike were injured, and in some cases hospitalised.

*This video is helpful as it will show us how people behaved during the protest and it also gives us an idea on what to write on the posters for our props.

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Reflective Analysis (Feedback)

After our short film pitch, we've decided to change and improve a few factors when producing our short upon receiving helpful feedback from the audience.

Setting:
Initially the story is set in the late 70's / early 80's however as expected, it would be difficult to reconstruct our location with props found around those eras. Also, it would be difficult to write a script revolving around the political protests at the time without being historically incorrect. Therefore we have decided to change our setting to the modern era, basing the protest on the 2010 UK students protest. The script will probably be easier to write as it is more relatable to us as students.

Narrative:
We've been told that our short didn't really have a narrative and I agree. Initially the story surrounds 4 characters who are getting ready to join a protest as they make a poster, which isn't really plot-driven. Therefore we've decided to create a conflict between two central characters and have a binary opposition. One of them will be shy, timid and anti-protest whereas the other character will be outspoken, headstrong and pro-protest. With this, we could have conflicts between characters that will definitely add more to the story.

Script:
Originally, in the story we find our characters talking about their views and opinions on why they are joining the political protest. But this is too mundane and tedious therefore I had an idea that instead of basing their dialogue on political views, we could be basing the story on peer pressure but with the protest as the trigger for this i.e. "Jane" who doesn't want to join the protest is being pressured by her friend to join resulting a conflict between the two. I find this subject more relatable to our age group and will definitely be more interesting to watch than two people talking about politics.

Short Film Pitch - Feedback Video

A2 Short Film Media Pitch

Among Giants (Reflective Analysis)