Potential Plot/Storyline Ideas For Our Teen Drama Film

After taking our research from our online survey from our target audience into consideration, together me and April decided to brainstorm a list of possible ideas that we could use as the central storyline/plot to our Teen Drama film, and be shown in our film trailer. We then turned our list into a spider diagram that displays each of our ideas.

Inset: A spider diagram of mine and April's storyline ideas for a Teen Drama film.

1. Characters Living In Abusive Environments:  One of our first ideas was to focus our film trailer on characters that live in abusive and unsafe environments, and follow their own personal backstories. We decided that this could be a potentially good idea to use as the central plot that the film is based around as it would show the audience how the characters struggle to overcome a series of adversities that take place in their home lives/ living environments, and how they have learnt to cope in dangerous situations. I also think it would be quite a gritty and raw subject to discover in a Teen Drama film trailer, and would fit ideally into our idea of creating a gritty, British Teen Drama film trailer. It also draws lots of emotions from the audience, allowing to sympathise, and possible even relate to the characters. Teenage characters living in abusive environments is quite common in Teen Drama or Drama films that focus on the lives of the lower classes. For example, 'Fish Tank' focuses on a female, teenage character that lives on a rough council estate with her party-hard, abusive mother, who seems completely ignorant to what her children tend to get up to in the film. The film 'Gimme Shelter' also focuses on a female teenage character who now lives with her mother (after years of being in foster care), who is an addict and is also abusive towards the main female character.

2. A Sudden Death Occurs Within A Friendship Group:  I found from my research into Teen Drama films that the death of a significant character isn't a really common convention of Teen Drama films. However, the deaths of significant characters are more commonly found in Teen Drama television programmes such as 'Pretty Little Liars', 'Misfits' and 'Skins'. This plot idea would be a great way of exploring the different changes in the other characters, analysing who they were before and after the death of a significant character within their social group.

3. Teenage Female Characters Fall In Love With The Same Male Character

This is a more stereotypical storyline that would most likely find in a Teen Drama film, and other forms of sub genres such as 'Rom-Coms' and Romantic Dramas. I feel less enthusiastic about this storyline idea as I feel that it is too predictable and has been done too many times. Although it has great potential to create some great drama between the female characters, I fear that our audience will find our film trailer boring and overrated if we choose to go with this storyline.

4. Drug/Alcohol Addictions

A common 'teen issue' that is seen in the majority of Teen Dramas. Teen Drama programmes that show drug/alcohol addictions include '90210', 'Pretty Little Liars' and 'Waterloo Road'. Although they are not really classed as having drug or alcohol addictions, drug and alcohol abuse is displayed in 'Skins' and 'Some Girls'. Some soap operas also show teenage/younger characters dealing with alcohol and drug addictions, for example soap opera 'Eastenders' shows teenage character Lauren having an alcohol addiction, and soap opera 'Hollyoaks' shows character Ste struggling to handle his drug addiction. It would interesting to explore how our characters develop these addictions in our film trailer and how it affects their lives and everyone around them.

5.Conflict Between Local Teenage Gangs (Gang Culture):  Gang violence between various gangs seem more apparent in films that focus on the lower classes or lower class areas, such a council estates. Gang violence nearly always takes place in London, where many forms of gangs are shown.  Gang violence is portrayed in many Teen Drama and Drama films such as 'Kidulthood', 'Adulthood', 'Sket' and 'Shank'. With the minimal resources that we have, and where our filming will take place, I do not think that we won't have the resources, and won't be able to create the right kind of setting to pull off a believable performance of conflict between the gang culture. 

6. New Character Struggling To Adjust To New Life:  This is a stereotypical plot that would be able to fit with the majority of genres/sub genres. Having our film trailer focus around the life of 'the new kid' would allow the audience to view the teenage culture through their eyes, and be able to follow the character's personal experiences as they settle in into their new environment. This is also a very relatable story to any of our target audience member's that have had to relocate to a new environment. 

7. Teenage Characters Dealing With Transgender Issues: This is a teen issue that is rarely shown in Teen Dramas and for that reason I think it would be a great and interesting issue to explore and do some research on, so that we could get an idea as to what thoughts and feelings a character experiences, and how they learn to deal with them. Considering the research that we received from our online survey, we thought that this would be a more unique storyline to display in our trailer, that would meet the needs of the audience of wanting us to explore less conventional storylines. 

8. Characters Dealing With Suicidal Thoughts:  This idea was briefly discussed between me and April as we thought that the storyline would fizzle out , and may cause our audience to lose interest in our film trailer. 

9. Teenage Pregnancy:  One of the most commonly raised teen issues that you would find in a Teen Drama, and is more common with characters that belong to the lower classes or are from lower class areas. Despite our target audience research stating that they would rather see films explore less common issues, teenage pregnancy is a very believable storyline to go with and a lot of people are able to relate to it. 

10. Exploring Abusive Relationships:  Focusing on various teenage couples who are all in abusive relationships allows the audience to view how each of the different characters handle their situation, and also helps to raise awareness to the real life situations that members of our audience, may or may have not experienced. As an audience member I would find this storyline quite interesting to watch, as I would want to know if the specific characters managed to break free from their abusive relationships, and what the future now holds for them. 

11. A Teenage Character That Has Been Diagnosed With A Terminal Illness:  The storyline has been presented in Teen Drama television programmes such as '90210' and 'Skins', and is the central plot to Teen Drama film 'Now Is Good'. The storyline would allow how the revelation would affect the other characters in the film trailer and how they have dealt with the news. Although this is a more unique storyline to try and tackle and demonstrate in a Teen Drama film, it may be a little too challenging and distressing to display in a Teen Drama film trailer. 

12. Teenagers Behaving Unruly:  Characters from lower class areas are more likely to behave in a more unruly fashion. The characters in 'Kidulthood' for example are from the rough, inner city of London and spend their days stealing, taking and selling drugs and causing conflict. However the film 'The Riot Club' focuses on wealthy, university students who are seen behaving unruly as they enter the exclusive 'Riot Club'. If we chose to use this storyline, we could use our film trailer to follow the consequences of the character's actions, and see how certain character's personalities have changed, before and after they have started committing criminal offences. 

13. A Character From A Particular Social Group Struggles To Deal With Recently Developed Mental Health Issues:  

Teen Drama programmes including 'Skins', 'Waterloo Road' '90210' and 'Pretty Little Liars' all include characters that have developed some form of mental health issue. We decided that we would consider this idea to be a the central storyline to our film as we feel that it would engage our target audience, and be an ideal storyline to live up to the 'Teen drama' sub genre. Also taking into our research from our online survey, this particular storyline is less stereotypical but also believable to appear in a Teen Drama production. 

14. A Teenage Pupil Falls In Love With A Teacher (Possibly leading to a secret relationship):  This storyline could also fit a romantic drama film as well as a Teen Drama. This storyline has proven popular within Teen Drama programmes, with 'Pretty Little Liars' character 'Aria' developing a relationship with her teacher 'Ezra Fitz', and 'Waterloo Road's' character 'Janeece' having a secret fling with her teacher 'Wilson Bingham'. Although the idea has proven to be popular with teenage audiences, we want to try and reach the demands of our target audience and take on a more challenging and different styled storyline. 

15. Various Members Of A Particular Social Group/Clique Are Being Stalked By A Serial Killer:

A typical storyline for a thriller/horror film that could also fit a Teen Drama film, this storyline has been displayed in both 'Skins' and 'Pretty Little Liars'. This would be a good idea to experiment with and explore how we could make it 'fit' a Teen Drama production.

16. Bullying/Cyberbullying:  The majority of teen dramas include some form of bullying of various characters or social groups. As the years have gone, we have witnessed the rise of 'Cyberbullying' and the attempts various campaigns have made to make people aware and help put an end to cyberbullying. A more stereotypical option for our film trailer, but we feel it is worth looking into. 

17. Characters Struggling To Cope With Their Sexuality:  A common issue that most teenagers go through as they get older and learn to experiment with their sexuality. It's also another issue that is seen displayed in Teen Dramas and Soap Operas.