Pondering about society's effect on children's tv...

Structuralism

This idea suggests that words have no real existence of their own, but only gather meaning and significance when compared to things around them called a different word. Language is not natural; it is a human creation. Therefore an object we refer to by a certain name has no natural links to that certain name - it is society and culture which have associated that word with that object. For example, a table could be referred to as any word; as long as the word for chair for example was different. There is a popular analogy to help understand this - The Chess Analogy - you could use a matchbox in place of a knight in a game of chess, as long as it is different from the other pieces. What is important is the way that it moves and the rules it follows rather than the way it looks.

Saussure said that language is in fact a system of signs; what matters is not the items themselves but the differences between them - therefore a system of differences.

So.. how is this relevant to mine and Joe's piece?

WELL... I have previously said logo and 'brand recognition' is crucial for a children's show and for sales of any ancillary products they wish to sell. The logo for a successfully recognised children's show should contain the main characters, fonts and colours used throughout the show (this will all help towards brand recognition). However as long as the logo is associated with the show, it doesn't really in theory matter what is in fact depicted on the logo; does it? If what Saussure and other structuralists say is true about language being a system of differences between signs (better known now as 'semiotics') then as long as the logo is different to all others around it then there should be no problems with brand recognition

Logos analysis

I have come to conclusion that the best logos to help children recognise the show by it's logo is to depict the main character(s) and to be constructed of colours/patterns relavant to the show.

Representations of women

"One might simplify this by saying men look at women, and women watch themselves being looked at." This is a bold quote from Ways of seeing - John Berger. This does indeed seem to be the most stereotypical way, however is it the only way?

Laura Mulvey's 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema' (1975) covers my next topic nicely.

"There are circumstances in which looking is a source of pleasure" but also "there is pleasure in being looked at". Some of the general ideas about female representations are based upon active male and passive female - the male is the one doing the looking and the female is the one being looked at.

Mulvey takes a lot of her ideas from Sigmund Freud. She found that he associated scopophillia (the pleasure in looking) as objectifying other people. At an extreme, this can produce voyeurs and 'peeping Toms' who's only sexual satisfaction can come from watching an objectified other in an controlling sense. She says that the cinema is the prime place to allow the active man to do this (by way of observing the beautiful on screen women). She also says that the male spectator and male protagonist are united - they become one man looking at woman.

In a later article, Mulvey said that woman can either identify with the woman on screen; admitting defeat that it's okay to be objectified by male in such a way OR identify with with the male spectator and allow herself to appreciate and look at the beauty of on-screen woman. 

Trying to relate this to my piece was rather difficult. The 'male gaze' is something that tends not to be featured in children's animations as children do not yet have that level of sexual maturity. However, some children's programmes are very obvious with their gender choices e.g. Bob the builder is very stereotypically male - it would seem all his basic traits are stereotypically male: he is a builder, his clothes, his name, his voice etc etc. where as Fizz from the Tweenies appears to be very stereotypically female: pink clothes, dress with flowers on, long hair, high voice etc etc. However I seem to find that when the character isn't human, the gender lines can become slightly blurred. Programmes with animalistic or alien characters can often not be so obvious with gender of their characters. For example... 

The octonauts - these characters are a near equal split of each gender. I guessed which ones female and got it wrong! There aren't really any stereotypical traits of their gender obvious about them, more their traits as an animal.

Also, the fimbles. The two fimbles in the foreground are female, however both inclue a colour which is stereotypically male.

Rowland Barthes - Striptease

In this article (from his book 'Mythologies') Barthes says that striptease is based on a contradiction; that "woman is desexualised at the very moment when she is stripped naked", it is indeed the time taken to shed her clothes, which makes it something people desire. Because of this, layer upon layer of coverings and props will be placed upon the woman, to draw out the desirable process. The end of the striptease will now signify that nakedness is the natural vesture of woman and amounts as the perfectly chaste state of flesh. In essence, what I think Barthes is saying, is that it's not always the actual 'thing', but everything that surrounds it. So we need to sometimes remove ourself from a situation to not be drawn in by all the fancy surroundings of it.

Aggression in children's media

Children learn from observing others; this is a well respected behavourist viewpoint, so therefore when making a media text for a child audience, you must take into consideration everything that happens in your narrative and what your character represents, to ensure that they are not displaying any negative behaviours that the child could be affected by.

If you consider some of the theories I have previously looked at (see post "Some definitions") then here are some possible examples of how agressove/violent acts could affect a child viewer.


- Hyperdermic syringe: The child will view the piece and not question anything about it, presuming life is like this.

- Cultivation theory: Child sees a violent act commited on television by a bald headed man and then assumes all bald headed men will be violent.

- Desensitisation: Child sees violence in a media text and assumes it's normal becomes desensitised to the shock of violence.

- Copycat theory: Child sees aggressive behaviour and copys it themself.

- Reception theory: One child viewer could be scared by a certain character and their actions, yet another child could view the same text and could take a liking to this certain character.

- Ethnography: You have to try and grasp/remember what is scary for a child that age, because to us as young adults most things aren't scary, however a child of a TA age rang (1-4) could be easily scared by something we view as totally normal/fine.


I will now give some examples of cases where children have been affected by violence and aggression in media texts.

The Academy of Pediatrics says “More than one thousand scientific studies and reviews conclude that significant exposure to media violence increases the risk of aggressive behavior in certain children, desensitizes them to violence and makes them believe that the world is a ‘meaner and scarier’ place than it is.” Many psychologists believe that childre have a 'critical period' for learning, and in this time they are most impressionable - think of the child as a sponge during this time; they are likely to soak up most academic knowledge and general life skills/behaviours in this time period compared to any other time period in their life. If during this time children begin to think that this type of violence is normal behavior these thoughts are often difficult to change later on in life. (This is supported by studies into children who have experienced/witnessed domestic violence often becoming offenders of victims themselves because they believe violence is the 'norm'.)

Psychology also makes us aware to the types of 'conditioning' that are happening to these child viewers. Classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning theory.

Classical conditioning: Think of this as forcing an association between one thing and something else. (Everybody knows the experiment about Pavlov ringing a bell when he fed his dogs to make them salivate; he carried on doing this until he could ring the bell, but produce no food, and they would still salivate.) Putting it into context for children's media would be they see a conflict happen and it always gets resovled with violence. The child would then associate the recognition of conflict with the aggressive/violent act and maybe apply this to any conflict they had in life.

Operant conditioning: If a child for example swore, some people would react by telling them off - this being a negative consequence of the action of swearing and the child would be less likely to do it again (as they wouldn't want to recieve the negative consequence again). However some people may laugh if the child swore. Now, to a child, making people laugh is a reward so the child would be more likely to repeat the swearing action to gain the positive response of laughter. Applying this to children's media; if a child saw this scenario happening on television, they would maybe immitate it to try and gain the positive reaction.

Social Learning Theory: This says that children learn from their interactions with others. So a child may view another person on television being violent/aggressive and learn from that and repeat the action themself.


One, terrible event which brought about this massive concern of violence in children's media was the Columbine incident. The two boys (both of whom played hours of violent video games) had secure and supportive home lives, yet still were influenced enough by the media to commit such a hideous act of violence. There was also a similar case in Kentucky where a young boy, Micheal Carneal entered his school and shot and killed some of his classmates. He shot 9 bullets in a 10second period. 8 of those shots were hits, with 3 being head shots and 3 being neck. This accuracy and precision of shot is WAY above the standard of the US army expert marksmen. This child had never fired a pistol in all his life, but becuase of the hours he spent on violent video games, he became an expert at it. I mean, you can't really blame the poor lad, when on these games you get rewarded with more points for 'head shots'.

If parents/guargians are worried about their child experience violent media and copying from it, then there are certain steps they should take, such as helping them chose age appropriate programmes to watch and watching programmes with them incase any issues do arise you will be able to talk abou them.

Magazine

For a bit of real-life research into the parents' claim that children go for the magazine with the best toy, I took my nephew and his friend (both in our TA age range) to a shop to buy them both a magazine. They very briefly surveyed the options available to them, and then decided almost instantly that this was the magazine they would opt for... and guess what; it was in fact the one with the most toys. Even though it wasn't the magazine for their favourite programme, they were fascinated by the free toys and would take no attempt of persuasion!


Here is the magazine (with free merchandise) they chose.

Whole 'pack'

Front cover

Back cover

Incl. colouring book 

Incl. mobile phone

Incl. character cards

Incl. 'magic' paint book

Incl. stickers

Questionnaire results!

So, here's the average results of the data we gathered!




Age: 3 years old.
Time spent a day watching television: 3 and a half hours.
Most frequent television 'package': Freeview.
Most commonly favourite channel: Cbeebies
Favourite programmes: Peppa Pig, followed by Charlie and Lola.
What time they watch television: AM and PM.
Buy magazines of the programme: Sometimes
Buy DVDs of the series: Yes.




So from these results of children in our target audience, we can 'presume' some things. Firstly that we have used very popular influences for our programme (Peppa pig and style of Charlie and Lola). Also that Cbeebies would be a really good choice of channel to exhibit on as this was by FAR the favourite channel (and is on freeview, and more expensive television packages so everyone will have it) and to attempt to screen our show in morning and afternoon. Also, from verbal feedback gained from parents of the children, the child is most drawn to a magazine if it has a really good toy(s) attached to the front as is largely a picture based front cover. 

Sound types

Obviously, all of the sound in our piece will be put in post-production (becuase that's the nature of animation).


Examples of diegetic and synchronous sound in our piece: characters speech and sound made by objects in the scene.


Examples of non-diagetic asychronous: voiceover and music.

(To create the sounds made by the objects in the scene, we will have to act like Foley artists.)

A further look at intertextuality and auteurism

Intertexuality can be thought of as a never-ending onion; onions have many layers, and so does intertextuality. For example, if you peeled away the layers of a film, underneath you would find layer after layer of other experiences and influences. If you peel back one layer, you will find the scriptwriter. If we peel back their layers, we would find things like other scripts they had written and read and how those have influenced their writing. If the script has been adapted from a story, you will find the author's layer. Peel back their's and you will reveal all their past writings, experiences and things they have read. And so it goes on, in what seems to never end - thus the term 'never-ending onion'!


Julia Kristeva was a French theorist who first coined the term intertexuality in the late 1960s. Intertexuality indicates that a text is not self-contained but is produced from other texts and that there can never be a definitive reading of a text - there will be many interpretations, depending on the reader. In the 'Death of the author' by Barthes, he said that a text is a "tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centres of culture".






Auteurism suggests that a director is the primary and most important creator of a text (even though the text will be processed and added to by numerous other individuals, the auteur's creative voice is said to still shine through). A director who is a considered an auteur is seen to have something instantly recognisable about their work which allows you to know it was produced by them. For example Alfred Hitchcock used particular framing and editing techniques throughout his films and make cameo appearances - if you saw these techniques in a film, you would instantly know it was 'a Hitchcock'.


Another well respected auteur is Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. An example of one of his 'instantly recognisable qualities' would be his strong interest in female narrative and tendency to use particular actors. He makes no apologies for the fact that he is an intertextual director and openly acknowledges he is a big fan of Hitchcock in his films. Pedro Almodovar is an example of an auteur who is proud to layer his work with the influence of others.


This is a brief, graphic outline of the development of auteur theory through three phases, from Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts by Susan Hayward.

Obviously our piece will be intertextual, as you cannot avoid this. We will not directly reference any other text, but our creation will be shaped by our own experiences of texts from the same genre. For our piece, Joe and I could consider paying homage to Pedro Almodovar by using his technique of pulling the subject into the foreground.

Influences for our typography

Concept board

Concept board! on Prezi

Decision time!

Joe and I have decided, that the initial idea we will focus on is idea 1! This is the idea featuring introduction of characters. We chose this initial idea to focus on because we felt that having Barnaby and Hazel introduced to the audience before each episode would increase familiarity and build a stronger relationship between viewer and characters. In turn, this will also hopefully boost DVD and magazine sales if the child feels more attached to the programme and characters featured within it.

Obviously our final OTS narrative will have developed greatly from the initial storyboarded idea we had, but this is merely just a focus of direction that we will travel in.

Now that we have settled on a focus, we will be able to fine tune our narrative ideas for the OTS and come up with our final idea and then animate it!

Influences for our OTS initial ideas

To come up with the two initial idea we have for possibilites for our OTS, Joe and I looked at lots of successful children's programmes' OTSs to see if we could get any inspiration, and indeed we did!

Idea 1 was loosely based around the idea of 'introducing the characters' featured in the Peppa Pig OTS.

The inspiration for our second idea came from a not-so-contemporary example of Mr Benn. This OTS has almost a 'flashback to previous adventures' feel about it, and this is reflected in our initial idea two.

Questionnaire...

For some primary research, Joe and I came up with a questionnaire, and are in the process of sending it out to parents of our TA. We did this to see exactly what their child's television 'habits' are, and if they comply with our ideas.

Here is a copy of the questionnaire.

Some initial ideas for our OTS...

Looking at the similar ideas/happenings in already existing OTS, these are just two possible ideas we have come up with for our own OTS.




Idea 1...

Barnaby and Hazel - idea 1 from Hannah C on Vimeo.








Idea 2

Barnaby and Hazel - idea 2 from Hannah on Vimeo.






EVALUATION POINT!
- We looked at the possibility of using Todorov's narrative structure in our piece, however we felt that 25 seconds was too short of a time span to contain a simple narrative for anyone to understand, and also having a narrative contained within our OTS (only to be then followed by a narrative in the actual episode) would be far too complex for our TA.

More character development!

    So, we have Barnaby and Hazel and two logo designs!
  

Character development...

Our next venture will be to create our characters. So far, Joe has drawn our main Character - Barnaby.

However, apart from knowing what he looks like, we know little else about him yet. (All that we do know is he shall have a female companion - TBA). But nevertheless, here he is....

And here's hoping to some good character development in the future!

Exhibition and distribution...

If you combine a strong product, with good exhibition and distribution; it's a recipe for success! (Therefore having effective distribution is crucial!) In this post, I will attempt to explore some possible routes for exhibition and distribution of our products.


The Programme (OTS) itself
Obviously having your programme on a child-specific channel is a key thing to do. Channels such as Nick Jr, Cbeebies etc cater wholly for children, therefore receive viewers from within our age range for TA. Children often will have just finished watching their favourite programme on one of the channels, but continue to watch just to see what comes on next. In this way, our show would be introduced to new viewers and would hopefully gain a fan base of regular viewers. Often, a show can not be shown on multiple children's channels (this would have lead us to optimum exposure to TA), therefore we would have to select the channel with most viewers (within our TA age range) to try and maximise our chances of the most viewers.  


The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) have the average weekly viewing time per person (in the UK) for some various children's channels we could potentially be shown on. The viewings are as follows:
•Tiny Pop - 1 minute
•Cartoonito - 3 minutes
•Nick Jr - 5 minutes
•Disney Junior - 6 minutes
•Cbeebies - 22 minutes


As you can clearly see, Cbeebies would obviously be the best channel for us in terms of potentially receiving most viewers. (So this would be the channel we would approach to have our programme on.


The magazine
Supermarkets and newsagents would be the best choice I believe as this is where child's magazine's tend to be sold currently. These places would be the most sensible to sell our magazine because children often visit these places with an adult who could buy it for them. If we placed the magazine at child's eye level they would be more likely to see if (and if they like the programme) would potentially ask the adult to buy it for them. Also, if you include a free gift(s) on the magazine this increases the child's desire for it as they would receive toys/stickers etc. 


The DVD
The main place which children visit with an adult which sell DVD's would be a supermarket. (Much like the magazine section, if a child sees the DVD of the show they like, they'd ask their adult for it. And again, placing the product at eye-level would increase the chances of the child seeing it and subsequently wanting it.) Also, DVDs are regularly advertised on television (for children's and adult's channels) to advertise it to the child or an adult (as a birthday gift for example). So having a good marketing and advertising campaign for the DVD would be crucial. Also, with the increase of people using online shops such as Amazon etc, selling our product here would be another effective way.




Looking at distributors of current Cbeebies programmes, I have identified a few potential exhibition/distribution company for our products. 


HiT Entertainment - they are distributors for a lot of children's programmes and therefore have good experience.


Universal Pictures - are a very well-known name with good contacts and big budgets and do deal with children's shows DVD releases.


Classic Media - seem to deal with only cartoon/animation/children's programmes so therefor may be the best equipped and used to distributing products like our's successfully. 

Theme music...

In already existing children's programme opening credits, the music plays quite a significant part in drawing the viewer in to watch the programme itself. In one of my previous posts (link here), I looked at length of time of OTS. There appears to be a massive range of length of OTS. For instance, 'In the night garden' has an OTS of 2 minutes, compared to 'Peppa Pig' consisting of an OTS of 15 seconds! Therefore Joe and I have to make a decision about the approximate length of our OTS. We decided it should be on the lower-mid end of the scale, (30secs - 1min) because our target audience is young (1-4 yr olds) and therefore may not have the attention span for much longer than this, simply on an OTS.


The music itself, Joe and I decided, should be simple and melodic, with an average/upbeat b.p.m. Most existing OTS themes are quite lively and memorable to the show, and this is something we wish to achieve (as it helps towards brand recognition). Our OTS soundtrack would not feature lyrics/singing, but would have a voice over from the main character to make it easily recognisable (much like the 'Peppa Pig' OTS when she introduces herself and family).

Animation style...

For our piece, Joe and I agreed on a simple, hand-drawn animation. It would be drawn frame by frame (loosely resembling a 'flick book'). This way, it would be clear that our animation is meant to look hand-drawn, rather than just a bad quality animation. This style is used currently in the children's programme 'Humf' and 'Charlie and Lola'. 

See how the style purposefully looks hand-drawn. Also in 'Humf' Joe and I commented on how we liked the stylistic feature of 'rough' colouring of background and may consider using this technique in our animation.

Joe will do a post in more depth on this topic (link here once he has done so).

Market research: target audience...

'Children's television' can be considered as a rather vast age range. You have the programmes/channels aimed at younger viewers, such a Nick Jr, Cbeebies etc, then the older viewer's counterparts; Nickelodeon, CBBC, etc. So obviously there are a lot of age brackets to consider when thinking about target audience age for our piece.

Also, within these age ranges are subcategories; gender, hobbies, demographics etc. For example Disney channel have recently split their one main channel into two new channels. The first channel is focused on arguably the shows which would appeal more to a female audience, and the second is the more male audience orientated shows. Gender has such a massive impact when considering our target audience because obviously to achieve maximum fan-base, you want to try and include both genders equally. This is why Joe and I have decided that whatever gender our main character is, they will have an accomplice (family member or friend) of the opposite gender. In doing this, we are trying to include both genders. A good example of this in current children's television is Peppa Pig. The story lines heavily feature Peppa (a girl) but also her younger brother George (a boy).

TA: 4 - 7, both genders                                                        TA: 2 - 5, both genders

                                          TA: 'teen' girls                                                                                   TA: 'teen' boys        

It has become apparent that the younger children's programmes try to appeal more to both genders where as the older/teen programmes have a more specific gender-based following.

Joe and I have decided that our target audience will be children age 1-4 years old of both gender. (Obviously we understand that viewers not in our specific TA may watch the show, but it is crucial to have a TA in mind when creating a product, so you are able to cater for the TA's needs specifically. This is why we have chosen a quite small age range (1-4) because we feel if you try to broaden this (e.g. 1 - 7) your audience will possibly have conflicting needs and you can therefore not meet the needs of all your audience if they conflict heavily. We feel that trying to appeal to both genders however isn't such an issue. As I've previously stated, it is apparent that most younger shows appeal to both genders by featuring an accomplice to the protagonist of the opposite gender.)

Relating our ancillary products to each other...

From brief 6, Joe and I decided to accompany our OTS with the front cover to a magazine for the series and a DVD cover for the series. 


For a successful and stable brand identity, products need have a certain level of recognition value. To obtain this we will need to achieve continuity between our ancillary products. There are key aspects which need to be considered and we will ensure the following components are consistent throughout:
•font
•colour scheme
•logo(s)
•additional information
•characters

Notice how this Peppa Pig Magazine cover (left) and DVD cover (right) share certain components to sustain the continuity:
• the Peppa Pig logo
• background and colour scheme
• the depicted characters
•font used for other text


In conclusion, to achieve continuity and consistency within our products, we will ensure to consider these aspects.

Market research: common plot lines and 'stock characters'...

Although our brief does not mention having a plot line in mind for our product, Joe and I felt it would be good to have an awareness of the kind of plot featured in children's programmes, and therefore if there are common plot lines, and if stock characters are present. 


Plot lines
From research, I've found that most plot lines can be split into four categories.
1. Celebration
2. Educational/Learning something
3. Recreational
4. Making choices for a good lifestyle 


For example the episodes of the three programmes I based this part of research on (were 'Peppa Pig', 'Bob the Builder' and 'Postman Pat') were all able to be roughly divided into my proposed categories.


Examples


1. Celebration
- Peppa's Christmas
- Mummy Pig's Birthday
- Bob's Birthday
- Bob's White Christmas
- Postman Pat's Birthday
- Postman Pat's Magic Christmas


2. Educational/Learning something
- Bicycles (Learning to ride them)
- The Playgroup (George's first day)
- Bob's bugle (Bob learns to play a bugle)
- Scoop's stegosaurus (Learns about dinosaur bones)
- Postman Pat and the Tuba (Pat learns to play a tuba)
- Postman Pat and a Job Well Done (Pat talks at career day at the local school)


3. Recreational 

- Tree House (Grandpa Pig makes Peppa and George a tree house)
- Best Friend (Peppa's best friend comes to play)
- Travis and Scoop's Race Day (A race to see who's the fastest)
- Dizzy's Birdwatching (Dizzy watches a birds nest when the eggs hatch)
- Postman Pat Clowns Around (Pat becomes a clown for the day)
- Postman Pat Goes Football Crazy (They play a football match)


4. Making choices for a good lifestyle 
- Daddy Pig Gets Fit (Daddy Pig decides he should get fit)
- Recycling (The family visit a recycling centre)
- Bob's Barn-raising (Bob helps the farmer to raise his barn before a storm hits)
- Tea Set Travis (The gang do lots of recycling)
- Postman Pat and the Stolen Strawberries (Pat helps a friend in need)
- Postman Pat and the Go-Kart Race (Cheating isn't nice)






Stock Characters
Characters in children's programmes tend to have a protagonist around the same age as the intended viewer and the character's family/friends/peers. However, from show to show, do we see any similarities between characters?


(Stock character: a character which is representative of a bigger demographic. For example, in children's television, they may feature an Asian character to show diversity.)


Balamory: 

Josie Jump: race


               Penny Pocket: disability

Archie: wears glasses

Little Bill:

(As the protagonist's family in 'Little Bill' are black, the stock character rolls would appear reversed to 'Balamory'.)

                                                  Andrew: race

Kiku: race             Bobby: wears glasses

Noddy:
(As 'Noddy' is set in 'Toytown', a lot of the characters are toys and therefor it appears to have fewer stock characters than 'Little Bill' or 'Balamory', however there are still a couple of examples.)

Dinah Doll: race






                          Miss Pink Cat: Nationality 
                                               (French)














Joe and I have decided that our programme will feature 1 character (of a similar age to the T.A) and they will have an accomplice (family member/friend) of the opposite gender. (We made this decision because if the character is a similar age to T.A, a stronger bond between character and viewer will form. Also, to try and avoid favouring a gender in our piece, we will have the main character's accomplice as the other gender, to try and appeal to both genders of viewers.)

Market research: format etc of show...

When looking at current successful children's television programmes, there are 3 areas in which I will focus this post. 
1 - length of episode (this may depend on target audience as younger children tend to have shorter attention spans). 
2 - level of interactivity (some programmes are interactive with their audience by speaking to them in present tense and asking for participation, some are educational and some are merely entertaining). 
3 - target audience (in the brief it merely states 'children's television programme' it does not specify an age range, therefore we may want to explore different aged target audiences; however we are focusing on younger children's programmes for our product).




Dora the Explorer
- Average episode length: 30mins
(OTS: approx. 40secs)
- very interactive: 
e.g - Dora addresses the audience as if they were there at the time of the event
and - Whilst teaching viewers basic words/phrases in Spanish, Dora asks for audience participation by getting the audience to repeat the words/phrases.
T.A: 2 - 5 yr olds.






Peppa Pig

- Average episode length: 5mins

(OTS: approx. 15secs)

- educational: - teaches audience, for example about new life situations, via Peppa's (alongside her family and friends) experiences. This is also known as didactic learning. (Didactic learning is teaching a lesson, often including a moral.) However, it isn't considered 'interactive' as audience are merely looking in on Peppa's life; as apposed to being a part of it.

T.A: 1 - 6 yr olds.

In the Night Garden

- Average episode length: 33mins

(OTS: approx. 2mins)

- entertainment: - It's been argued that because the 'In the Night Garden' characters and situations bare little resemblance to real life, added to the fact that the characters cannot speak and the only speech in simple narration, children aren't taught anything (with the exception of learning about this 'pretend world' the characters live in), merely entertained. However this programme is praised for promoting creativity in children as it allows them to believe in 'pretend worlds' etc.

T.A: 1 - 4 yr olds.

Joe and I have decided that our 'format' will be didactic. There will be a moral learned by audience, through the characters learning the moral, which in turn will educate viewers. (Our primary aim is to educate and entertain the viewers by means of them watching the protagonist go through certain situations where they learn something new.) We felt it was important for our viewers to learn something from our text, as at this age of our TA (1-4yrs) the child is not in compolsory education and therefore the only way they can 'learn things' is by interactions with carers/family/friends etc or by media.