Initial Planning and Ideas

The type of film we are focusing on is Social Realism. Social Realism is a genre that focuses on topical issues happening in society today. For instance, political or social. In order to create a social realist trailer, I needed to decide on topic to research and produce a film trailer about. Social realist trailers generally consist of topical issues happening in society today such as domestic abuse, politics etc. For example, films such as Shifty, Poor Cow and Fish Tank.

Initially, I created mind-maps of what types of issues I would like to base my film trailer on. I thought of as many as possible such as the issues of animal cruelty, bullying, internet predators, dog fighting etc.
I chose to go with the topic of internet predators as I feel that this is an issue which is for the most part ignored in the media and am interested in the topic due to my watching of television programmes like Dateline NBC's ''To Catch a Predator'' and MTV's ''Catfish: The TV Show''. Both of these programmes deal with issues with online relationships and though Catfish is not about sexual predators, it is about people who disguise their true identities and make friends/relationships in online chatrooms.

I decided to perform some secondary research, that being looking for research already conducted by others to educate myself on the nature of these crimes. I have found many blog posts with the help of google, such as this website - http://www.katiecouric.com/on-the-show/2012/10/10/online-predators/ - which highlights the way in which predators work when they approach children on the internet. It seems to me as if many predators gain the trust of their victims, giving them compliments and seeming to be entirely in tune with how they are feeling. When triangulating - this means cross-referencing - my research, alot of the stories I read and heard had similar patterns. They tend to prey on young, vulnerable girls and through conversation the get to know about any problems the girls/boys are suffering and play on these.

It interests me now to go out and do some primary research, perhaps in the form of a questionnaire, to ask people if they have ever spoken to people they don't know online.