Statement of Intent

 This is the statement of intent that my group and I made.

link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yaA3MR-hSJACe1kI3rNmW2fUjPLtV-pG4VuLJ_PJ5L0/edit

Genre / Sub-genre
Stalking and Kidnapping	Reason: Spread awareness regarding those topics; the impact of those crimes, signs to look out for, etc. By telling the story of the victim in the documentary, we can raise empathy and understanding.
Topic
Victim disappears for a week. They were unknowingly stalked and kidnapped by a very unsuspecting classmate (the friendly and sweet popular girl).
Primary Target Audience
Demographic Young adults (16-25) Students	Reason This age group usually consists of curious individuals, as well as those who enjoy suspenseful and thrilling narratives.  Since the characters in our documentary are teenagers, students would find it easier to empathise with the characters as they are of similar age group, they may feel a stronger connection to the victim in our documentary, perhaps relating to a few scenes. This relatability will help increase the audience engagement with the documentary.
Psychographic People who fear getting kidnapped Crime enthusiasts	Reason By watching the documentary, they can identify behaviour patterns and tactics that a perpetrator would have, and they would use this information to be aware of who and what to avoid in order to prevent themselves from facing similar situations. Crime enthusiasts often watch crime documentaries to observe the psychological aspect of these perpetrator’s behaviours, some of these crime enthusiasts also watch these documentaries due to its thrill and suspense.
Secondary Target Audience
Parents of high school teenagers  People living in the same area where the crime happened. Psychology students	Reason The characters in our documentary are high schoolers, therefore parents with children who are in high school may want to watch it so they can recognize warning signs of stalkers and criminals. By recognizing them, they can educate their children to watch out for those warning signs. These people may be curious about what happened near the place they live in/neighbourhood. They watch this documentary in order to inform themselves about the events occurring near them. (proximity) Our documentary discusses the subject of stalking and kidnapping. This topic correlates to psychology that may be studied in school by psychology students, the documentary may be used as an example or a case study to analyze in class.
Message (Dominant Reading)
Regardless of social status and popularity, anyone is capable of committing crimes Quiet and introverted individuals, especially men, don’t typically voice out their struggles or seek help. This makes them vulnerable to being targeted. Anyone can be a victim	Reason This is done to break multiple stereotypes. These include the stereotype where girls are always the victim and men, the perpetrator. As well as the stereotypes where seniors always bully and are superior to juniors, and how friendly people are never the perpetrator. By challenging these stereotypes, our audience can reconsider their biases, creating a more balanced environment. We did this in regards to mental health awareness. The content of our documentary connotes that quieter individuals and men tend to have their well being overlooked, especially since they don’t seek out for help. By representing this group, we hope to encourage our audience to pay more attention to these groups of individuals (introverted individuals and men) so that they don’t suffer in silence. This is done in order to raise awareness to our audience that these kinds of crimes can happen anywhere, at any time, and to anyone. We hope that our audience can take better precautions and
Characters
Victim (Christopher) Stalker (Harper) Police  Radio chatter (random people talking into mic)
Representations (groups, places, events)
Groups:   Teenage girls and juniors: We would like to represent this typically more underestimated group of people as possibly dangerous or people you should also have your guard up with. Teenage boys and seniors: We would like to represent this group of people as ones that can also become victims instead of being the perpetrator of crimes. Places:  Quiet neighbourhood: We would like to represent quiet neighbourhoods as ones that normally seem peaceful, however sometimes things happen that are out of view. Basement: Like typical representations of this place, we would like to represent the basement as scary, suffocating and dangerous. Events:  Kidnapping: Converting to usual representations, we would like to represent this crime as one that is terrifying and something to always look out for.	Reason Groups:   Due to a combination of misogyny and sexism, most of society deems men as dangerous and women as the victims to the crimes. Although to some extent this may be true, it is important to bring awareness to the fact that men face many crimes too such as harassment without receiving any justice as they may become ashamed to report being a victim to a group of people deemed more “inferior”, that being women. In order to spread awareness, this documentary aims to show that although men are strong, they still can be victims to women or anyone if they aren’t careful. This documentary hopes to encourage men to speak up with their experiences as well as teach the audience to never let their guard down even if others seem unlikely to harm them. The same thing can also be said for juniors and seniors where the hierarchy usually indicates that seniors are always stronger than juniors, however this dynamic does not always guarantee safety.   Places:
Audience interaction / Engagement
In order to engage our audience, we can use the hermeneutic code cultivated by Barthes. The hermeneutic code refers to any element in a media product that doesn’t give full context and avoids full explanation, creating mystery. This causes the audience to guess what will happen next, therefore increasing their engagement with our documentary.

Self reflection: For our documentary, we subverted the stereotype of small weak girls being kidnapped by big scary men, and made our whole plot based off a bigger man being kidnapped by a young woman (Christopher being 18, Harper being 16). I loved that it added suspense because no one would've thought such an innocent bright girl would kidnap a person, let alone a guy bigger than her. We also made Christopher a senior - and Harper a junior - because seniors in high school are often depicted as intimidating and even as bullies, whilst juniors are innocent, small, and weak.