Audience Research; Focus Group

I put together a focus group consisting of ten people, not including myself, of various ages, sexes, social class and ethnicities. One of the people at the focus group was in prison himself for a number of years, therefore he had an idea of what is and is not realistically shown in prison related films or television programs. I collected key scenes from prison related media:
The Shawshank Redemption, Scum, Bad Girls & Porridge.

I chose to do this rather than show the focus group one film/show so that they could compare what I had shown them and could contrast what they had seen in each clip. I asked the focus group to write down anything they found interesting or unusual whilst I also used a dictaphone to record their first reactions to the clips, some of which were quite graphic and they had never seen before. They also voiced their opinions on whether they believed certain films/programs were more accurate than others, even though most of them had not even stepped foot inside a prison. I felt it was important to gather their personal opinions regardless of this fact as they represented the viewing public for my research and I wanted different perspectives, especially as the majority of people will not have any experience of prison life either.

The person that had been in prison, Adam, said he knew people that had been physically & sexually assaulted by the Wardens, although he was not one of them. As I asked him questions, comparing & contrasting each of the programs/films he said, "there's a constant power struggle inside, and you have to come out on top or you're not gonna make it. The Shawshank Redemption's a nice film, but I wouldn't say it's realistic, but only because of the ending. It's nice to think that some people in prison can have so much hope, because when I was in, I didn't. One of my cellmates committed suicide the first week he was here, and I can't say I don't blame him. Porridge isn't supposed to be realistic I suppose because it's a comedy, but the cells looked realistic enough of the times, and the fact there's one stern warden & one 'soft' warden is true to the prison I was in myself. Bad Girls is a mix of the two, quite realistic I expect of women's prisons with a bit of comedy thrown in, although I think alot of it must have been exaggerated for dramatic effect, to make it more controversial."

One of the girls in my target audience said this about Bad Girls,"It shocked me so much when it came out that I promised myself I'd never commit a crime. The miscarriages in prison, the sexual and physical abuse, the suicide, all of that affected me quite a bit when I was younger. I honestly thought this happened day-in day-out in jail, and alot of it probably does, but I wonder now whether Adam hasn't got a valid point. Prison life may well be exaggerated in films & television shows to appeal to a wider audience, to shock them. Maybe even to shock them away from committing crimes?"

I asked her whether she had ever been inside a prison or seen a real prison cell and she said, "No, I've never seen the inside of a prison but in all the media I've seen of prison cells, they look really depressing and so small that I'd feel suffocated being there. There's no privacy." Everyone in the group agreed with this last remark, myself included.

I asked the group whether they felt that violence between inmates happened as much as it does in Scum, and one of them pointed out that many real-life criminals have been killed in prison by other inmates, such as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

The focus group were all over 18 as nearly all prison related moving image shows brutal, shocking scenes and they are usually rated 18. Through researching I have found that men generally watch prison related moving image more than women. I asked the females in the group why they would not watch films such as Scum on a regular basis and one of them said that she is too "squeamish and emotional" to watch "scenes of rape and such realistic abuse all the time."

In Bad Girls, some women who were heterosexual before they went into prison form lesbian relationships whilst inside prison. Nearly all of the women in the focus group said they could understand why this happened, but only one of the men said this. One of the women who said she could relate to the relationships said, "If you're in prison for a long time, you'd miss intimacy and probably be sexually frustrated, so I can totally see why women would turn to other women in prison. However, I doubt this would happen nearly as much in an all-male environment. I forgot about this point actually until you brought it up; it's not one of the typical prisom 'stereotypes' that come to mind when I think of being in a prison."

Secondary Research; Film Reviews

Scum: these reviews are from Amazon.com

Overall, Scum is not an easy watch. Its hard to emphasize with characters who want to beat each other up with pipes, encourage racial violence and commit rape unpunished. But for the message it carries and its sheer, unpolished presentation of what are basically true events, its a must see.

BRILLIANT FILM. This is Ray Winstone at his best. The West Ham boy is the Cockney Al Pacino. The fight scene where he 'does' child abusing paedophile Richard Grimson, traitor Paul Wellings and `Grass` Al "Walter Mitty" Parlour is the highlight of this classis prison drama. This is without doubt one of the best British movies ever made and up there alongside The Long Good Friday, Lock Stock and Get Carter.

The Shawshank Redemption: by Rober Ebert, world-famous film critic. 23/9/94

“The Shawshank Redemption” is a movie about time, patience and loyalty -- not sexy qualities, perhaps, but they grow on you during the subterranean progress of this story, which is about how two men serving life sentences in prison become friends and find a way to fight off despair.The story is narrated by “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) who has been inside the walls of Shawshank Prison for a very long time and is its leading entrepreneur. He can get you whatever you need: cigarettes, candy, even a little rock pick like an amateur geologist might use. One day he and his fellow inmates watch the latest busload of prisoners unload, and they make bets on who will cry during their first night in prison, and who will not. Red bets on a tall, lanky guy named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) who looks like a babe in the woods.But Andy does not cry, and Red loses the cigarettes he wagered. Andy turns out to be a surprise to everyone in Shawshank, because within him is such a powerful reservoir of determination and strength that nothing seems to break him.

Andy was a banker on the outside, and he's in for murder. He's apparently innocent, and there are all sorts of details involving his case, but after a while they take on a kind of unreality; all that counts inside prison is its own society -- who is strong, who is not -- and the measured passage of time.Red is also a lifer. From time to time, measuring the decades, he goes up in front of the parole board, and they measure the length of his term (20 years, 30 years) and ask him if he thinks he has been rehabilitated. Oh, most surely, yes, he replies; but the fire goes out of his assurances as the years march past, and there is the sense that he has been institutionalized -- that, like another old lifer who kills himself after being paroled, he can no longer really envision life on the outside.Red's narration of the story allows him to speak for all of the prisoners, who sense a fortitude and integrity in Andy that survives the years. Andy will not kiss butt. He will not back down. But he is not violent, just formidably sure of himself. For the warden (Bob Gunton), he is both a challenge and a resource; Andy knows all about bookkeeping and tax preparation, and before long he's been moved out of his prison job in the library and assigned to the warden's office, where he sits behind an adding machine and keeps tabs on the warden's ill-gotten gains. His fame spreads, and eventually he's doing the taxes and pension plans for most of the officials of the local prison system.

There are key moments in the film, as when Andy uses his clout to get some cold beers for his friends who are working on a roofing job. Or when he befriends the old prison librarian (James Whitmore). Or when he oversteps his boundaries and is thrown into solitary confinement. What quietly amazes everyone in the prison -- and us, too -- is the way he accepts the good and the bad as all part of some larger pattern than only he can fully see.The partnership between the characters played by Robbins and Freeman is crucial to the way the story unfolds.

This is not a "prison drama" in any conventional sense of the word. It is not about violence, riots or melodrama. The word "redemption" is in the title for a reason. The movie is based on a story, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, by Stephen King, which is quite unlike most of King's work. The horror here is not of the supernatural kind, but of the sort that flows from the realization than 10, 20, 30 years of a man's life have unreeled in the same unchanging daily prison routine.The director, Frank Darabont, paints the prison in drab grays and shadows, so that when key events do occur, they seem to have a life of their own.Andy, as played by Robbins, keeps his thoughts to himself.

Red, as Freeman plays him, is therefore a crucial element in the story: His close observation of this man, down through the years, provides the way we monitor changes and track the measure of his influence on those around him. And all the time there is something else happening, hidden and secret, which is revealed only at the end.

“The Shawshank Redemption” is not a depressing story, although I may have made it sound that way.

There is a lot of life and humor in it, and warmth in the friendship that builds up between Andy and Red. There is even excitement and suspense, although not when we expect it. But mostly the film is an allegory about holding onto a sense of personal worth, despite everything. If the film is perhaps a little slow in its middle passages, maybe that is part of the idea, too, to give us a sense of the leaden passage of time, before the glory of the final redemption.

Primary Research; Questionnaire

Age:
Gender:
Class:
Ethnicity:
Lifestyle choices (if you go to the gym, eat healthily etc):


1) Do you ever watch prison related films or television shows, such as Prison Break or The Shawshank Redemption? Please name those you watch. Did you watch Bad Girls when it was aired?

2) Do you think prison is depicted realistically in films/television shows? Why do you think this?

3) Do you feel there are any prison stereotypes, due to what you've seen on television/in film? (i.e. prison rape). If so please name some of the stereotypes

4) WHAT OTHER QUESTIONS CAN I ASK

Primary Research; Deconstruction of a scene from The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption has been ranked #2 in IMDB's top 250 film rankings, voted upon by the website's visitors. It has also been voted the best film that has NEVER won 'Best Picture' in a poll by the BBC in 2005. It was also ranked #2 in Film Four's compilation of the '100 Greatest Films of all Time' in 2001.

One of the early scenes in the movie is of the brutal beating of one of the inmates who wants his mother and "doesn't belong here." He is so badly abused that he is put in "the infirmary" after the warden beats him for making noise. This typical type of scene is expected in prison movies due to the stereotypical abuse expected from authority figures. "Your ass belongs to me," is what is said to the main character, Andy Dufresne, when he first enters the prison by warden Norton.

There is also the stereotype that inmates, especially new ones who are fragile, are sexually dominated by other inmates. This theme occurs in The Shawshank Redemption. We are introduced to the leader of the Sister's, Bogs, a mere twenty minutes into the film. The Sister's are a group of prisoners who take pleasure in raping those they feel to be weak, and Andy becomes one of them. Brutal rape scenes are also present in British film Scum and the television drama Bad Girls.

Possibly the most famous scene of the movie is when Andy, now having gained the trust of the prison wardens etc, locks one of the prison officers in the toilet while he plays classical music to the whole prison. The music is from The Marriage of Figaro, an uplifting piece. Andy sits in the warden's chair, leaning back in it and relaxing, with a large smile on his face as the music gets louder and louder.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/dvd_review.asp?ID=475