Film Slideshow

Storyboard Photos

Questionnaire Results

All the particapants we asked were aged 16-21 years old as they are our target audience. Almost all of the particapants said that their favourite genre was either comedy and horror. This helped us as it is reasonably easy to put elements of comedy and horror into a social-realism film. Not very many of them watch independant films which makes it harder for us to promote it as it is unlikely that many of them would be interested. A lot of people go to the cinemas at least once a month but they always go to mutliplexes which isn't helpful as ours wouldn't be shown in one. They all feel that teenagers are portrayed in the wrong way in the mdeia so we are trying to change that by showing them as strong and independant.

Questionnaire

Who are you?

1.    Age      16-21         20-40         40+

2.  Gender   Male  Female

3.  What is your favourite film genre? (And why?)

4.  How often do you watch independent films (college films)?

5.  How often do you go to the cinema a month?

6.  What cinema do you go to?

7.  Who do you go with?

8.  What is your favourite music type?

9.  Do you watch films online (illegally)?

10.       Do you disagree with the way teenagers are portrayed in the media?

Magazine analysis, film poster analysis and audience mood board

This mood board has many social realist conventions from music to drugs and gangs. Our film has pregancy which has become more common in the past couple of years espescially underage pregnancy.

Film Poster

The girl character in the photo was going to play the original girl in the trailer although she was not reliable and couldnt make the dates we set to film on, so we changed the girl character. The photo is in black and white to portrays the bleak nature of social realism gritty down to earth sad endings unlike the fairy tales.The girl character in the photo is looking down and holding her belly indicatin the the audience that she may be pregnant. i am staring at jack in hatred whilst jack is just on the floor totally clueless on the whole situation. I am dressed 'in fashion' with chinos and plimsoles although jack is just in ripped tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie. This shows that i try look after myself and look smart however jack just isn't bothered with what he wears.

The critic used is from our film magazine 'Down 2 Earth'. We also used British Independant Film awards to rate the film as it is very prestigous and would help raise number of viewers. Also our film fits into that category. The link in the left hand corner of the poster is our production website. Certificate 15.

Film Magazine

Our film magazine is called Down 2 Earth it is full of social realism films aimed at a younger generation niche audience.

Our Finished Trailer

Actors List

Danny Hegarty (Danny) - I play the older brother that sleeps with my younger brothers girlfriend. Although he finds out and we both get thrown out onto the streets and i take up selling drugs to make a living. I am slightly better off than Jack(younger brother) because i make a bit of money.

Jack Lord (Jack) - He plays the younger brother that his manipulative girlfriend cheats on with his older brother(Danny) he also gets thrown out onto the streets although he has no money and nowere to go. So he is left to go hungry.

Cora Geer (Cora) - She plays the manipulative girl that cheats on her boyfriend with his older brother. She is the main cause of the brothers fall outs because she gets pregnant. She then leaves the younger brother to fend for himself on the streets, but she is heartbroken at what she has done to both there lives.

Finished Filming

Today we finished films the last couple of shots we needed to complete our trailer.
We are now in the process of editing and hope to have the finished product in the next week or so.

Target Audience/Audience Theory

The Audience we are going to be targeting are from all background and of both genders from the ages 15-25. We handed out questionnaires to people to find out what they look for in social realism films and how often they watch them. Our audience is mainly working class because of the domestic fueds between parents and siblings. We have also created a mood board that will be uploaded in the next couple of days.

Music

The music we have chosen to use a peice by yann-tiersen. It is a piano peice that is slow it relates to the feelings of coldness and sadness of the characters within the trailer. The music will be played over the top of the trailer sound so it gives the trailer more feeling. I feel that this is a good peice of music to use as it has the same sound to what we are trying to portray in our trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqOJv0bAA-U

social realism film analysis (Brighton Rock)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryAUezPGL5o - this is part one of Brighton Rock a film that came out in 1947 about a gangster named Pinkie Brown he is a small-town hoodlum whose gang runs a protection racket based at Brighton race course. When Pinkie orders the murder of a rival, Fred, the police believe it to be suicide. This doesn't convince Ida Arnold, who was with Fred just before he died, and she sets out to find the truth. She comes across naive waitress Rose, who can prove that Fred was murdered. In an attempt to keep Rose quiet Pinkie marries her. But with his gang beginning to doubt his ability, and his rivals taking over his business, Pinkie starts to become more desperate and violent. Pinkie is played by a world famous Richard Attenborough. he is an actor i have enjoyed watching in the also famous Jurrasic Park trilogy.

This film is a classic example of a social realist film although our film has some mild violence within it, when the two brothers fall out and it ends in a brawl in which the older brother wins.

Evaluation; How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We have used mobile phones to take pictures of our work and locations of were we filmed and locations were it would be good to film, and create a mood board so that we can pick and choose which locations look and suit the best and then go and film there. mobile phones have helped a great deal as we have taken pictures of locations as well as being able to upload them instantly. 

We used Apple Macs to edit our trailer which helped us greatly as it is very self explanatory and easy to use with great outcomes as it enabled us to create very smooth fades as well as sharp cuts. we had a few problems as we could not find out how to cut the in segment to just show only the film and not carry on with the music, but this was soon sorted and we finally had our finished product.

 We found that using Photoshop for our film poster and magazine helped us aswell as it is very detailed and advanced and Jamie knew how to use it so this to was a bonus for our group. We made the photo black and white to show that it was a sad trailer with no happiness. This had a good effect as we could then dim the shading of the photo that little bit more to really exaggerate the photo and make it stand out. 

However, we did have problems with the camera we used as the battery life on them were very bad, so we could only do little bits of filming at a time and then we had to keep charging it up and even then when they were charged they still played up but in the end we got all the filming done. We also had trouble with burning the trailer onto a CD because we didnt know how to cut the music out but after all we had figured it out so it was fine and we were very pleased with our end product.

Evaluation; What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We have had very positive feedback from our peers and teachers. We found that our sound track really connected with the audience to which they can empathise with the character within the trailer. we had many compliments on the way our shots were taken and how steady the camera work actually was, although we did not use a tripod the camera work was very good. We used remote areas showing that they want to get as far way from society so they can get their heads straight. One of the people that saw the film said even without the text he would have known what the trailer was about because of the way we portrayed it, this gave us a great confidence boost as this is exactly the feedback we were looking for and being able to create a trailer with not much dialogue or text and the audience still knew what we were trying to portray.  However, we have learned that we should film our shots for longer then we actually need to as we found that the last shot would be better if it went on for longer. The tagline we used "Love Will Tear Them Apart" some of the audience that had heard of the band joy division thought it was very clever and then enjoyed the trailer even more.

Evaluation; How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts

The combination of our main product and ancillary texts, we had a problem with the female actor so we had to change the actor at the last minute this is why we have a different girl in our magazine/poster to the one in the trailer. We have used the social realism conventions to link all 3 together through the conventions of black and white to convey a dark society will no happiness, scenes and shots on the streets aswell as in a council house portraying social working class locations and characters. Due to the high success of the Shane Meadows 'This Is England' we would like our film to be in multiplex cinemas with an audience age group from 15-25 years old although we would probally aim for short film festivals such as Encounters International and London Film Festival because we believe that it is one of the most succesful flim festivals in the world and will give us a chance to show the mass audience our product. On all three of our productions we have provided a web link so that it looks all that more professional, also helping with advertisement. The tagline 'love will tear them apart' is a link from the film to a band called joy division, this instantly connects with an audience that likes the band and will then will be incouraged to go and watch our film.

Evaluation; In what way does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have analysed a couple social realist trailers:This is England and Birghton Rock.
Our film doesn't use much dialouge although for the lack of dialouge the piano peice we used over the top of the trailer creating tension. Text is used to describe the story to the audience This makes up for the lack of dialogue and so the audience know what is going on. We used the tagline 'Love Will Tear The Apart' which is a twist on the song 'Love will tear us apart' by Joy Division. This will help give the audience familiarity as our target audience are likely to know that song. There is a quite clip of the two brothers fighting in our trailer which can be seen as a convention of social-realism. For example, it is present in the 'Sweet Sixteen' trailer. There is a shot of me up against a fence looking out into fields. We have used symbolism here as drugs can also be seen as a covention of social-realism fillm which is present in our trailer where i deal cocaine to another boy so that i can make a living out on the streets with no home. This is showing that he has turned to crime. The last three shots are quick cuts of each of the the main characters. It shows how each of them is dealing with the stress of the pregnancy. The first shot shows me drug dealing which shows that i doesn't seem very affected by it because i am just out to make money and it looks like i have forgotten about them both. The last two are of Cora then Jack who are both sat down looking depressed and it end there making the audience wanting to go and watch the film and find out what happens in the end if they become happy or if there lives break apart even more.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ - This is England trailer
In this, this is england trailer it has 107 shots showing many parts of the story muddled up, and it shows a young boy going from being bullied to being in a gang of older teenagers around 17-18 and changes his look and attitude in life and lets noone make fun of him. He learns a hard lesson through the choices he makes throught the film. The very first shot was Margret Thatcher showing the date of which the film was made it also shows blocks of flats, this shows that were the film is set is in a fairly poor part of the neighbourhood, meaning working class people surviving on minimal pay and having to look after children, mainly single parent mothers that are very protective of their children of which one of these is the mother of Shaun that is one of the main characters and just wants for him to be safe in the neighbourhood.

Update

Over the past weeks we have put together mood boards of our target audience and also some filming around chilwell. we havent been able to film much because of jamie and i being ill and we had to take a week of filming because of that. we have pictures we still need to upload because they are ready, we also have to poster layout on photoshop and we will be editing it even more in due time.

Social Realism Posters

Social realism films have very blunt expressions and give the impression they come from a hard background and have a hard life. it is baised around a few key characters and follows then as the plot unfolds. the coulors are dull, mainly blue which denotes hard times and coldness.

Binary oppositions

Binary oppositions

Binary oppositions are characters/things that go against each other through narratives.

For example

Good vs evil
White colours (showing purity) vs Black colours (showing darkness)
Cowboys vs indiands
Masculine male vs less masculine male
Law vs criminal

Example in film - Gandalf (good) Vs Saruman (bad)
If you have seen the film you will notice saruman is a bad reflection of Gandalf. This relates to my film as the two boys are brothers and the younger brother is the good sibling and the older brother is the bad sibling.

Ideology and stereotypes in our 3 main characters

Ideology and stereotypes in our 3 main characters

Girl - Teenage pregnancy, sex before marriage, cheating on boyfriend etc. All these characteristics Go against the traditional views we have on stereotypical teenage girls and even women.

Younger brother- Caring, timid, sensitive, however smokes cannibis - Not particularly masculine characteristics.

Older brother - Ladies man, thinks he's a hard man, likes to stand out and be ahead of other males. smokes cannibis, drinks alcohol most weekends. Aggressive, angry, strong - Very masculine properties.

Younger brother and older brother are binary oppositions.

Todorovs narrative theory in visual

ideology

ideology

Ideology is the system of belief in our society  These beleifs dominate our media. This is called dominant ideology. Dominant ideology is ideology that is accepted and understood by most of our society as part of our expectations in our culture. For example getting married before children. These examples are not always realistic beliefs in our society due to development in our culture but our media still potrays these beliefs. Children before marriage beleif relates to our film as the main plot is about an underage girl becoming pregnant. Teenage pregnancy is looked down on majorly in a modern day british society, however it has been a popular thing over recent years. Here is a more detailed explaination of ideology by Stuart Hall discussing racist ideology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ot-LpRVQog

Codes and conventions of social realism

Codes and conventions of social realism

Friendship groups

Urban estates/slums

Police & Law

      

Riots

Marriage

 

                                                         

Towns

    

Racism

Drugs

Protests

Pregnancy

Drugs

Violence (family and on the street)

  

Family

Government

Government and law

Story line

Story line

3 main characters.
Two brothers - one 15 one 18
one girl - 15 - Younger brothers girlfriend.
All working class.
Older brother goes behind younger brothers back by having sex with his girlfriend.
The younger brother has always been the favourite sibling out of the two, older brother was jealous, always put down by feeling not good enough, so he had it away with the younger brothers girlfriend to get revenge.
Girl finds out she is pregnant. tells the boyfriend.
Younger brother (boyrfiend) notices his older brothers jewllery at girlfriends house. finds out the girl has had sex with him.
Brothers have a huge fight at home about it, breaks family apart, brothers get kicked out of their house. living on the street, sometimes at their freinds. stealing food from shops.
Brothers meet in the street, have a second fight and grow apart.
TWIST - Girl has slept with another guy but hasnt admitted it.
None of the brothers turn out to be the dad. The other guy is, family squash their differences and are happy families

PROPP’S THEORY –Vladimir Propp’s theory was formed in the early twentieth Century. He studies Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. He did not state these characters were all separate people e.g. the provider could also be the helper. There are only 8 different character types and only 31 things they ever do. Once you have identified the character type (e.g., the hero) it’s easy to guess what they will do (save the maiden, defeat the villain, marry the maiden or whatever) because each character has a SPHERE OF ACTION. This is easily relatable to films and programmes today.

TODOROV’S THEORY – Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative).

Narrative theory

In media terms, narrative is the organisation given to a series of facts. The human mind needs narrative to make sense of things. We connect events and make interpretations based on those connections. In everything we seek a beginning, a middle and an end. We understand and construct meaning using our experience of reality and of previous texts. Each text becomes part of the previous and the next through its relationship with the audience.

Representation Link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTzMsPqssOY

Representation is the way people and things are represented. This means that representation can often be a biased view which often occurs within the media with young males. In our film our main characters represent you working class males. Although they have bad habbits they are seen not to be heartless unlike the media portrays them.

Ideas

 We will be making a social-realism film with Jamie Garton and Danny Hegarty about working class life for teenagers in Britain. It is about two 17 year old boys who both get themselves into serious problems. One of the boys impregnates a 14 year old girl and the other gets involved with drugs. This leads them both being homesless as they both get kicked out of their house.

Introduction A2 Media

We have a few ideas of trailers this year and this is one of them, we decided to base our teaser trailer round young teens growing up in a rough estate, and the dangers of getting in with local gangs and having to deal with stress in everyday situations.

We like the idea of an teaser trailer because it has a maximum run time of 60 seconds, packed full of cliffhangers and hooks to make the audience want to go and watch the film when it is released.