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.