Research and Planning: Website Hompage - 'Angels' Share'

We used a Ken Loach film as research into social realist film website homepages. He is broadly known for his expertism in social realism. We used 'Angels' Share' as an example for our homepage because of the fact it is one of Loach's more recent creations therefore providing us with up to date conventions of this product. We we enjoyed the way in which the trailer was presented straight away with an image displaying the characters, as the background. (We are aware this website is presented in German, however we struggled to find the English version). The title is large and clear making it easy for audiences' attention to be instantly drawn to this. The colour used is also bold and bright influencing a lighter tone to the product.
There is a page which provides audiences with the logos of the institutions which worked on this film. We want to base our ideas on a similar concept but include more background information on them to attempt to provide a foundation for perspective audiences.
This is important because they can understand certain aspects of the film and see how the institution corresponds with the film itself. This is also a way in which we can develop norms and conventions of existing products.


What also stood out for us within this website, was the use of vivid colours. For a gritty, social realist genre of film, it seems ironic to use bolder colours which ultimately represent happier connotations. We want to ultimately expand on the idea of using bright colours within our products so that similar delusions can be made. Life is not always straight forward and the harsh realities of this may come as a surprise during the film. This is exactly what entices an audience. The 'shock factor' produces strong effects on the audience and ultimately reinforces the gritty tone to the film as a whole.

Shifty- Research and Planning of existing products.

It's important when making a trailer, to watch other trailers that have chosen the same genre as you, both recent and old, that can help you to identify the key conventions of the genre and help us to learn more in general about social realism.

We looked at a few trailers, including 'Fish Tank' and 'Shifty', that both are classed as a social realist films that each portray their own views on Urban Britain. In this particular blog, we will focus on Shifty. Shifty is an Urban Britain thriller, produced and written by Eran Creevey, and released on the 29th April, 2009. It follows the life of a young London drug dealer who sells drugs in the estate where he lives, competing with rivals. His old buddy turns up Chris, who has moved away from their childhood to own a house with a mortgage, a good job and a family on the way or in his mind.

Moving away from the plot, this trailer consists of short and quick clips that jump to places randomly to help tell the story and sell their idea. With this fast pace, follows a very clever technique intentionally used by Creevey in the making of the trailer, this technique is using the pace to reflect the atmosphere and the drug effect. This is one thing we wanted to do, and used this research to contribute to our film. As our film is also about the drug life, and how it can affect a life, we closely analysed this trailer as it was a success, and we intended to use this as a guideline in how to make a successful social realist film, based around the ideas of drugs. This pace was created through the editing style, and how the jump allows the story to be told quicker, and although we didn't use this technique, we did use the idea of quick pace to show how drugs jumbles the mind into confusion and everything around you becomes out of time, and it was important for us for the audience to interpret this particular feeling the drugs can give a human. This followed the intention we had to negatively portray drugs, as no-one would like to have a confused mind where everything seems surreal or out of the norm.

Shifty didn't use graphics like us, yet it told the story in a different way. This was one we considered, but didn't have the skill to execute. This was the 'jump' to different stages of the film and the trailer basically informed the audience of most of the locations featured in the film.

Another similar technique we used along with Shifty, was the specific focus on the main characters, and how they featured in every clip. This focus in a technique we chose to follow as we knew it was important in the identification of the costume and character, which from the feedback we gained was important in relating to the genre.


We also completed a poster analysis of the Shifty poster, and researched into why they chose the colours they did, and how important this is to a film poster in the social realist genre. The poster is dominantly yellow and black in terms of background, and colour scheme that we also followed, not copied. We though the colour scheme worked well, and suited the background we chose, and shifty had great poster reviews, so we opted to follow the colour scheme of a bright text colour, yet a gloomy background of the wall, tattered and old. Shifty is mainly bright, which was technique we did not want due to the idea we wanted to remain that sense of negativity behind drugs, and emphasise also that his film isn't one with a happy outcome. In terms of the layout, we took our own instinct and judged it for yourself, trying out different positions and finalising with the one we kept. The use of the two main actors on the front is something we considered, but did nor chose to follow for two reasons, to similar to Shifty and we felt that our actor Dom (ty) looked better alone on the wall, and suite the wall more than Lara did, helping the audience identify an idea of social realism from the image.


   

Research and Planning: Existing Products - 'Fish Tank'

In order for us to fully understand and produce a realistic representation of a social realist genre and film, we have looked at existing social realist film trailers, posters and websites. This has enabled us to use and develop the codes and conventions of these existing products within our own work.

For example, 'Fish Tank' is a social realist film directed by Andrea Arnold. We watched the film from start to finish, and then looked at the trailer afterwards. We thought that by doing it this way, we could understand why and how the trailer was constructed the way it was. This allowed us to witness which aspects of the film were included in the trailer and what effect was created from this. We found that aspects of the most dramatic and intense clips, out of the entire film, were deliberately included within the trailer. This ultimately created suspense and captures attention straight away. This then allows audiences to be curious and intrigued as to what series of events has led to this. The mise-en-scene included within the film and the trailer also presents the genre straight away, it is very clear and allows no room for misunderstanding. The use of editing and mise-en-scene have the ability to connect the film to its audience. This is done within the trailer to attract the correct audience to see the film. This is done effectively by being able to relate to the audience through characters, costume, locations, relationships etc. aswell as the fast cuts bewtween shots and the suspense this builds. This forms a connection between the institution and the audience which can ultimately promote upcoming and future films from the same institutions. We wish to offer a similar representation of the genre aswell as our film as a whole within our film trailer.

 

We also looked at the advertising and promotion products which were created for 'Fish Tank'. The poster which is presented above, provided us with a basis and guideline for our Ancillary Products. What instantly stood out for us, was the colour scheme of the text along with the illusion that this was within the mise-en-scene instead of being super-imposed onto the image seperately. This automatically connects the two aspects together and allows the product to emphasise the realism of the overall tone. In other words, it does not follow the same conventions of blockbuster Hollywood movies, where the glossy film posters tend to provide information about the films by putting text on top of an image rather than in the image. ('The Dark Night' film poster on right is example of this). This provides the audience with the idea that our world and the world of the film are the same, reinforcing the gritty realism. This is also done by anchoring the colour scheme of the text with the colours within the scene of the image. The colours seem to represent immaturity (Baby pink and Baby blue). However, the wall that the text is presented on seems old and worn away. There are stains and rips in the wallpaper which emphasise the idea that 'Mia' (the main character who is presented within this poster) is growing up and getting too old for her old life.This is reinforced through the way the character is looking away from the scene, out of (what appears to be) a window. We assume that it is a window through the use of lighting on her face and this interpretation is reinforced through her body language and facial expression. It would seem that she is looking unhappy with her current situation and is ambitious in terms of changing her lifestyle. Again, we feel that strong links are made between the film and it's audiences. This is done through the overall presentation as many young people may be able to realte to this. We feel that 'Mia' is presented in a way which allows people of a similar age, class or situation to be able to realte to her which makes the film much more personal. By doing this, the institution has therefore made strong links with their audiences whcih ultimately provides a much more personal response to be made from this.

We have gained massively from looking at existing products, the aspects which have been very appealing and unique have guided our planning and research as we feel that these specific points are successful with executing the genre as well as effective promotional and advertising products for the film.

Reseacrh and Planning: Why we chose 'Drugs' as a focus point in our story?

The drugs we focus on in our films are those that contain illegal substances, that make them class A/B to the general public. These drugs are a source of tackilng depression and act also, in some cases as a 'pulse raiser' which can improve your heart rate and help making it feel more lively and careless. The reason we chose to feature drugs in this film, is because drugs can easily be portrayed as a representation of destruction, and through addiction and over dose they can seriously harm or danger the human taking them, and can not only physically but mentally affect someone, causing them to ruin stages of their lives, i.e friendship or relationships with family and friends.


In relation to our trailer/story, we use drugs to cue the destruction of a relationship, and in fact the human mind. It emphasises the affect Lizzie recieves from the drugs, which is negatively re-inforced by 'events' within the trailer. She eventually loses her life, and it's this negative representation of drugs we wanted to emphasise through our trailer, which links to conventions of social realism as a theme; as already used as an example in social realist films such as 'Shifty'. Due to our storyline having such a real brutality about it, it's what determines our trailer to be a social realist genre-based production.

Reseacrh and Planning: Location Research

The style of our film involves certain codes and conventions which can be emphasised by using particular techniques. Most social realist films are shot on location to reinforce the 'realism' of the film. This means that we will have to use appropriate locations which will correspond to the style of the film. Quite often, social realist films focus on 'Urban Britain' and the lower classes of society. The locations we choose must reflect this.
These may include:

• Subways
• Parks
• Council Estates
• Block of flats
• Graffiti on walls
• Run down houses
• Bus stops
• Train stations

All of these locations are the type of areas which are often featured within social realist films and are the type of areas which we need to involve within our trailer.

Reseacrh and Planning: Character Profile: Ty's Brother 'Ralph'

Ralph plays a very low key role in this trailer, only featuring in a few scenes. He is the brother of Tyrone and plays a very unknown, sudden role as his random and sudden appearance seems to be the cue for the drama and action to unfold in the trailer. He seems to know alot about Ty, something the audience and Lizzie clearly don't know, this helps create the area of suspicion around the persona of Ty. A fairly tall, popular boy that comes across very angry in the trailer, with masculine and stereotypical characteristics.

Reseacrh and Planning: Character Profile (Ty)

'Tyrone Stirling' is known socially as 'Ty' and is a 19 year old boy, who comes from London. With a unknown and troubled past, 'Ty' is known in the film as Lizzie's boyfriend. From a lower class, uneducated background, we come to understand through the trailer that Ty is fairly popular, however has a bad drug habit and this acts as a barrier from him and Lizzie developing as a couple. Their relationship is very secretive, as Ty comes across very untrustworthy and tends to tell lies, which upsets Lizzie and is a contribution to the troubles identified in the trailer.