During the planning of the film we as a group decided to use the conventions of social realism.
The main conventions of a social realism film are:
· An urban Setting
· mise en scene – Natural lighting, hair and make-up reflecting the time, diegetic sound
· camera work – number of shot sizes and angles
· editing – usually straight cuts are used
What is social realism? Social realsim is a type of art that realistically depicts subjects of social concern and locations those are realistic and more believable than Hollywood films.
Crawley Town Centre is a location that we have used to show the conventions of a social realism film.
Issues: Like many social realism film focus on a particular topic such as in wasp (it would be young mums or lone parents, we have decided the topic on mental illness.
This film studies this topic and shows how the character comes around telling the audience what has happened. Today in schools a subject like this is not mentioned however some people go through this day in and day out and others would ignore the fact that this is happening to teenagers as well as adults. Mental illness would include bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Related films seen: Making sure that we were not rolling of track and trying to make a film look like a Hollywood blockbuster we looked at a film called ‘dead man’s shoes’ by Shane Meadows. This film is based on one brothers revenge (Richard) on people who killed his younger brother (Anthony). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vAk3Og3HLA The interesting thing about the film was that Anthony is seen in the film however he is not really there and therefore makes the film more interesting seeing how Richard talks to him even when he’s not there. This inspired us to use one of the characters to talk to Ashleigh but in actual fact she is talking to herself.
Social realism directors:
Shan Meadows - is an English film director, screen writter and occasional actor. He has done a number of films that are well known to the British audience such as ‘This is England’, ‘Le Donk and scor-zay-zee’, ‘Somers town’ and many
More.
Ken loach - is an Englisg film and television director. He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness (Cathy Come Home) and labour rights (Riff-Raff). Before we could start the short film we watched short films that would help us to structure our film. Here are some of the films that we saw
·Wasp - is written and directed by Andrea Arnold. It stars Nathalie Press as a
struggling single mother determined not to let her four young children prove an obstacle in the pursuit of rekindling a relationship with an old ex-boyfriend Danny Dyer. Dartford (Arnold's hometown) is the setting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN6BSVl1zQY
·
Lou –lou lives here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h6mc1H-t5Q
. Joyride - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP3KYL8ulW8
Furthermore we also looked at happy go lucky and Brief Encounter. I found that in
some films they have used stereotype comments such as in Happy go lucky the driving instructor makes a remark of locking the car doors as some black boys cycle along the road (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN_kOED6zGE )(5:20). I feel that this film was a great help to us with what a social realism film should be about as it uses topics that apply to everyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd4EG6BeDV0 (Trailer)
The opening: The film starts with the main character in bed. This does not give much away about the story of the film. During the research process we decided how we wanted to open the film without it looking strange as well as keeping the audience focused and making sure that we keep with the genre being social realism. We feel that to make a social realism film the main concept for the film is to make it look natural as possible. I feel that we have challenged the conventions of a social realism film. The main aspect would be that we have a character that starts to disappear and is seen fading away. We have also kept an enigma code revelling the story at the end of the film; this is mainly because it keeps the audience engaged. The enigma code is usually used in thriller / horror films however we decided to challenge and see whether it works in social realism film. We keep the audience confused of why one of the character continues to disappear during the film which creates questions to why this is happening.
During the process of the film we have tried to use all the conventions as possible
Mise en scene:
To create social realism atmosphere we used natural lighting as many scenes are in the town centre and park.
This creates a natural and expected atmosphere.
Opening is set in Kate’s bedroom. Red heads were used as the room appeared fairly dark.
Décor:
. Most of the footage is shot in the town centre, this adds to the effect of realism.
. We tried to make the house look realistic; we made the characters room like a teenagers room with posters and objects left on the floor.
Hair & Make-up: is used to make sure that the actor fits the role of the character that they need to portray
. Kate is not wearing any make up showing her natural self.
. Her hair is up and giving it a nice tidy look.
Diegetic / Non Diegetic Sound: Diegetic sound is any sound presented as originated from source within the film's world and no diegetic sound is represented as coming from a source outside story space.
. Non diegetic is used in this piece.
. We have used voice over and background music to create the effect of social realism.
Editing: Is part of the post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. http://www.ehow.com/video_2384818_edit-documentary-film.html this is a link to show you how to edit a film and the key concepts
. Typical use of editing is used; dissolve and straight cut
. Dead man’s shoe was one of the films that have used both these types of techniques.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?
To make a film successful it is just not the film that does all the work, but also the review for the film as well as the poster, the distributors
Film distribution:
In the film the expression "distribution" refers to the marketing and circulation of movies in cinemas, and for home viewing such as DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television etc. A film distributor is an independent company or occasionally an individual, which acts as the final agent between a film production company or some agent, and a film exhibitor, to the end of securing placement of the producer's film on the exhibitor's screen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krGXTTt--go (talk on Distribution).To market a film there are many ways to screen the finished piece, however not all films made go onto mainstream but for home viewing also known as independent films. Independent film making often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major Studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from major movie studios.
For this piece of coursework we have designed a poster a review as well as film. i feel that to market a film the poster and the review are also the most part of the film as it shows the audience what they are going to be watching without telling them the story.
Poster: The poster is the most important part for distributing the film as it leads the audience into watching the film. Furthermore the poster does not give much information of what the film is about; therefore it builds up and creates expectations for the audience that you then have to make. Before we could start deciding what our poster is going to be on we looked at a number of posters from social realism films. Some of the posters that we looked at were; ‘This is England’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ) (Trailer), ‘Fish Tank’ and ‘Le Donk’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-hmSRgZHc8)( Trailer) .‘Fish Tank’ was a poster that
we looked at in great detail. Here are some points noted on the poster.
. First of all the main character is a female which indicated who the targeted audience is
. Her body language - she is looking out of a window, which may suggest that she is trapped, she is not looking directly at the camera which also suggests and indicates that she alone, alienated and in a way she is unhappy.
. The background – light pink wall colour; stereotype female colour; another indication to female audience, it’s got a ripped wall paper, that may suggest that she does not live in a great house, can also indicate that she may be living in a council flat.
. Costume – black plain t-shirt, showing she’s not very fashionable, big hoop earrings, a stereotype for ‘Chav’. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7BFZqQ4ruA (Trailer)
Myself and Maiken Davidson both designed a poster each. We looked at great detail what we wanted to include in our poster. I had a number of ideas of what I wanted the poster to have.This is the poster that my group decided they wanted for the film.
. We have used big, bold and black title so it stands out.
. The background of the poster is taken from the film; this is mainly because it is a main feature of our film and a very key place for the main character in the film.
. The main character is in the front looking over her shoulder towards the swing once again indicating that something has happened and that the swing is a key object in the film, also suggesting loneliness and sadness.
. Because both the characters in the film are females and the main character on the poster is a female this indicates that the film is targeted at females
. The characters costume is black and white, very plain, jewellery, signifying that she is mourning someone
. Furthermore because we have not shown much in the poster it makes the audience to imaging what the film might be about.
. Putting an age certificate on the poster, makes the poster look slightly more realistic as well as adding star rating and comments from Bliss, sugar and credits at the bottom of the poster.
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Review: A film review is seen in magazines such as ‘Little white lies’ and other film magazines, it discusses films positively and negatively. The language that is used is normally complicated and is usually understood by individuals that have a passion for films. The main reason for whya revoe wis written is mainly due to individuals giving their opinions of the film and helping other decided whether they should go and what the film.
Our main task was to create a film review that has a layout of the ‘Little white Lies’.
‘Little white lies’ is a Bi-monthly, British independent movie magazine that features writing,
illustration and photography related to cinema. The unique quality of the magazine is that bases all the magazine around one film (usually shown on the front cover of the magazine) and has small symbols / images relating back to the film. (http://www.cnettv.co.uk/film-and-tv/reel-report/faces-of-the-film-industry-little-white-lies-magazine-10000114.htm)
This is the review for the poster. The still that has been here is of the character by herself at the end of the film. We have made the review look like a review from ‘Little white lies’. We did this by looking at a copy of the magazine reviews and analysing what will be needed in the review. As group we all contributed towards what we would like to put in the review such as the negative and positive pinots in the film. We decided that review should be written by Rachael Saunders. Using a review layout from the magazine itself we have made the review look similar to the ones found in the magazine. The Layout of the review was Maiken Davidson responsibility.
What does the review include? In the review we have tried to make it look the reviews from ‘little white lies’. In our version of the review we have included:
. What the film is about
. The positive points in the film
. The negative facts of the film
. The rating that the film receives
. The names of the director and the actors
Does it work? Putting the poster and the review together with the film I feel that it does work. It allows us to show our creative side for the course.
. Both character are in there late teens
. Both characters are girls indicting that this film mostly aimed at girls from the ages 12+
. The review is written using complex language that only people who live on films would be able to understand what is actually written.
. Using different still to the poster but still with only one character in the still shows that this is the main character and that she is alone. Also allows the audience to question why she is miserable and the reason to her loneliness.
Once the film was finished we uploaded the film to YouTube. To get feedback on the film I sent links to friends via Face Book of what they thought of the film. I sent a link to a number of people from different age groups to both females and male.
. We got a number of different responses from the audience of what they thought of the film
. We received negative feedback as well as positive
. Negative feedback helped with if we were told to make another film what would you do differently.
. I found that girls aged 15+ were really touched by the film and really liked that fact that we focused on a subject that many individuals try to avoid.
Examples of negative and positive feedback:
. The alarm clock: one of the feedback that member of our group received was if the alarm went off there was no need for her to rush.
. Cuts did not work in some areas. (Bedroom when Kate is looking for Ashleigh)
. Audience were confused until the end
. The story line was very good
. There were a variety of shots and angles used
There are a number of things that I have learnt from the audience’s feedback. When you are trying to shoot footage of a piece of work you should never rush and should do more than one take on a scene. When we were filming the footage on one of the scenes we only did one take and it came out really bad so we decided not to put it in our piece. If we had to redo this project I would make sure that we have enough time to film the footage with more than one take as well as editing time.
The problems that the audience gave us also shows that when you film a scene you should go back and watch it before you leave the location to see if you have missed out on something or if something should be removed that should not be in the scene.
My thoughts:
My thought of the finished film was I feel that we all put a lot of time and effort into the piece and tried our best to make it a social realism film. I feel that the story line that i came up with really worked well. However the negative thing of the film was the voice over of the film. I feel that the actor could have put some more emphasis on the way she read out the voiceover for the film. I feel that if she could have done it better the finished piece would had a more meaning full reason to the story that it was trying to tell. Furthermore i feel that the cut scene when the character is looking for
‘Ashleigh’ there is cut when she looks down and then back up.
The negative thing about this is that the light of the bedroom was kept on a it is seen in the film as we did not do this scene more than once. A weakness that i found was the green scene. I feel because it was the first time using a green scene, we did come across a few problems that were seen in the film.
The Poster:
When I finished the first poster that I did I asked a couple of my friends what they thought of the poster. A number of them stated that they did not like the background of the poster as it does not tell them what they might find in the film. Furthermore they also stated that by having the main character in the front looking towards the audience made her look very dominant which we did not what and therefore I decided to change the whole design of the poster. With the new poster that I designed i asked the same friends again for their thoughts they were much happier with the background and the fact the character was looking back at the empty swing instead of the audience.
The review:
As Rachael Saunders was in charge of writing the review I and Maiken Davidson read through what Rachael had written. I liked the way she had written the review as she included sarcastic comments of the film. With the layout for the review we all did a layout of the review, the layout of the review that we used was also Rachael Saunders. This is my version of how I would have liked the review to have looked like. The reason why we did not use my review was mainly because I had designed it for it to be portrait and not landscape. Furthermore Rachael’s review layout had more room for it to fit the review in so we all decided that the layout used would be Rachael’s.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, and research, planning and evaluation stages?
NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES: Here are some of the technologies that we have used:
. Green Screen
. I Movies
. Final cut pro.
. Garage band
. Blogging
. Face book
. In design
. Photoshop
Green screen: Is a technique for compositing two images or frames together in which a color from one image is removed (or made transparent), revealing another image behind it.
It is commonly used for weather forecast broadcasting, wherein the presenter appears to be standing in front of a large map, but in the studio it is actually a large blue or green background. It takes a lot of lighting to get the right effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPa_Gv0rHCQ (setting up a green scene)
I also looked at films that have used the concept of green screens, some examples were, 'Lovely Bones' and 'Ghost Town'.
Green screen is the new digital technology that we have used in this piece.
Skills that I have learnt using the green screen are in order for the character to be placed where they should whilst being faded away you first need to take a picture of where they are going to stand and what they will be doing. You then upload a video of the same place for around the time that you need and then place the green screen footage on top.
At first I thought that using the green screen was going to be a major task and really hard to use however it was in fact easy to use. I feel that this technology did work as even though it was complicated to use. It was good to see that people were surprised that we have used this technology as they really liked it.
Garage band:
Is a software application that allows users to create music. It is developed by Apple Inc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbZHH75eIxg&feature=channel (talk )
We used Garage band as we wanted some background music for the film without having lyrics with it.
. We went through tracks that we thought could be used for the piece.
. As there were so many tracks to choose from that we like we cut the list to tracks that we found would go well with the piece. We did this play playing the footage and the sound track at the same time. This technique worked well.
. In total we found three tracks that were right for the film.
. i feel that the sound track was used successfully as we received feedback from the audience stating that they liked the music used.
Final cut pro: Is a professional non-linear editing software application developed again by Apple Inc.
Completing the main task I was able to use my skills that I had learnt from the previous year using final cut pro. This piece of technology was simpler and easier to use compared to I movie. This is mainly because it gave us a large variety of fonts and titling as well as effects. An example is when Ashleigh disappears in a blinding of light. Furthermore is also gave us a variety of transitions to use instead of a straight cut. In the filn we have used dissolving transitions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tlkPQ3Fe8M ( how to capture footage) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVQaP1Kc8NA ( Talk throught0:40)
In design:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ytvBq3Wa6Y here is a link that explains what in design is.
In design is a very complicated technology to use. I had some help from member of the group on a number of occasions but I soon got used to the technology as I was job to crate the poster for the film.
I also got used to placing images from different software.
This was the first poster design that I came up with however talking to the group they found that it was to plain and did not like the background also needed something that would represent the main character as well as the other
This is the final poster idea that I did. I concluded that this was a really good idea and represented both the characters the story line and the title.
Here is the link to the finished film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIF_6HOg0Kg
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