Question 1 [[Charlea]]

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film is social realism




http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1037898/index.html
Conventions





--Urban setting






--Real stories






—focusing in minor heroic acts and revelations and also self discovery that happen in every day life a good example of this would be Ken loach’s Looking for Eric.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLEd3f1PGG0










--Relatable mostly portraying the working class and economic downfall e.g the depression










http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_United_Kingdom










--Relatable setting--Usually not well known actors --On set filming










http://filmstudies.suite101.com/article.cfm/social_realism_in_british_film
We used many conventions of Social Realism in our piece.










Example---(one of the main ones) an urban setting and naturalistic lighting.
This is present in Happy-Go-Lucky





















Also in Trainspotting





















These are two famous examples of social realism.
We wanted a location that people would recognise, so that they could relate to the surroundings as well as the characters. This is why we used Brighton, people can relate to it because of the burnt down pier as it is a very recognisable setting due to the history. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2894981.stm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QueIsd22MOk
Plus filming on location meant that we got naturalistic lighting and colours. This developed our idea of social realism, as shooting on location turned out to be a difficult task, this was mainly due to continuity of the people in the background. Also though the people in the background added to the realism of the film.
Our film was done under the influence of these directors







 Mike Liegh







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Leigh#Filmography







 Andrea Arnold







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Arnold







 Shane meadows







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Meadows#Filmography







 Helen Fielding







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Fielding







 Ken Loach







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Loach#Filmography








One of the main ones was Jim Field Smith, This is the director of Goodbye To The Normals







http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p004tdm8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Field_Smith
We noticed that the story-line was never over complicated and a lot depended on the shoots used. This is what we decided to create with ours, a simple and shot effective piece. Also it contained subtle comical moments of natural speech that would happen in everyday life. Peoples general conversations can contain comical moments and also can be extremely cheesy at times. We wanted our film to replicate some of these qualities. Also another convention we wanted to cover was the main story line of the divorce and the family break-up through the eyes of a minor.








In goodbye to the Normals it was mainly about the shot reverse shot between the characters.
 In ours we have a shot reverse shot--- show a discussion between the characters and their relationship.







 In ours we do have a voice over and no actual speech until the end when Roy says goodbye----it is different in Goodbye to the Normals and they use diagetic sound.








We wanted naturalistic speech in ours as most social realism films do, so we asked Sam to say some things for the voice over and gave him the rough idea of what we needed in it.This meant we have slight stumbling and also naturalistic laughter, this adds to the realistic conventions of the film.








Our film is also a lot like Stephen Daldrys eight. A boy as the main character of the film who is talking about his father directly to the audience throughout the production.







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4p2Y8qx-bk








Jonathan is also from a working class background, much like Sam in our film Chips, The way we got the audience to connect with Sam was the use of extream close up. This is to intensify the seriousness of the film narrative and also so the audience can really connect to Sam on an emotional level.
We thought this added a creative touch, as it was a convention of social realism that was saw a lot.








One example would be Wasp (2003) by Andrea Arnold, theyused an extreme close-up to emphasis a conversation between Natalie Press and Danny Dyer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN6BSVl1zQY








We wanted to make the audience really relate to Sam, so the use of just having his voice on his shots, and the use of close up really helped to achieve this. Cutting from a distance and getting closer as the speech got deeper, meant the audience has real sympathy and understanding for him.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7A-kN70gXU&feature=related (1:33-1:55)
In our piece we included some original work by adding in the non-diagetic sound track, we noticed in most social realism films the sound is mainly diagetic.
We thought it made our piece slightly original. We used an acoustic guitar to add rawness to the sound, and recorded it through a Dictaphone, which meant it added a realism essence to the track. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7A-kN70gXU (3:41)






 It has a creative touch, because we added in a non-diagetic sound-track at the end for an emotional and effective ending.
 For our Mise en scene we used a naturalistic social realism setting of a seafront and a bench (Brighton). Also it is extremely recognisable and relatable in a social realistic context as most people have heard about Brighton or been there.
 We used it in a creative way as we wanted visually stunning shots, like the one we have of the pier and our lead Sam throwing stones into the water. (0.33)






http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=276450286849(The pier is silhouetted in the background and has created a beautiful scene).
Our film also covers the everyday there of social realism as Sam’s Grandad is on the beach eating chips and reading a book. In social realism a propionate part of the films, the way people just get on with daily routines. The way we contrasted the straight cuts for the daily routine and the cross dissolves for Sam also worked in representing how even though all these hard times are around us we power on and carry on as normal.
The Narrative of our film
Most films follow this structure





 A calm beginning with and establishing shot and an intro to the characters Then a build up to the main plot line





 The pinnacle moment ‘The Climax’





 Then the resolution which tends to favour the main protagonist of the film. ‘The so called Happily Ever After Moment’
A man called Todorov came up with this…
It shows the main
 Beginning





 Middle





 End
We as a group wanted to challenge this, as our film does not coincide with this theory, We do maintain an establishing shot, and also we introduce the main character. However we do not have a dramatic climax as the main cause of distress to the character is maintained throughout the entire film. (The broken down family and the fact that he doesn’t see his dad anymore)We did use restricted narration in our film as well because you are introduced to one character but not The Grandad until later, you just see short random episodes of him throughout the beginning. Also the restricted narration helps emphasis the isolation we wanted around Sam our main character, he is the main drive of the film so we really needed the audience to make a connection. This is when we thought the restricted narratio0n worked, the audience don’t know the character of Sam’s grandad and therefore can’t become emotionally attached to him like they are with Sam.
We noticed that a lot of Social realism films go against this pattern as well because in everyday life for an average person you don’t come across things like





 Supercars




 Armed gun races through the middle of down




 Being stuck inside some super intelligent parallel world e.g. The Matrix




 And often in life you don’t always get that fairy tale happily ever after ending that everyone lusts over.




We thought best not to use Todorov’s theory as in life there is no clear begging middle and end, you just have to live each day as it comes.





Representation of our characters
Our main character is a hooded youth. In modern life the main stereotype would be knife and hooded gang violence.
We go against this public steriotype by




 Talking about emotions




 Playing a video game on his own




 Isolation




 Dealing with hard-hitting issues.
I feel we have accomplished this well as instead of fearing Sam you have empathy towards him, you really connect with him on an emotional level.
We make the film a 12A due to one use of an expletive “Shit” also as it deals with hard hitting life issues that may cause some distress to a younger audience. I do still stand by that our audience is aimed more at the Tweenie market, but I you can still get enjoyment from it if you are of a different generation.
We do cover the topic of broken mararage in our piece, however in modern times it has become more socially acceptable for a child to have a step parent of even if a child is living in a single parent house hold, so we are dealing with widley known issues. We do slightly put a bad representation of the situation, the fact he doesn’t see his father. However we do maintain a strong sense of family bond when he comes into contact with his grandad, who is proud of him and always there if he needs someone to talk to.
Our location was a typical British seaside,




 Stones on the beach




 Slight overcast in the sky.




 Pier in the backgroundI do feel that we used our location to the best of our ability, mainly with the begging and end shots, especially with the seagulls and the beach.





Costume




 Untied laces (shows his youth, and how he can’t fully take care of himself)




 Tracksuit bottoms (Assosiated with working class, high street, and not expensive)




 Backpack (Shows youth and education)




 Hoodie (Peers clothing and representation of his culture)





As a whole I would say our film was creative, dealing with the hard-hitting subject matter, and maintained slight comical aspects. With the transitions I would say our film could have been more creative, however the ones we used did create the effect we wanted. Also as a whole I would say our film maintains the social realism aspects well, this is mainly due to our extensive research and constanly using audience feedback.

Question 2 [[Charlea]]

How effective is the combination of you main product and your ancillary tasks?

Main Product---
Social Realism Short,
Urban and recognisable setting,
Main character is strong and working class.
Deals with real life issues (divorce and family break-up).
Compelling piece of social realism involving sarcasm and natural speech.
(Our ancillary tasks has to represent these features of the main product or it would all be pointless)



Our Poster
Simple colour scheme, not overly complex (White, blue and grey). We didn’t want to over complicate the poster as the film itself isn’t over complicated. We wanted the main focus to be on Sam, much like in
Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank
http://photogallery.filmofilia.com/data/media/242/fish_tank_poster_01.jpg
and Stephen Daldrey’s Billy Elliot
http://www.impawards.com/2000/posters/billy_elliot_ver2.jpg




Both of these film’s fall into the Social realism section, all three contain a main character on the right side of the poster, this imminently shows that the film is going to be about them and their story.
Costume, on all of the posters you can see elements of Social realisim due to the Mise en scene,
Costumes---They are things that you would see on the highstreet, and on working class people, mainly in the Billy Elliot poster with the vest top. They don’t particularly stand out of draw focus from the main character. This fits with the main film as none of the props or any of the costume are particularly overbearing. We had a lot of dull colours, so it would not distract from the action.




Setting---(excluding the Billy Elliot), The Background of ours and also Andrea Arnold’s are recognisable, Urban Gritty settings. Urban settings are a main part of social realism, In ours you can just about see a promenade and what looks like a typical sea-side bench area. In Fish Tank you can see what looks like a built up town with tower blocks in the background. These conform with the conventions of social realism mise en scene, as most films are shot in a built up area.
A good example of this would be
Shane Meadows This Is England
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO2ZR1-DHpw&feature=related
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480025/
Angle—All the pictures have been taken from a slightly lower angle, this then reinforces power onto the main subject in the image. In mostly all social realism films it’s about power, lack of or gaining.
The space around the boy is white which means no distractions it also gives us a blank canvas to put any necessities on it e.g. Snap lines from the guardian or the Independent.
Even though the film is targeted at a younger audience, the Lines are from More middle class people, the reason I chose to do this was to also target the people that would go to the film festivals. Also even though they are middle class they are recognisable newspapers, so working class and the younger generation can still relate to the quote because they are well known companies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.independent.co.uk/
The ‘Chips’ title font (Andy MT) was chosen to act as the boys hand-writing the, scruffiness of it represents the main character in the poster, Also having the title in that font makes the audience connect with the poster more as it becomes personal. We want the audience to connect with Sam throughout, as the whole film is lead by his thoughts and direct speech to the audience.
I made the less personal parts in more plain and recognisable fonts, our main one being Arial. I did this because I tried it our all in Andy MT, but it just became crowed and messy. So using clean straight font for the sections that are less connected to the main base topic work well as it made it easier for people to see from a distance.
The poster includes many social realism features that fit in with the film,
The setting
The costume
The fact that the colours are not too overbearing
Strong main character

All together I would say our poster represents our film really well, and really adds to appealing to our target market. The simplicity of it fits hand in had with the simplicity of our film, Chips.







The other piece of the package is our LWL review (Little White Lies)

LWL covers all films, indented and also blockbusters.
(Also music, art, politics and more, it’s main topic being film)

• They take pride in their design, having the main issue cover run throughout, an example of this would be one of the recent Kick-Ass issue, on lots of pages there where blood-splatters underneath the text, also the colour scheme was florescent pink, yellow and green.


• Field specific language---These guys know their films and their directors.
  Mainly Male market (Tweenie’s) , Film specialist, the ones that would go to independent film festivals (They live and breath film)
  

Because the design is extremely important in this film and also the language, as a group we combined our skill. Hollie being the Albert Instinen with words meant that she could show her skills to the max. I was able to sort out the colours and design of it (Which could not have been done without Jess), and together we’re created something I feel is of a high standard.

There are strict instructions we had to follow to get the design and language right.

• There had to be either three or four text columns


• There had to be Anticipation, Enjoyment and In Retrospect at the bottom right of the review.


• You could either have black text on white a white or white text on a black background.


• The picture has to be a screen dump and take up nearly half the page,


• Three box’s the name of the film in one, the director and main stars in another, and release date in the last.


• The release date was in line with the bottom line of the directors box


• Font’s


• On the bottom of the right page there would be a graphic related to the film
  
• On the bottom of the left page would be the issue name
  
• Field specific language
  
• Lexically rich
  
• Plot
  
• Comments throughout, summing up the whole thing

Graphics were optional.

We used 4 columns, including the Anticipation, Enjoyment and In Retrospect within the last column.
We also used black writing on a white background
We used a screen dump
All the box’s conform with the LWL criteria
The fonts look exactly the same
We chose to have the Salt-Water issue, bottom left to include a graphic under our text,
Hollie included lots of field specific language and the whole piece is very lexically rich, She also included the plot line and made evaluative comments throughout. Constantly referring to the family breakdown and the how we have constructed the piece in social realism.

Altogether I would say our review and our poster work well in representing the message that we were trying to get across to our intended audience. Both constantly reinforce social realism, and the message that Sam is the main character. So I believe that the whole portfolio fit together like three peas in a pod. They all support each other with colour scheme, mise en scene, and also the issue of loneliness and solidarity, that Sam seems to portray.

Question 3 [[Charlea]]

What have you learnt from audience feedback?
Our film targets mainly a young female audience, however it can also be enjoyed by a young male audience as well. The main reason for this is that women would have a more maternal instinct towards Sam, boy would enjoy it as it includes humorous moments in a deep subject matter.
From our audience we got good feedback about our setting and how it was relatable to them because most of them had been there or lived there. They related to the character because you can see his from a working class background, and a broken home.
We learnt form our target demographic that we managed to portray a family breakdown with delicacy and also portrayed it in a new light.



For Audience feedback on our intended audience we created a Facebook feed, this meant we were able to appeal directly to our intended audience and gain their feedback.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=276450286849



We used idea’s like in the film for the bus stop, we also tried out different recommended techniques, this is what encouraged us to peruse the voice over.

For the poster we conducted a poster vote, we asked people to say which ideas they preferred and what colours they thought would work, we also asked about titling and what they would improve on throughout the production.

The audience feedback we gained helped us immensely in improving our film and posters to create our piece, Chips.

I arranged family and friends to come and see the film, so we got a mixed response from a wide range of generations here are some of the comments made…

• "You really feel love for the boy" Damian Parsons 30
• "It’s very picturesque and the story line was compelling" Gillian Parsons 44
• "Stunning!! Some of those shots were beautiful" Kayliegh 19
• "Awww his so cute I want to hug him, I feel really sorry for him" Mandy Filmer 17
• "The way you’ve put it together with the voiceover was really clever. Well done, I thoroughly enjoyed that" Joyce Clark 75
• "Good characterisation, some continuity errors in the background, but overall a well strung together production" Edward Jones 49
• "Some of the child’s diction wasn’t clear, and I wasn’t quite catching all he said, in a way it worked but it would have been nicer to hear it more clearly, I did enjoy it though." Lucy Woodhead 19

These comments really helped me get a proper view of the overall film, from the audience’s side. It made me see that we had succeeded in having some stunning cinematography within our film and we also managed to deal with a hard-hitting subject matter with fragility and delicacy. It did also bring our attention to something we should have paid more attention to like the continuity in the background, when the bus and the people randomly disappear during our shot reverse shot. Also it was commented that some of out pauses should have a been a bit shorter or at least more content within. However with the criticism we did also have praise, this helped to reinforce that we were trying to get the audience to really connect with Sam’s character.

Quotes about the poster

[Text received] Just saw your poster, looks well good, need to sort out some font things, but looks proper pro, that picture of the boy’s brill btw, looks sweet as :) :) xx Female Student 18

"That’s clever, I wouldn’t be able to do that, it looks really realistic, I would go and see that film if I saw it on the wall" Mathew Nash 25

"Not a mass fan of some of the layout, but I do really really like it" Teri Rice 20

"Some font need to be clearer and bigger, it does look very good" Liam Todd 18

"I like the fact that the boy is the main feature you can tell straight away his an important character and the colours you’ve chosen work really well together." Lorraine Nash 16

From this I deduced that some of the Font in the poster needed work, and that some of the grey tones could have been darker to make it clearer from a distance. However the poster did also appeal to the target audience and the fact that most mentioned that they would have seen it, and that it looked professional showed that the poster did the job it was meant to do. We wanted to show Sam as the main character and from some of the feedback you can tell that we have achieved this.

The Review

• "What’s with the random seagull, it’s well distracting" Teri Rice 20
• "The language used is very clever, I’m really impressed" Mathew Nash 25
• "I Like the design of it, you can tell you put a lot of thought into it, the seagull works well with the fact that it’s the Salt-Water issue" Thomas Laurence 18
• "Clever use of language, good layout, I like the seagull graphic, it fits well with Little white Lies design" Male student 19

Through these comments you can see that we have managed to make a review that looks like the LWL’s ones. We did get mixed reviews on the choice of graphic however because it was the Salt-Water issue most found it quite clever that we had added it in. The language was commented upon as in LWL they have a particular language type, but luckily we have Hollie who is a word genius, and she managed to make it sound like the magazine. Our audience brought this up in comments.