Conventions of an Opening Sequence

What is British Social Realism?

The genre British Social Realism carries themes of British culture throughout their films and involves normal everyday characters, shown in usually a bad light. They use simple and bland style of camera shot and use very plain simple editing.
They are based on very serious topics in life, such as violence, crime in society, and touches on things that are quite emotional that a lot of people can relate to. Their target audience is usually people that are around the ages of 16-24 so the topics they use are things that people of that age range can understand and relate to. They are also made for people that don't know anything really about things like that in life, so they watch them more as an entertainment thing, but people that experience things themselves can make them feel emotional.

Production Log 1

What have you learnt this week from looking at the mark scheme and peer assessing previous work?
This week I watched past candidates opening sequences and looking at the mark scheme I gave it a mark I thought that they would get. I wrote strengths and weaknesses about their work and then our teacher told us what they actually got. I gave some people a few too many marks and some I gave less, which showed that I didn't actually have a clear idea in what a good opening sequence is and what a bad one is. From this I found that there are loads of different ways that you can get marks and lose marks and noticed that it isn't going to be as easy as what I thought it would be.

How will this inform your production?
From the table that I done I can see all of the strengths and weaknesses so that when I go to do mine I will be able to see the mistakes that they made to make sure I don't make the same mistakes they did. The reason for this is because, I don't want a bad mark and I want to be happy with what my final outcome is. I don't want there to be any bad shots, bad editing or anything that looks like it has just jumped from one thing to another. I want it to run as smooth as possible, without giving away too much of the storyline and what is going to happen in the film. I want to create enigma, as the past candidates that done this, had a better affect than the ones that showed what the themes they were doing and involved them too much straight away. These candidates also got a better mark overall, so I think that I will use this affect.

What will you try to emulate/avoid?
I will avoid bad editing and I will copy positives, such as good shots. The reason for this is because the opening sequences with bad editing looked terrible and I don't want mine to look like that at all. From previous students work this week I have seen people with bad match on action, which lost many marks. I will make sure that my editing is perfect and that nothing goes wrong. Many people done well in their work, but some of them weren't as good as they just didn't come to the conventions of an opening sequence, and some weren't shown as clear that they were BSR films. This will make me aware of what to do and what not to do and I will make sure I stick to doing what all the positives of peoples work were. This will make me do well in my production.

Fish Tank Analysis and Secondary Research

Themes and Situations:
There are many themes shown throughout this film such as, sex, violence and alcohol. We see this throughout the film with virtually all of the characters.

Mia, the main character drinks throughout the whole film. She is a 15 year old and she shouldn't be drinking. She doesn't even hide the fact she drinks as she does it in front of her mum and basically everyone that she knows. At the beginning of the film Mia is also very violent to a girl as she headbutts her making her bleed, just because a girl asked what she was looking at and it escalated into something more serious. This happens in everyday life with people like this who live in these areas 
Tyler, Mia's younger sister looks about 12 years old and there is a scene where she is smoking and drinking with her friend whilst watching the TV. Her friend even comments saying she likes the cider. At the same time of this Mia is in the same room next to them saying nothing at all which would never be seen in any other film other than British Social Realist ones.

Her mum is also violent, to both her daughters. when she is having a gathering at the flat, she tells Mia and Tyler to stay upstairs and because Mia comes down she pinches her arm telling her to get to her room and does it slyly so no one else really notices.

Representations:
Throughout the film we see clear stereotypes and representations of all the characters.
The setting and location is set in council flats. We can see from this it's a rough area. The characters are all white and the other people in the film are also white. Most of them are trouble makers, which is very stereo typical for people who live in these types of areas.
The film also makes teenagers seem like the worst people in the world. It sticks to the stereotype that all teenagers are trouble makers and are going to attack you etc.. All the young characters in the film are rude with bad attitude, smokes, drinks and swears. These are all things that happen with certain teenagers however it ignores how those who are polite and normal.

Mise - en - scene:
Throughout the whole film, Mia is wearing a tracksuit. The colour palette was mostly blacks, greys and whites. This makes her seem very unclean and quite trampy, the typical stereotype of people living in areas like those. I think that the story would seem slightly different if she was wearing girly clothing and made an effort with her hair, as we see most of the time her hair is greasy and usually in a pony tail. Her clothes must be dirty as when we see Mia's mum hanging up Conner's washed white shirts we can see Mia's shocked face just watching what her mum's doing. 

The flat Mia lives in, is very messy and untidy and from what we can see of the mess, it seems like it is also probably dirty. When Mia comes home after the social worker come to the flat, we see that the flat has been tidied and we see what Mia is looking at and from this we can tell that this isn't the usual thing for her to see and she must be quite shocked. In them areas, a lot of people have untidy and dirty houses stereo typically and this carried through out the film.

Music and Sound:
The sound throughout is diagetic, nothing isn't in the scene. We hear the normal things like what they are saying and what music they're listening to. I personally think that if they used sound effects it wouldn't be at all believable as the whole film is very much like an everyday life and that wouldn't be like that if there were sound effects. The genre's of music used were, R'n'B, Hip Hop and Dance music. This way all of the characters danced throughout the film was obviously linked to this as they wouldn't be dancing like that if it was rock music for example.

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

Camerawork and Editing:
There are many establishing shots throughout the film. We see the scene a lot so we can see what time of day it is a lot of the time and what's going on outside. BBC have just simply used basic shots as they have a very low budget and cant really afford to use a lot of camera work, as this is also time consuming.
The films edit is non-continuity as so much happens in the film and we can see from the film that it goes over a long period of time as loads of things happen and they couldn't happen overnight.

Dialogue:
Like most Social Realist Films, there is a lot of bad language in Fish Tank.
The main character Mia has very bad language and is swearing all the time at anyone, showing no respect to who she's talking to. For example she calls her younger sister Tyler a "fuck face" and Tyler responds with, "If I'm a fuck face then you're a cunt face." A girl of Mia's age may be expected to swear, but  not to her younger sister and we definitely wouldn't expect Tyler to respond the way she did. This makes it seem that all teenagers are rude and disrespectful and makes people think that even children as young as Tyler is, speak like that.
Conner, Mia's mum's boyfriend is a completely different person to all of them. We find out towards the end of the film, that he has a wife and child and has basically been having an affair. We see his property and the area it's in and it looks so lovely compared to the estate Mia lives on. Conner speaks soft and gently and says to Mia on numerous occasions that she needs sorting out. When we see his other family etc this makes us realise why he reacted to Mia the way he did, because he had clearly never come across someone like that before.

Secondary Research:

Directed and written by, Andrea Arnold
The production companies involved are:
BBC Films
UK Film Council
Content Film
Limelight Communication
Kasander Film Company

The target audience for this film, were young adults and teenagers, with British culture. The audience, was niche and was very realistic, but wouldn't of been able to be a mainstream film as only people of a British culture are likely to watch it. It involed the themes that are usually shown in BSR films, such as violence, agressive teenagers, alcohol and drugs. The actors are unknown and the camera work is all very simple.

Past Candidates Strengths/Weaknesses

All of these had very different things that made them good. I was surprised with what some of them actually got marked and noticed that loads of things can make a big difference to how you are marked such as the camera work and making sure it relates 100% to the genre. I think that from seeing these, I have a good understanding of whats to come.

British Social Realist Timeline