Evaluation Part 8

Evaluation Part 7

Evaluation Part 6

Evaluation part 5

Evaluation Part 4

Evaluation Part 3

Evaluation Part 2

Evaluation Part 1

"You have been approached by Film 4 to make a new British Social Realist film aimed at British 16-24 year olds. To give Film 4 and idea of how your film will develop they have asked you to produce the first two minutes of the film, providing a clear sense of the graphical, editing and music style your film will use. To protect Film 4's reputation as a leader in British cinema the film must conform to the conventions of Social Realist genre, and meet all audience expectations for this type of film.  Finally, to keep costs low, all visual and audio material used in the film must be entirely original, with thee exception of stock sound effects."

The title of our film is 'Faith', having a short title like this is a typical convention of BSR films as it is short and it foreshadows what the plot of the film is going to be about. Faith foreshadows that a large aspect of the film is going to feature people's religion or race.

In my opening we see some establishing shots which follows a typical convention of BSR films as many use establishing shots in the opening like in Ill manors. After that we see some shots with parallel editing showing the 2 boys doing similar things, connoting that their lives are intertwined in some way. After that we see those 2 boys meet, when Usama walks into the same place that Joe and his groups are friends are and we see a fight between them due to Usama's colour.

The main themes my film explores are racism as we have a Muslim characters and a group of white boys who are racist to this character and become aggressive to him purely because of his race and religion. From the screenshot below we can see that in my research I covered how racism is explored in BSR films. I used it in a slightly different way in my film as it was towards Asian people not black.

Another theme we covered was poverty which we can see from the shots in the opening montage denoting a run down poor area this connotes that the characters in this film are living in poverty.

We can see in my research that I discussed poverty and talked about how I could use it in my film and I stuck to what I said as I did use a run down area for the shots.

Childhood and corruption of youth was another theme of my film as we had young adolescent characters and it was about them and for the white boys it was their hateful attitude towards Muslims connoting that a theme was corruption of youth.

Production Log 17

This week while editing my film we were nearly finished the last thing we had to do was make sure the sound was good. I feel that in our film it was particularly difficult because the way the fight scene was set out we needed audio of bobby beating up usama so that the scene felt as if it flowed flawlessly, to do this I asked bobby to meet up with me so we could record just audio of him and put that in the fight scene, we included audio of him being verbally aggressive using racist comments and the sound of him kicking.

What was difficult about this is because in iMovie you could only cut down the audio by a minimum of 0.2 seconds so when we needed it to be cut down further we couldn't. Another issue that we came across was that there was a constant sound of wind blowing in the background which detracted from the film to overcome this we recorded some background noise to put over the existing audio

Production Log 16

This week we made our production logo and we chose a logo from the internet of a compass and then traced it in fireworks and put the text compass films around it. We chose a compass for our company as it suggests that we tell it how it is just as a compass does.supporting the realism view of the BSR genre

Also this week we had to change some of our graphics as some of the people originally intended to be in the film were not and we had to change the names in their to give credit to who was actually in the film.

This week we showed our draft version to the teachers and after some constructive criticism like to reduce the amount of content in it and to refilm certain scenes we went out over the weekend and did just that. There are still a few more shots needed to film but those are to be done by the 03/02/15 and will keep in mind some of the advice given to us while filming.

When our teachers watched the fight scene in our film we were told to make it more violent,aggressive and give a clear understanding of the characters. There were also some shots that did not have any continuity so we made sure all the shots did this time. Another piece of advice given to us was that we unintentionally created a theme of homosexuality within the piece so we changed the layout of the opening to try and avoid as much dialogue as possible.

Production Log 15

This week we finished all of our filming, although over the past few weeks there have been some issues as when people can meet up and especially the scene where the fight happens as it had a lot of actors in it, another issue was lighting as the days we chose to film contrasted in how sunny it was and this means our film loses continuity, another issue was that when filming I did not realize by standing there I was creating a shadow that could be seen on screen. I'm hoping that some of these issues can be fixed in editing and if not may have to be filmed again. The date list was not very helpful as people sometimes had last minute plans on the days that were agreed to film on and it just became a race to film whenever we could.


Also this week we found the music for our title from the copyright free website, this was not the original music I had hoped and originally wanted it to be a prayer song but due to copyright infringement that was not going to happen. The song we chose in the end was called slow mo and I assume was originally intended for scenes of slow motion but I feel it works in our piece too. We found it by clicking on the website and choosing the list of cinematic songs they had

There is no lyrics in this song which concerns me as sometimes in BSR the lyrics help to establish the story and we may lose out on marks because of this.

This week in editing we found that one of the most difficult scenes was the fight scene as sometimes the punches and kicks looked too fake, a way in which we solved this was to have just the sound of Usama being kicked play over a close up we recorded of Joe looking guilty. This worked excellently and may even be better than if we had recorded the fight scene correctly, this particular type of shot is common in a lot of BSR films and to use this came across my mind before but I decided in the shooting script to show the actual fight as it would have more strongly connoted the theme of violence.

Production Log 12,13,14

This week we have been making our graphics and for our film we are using super imposed graphics. The first step we took was a simple introduction to it by our teacher and taught us the basics. Then we had to choose what font we wanted and we did this by going to dafont.com and typed in 'Arab' fonts as it would suit one of theme in our film, it was quite difficult to find a font that would not be difficult due to the all the curls that we found were common in that font.

When we were making our font we wanted it to be white so we then had to add a dark outline so that we can see it in our final film. We chose to use super imposed graphics so we can have it on screen while our scenes are playing so as to not bore the audience by forcing them to look at credits.

From researching BSR films we found it was a convention to have white super imposed graphics that in some way match a theme like in This is England which had quite rough graphics which matched a theme of crime.

Also this week we filmed some more shots for our film and edited them in Imovie

Production 12

Over the half term break me and Niamh filmed our establishing montage shots which were filmed at the iron bridge overlooking the estate and another one overlooking the traintracks.

 We chose this location because it looks very run down helping us establish the theme of poverty. We filmed one of the road as it shows how busy the area is helping us connote that it is in East London. We also used the alleyway as it also shows poverty due to the graffiti and litter. As well as that we also filmed the football scene and was planning to film the fighting scene but one of our actors didn't show so we weren't able to. After filming that scene I made a documentation of the costume and props used so we could use them again to keep continuity in our film. The costumes used were things to help connote the poverty but also the white supremacy so for example we had Joe wear a union jack jumper.

Production Scheldule

Shooting Script

Production Log 11

The key issues for my planning this week was when we could film as there are many different actors in my film and one particular scene has a lot of people so finding a time when they were all free was difficult, when we did manage to agree a time someone did not show up as they forgot this limited the amount of filming we could do as they were one of the main characters in the film. We haven't been able to find a time they can all do again until 7/01/14.

BSR Timeline

Look Back In Anger-50's

In Room At The Top the themes covered are Abuse, Equal Rights, Poverty and Regional Identity.  This film was made during a time when women did not have equality to men and were still seen as inferior. This is particularly clear when in this shot at 8:01 where the 2 men are reading newspapers but the woman is ironing. Domestic abuse is also covered in this film as we denote the husband saying to his wife "you haven't had a thought in years"

We can denote the theme of poverty is established in this film through the use of setting, in the screenshot taken at 6:38 we can see chunks of plaster have peeled off from the walls, there are cracks in the walls and it's a very small room in itself. This has been a constant theme used throughout British Social Realism up until modern day as well as the use of real locations and not sets.

However in this one of the actors speaks with a very posh middle class accent which goes against the theme, more modern day films use type casting to get a person who suits the character they want so they do not as good acting skills as they are similar to who they are portraying, this film uses chose acting skills over the more recent trend of similarities with the character.

Kes-1960's

In this scene from Kes we can denote that they are in a classroom at a school which connotes to us that one of the locations of the film and also that one of the themes is childhood and growing up as we denote that the main character of this film is a kid connoting that it is about the theme is childhood. We can denote that the costume the kid is wearing very run down shabby clothes connoting to us that another theme is poverty. Through dialogue we can denote that the characters have northen accents connoting to the audience that this is where the film is set. The north of England is still a popular choice for British Social Realism Films and has been throughout it's timeline as we can see in films like The Full Monty, The Selfish Giant and Billy Elliot as it is an area riddled with poverty. British Social Realism before this film had rarely used such young characters as their main characters and it's normally been middle aged people and haven't dealt with the theme of growing up before. We can see this film was quite influential on future pieces as Bronco Bullfrog then in the next decade used young characters an dealt with the theme of growing up.

Bronco Bullfrog- 1970's

In the trailer for Bronco Bullfrog we can denote that the main characters are a group of teenagers and the love interest of one of the boys, this connotes that a theme in this film is growing up.  Near the end of the trailer we can denote the boys breaking into the back of a truck connoting to us a theme in this film is crime.Another instance of crime is when they break into the shop seen in the shot here.

 Through dialogue we can denote that they have cockney accents and use some slang like "init" connoting to us that this film is set in London and these characters live and grew up there

Rita, Sue and Bob Too-1980's

In this clip from rita sue and bob too we can denote that the dad is drunk and being abusive to his daughter and wife connoting to us that the some of the themes in this film are drug abuse and domestic abuse which at the time was a new installment into the genre as it previously was rarely covered. In the argument their having in the street their talking about who's been having sex with who and the dad calls one of the girls a slut this connotes that a theme in this film is sex and sexuality. A prop used in this film is the old television connoting that this film is set in the same period it was made another connotation for this are the costumes worn  which are brightly coloured which was the trend at that time. In the 1980's race started becoming a big issue and we began to see it covered in more British Social Realism films whereas in earlier British Social Realism films it was not covered as much as there was not as much controversy around the subject.We can see this issue being played upon in the film when the father shouts racial abuse at the Indian man.

It uses a typical estate area which is has been a common choice of setting for BSR films up until this point and it is clear that all shots have been filmed at real locations which is a convention for British Social Realism films and I imagine it being so for a very long time as it helps to establish the realism style of the genre. Natural lighting is something I also forsee being used in British Social Realism indefinitely for the same reason and we can see in this gif that natural lighting has been used.

Trainspotting-1990's

In the clip from Trainspotting we can already see that there is a lot more violence in this decade of film than there ever was before, as we can see a man beating up someone else in such a viscous way never seen before and had the intent to stab him until his friend stopped him, also in another shot from this clip we can see the woman is covered in blood after the glass was thrown at her. This connotes that audiences over the years have changed and they have become more tolerable to violence and expect more of it so therefore the Britsh Social Realism genre changed too to meet their audiences needs.

In this screenshot taken at 0:08 we can see that the colours used in The British Social Realism genre has changed as before very bland colours were used but we can denote here that the people are wearing brightly coloured clothes. However even though the clothes are brightly coloured it still connotes the sense of poverty as they aren't very fancy clothes and are very basic.

From the accent we can hear during the voice over we can detect that the character speaks with a scottish accent connoting that he is Scottish and the film is set in Scotland which was not a very common setting before in British Social Realism. This shows that the genre has began to move from the usual setting of somewhere in England and has moved to other places in Britain. The use of the voiceover in the clip is an uncommon use of sound in British Social Realism and shows that the genre has adapted.

This is England-2000's

In comparison this film and Rita,Sue and Bob too we can see a drastic change in the way Racism is dealt with as in Rita,Sue and Bob it's only a mild verbal abuse whereas in This is England we can see a character call another the "n" word and viciously beat him up. Both these films were set in the !980's but since This is England is a newer film we can see the drastic change in representation of racism.

At 1:09 we can hear non diegetic music start to play and began to stand out as the volume increases more and more mirroring Combo's jealousy of Milky when he talks about his family. Non diegetic music in British Social Realism is a fairly new addition to the genre and has very rarely been used in British Social Realism before. When he is beating up Milky to music plays at its loudest to help establish the drama of the scene.

The group of characters in the film are part of a gang and the film helps connote this by their similar clothing as some characters are wearing straps and similar clothing. Gang culture is something which hasn't been covered in British Social Realism before and in the 2010's especially becomes a big part of the genre. However the types of gang seen have changed over time.

Ill Manors-2010's

The main theme in this film is drugs and drug abuse as we can denote that in the shot is a man making some drugs and another man paying him for it connoting the theme. This isn't a new installment into the genre but it takes a different approach to it as we've only seen it from the user's point of view not the producer's.

In this film there is a use of voice over but where it differs from Trainspotting is that this uses it for narration however trainspotting uses it for a monologue. 

This film is very different from most British Social Realism films as the main character of this film is reasonably successful and is not living in poverty due to his successful drug empire.

Call Sheets

Location Reccies

Location List

Cast List