Project Log - Week 6

Lesson 1: Me and my partner used this lesson to continue the pre - production work.

Lesson 2: Today me and my partner used this lesson to finish off all the pre - production work which was set from last week. This work was done at uploaded by 5pm.

Lesson 3: This lesson focused on choosing the font and style of mine and my partners opening sequence graphics. Using the website 'DaFont', we went through various fonts and selected our few favourites, that we felt were simple but had a meaningful connotation in relation to our restricted narrative, in the hope of grabbing our target audience of ages 16-24 years olds attention and interest, by raising enigma codes from the very start. We then produced a presentation, explaining why we chose the selected fonts and which one we thought would best portray our narrative and also be typically conventional of British Social Realism - http://kalkidanbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/fonts-styles-for-graphics.html.

Lesson 4:  Today i was introduced to a new programme on the Apple Mac called 'Live Type', which is used to help create graphics only. The teacher spent the first half of the lesson teaching us how to use the programme - he introduced the tools and their functions, such as; being able to make the graphics animated. For the rest of the lesson me and my partner started designing our graphics, most specifically focusing on crew/cast graphics and our film title. The process of making the graphics was much more easier because in Lesson 3, my partner and i already decided what the graphics typography (font/style) would be. The typography was chosen on a website called 'DaFont', so we downloaded the font and added it to the programme.  Below is an image of the final look of our title, in the style of our chosen font.

My partner and i decided to steer away from using various fonts for all the graphics and just stick with the one font for all the graphics, because its more conventional, since British Social Realism is all about keeping it simple and minimalistic.

THE WEEKEND!

Saturday: Finally we are on the production stage! Today me and my partner started filming shots 9 - 17 (see shooting script ), which are all the scenes that occur inside the house. We could not achieve our goal set on the call sheet of shooting the shots 8 - 21, due to the fact that it was raining, therefore when it came to shooting the rest of our opening sequence continuity would be a problem, so we wanted to avoid this issue in order to live up to the mark schemes/ briefs expectations.

What have been the key issues for your production this week?

There are a few issues in the production stage that me and my partner have faced this week, one of which is not being able to film during lesson time because our opening sequence locations are not close by - Marks Gate and Newbury Park station. Therefore, we cannot leave school as it against the rules.  Another issue was that in our narrative we stated that a prop we would use is a pregnancy stick, however when it came to the production stage we clearly realised, we were not financially able to buy one as it was expensive (this is a problem Film 4 face on a bigger scale of course e.g. not being able to afford fancy, glamours sets or maybe known actors).


What decisions did you make about the issues and why?

Even though we had plenty of issues, thankfully they were minor and could be solved easily. For instance, even though we could not film during school time, we filmed during the weekend and used the call sheet to organise ourselves and realistically worked out what could be achieved (taking in a account lighting etc). The problem of not being able to get a pregnancy stick was quickly resolved by instead replacing the propp with a letter that at the front would say ' pregnancy results', this was actually better as we realised it raised more enigma codes because the audience will see the letter in Leah's hand and know its of importance but will keep wondering what its about.

Why we decided to alter our narrative

My partner and I, decided to make some changes as we realized that some elements in our narrative just did not look good.

Old narrative (used in treatment)-

(http://kalkidanbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/treatment.html)

"We will start our sequence with a smash mouth opening in a non-linear format. It will begin with Leah packing up the few clothes she has in her backpack, as she is doing this she receives many texts from and unidentified male asking of her where about. She ignores these texts and calls and packs even faster. As she is leaving her room, a pregnancy test drops from her bag. As she leaves her flat she bumps into a neighbour who questions her about where she is off to with a bag like that. Leah takes out her earphones (listening to (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWv9YYop8I) hears her neighbour, looks back but ignores her and carries on walking increasing her pace. Neighbour shouts 'oi, Leah', with no reply from Leah she shouts again, 'well fuck you then'. (over the shoulder shot - deep and shallow focus). Jump cuts to her walking under a subway, towards the train station. Jump cut to arrival at station as Leah asks an assistant how much the fair is to Stratford. Assistant replies '£4.60', Leah says 'aright thanks'. She then goes to sit on a bench to count her coins to see if she has enough change for the fare when a male whispers in her ear, 'did you think you'd get far?".

Altered narrative (final)

We started our sequence with an establishing shot of Leah's flat and shortly accompanied it with a smash mouth opening of her running into her flat, in the same non-linear format that we had planned in pre-production, but with a few trivial changes. We used a series of short fast paced cuts in our smash mouth opening to highlight Leah's panic as she frantically packs her bag with clothes from her chest of drawers, wardrobe and a few toiletries from the bathroom. When packed, she runs back into her bedroom, closes her bag and takes the time to explore the result of the violence she previously experienced on her face (match on action with previous shot). After this, Leah then bends down to grab her bag and rushes out of her bedroom, grabs her keys and letter then hurry's out of the door. However, during all of this chaos Leah doesn't realize that the letter did not stay in her pocket as it had fell out, leaving it behind.  There is then a short close-up of the letter. As Leah leaves her flat turning into the street her neighbour comes running out behind her, yelling 'oi Leah'. Leah takes out her headphones, looks back at her neighbour but ignores her and carries on walking. Leah's neighbour takes offence to this non-reply and shouts 'well fuck you then!'. The neighbour then turns around in frustration and storms back into her flat (audio overlap). Leah is then on the bus looking out of the window. This then cuts to some hand footage - a point of view shot showing Leah's perspective as she is cautiously watching her phone and looking around the bus. The next shot is a an establishing shot of a subway sign. Leah then walks through the railings heading to the entrance on the subway. She then turns into the subway. The next consist of three jump cuts showing the same continuous action of Leah walking through the subway.

Why we decided to alter our narrative...

We decided to use a static establishing shot instead of a pan as we said we would in our shooting script  (http://kalkidanbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/shooting-script.html) as we felt the pan didn't compliment our restricted narrative as it seemed to drag out the action, when we wanted to dive straight into the action (smash mouth opening). However, we wanted to keep an establishing shot of some sort to show the audience the environment in which our main  character (Leah) lives in order to portray the theme of poverty and class (working class), also to highlight the fact that she does not lead a glamorous life which increases the verisimilitude within our film. Moreover, in the mise-en-scene it is conventional of British social realist films to use locations such as; council flats/estates, etc. We also changed the duration that we planned to have the establishing shot on for in post-production as it looked visually better to have a very small duration of 2.5 seconds instead of 5 seconds. The shots of Leah packing her belongings in the smash mouth opening were reduced to a minimum of 2.4 seconds ranging to 4 seconds as we felt that the pace of these shots were very important in emphasizing her rush and need to leave. We done this change in post-production in an attempt to raise enigmas within the audience, for example; why is she in such a rush? who is she trying to get away from? what is she running away from? In the next shots we decided to use match-on-action from Leah closing her bag, rising up and removing her hood, to the next shot if her facing the mirror and seeing her beaten face. We decided to use match-on-action here instead of a cut as we wanted the audience to stay connected to the action and feel Leah's pain, hence why we decided to have a smooth flow through this match-on-action into a long take. This close-up of Leah looking at her reflection in the mirror is a long take to emphasize the extent of the violence. Another change we decided to make was the change of prop from a pregnancy stick to a pregnancy results letter. We done this because we felt it would be a wasted of money to buy the pregnancy stick and we'd need a pregnant person to urinate on the stick to gain a positive reading, therefore it was an unrealistic idea in the first place. We chose to use the letter as we felt it raised more enigma codes within the audience as it seems like an important prop as she enters the flat with it and tries to leave the flat with it but it drops. The close-up of the letter shows that it is of importance and it reveals what the content of the letter is. The next few shots in our film consists of the only dialogue that is heard in the opening sequence and none of this dialogue comes from our main character Leah, instead it comes from her neighbour which supports the theme of isolation in our film as Leah keeps herself to herself. The neighbour says, 'oi, Leah' this is the first real introduction to our main character as the audience learn her name and are a step closer to knowing a bit more about her disposition and her life. The fact that Leah ignores her neighbour, shown through a close up of Leah removing her hood and headphones connotes that she is in her own world as she seems out of touch with everyone around her also connoting that something is wrong in her life or possibly trying to hide something. We decided to use a close-up to see Leah's face to reveal her cuts and bruises more clearly, which could also connote the reason why she decides to be isolated. We included some shots of Leah on the bus to show her journey and how lonely and confused she is feeling. One of the shots is a mid-shot of her looking out of the window as the bus is passing some more council estates. We chose to include this shot as it conveys the theme of poverty as working class people tend to live on council estates - like Leah. This shot also shows the themes of escape and aspiration, as Leah is on the bus almost trying to leave and escape her old life on a council estate and escape from the clutches of her violent boyfriend. She is trying to escape these things because she aspires to live a better more fortunate life away from all of this poverty and danger for her unborn child. In addition to this shot on the bus we added a point of view shot showing Leah's perspective as she watches people on the bus, showing her confused state of mind through the shaky hand camerawork and that she feels as if she doesn't fit in with society. In our final narrative we used an establishing shot of a subway sign, we done this to show the audience where Leah is going (to the train station) and to break away from Leah's action for a few seconds. The next shot is of Leah entering the subway, to do so she has to go through some railings similar to the concept of a maze. The railings represent the life in which she is imprisoned in and as she is going through them it shows her attempt to escape. We then have a long shot of Leah entering the subway to allow the audience to see the back of her to show her luggage and the Newbury Park station sign to show her locality and to emphasize her need to escape. The last shot is of Leah walking through the subway, we used some jump cuts to speed up her journey and to emphasize her isolation and confinement in the narrow subway. We felt that this supported the connations made in our title - Maze and our restricted narrative.

Music For Opening sequence

My partner and I decided to use minimal sound in our film, to emphasize our main character - Leah's emptiness and highlight her isolation. However, when attempting to run away for the first time in our opening sequence, we have Leah listening to a song by Camille Andrea named 'O.V.E.R' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWv9YYop8I).

We chose to use this song in particular as it is very relevant to our narrative as Leah can't physically bring herself to end the violent relationship with her boyfriend Kevin and instead decides to run away whilst listening to this song that is very relevant to her situation, telling the audience what her relationship status is currently saying (it's O.V.E.R). This song almost shows what Leah would want or intend to tell her boyfriend, as a lyric in the song is 'you can't mend my broken heart inside'. This lyric is also signifying the violence that Leah has experienced throughout the course of her relationship as the artist sings about how hurt she is and almost connotes the theme of domestic violence within our film.

Our narrative is restricted and focuses on Leah, so by using such emotional and meaningful music, the audience are limited to feel Leah's emotions, as well as going through this journey with her and being able to sympathise, support and understand her situation/ life.  The audience will also be able to relate to this song as it fits within the music genre of UK Grime and our target audience being young and from Britain will also listen to this type of music and therefore may also be able to identify with this song. The song will definitely appeal to my target audience - in particular the females as the song is sung by a female and explains the situation through a women's perspective. Moreover, in our treatment we identified our target audiences interests and concluded that they would to be interested in UK Grime. (http://kalkidanbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/treatment.html- Target Audience).

We have written permission from Camille Andrea (the artist) to use her song in our film 'Maze'(Right Hand Side).

Call Sheet 2

The fonts/styles for the production credits

Using the website 'DaFont - http://www.dafont.com/' me and my partner selected some typography styles for our films production credit - see shot 6 on shooting script. Each style was selected carefully on the basis that it was simple but held connotation in relation to what the production company "Milk Films" represents - which holds the same ethos of Film 4.

Below are the range of typographys me and my partner picked out.

http://www.dafont.com/impact-label.font?text=MILK

http://www.dafont.com/backspacer-tribute-to-pearl-jam.font?text=MILK

http://www.dafont.com/new-facebook.font?text=MILK

http://www.dafont.com/licenseplates.font?text=MILK

http://www.dafont.com/alphabitssquared.font?text=MILK

After a lot of discussion me and my partner came to a mutual agreement and chose the typography which is shown below on the left. We selected this as it was simple an white connoted the colour of milk. Moreover, we loved the boxes that surrounded each letter as it connoted how the production company is playful since it looks like it was quickly written down as well as it connoting how this company is fresh/new/modern. So on the right is our finished production credit.

Collectively the other productions credits (shots 1,2,3,4,5 & 7) we decided to use the typography we used for the rest of te credits. This decision was influenced after we watched the opening sequence to the British social realist film ' submarine', because they used the same typography with all the production credits except for the main ones such as the Film 4 logo. Below are the production credits of submarine.

The image below is the production credits we constructed after gaining inspiration.

As you can see we have made sure our graphics were minimilistic and not grand like Hollywood production credits. We believe we captured the true essence of the British social realism genre through the use of these typographys, as they hold so much connotation an anchor down what our film MAZE is all about. We stuck with the colours of black and white as it seemed raw and the contrast of colours represent Leah's situation - the white portrays hope, while the black portrays confinement, therefore highlighting how Leah is keeping faith and trying to escape but is restricted from doing so as her abusive boyfriend controls her life.

Fonts & Styles For Graphics

Project Log - Week 5B

Lesson 1: This lesson focused on continuing the work of mine and my partners treatments. We completed a draft which was marked and now ready to correct errors.

Lesson 2: Today started off with a small activity of getting to know to know what a shooting script was and how to use it. I found out that a shooting script is a deatiled, presise, overwritten version of documenting a films - or in our case an opening sequences shot by shot. Its an organised way of keeping track of everything and also saves time, so that the production stage is completed with ease, as you cannoit forget anything, since its documented. A shooting script consists of many things such as; the shot number, the location, the shot type, the angle, the movement of the shot, the duration of the shot, the dialouge, the music/sound effects, the description of action happening in the shot, the cast and finally the equipment or proops used within that shot. Below is a rough example of a typical shooting script.

Next me and my classmates were then given a shooting script that was completed by a past student. At first glance i instantly thought it was very good since it looked detailed. As a group of four me and my classmates were then given the task of actually filming what the shooting script instructed. Its after doing this task i we all recognised how difficult and confusing it was, as it lacked a lot detail since it was not specific and we had to do a lot of guess work. Limitations of this students work was that the cast was not clear, the description if action was very abstract, the use/ placement of props was not clear as well as the placement of where the characters stood within the shot and lastly where the camera was postitoned. Knowing this now i know when it comes to my work i will make it very clear who plays who by maybe adding a key at the top just for clarity. Moreover, i will just make sure i will be adding constant detail of where everything is positioned in brackets.

Lesson 3: This lesson focused on the teacher introducing us to the other pieces of pre production work which included; Shooting script, Call sheet, Production Schedule, Location Recci and Project log for the week. After this me and my partner then focused on starting the work for the rest of the lesson. Lastly, the treatment was edited and uploaded.

Lesson 4: This lesson the teacher provided us with the shooting script requiremnts which were to make sure it totaled to two minutes ( which was the brief requirements), it also had to be around 30-40 shots long, making sure of the pace editing and the music type. It had to include all graphics e.g. titles, production credits etc. Moreover it had to include all sounds even digetic sounds / voiceovers and it had to be in chronological order of how we want it to be portrayed to out target audience. Lastly,  the most important thing was to be creative with the sounds and camera language but not steering away from the breifs instrustions to be typical of british social realism. Next we was given a list of DO's and DONT's, which was based upon some of the points we made in lesson 2.

The rest of the lesson was then spent completeing the rest of the pre - production work that was introduced to us in lesson 3.

Shooting Script

Location Recci

Production Schedule

Call Sheet 1

Project Log - Week 5A

I have only completed one lesson this week as situations as trips, caused lessons 1, 2 and 3 to be cancelled.

Lesson 4: The aim of this lesson was to focus on narrative, as well its structure and the theory behind it. Firstly, using our knowledge we established the clear difference between a story and a narrative. A story is what hangs around the narrative (a filler). Moreover its the order in which the audience are told, therefore it could be a smash mouth opening or maybe a non-linear start. A narrative, however is the skeleton/structure of which is told in the order of occurrence. Then we highlighted the terms linear and non linear. Linear is in order from start to finish. Non Linear is not in chronological order - Examples of films that use this technique are Vantage point, Momento and Source code. British Social Realism films use a linear start because its more conventional, also its more realistic for the audience, as they are not trying to create escapism. We learnt how the narratives information is conveyed to the audience. There are two important types of narrative - restricted and omniscient. A restricted narrative is when everything is shown from the charcters point of you, this means that the audience are forced to focus on that one character, moreover, whatever the character emotions are the audience should feel as well - an example of a film is Fish Tank, as the narrative revolves around Mia. In contrast an omniscient narrative is when you are shown more than one characters point of view - an example is Snatch as it focuses on several characters. In detail we then as a class looked at a further four films and established their narrative type and how it was shown.

First was Slumdog Millionaire which was restricted as the story revolved around the boy and we only saw everything from his point of view. Moreover it was Non linear as we were shown the narrative in non chronological order and drove the audience to raise enigma codes.

Second was Psycho which was a omniscient narrative as it focused on several characters points of views and also it was linear as the story was told in order to the audience to follow more easily.

Third was Fight club which we established was restricted as the narrative was told through the perspective of the main male character. This was done so the audience relate to him more and feel the emotions he is feeling. Furthermore it was non linear as the film did not start clearly and produced questions that the audience wanted answered and it engaged and grabbed their attention.

Four was Home alone was told as an omniscient as not only did you see the little boys point of view but also the antagonists point of view. It was evident this was done to add the comedy element, as well as preparing the audience so that there are no shocks.

Lastly, I learnt about the narrative devices as well as the structures and how they are typically used in British social realism films. Nearly all narratives use Todorov's Theory, where the narrative starts with an equilibrium, then theirs a disruption which will later on be solved with a new climax, lastly there may be a coda (a nice ending). Within this narrative there is one protagonist (good) and one antagonist (bad).

Task - Treatment, Audience Research & Full Film Narrative.

What have been the key issues for your pre production?

I feel that me and my partner did not have many issues, however one issue was that we had to be extra careful about our narrative, especially for the opening sequence as we had to keep correcting ourselves and make sure our idea was simple yet had detail. We did not want to make the same mistake other students did in the past by making the opening sequence seem too much like a trailer. Moreover, we had to keep ourselves from the temptations of revealing the whole narrative in two minutes. As well as this we had to clear on every detail from the cast we will use to the locations and making sure everything was achievable within the technology we have but most importantly not to make it seem too much like a hollywood film but instead making it a typical social realism film, as the brief instructed. Lastly a second issue was the music, we had to think how we could be original but still get a great song that highlighted the films themes, characters and the situations.

What decisions did you make about the issues and why?

The first issue was solved by keeping an open and creative mind, by paying attention to every last detail and continuously questioning our own decisions to make sure its all do-able. For instance at one point we was tempted to show that Leah - our main character was pregnant as well as showing the abusive boyfriend beating her up but after discussing this idea with my partner, we soon came to the realisation that our idea was revealing way too much and we successfully wanted to raise enigma codes. Therefore, we changed the idea by using the idea of a smash mouth opening and adding detail like the pregnancy stick falling upside down, meaning the audience will have to wait to find out if she's pregnant or not. Moreover, instead of introducing the abusive boyfriend Kevin, the audience will only see his hand in a close grabbing Leah and stopping her from running away, this will raise questions to who he is? etc. The second problem of music (background sounds) was solved as my partner has connections and knows a young artist who sings quite sad modern songs that will appeal to our young audience but most importantly the lyrics will specifically establish Leah's situation/problems and sympathy with her as the song is designed to pick up on those upsetting moments in the film.

Full Film Narrative

Exposition

The beginning starts off with Leah packing up the few clothes she has in her backpack, as she is doing this she receives many texts from and unidentified male (this is actually her abusive boyfriend) asking of her where abouts. She ignores these texts and calls and packs even faster. As she is leaving her room, a pregnancy test drops from her bag. As she is leaving her flat she bumps into a neighbour who questions her about where she is off to with a bag like that. Leah takes out her earphones hears her neighbour, looks back but ignores her and carries on walking increasing her pace. The neighbour shouts to get her attention but eventually gives up. She runs off to the train station and when she has arrived at station, Leah asks an assistant how much the fair is for her journey and she realises that it is more expensive then she thought. She goes to sit on the bench, knowing that she has been knocked back from her plan of trying to escape. She is then confronted by an un-identifed male which we later find out is her abusive boyfriend, stopping her from escaping and taking her back home.

Agent of change

In our film the agent of change is actually something positive, ratherthen something bad. It is not due to an antagonist but it is Leah's unborn baby as her unexpected pregnancy makes her want to finally escape her violent abusive relationship. Leah is scared to tell her violent boyfriend about her pregnancy as she fears he may harm the baby or force her to get an abortion, therefore she keeps it a secret from him by wearing loose, baggy clothing. Moreover it is kept a bit of a secret from the audience although her pregnancy is signified through the pregnancy test when it falls and her consistent morning sickness.





Conflict complication

After a failed attempt to run away from her boyfriend, she is back at home trying to avoid any physical abuse from her boyfriend so that she doesn't have to reveal her pregnancy. However, she cannot avoid the implications of her running away and recieves beatings from Kevin - the boyfriend, which are so bad that her injuries result from bruises to cuts. She is left weak and uncapable of moving, however is still pushed around by Kevin to complete tasks such as cleaning the house and cooking for him.







Elaboration

Leah desperatley needs a job, so that next time she can successfully escape and build up a life for herself. She manages to convince her abusive boyfriend on the terms that he drops and picks her up from the location and is not run away, if so he will not hestiate to do something worse then before.  After scouring the high street, she is given a job at the local cafe 'Rose'. After a couple of weeks working there she becomes friendly with a male companion 'Joe'  who also works there. One day when play fighting on their lunch break Joe realises multiple bruises on Leah's neck, after seeing these he knows someone is harming her, he questions her about them and she blatantly denies that anyone is physically abusing her. But Joe refuses to believe what she is saying and pulls up her sleeves to check for more and his suspicions are confirmed when he see's more up her arm. Leah breaks down and is left with no other option other than to reveal what her boyfriend Kevin has been doing to her, she also confides in him about her baby she is trying to hide and her worries for its survival. Joe is genuinely concerned and cares for Leah and refuses to keep quiet so he goes to Leah and Kevin's flat and confronts Kevin. Joe and Kevin's confrontation quickly escalates into a fight, where Kevin badly injures Joe luckily Leah was there to witness it and calls an ambulance as Joe needs to go to hospital. Kevin realises that the police will soon be involved and quickly flees the scene before the authorities come. Leah is left feeling distraught but because of Kevin's sudden absence, she seizes the moment to run away. So she packs her things again and visits her workplace before hand to collect her wages as well as leaving a note for Joe explaining her decisions and her hope for a future with him.

Climax & Resolution

Leah has finally successfully run away from Kevin and is staying with a cousin in Birmingham. She is now five months pregnant and is trying to rebuild a life for herself in Birmingham with the help of her cousin whilst her cousin is still supporting her under her own roof.

Coda

Leah finally given birth to her baby but too soon and has a premature birth. Where she is still waiting to find out if her baby is okay and in good health.

Audience Research

Vox Pop

This is a vox pop, of our target audience - teenagers(16-24) answering a series of questions about British Social Realism, in order to get feedback to help us improve our opening sequence ideas.




Data Presentation

Q1) 

" British Social Realism are films that tend to highlight the negative everyday scenarios of working class Brits and they celebrate the failure of these people in the most explicit way possible. " 

1a) Have you seen any films of this genre?

When asked this question it was evident that my target audience of 16-24 year olds did not know the genre, British social realism. When defined they could only name popular social realist films like Kidulthood and sket.

1b) What do you like about these films?

The response for this question was very good. The audience liked how it should our present society and felt it was very believeable. Also, they thought it was very harsh and hard hitting and opened their eyes to the world they live in.

1c) How do they appeal to you?

My target audience felt it was very truthful and it that they could relate to it, since the cast was their age and they could understand them on a personal level because they thought it was a true representation. In addition, they responded by saying it was thrilling to watch, as you could get lost in the film and its situations, however some felt it could be to grim at times.

Q2)

2a) Which theme are you most interested in and why?

When shown a list of themes that British social realist films tend to highlight, it was evident my target audience enjoyed watching themes such as violence, petty crime, racism, domestic/drug abuse, discrimination, childhood, success/failure and aspiration. They added that they enjoyed watching these themes as they happen in the real world and that as a society we tend to over look it but being able to watch it in a film gives it another perspective, while not being involved first hand.

2b) Do any of these themes personally relate you?

My target audience recognised the following themes -  violence, racism, religion, poverty, childhood, discrimination, rebellion and success/failure. They even made a link by giving examples like how all these themes happen in the real world e.g. One audience member stated you clearly see poverty, as you have homeless people on the streets.

Q3)

3a) Would you go and see this films, if so why?
3b) What interested you about it?

A lot of the audience have actually seen this film - Kidulthood. The popular response was that the cast was their age, therefore it made it easy to relate through many things, such as the way they talk and that they go to school. One girl did not conform to the rest of my audiences answers and stated she would not go and see this film as she did not want to see the violence etc. Lastly, they also stated they would go see it as the characters seemed very intriguing and one of the characters was holding a bat and they wanted to know what he was going to do with that in the film.

Q4)

4a) These our ideas for a British Social Realism films, we are going to produce:

- A boy has a disability of dyslexia. Living in poverty with no support or love, can he achieve his dreams of being an author?
- A girl moves from Jamaica to a white majority area. She's a talented runner that dreams to compete in big competitions but is held back by racism.
- A girl gets pregnant and wants to run away from her abusive boyfriend, in order to protect her baby.

4b) Which one do you prefer and why?

The audiences responses were spilt between the first and last idea. The ones that picked the first one stated that they thought it was very different and not many films touch on disability, therefore they wanted to see how it would pan out. The one that picked the last one stated that the narrative seemed very exciting, different as they have never known of someone that has gotten pregnant and run away, therefore they would want to see that as the situation seemed very interesting. Lastly, they few that picked the second idea, said they liked it as it established aspiration and racism happen in the real world therefore they would want to see it. In addition, some stated that they didn't like the last idea, as it was too cliche and the the second idea maybe hard of the British audience to relate to as she is Jamaican.

Q5) How would you improve the idea you chose?

For the first narrative, they stated to add action sequence, to make the disabled character look more capable. For the second idea, they stated that i should make sure to make the cast all white, to really establish the race difference between the main character and the society she lives in. For the last idea, my target audience stated not to make it cliche, add a twist, make it interesting by maybe having her lose her baby due to being beat up too much by her boyfriend. Also another added, to show perspective of other people and how they view teen pregnancies, as well as maybe showing the good side to teen pregnancy rather then the cliche of showing the bad side.

Meet My Audience

Qualatative Data Analysis

The most popular idea chosen by the target audience of 16-24 years old, was the narrative about the girl named Leah that is pregnant and wants to escape the abusive clasps of her abusive boyfriend Kevin, as she fears he will cause further harm and so she wants to run away and rebuild a better life for the unborn baby. When asked how you improve the idea, me and my partner received many suggestions such as; not making it cliché, show other peoples perspective, show the positives of teen pregnancy instead of all the negatives and add a twist like Leah gets beat up so bad, she looses her baby. All these opinions were very useful however we could not use all of them, for instance, showing the perspectives others will not be used as our narrative was specifically written to be restricted because we wanted our audience to focus on only Leah and her situation, so they feel the emotions she is feeling. When coming to showing the positives of teen pregnancy, that will be a hard criteria to fulfil, as British social realism films are not typically happy and positive, they show the true representation of the world we live in, so therefore we have to show how society frowns upon teen pregnancy. However this is a counter balanced as me and my partner have negotiated another way of approaching that idea, by challenging the stereotypes of a teen cannot look after a baby and has no drive to sacrifice for it, but in out film Leah is an ambitious girl that strives to escape for the protection of her baby and bring it up in a stable home - this we thought was positive. Another suggestion we cannot use is having her lose her baby and getting beat up so bad she suffers a coma because its too graphic and also its too much of a negative ending and after the film finishes, we don't want to be leaving the audience overly depressed, so we decided that she will escape, have the baby but it will be premature and you will never find out if its healthy or not. On a positive note we thought the comment on not making it too cliché was very important.

The most popular themes seemed to be racism, success/failure, aspiration/escape, discrimination and violence. Now having an idea of what narrative to use, some of the themes suggested cannot be used as it does not flow or fit in with the our narrative. However themes such as violence we will use as their will be a fight between Kevin and Joe. Moreover, the ides of success/failure will be used as she fails a lot of time to run away but in the end succeeds. Lastly, the idea of aspiartion/escape is definetly a key theme as she is pushing to escape this poverty stricken and abusive lifestyle, as well as aspiring to provide the best for her unborn child and be in a stable posting.

My target audience seemed to name popular social realist films such as; Kidulthood and 4321. When asked what appeals to them about these films, the most popular response was that it was just so believable and easy to relate as they cast was similar ages to them. Knowing this we want to create a narrative that the audience can relate to on a personal level, as they are more likely to understand people their age rather then an older cast.

As a british audience they enjoyed how its an eye opener to the real world and does not steer away from the truths of our society, therefore me and partner need to make sure we stick to this as it appeals to our target audience and also is Film 4's ethos. Moreover, they enjoyed how it seems local, meaning they understand the narrative better since its culturally relative to them. So, when it comes to our sequence we will be careful to not pick glamorous spots in order to keep realistic, as well as shooting locally with what we have naturally around us (so no fancy props).