Evaluation - Abi Black

For our final piece our group has made a short social realist film, focusing particularly along the storyline of a broken family, one of the key conventions to British social realist films.
In pre-production research we found that British Social Realist films follow a similar structure in their conventions, helping them to be placed into this genre. British Social Realism films first became popular after WWI where it was discovered that the “key” to national cinema was found in realism and the seriousness they conveyed, becoming current themes associated with the genre today. Other notable conventions were mainly relying on diegetic sounds, using natural lighting, mainly focusing on the working class, and using as many “normal” props and settings as possible to convey the realism.

In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• When first looking in to social realism, one of the first films I looked at independently was “London to Brighton” a modern social realism film directed by Paul Andrew Williams. One of the key things I noticed in this film which directly related it to social realism was the actual theme. Addressing the issue of drugs, prostitutes, and homeless children.
• Having looked at this film combined with others such as Happy Go Lucky (Mike Leigh)/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1045670/ and Wasp (Andrea Arnold) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388534/ there seemed to be a pattern in which the themes all conformed to, they all dealt with “harsh” topics and did not try to glamorize it.
• Another convention noted in all the films above were the fact that they were all representing working-class people, and not middle-class. For example this was instantly noted in Happy Go Lucky where we are introduced to this young care free teacher, sharing a flat with her best friend in North London. In Wasp it was much more obvious as we are shown an establishing shot of the council estate of which a single mother with 4 children is living in.
• In our film we decided to break this convention of social realism, and chose to use a middle-class family, although not struggling financially, still breaking up as a family unit and trying to cope with an alcoholic/abusive father. This I felt worked quite well as I still think people can connect and empathise with our main character Milo, regardless of the fact he is from a middle-class background.
• The colour we found in most of these social realist films seemed to be desaturated, which fits in with the genre and helped to match the themes presented, giving them a gritty feel and reinforced the despair of our central character. Here is a still from our film having used the desaturated colour. Here is an example of a still from our film showing the effect of the desaturated colour.
• Following on from the use of colour another typical convention for the genre is relying on the use of natural lighting, which we managed to do throughout our film. However for the scene in the bedroom where we needed it to be quite dark we had to use artificial lighting. The effect of having the natural lighting helped to support the fact that this film is based on reality, and we didn’t want any special effects, including enhanced lighting.
• The choice of using a young boy as our main character we made quite early on. Many social realist films tended to be about slightly older people, usually teenagers or late 20’s to early 30’s. The reason for this being that we wanted to break away from this mould which had been made by the genre, but also because an audience can always relate to a child because we have all been one.
• Having found inspiration for this in London to Brighton as mentioned previously where one of the lead protagonists is a young girl, but also having watched Mixtape, a short film by Luke Snellin. Here is the link to watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exFWurXtsU4
Another film which we found directly related to our original idea was Eight (Stephen Daldry) the plot being this young boy who is trying to come to terms with the loss of his father.
• The usage of props was very limited in our short film, as anything which would appear out of the ordinary would not fit in with the genre of social realism. During our rushes we attempted to create a scene where we had Milo tiptoeing around bottles, which we had to remove as the whole scene appeared far too staged and did not look appropriate in its surroundings. I think one of our best shots whilst using the props is the scene where the mother and father come arguing through the door and the bottle is lying on the floor and gets smashed. This combined with the establishing shots of the bottles placed along the fireplace instantly set the tone for our film, and helps to emphasise the key issue we explored. Here is an example of the stills from our film.

• The camera work we tended to use were a lot of still and long shots, however we did experiment with panning and the use of handheld. The most difficult scene to shoot was the “running scene” which we knew we wanted to be a long shot and we actually managed to do handheld. There is not often a lot of complicated camera work in social realist films and so we stuck to this convention by trying to keep it as simple as possible, however still complimenting our work.
• One of the main techniques in editing of social realism is the use of straight cuts. This helps to keep the continuity; however when we were changing location in our film or time periods we used fades such as the scene where we have an ELS of Milo jumping on the trampoline in the garden and then it turning into night. Combined with the use of the sound bridges using diegetic and non diegetic sound this helped to keep the continuity without confusing our audience. The most effective use of the sound bridge is right at the beginning where you see the shot of the bird outside appearing very peaceful, and then the parents arguing contrasting this in the background. The uses of juxtaposing these 2 scenes I think helps shock the audience, and help them to sympathise with Milo’s situation. Example of the fade to the right. Another type of shot we used frequently was the use of the match on action, again emphasizing the continuity.

We again chose to challenge the usual conventions of social realism by having our film set in the countryside, away from the urban landscapes. The effect of having our film in a rural setting helped to reinforce Milo’s isolation, his struggle in coping with his situation and the loneliness he felt as an incidence of this. Other social realist films such as Wasp and This Is England tend to be set in urban landscapes, all conforming to the effect of having working class people living on council estates. The region in which we live in however is very different from this, and so we wanted to show that although Milo is living in a completely different environment, children from anywhere still have to cope with a broken family.
• I think we have managed to conform to most of the social realism conventions, although challenging them in some areas such as our setting and the social class of our family. The overall effect of this being is that not only working class people from less affluent areas experience family difficulties in their lives, and we wanted to portray this which I think we did successfully.

Inspirational Directors

• When researching into the genre of social realism initially there were a few directors who seemed to specialise in it. Andrea Arnold who directed Wasp as mentioned previously also had a recent award winning release of another social realism film Fish Tank. Many of her films show things from a women’s perspective and all seem to follow a female lead.
• Ken Loach known for being quite pessimistic in his outlook on life is known for directing many social realist films. In his film Looking for Eric, made in 2009 we follow the story of a man who’s life is descending into crisis, being a single parent to stepsons and juggling this with trying to be the breadwinner as well. However this is deviating from the norm of having a single mother, the film still displays key social realist conventions.

Narrative Structure

• Todorov established a narrative structure in which an equilibrium is set up which is then disrupted, causing disequilibrium which then can be resolved. I believe our short film fits into this as we are first introduced to our characters situation which we then realise has become disrupted, by use of the parents crashing through the front door. As the film continues it becomes obvious to the audience that Milo is beginning to understand and question what is going on around him, recognising his family circumstance is not ideal. Although Milo cannot do anything to resolve the situation the end seems to have a happier outcome as although the family unit is broken, the outcome is a more comfortable and stable environment.

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

• The review- I think that overall the review works really well. After studying the magazine LittleWhiteLies of which our review would theoretically appear in we had to come to terms with the language used and how to phrase our own work. Having looked at other previous reviews for the magazine such as http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/theatrical-reviews/kick-ass/ and http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/theatrical-reviews/precious/ it became evident that their approach was informal, direct and straight to the point. They gave an honest review, good or bad and rarely used complex film language and so it would be easy to understand having not studied Media or Film. They also used an interesting rating system which is further explained here: http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/theatrical-reviews/eviews/. They would rate the film out of one of three categories being, Anticipation, Enjoyment and In Retrospect each one summed up in one short snappy sentence at the end of each review. It became evident that LittleWhiteLies was a very art based magazine and relied heavily on the layout so we also wanted to make ours as visually stimulating as they did in the actual magazine. Here are a few examples of their layouts:

We also noted that the magazine would dedicate a whole issue to one film and so in addition to our review seen here: http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/04/final-review-alex-lloyd-abi-black.html Jack Storer also created a Credits Page http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/03/credits-little-white-lies-jack-storer.html for the magazine, using alcohol bottles representing our film.

• For our poster we had all initially came up with the same idea of having a sketch like drawing of Milo on the front, mainly just including his face. Having looked at other social realist film posters we knew this was a risk as usually stills from the film are used of iconic images which some the film up captured in a photograph. We also decided having done research on social realism film poster’s that many of them were landscape and so we decided to make ours also landscape. I think that this allowed us to fit a lot more into our poster without it seemed cramped. We chose Jack’s initial poster idea to base it on:

Caroline then went on to further develop this initial idea for the poster by introducing some colour. We also chose to use the most memorable and iconic image in the film, of Milo in the foreground in focus whilst his parents are in the background arguing. I think this picture is very powerful and significant to our film and so helps to set the tone for what’s to come in the film. Here is Caroline’s first development of this.

• Having chosen this one was how we would like our final poster to look we chose to keep the image however move it slightly over to the right and the font for the title and cast names. I think the font connotes a child’s handwriting and also is very bold and clear. Having all agreed on this and helped decide where to place the text and film awards in the final one you can access our final poster: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fg4KhnMDHXs/S8t4qN7OVvI/AAAAAAAAATE/-0k8nGFLsM8/s1600/FINAL_POSTER_copy.jpg


• The effect of having Milo in darker colours and all the text co-ordinating with this helps the vivid red on the vodka bottle to stand out, reinforcing our theme of a child coping with alcoholism in his life.
• I think that the combination of the review and the poster help to back up and support our short film, which I found to be one of the most enjoyable tasks we have done.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
• We set the target audience for our film to be roughly from the age of 12+ and decided it could be enjoyed by anyone from any social class background.
• We chose to get a range of people to review our film, using Facebook and Youtube. We decided to do this as many people now use social networking sites as a way of communicating and it allowed us to send our work to a whole range of people.
• Here are some examples of audience feedback we received;
“The innocence of the little kids voice really suits the narrative” Charlie Izard, 17
“I liked how the voice continued over the top of everything as it allows you to hear what is going on in this boys head and creates a connection between him and the audience as you feel like he is confiding in you. The monologue was very well written as it sounded like what a child would actually say in that situation, and not too dummed down” Katy Black, 20
“This is so good, I love how the child narrates it” Evie Chandler, 13
• I think all these comments show that we made a good decision to use the monologue over the top of everything. Not only does it help the audience to connect with the protagonist but it also helps to create continuity, keeping the momentum.
• Another scene which we got positive feedback on was the one in where it cuts from an EL establishing shot of the home, to the bottle smashing on the floor. I think this helps the audience to engage with what is happening in this little boy’s life but also creates tension. The tension is then broken as it switches to a contrasting slow motion scene of Milo on the trampoline.

• I think one of the main criticisms we got from our audience feedback which I also think we could have improved on was that the end transition was a bit rushed and we could have taken a bit more time to allow it to happen. However overall the end shot also had positive feedback;
“The way it links back to the first shot as well, with the child eating breakfast and then changes into the older guy is brilliant” Lucy Boakes, 17


• Here is a link to other audience feedback given: http://advancedportfoliolloyd.blogspot.com/2010/04/further-audience-feedback-caroline.html

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

• Throughout our production we have all been developing our skills by experimenting using different digital technologies, our first decision being the Sony HD camera. As we had previously decided we wanted our film to have a wide screen format the Sony HD was the camera best suited to do so, however at times where this was not available to us we used the MX2 instead.
• One of the main advantages of having the Sony HD was that it allowed us to use manual focus, which proved very effective when we wanted a short depth of field allowing the audience to focus on Milo. Example of this to the right.
• Although Alex did the majority of the filming, we all had a go at using the camera in which I took the panning shots of the fireplace at the beginning of the film.
This camera also allowed us to use slow motion, which can be quite difficult to achieve in post production. I think the slow motion scene on the trampoline is one of my favourite scenes as it shows Milo’s attempt to escapism, contrasting with the previous scene of the bottle smashing to the floor. (Slow Motion scene starting at 2:18)

• Not only did we experiment with using a new camera this year but we also used a new editing program which I hadn’t used before, Final Cut Pro. This compared to iMovie last year was a lot more complicated to use however I feel that it has given our film a much more professional feel from last year. Although I did not directly use the program, I gained the knowledge of how to use it at a basic standard and was present at all times during the editing, where a lot of decisions were made.
• Using Final Cut Pro gave us the advantage of changing the saturation of our film, to match the desaturated tones we had seen displayed in other social realist films. It also allowed us to easily add in our soundtrack made by Caroline using Garageband, which I think combined with other follies helped to really polish our film off.

• Having used Blogger.com before from the previous project I had a basic understanding of how to use it. However this year we have all used the blog much more, as a way of communicating ideas, showing evidence of research and planning.
• Using blogger allowed us all to see where each other was at in terms of progress throughout the project, but also gain inspiration and knowledge from what the other person had wrote.
• Last year we mainly used the blog just to write on but this year we have used it much more to import images, use htmls and video links. Example of using a video link:
• Finally one of the last forms of technology we used was Photoshop and InDesign. Adobe Photoshop was extremely useful throughout creating the poster and editing the review. With a vast range of tools it allowed us to manipulate our image, change the saturation and contrasts and so was an obvious choice when it came to creating our final review and poster.

Overall I found the genre of social realism a very enjoyable one to re create and I found that our group worked well as a team. If we were to do this again I would perhaps organise our time better as it was hard to all meet up to film due to prior engagements but also to get our lead actor, Junior Price, free at the same time as well.

Film review Draft 1 - Caroline Robertson

Abi Black and I have been given the roles of writing the review. We have found this to be more challenging that we origionally thought because of the writing style of Little White Lies, our chosen Film magazine in which the review would be featured. They use a very conversational writing style, but still incorporate complex language. This is one of our first drafts, but we will need to come back to the ratings, make it flow more and add some academic or film references to pull our word count up. A conclusion also needs to be added.



"Straight out of college, a collaboration between young directors Alexander Lloyd, Jack Storer, Kaz Robertson and Abi Black gives us a short social realism piece drenched with the stark realities of everyday life.

This story of a young boy delivers to the audience an honest representation of the harsh realities of learning to live and let go. We follow the story through the eyes of “Milo” (Junior Price), a ten year old boy struggling to make sense of his life. Living with both of his parents at home, his father an alcoholic and his mother a victim of domestic abuse, his isolation is mirrored by his surroundings. Rather than using the clichéd working class family there is a twist in the standard conventions- an average middleclass family hiding a sombre secret. As we hear Milo talk us through his everyday life via a monologue we watch as he shows us his way of coping with a downward spiralling family life which he can’t control.

A scene which stands out with powerful composition is one where the team of directors have used a shallow depth of field, portraying an iconic image of a child sitting staring into space as his parents are blurred out in the background and we hear them arguing.

Despite the sometimes unconvincing accent of Dominic Harper, Junior Price still manages to shine through as a powerful and moving young pro. His last film, “Trauma”, another social realism directed by Chris Davidson again reflects his abilities as a young actor, and he has not failed to disappoint the audience with his depiction of “Milo.” His performance is complemented by unique camerawork, clearly achieved by the combined efforts and laudable skills of the entire crew.

The directors have managed to avoid the painful parts of the reality whilst touching on the subject enough to reveal the bitter, bleak impact it has on the child. Although this pragmatic take on family life is something the audience will relate to, the director’s decision for the ending is questionable and may undermine the storylines credibility. You can come to a conclusion regarding the final scene for yourselves when watching the film, but it may not be everybody’s cup of tea.

The copacetic, yet natural lighting is complemented by the rural surroundings illustrating the physical isolation of Milo, again emphasized by use of long tracking shots which really helps us to empathise with the protagonist. His mental isolation is also apparent to the audience via the use of his “only friend” Sam, who is mentioned continuously throughout the film but that we never meet. It is again accentuated during a scene in which we see Milo on a trampoline alone, his surroundings bare as he tells us “We played crack the egg on his trampoline. It doesn’t work on my own. None of the games we played were as fun at home on my own.”

The monologue makes a clear connection between the viewer and the characters, and much like Joe Tunmers “Eight”, helps to almost create a relationship between us and Milo, almost to the point where we can relate with his situation, no matter how far from our own reality it may be."

Initial ideas for review - Abi Black

I have drawn out some initial ideas for the design layout of the review after researching into the magazine. My review layouts are based on if we only have one page and so it would not be a double paged spread. I have chosen to really focus on the design side of things seeing as when reviewing the magazine it focuses on the pictures as they are large images and the layout used. This takes up the majority of the magazine. In my designs I have kept the structure simple, sticking to the one picture and reasonably small copy space however in some I have changed where the title is placed having it coming down the side just to add some variety to it. When thinking about the image we are actually going to use for this I do not want to use the same picture that we would put of the poster, and instead maybe an interesting still from the film. The image which I think would look quite effective is the one of Milo bouncing on the trampoline, as this pictures his isolation and I think is a powerful shot in the film. Another idea for an image we could use is the one which I think manages to sum the whole film up of Milo in the foreground of the image, with his parents out of focus arguing in the background. This again would be a dominant and iconic image from the film and would clearly set the genre for the film.
Another noticeable thing about the reviews in the magazine is that at the end of each one there is rating system out of 5, from the categories of anticipation, enjoyment and in retrospect, so we would have to include this in our review to make it look the most like it would actually appear in the magazine.

(Need to scan them in)

Research of Little White Lies Magazine - Abi Black

After looking at the general layout of Little White Lies magazine it is evident that the magazine is very design based. Each issue is dedicated to one particular film and then small icons from this film often appear on every other page. The writing for the reviews often seems very informal, and straight to the point. There is rarely any use of technical film language, as a result of this the magazine has widened its target audience as very little knowledge of the subject is needed.
The layout for the reviews often comes with the picture on the top taking up almost half of the page and the underneath part is of the review. Here are a few examples taken from the online magazine.

FINAL FILM - group

Initial idea's and What we Want as Final. - Group

After comparing all of the initial ideas as a group we have decided on which area's of each poster we like.

FONT: We have all agreed that the font Caroline found and used on her poster (called My Turtle) is the most effective, but we also like the idea of a childs hand writing but were unable to find a font that worked as well as 'My Turtle'

LAYOUT: We have agreed we want to mix a couple of the layout styles mainly Jack's original idea with the close up of the young boys face and title to the right but we will use Caroline's idea of Milo eating his breakfast.

STYLE: We all really like the text idea in Jack's second poster idea, but will need to see the final version first (leave out the stage directions when copying across the script)
Also we will not print the ending of the script as that would give the point of watching thew film away.


AWARDS: We are still unsure on where the awards will be placed, it will probably follow the same layout as Jack's original but we will have to wait and see. we have agreed on using... 'special Jury award prize 1 world int. film festival' 'Cannes festival' and possibly 'Edinburgh'

as for film networks and funding we definitely want to use 'Little White Lies' as this is an art house magazine that we will later be writing for.

http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/


COLOUR: Grey scale. we will use a very minimal style using a lot of negative space to create an individual style and trigger questions in our audience.

MAIN IMAGE: We have chosen to use the image of Milo easting breakfast as we believe this holds the best impact, a simple image that triggers lots of questions in the audience.

Final Filming - Abi Black

On Friday we finished our final rushes. Having previously sort out the perfect location to film, my main job of the day was recording our filming using still shots with our camera. When we looked at the location we decided on a quite isolated country road, which was not only safer for Milo to run down but also allowed us to film with Jack sitting in the boot of the car and Alex driving slow enough for Milo to run behind. We also had to find the right tree for the scene where Milo is sitting up and gazing out from it, as it had to be one which Milo could easily climb but also we had to test that it was safe for him to climb first. We managed to take about 5-10 shots of Milo running down the road and so hopefully from this we can use the one which looks the smoothest although we did want a handheld effect for this, so if they do look a bit bumpy it will work with what is going on in the scene.
The next scene we shot was the one of Milo up the tree. We had to be wary of this as we were using natural lighting our timing had to be precise as the sun was setting. We took a variation of shots of him running towards the tree and starting to climb up it which will work with a match on action with the next few shots of him starting to climb about half way up the tree. The shots which we took actually when he was sitting on the branch were over the shoulder shots which look really great, we took these from a variety of angles so when we get them into the editing suite we can choose which ones we like best.
Overall it was a really productive day and we got a lot of footage from it which we can then go on to work with during this week.

Initial poster idea - Abi Black

For this intial poster design I used photoshop and roughly drew a picture of what I would like on the poster for our film. However instead of a drawing I think that it would fit the genre better if it were a photograph, however a quite desaturated one. Again this is a very basic version of what the poster would have on it, however I like the idea of just having a simple font, and I think the font used here has that "script" effect, and also quite child like. The reason I chose this image is because it is a key point in the film, where you see Milo having to make his own breakfast with his parents in the background. It is also the point in the film where the twist at the end comes into play. As we haven't thought of an tagline yet I just included where it would go on the poster and the vague outline of where we would put the awards and quotes making it look more official.

Raw footage feedback - Group

We got a few members of our class and also some students who do not do Media to assess our work and give us some feedback on what we could improve/what worked well and any other ideas of what we could do.

Chris Davison - "I liked the way you have used the manual focus, and good use of facial expressions and mise en scene. The shot of the argument is quite long, and so could be shortened" Media student

Sam Jenner - " I liked how the parents were blurred in the background, I think the change over needs a bit of work" Media student

Sam Hillwood - " I like the way that it faded through to show the child ageing. I also liked how the child was in focus and you could see the parents arguing in the background but blurred. I also liked the tracking shot of the child's feet" Media student

Amy Pearce - "The boy was a good actor and I like the storyline. I think its nice how it has a happier ending" Theatre student

Patrick (Milo's friend) - "I think the mirror scene is funny as he looks so sad but it also looks really good" 10 years old.

First day of filming - Abi Black

On the first day of filming we managed to get the first pieces of our film coming together. Although the weather was not in our favour the dullness added to the overall atmosphere of our film and the shots turned out quite well. We took a variation of establishing shots of the house and surroundings in order to give off the impression of it looking isolated. One of the things which we found worked effectively was using the manual focus to create different depths of field, one extremely nice shot done from behind the bush at an extreme long shot with the house blurred in the background.
Another shot which looked nice was the same idea, but taken at a much lower angle, almost on the floor where we had the grass in focus and the house shot out of focus. The only problem with this one was the camera had to be hand held as we couldn't get the tripod low enough and so it appeared quite unstable. The other things which we played around with during the establishing shots was the use of the pan, which we found worked more effectively when done really slowly.
We then moved inside the house to start filming our first shots of Milo and the use of mise en scene worked really nicely here. At first we had an issue with setting the white balance as we were using the Sony HD camera but after getting the hang of it, it looks very realistic and really good quality. We had quite a few props and were using the lighting to try and create the look we were after, which was the lower lighting and trying to make it look as natural as possible to reinforce the social realism effect. We had a medium close up shot of the fireplace with all of the alcohol bottles on it, to give a clear message about what was going on.
The other shots we got done were the ones of Milo in the bathroom, the first time we see him. We used the "mirror" shot which at first was quite difficult as we kept getting the camera in it so had to adjust the position quite a lot. Our actor worked really well though and put up with our constant re-takes on this particular scene.
Overall it was a productive first filming session and went really well although we had to race against time before it got dark to keep the natural lighting effect. Everyone had different inputs on what type of shots we could do and unfortunately I couldn't attend the filming session the next day although after looking at the shots on the computer they look very effective. We aren't due to film again until next week, in which we are hoping for clear skies to do the trampoline shots and the ping pong shots.

Review of London to Brighton - Abi Black

After researching poster ideas and coming across London to Brighton I have since watched the film. My initial thoughts to the film were it packed a punch, in terms of emotionally. We follow the story of a young girl who is accompanied by a prostitute, however we do not get the stereotypical view of what a prostitute would behave like, we infact get a much more nurturing and sensitive view and in a sense more close to life. Watching this film and seeing things through the eyes of this young girl is useful to us with our film, as our main character is focused on a boy of 10. The girl in this film has grown up in a life of abuse and has run away to live on the streets, relevant to our character who has been neglected by his alcoholic father.
I think the most important thing that I learned from watching this film was the emotional attachment I got for the girl, and also had a lot of empathy for the prostitute. I would like to bring this across in our work so the audience has an immediate attachment with our character.

Problems With Filming First Rushes - Abi Black

Our aim as a group was to have completed at least our first set of rushes over the half term holidays. However we have faced a few problems when dealing with this as we found that hardly any of us were free to film, and on the day that we had planned to start filming our main actor was not available to us. As we are also filming at another persons house who is not a member of a group we have to make sure our choice of timing to film is agreed with the owners.
Another problem we have found is that we need a reasonably clear day to start our filming, and as we will not be able to do it all on one day we need 2 days with similar weather.
We plan to start filming sometime in the following week, and are currently checking the weather to see which is our most optional day to film on.

Final Monologue - Alex Lloyd, Jack Storer, Caroline Robertson and Abi Black

Shot 15 "I’ve asked mum why they argue, but she just gets upset.
Shot 16/17 (carries through, stops and silent through Shot 18) It starts off as pointless little arguments and just builds up… builds up until one of them snaps, dad. I’ve seen him hit her before. He hits her nearly everyday.
Shot 19/20 I went to play at Sams house the other day, I’d never been to someone elses house before. There was no shouting there, it was strange. Sams mum must be well behaved. ……It didn’t feel like my home. It wasn’t dirty.
Shot 21- silent
Shot 22/23 – We played “Crack the Egg” on his trampoline. It doesn’t work on my own.
Shot 24 – silent
Shot 25 – None of the games we played were as fun at home on my own
Shot 26- silent
Shot 27/28- We had to take our shoes off at the door. Sam is my only friend. I have to play on my own most of the time ‘coz mum doesn’t like people coming over, but Dad’s friends are always round."
Shot 29 – It’s not fair.
Shot 30 – silent
Shot31- They just sit their drinking smoking playing cards and drinking more.

Shot 32 ( 3 seconds in) – 33-
I hate the sound of them laughing…
Shot 33-35 I think mum does too… me and mum sit on her bed but she doesn’t say much we just sit there, I like being close to her when dads not around, I think she knows how I feel. Hiding…that’s what we do when Dad has his friends around, we hide….
Shot 36- ( starting straight away)- He doesn’t like us to be seen….I have to do a lot of hiding, sometimes its fun. I have a tree, I climb all the way to the top and watch the sun go down, I have to race against it getting home before its dark. The tree is just one of my hiding places I’ve found, I go out finding a lot. Mum says not to get into trouble but to be honest I think I’d find more at home.
Shot 37- I hate it, why cant mum and dad be more like Sams? They don’t argue and love each other. Mum tells me she loves dad, but I don’t believe her.
Shot 38- silence
Shot 39- I wouldn’t love someone if they hit me all the time, but dad never hits me. Just mum. Actually no, She would leave if she didn’t love him I guess.
Shot 40 – 41- Love sounds like a funny thing to me. I love football, I like a girl in my class, but not like I love football. I support the Blues, Sam does too. I’ve asked dad to take me to see them play one day, but mum says it could be a long wait.
Shot 42-45- (38 second shot)
Maybe he’ll take me for my birthday. Maybe he’d even let Sam come too! And then we could go to McDonalds! I’d get a massive cheeseburger, and loads of chips and a Mcflurry ice cream, and a chocolate milkshake( or maybe a coke) , and Sam could get a Big Mac with extra cheese and ketchup ( that’s his favourite) and in my Happy Meal I’d get a free toy.

Shot 46-48
Then we’d go bowling, and on the way home Dad would tell me he had a great time, I planned that birthday for weeks, but we never went. And dad never told me he had a great time. But that’s in the past, It’s just me and mum now. Turns out she didn’t love him, not enough to stay anyway.

Monologue part 2 - Alex Lloyd, Jack Storer, Caroline Robertson and Abi Black

They just sit their drinking smoking playing cards and drinking more.

I hate the sound of them laughing… I think mum does too… me and mum sit on her bed but she doesn’t say much we just sit there, I like being close to her when dads not around, I think she knows how I feel. Hiding…that’s what we do when Dad has his friends around, we hide…. He doesn’t like us to be seen…. I have to do a lot of hiding, sometimes its fun. I have a tree, I climb all the way to the top and watch the sun go down, I have to race against it getting home before its dark. The tree is just one of my hiding places I’ve found, I go out finding a lot.


Sam say’s he wants to be just like his Dad when he’s older…I don’t want to be like my Dad.

Initial research Jack Storer Abi Black and Alex Lloyd

socialist realism -

a style of writing, painting, Filmography, etc. established in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, typically depicting laborers and other members of a communist society in a heroic or idealized fashion.

social realism in films is what Britain is known for world wide. these films are usually low budget gritty drama's based in working class societies.

We have chosen to make a Social Realist film as we agree that our very limited budget and our idea's we have discussed will work best in this genre.

Inspiration - Jack Storer and Abi Black

This style of tracking shot is what we would like to recreate in our own work. Also this French New Wave film in a whole has the same type of depressing realism that we want to mimic.

27th January Planning Feedback

Monologue Draft 1 Caroline Robertson, Abi Black, Jack Storer

Monologue first minute -

"I’ve asked mum why they argue, but she just gets upset.

It starts off as pointless little arguments and just builds up… builds up until one of them snaps, dad. I’ve seen him hit her before. He hits her nearly everyday.

I went to play at Sams house the other day, I’d never been to someone elses house before. There was no shouting there, it was Weird. Sams mum must be well behaved. ……It didn’t feel like my home. It wasn’t dirty. We had to take our shoes off at the door. Sam is my only friend, I have to play on my own most of the time, mum doesn’t like people coming over because Dad’s friends are always round."

Lessons learnt from foundation portfolio - Abi Black

Looking back at the foundation portfolio I think that I learnt a lot throughout. One thing which I found had great importance was the use of continuity editing, and when doing our social realism piece it will be important to keep this at the front of our minds so the film maintains the usual conventions of social realism.
I also think that we experimented a lot with our setting and mise en scene, painting a wall for one scene of the film. I think that doing all these small things is important as it made the film look more intense. When creating the social realism piece I think this is a key point to focus on, as although it is an "everyday" scene we will have to think carefully about what is included in the shot and what's not.
Another element which I think worked well with the foundation portfolio was that we paid particular attention to the lighting which helped to give the film a dark and sincere atmosphere. We will continue to focus on this for our next production.
Problems that occurred during the foundation portfolio were mainly organisational, as getting a group of people all together at once proved to be quite difficult, and so that is something to improve on this time round.

Rough Ideas Caroline Robertson, Abi black

Our group has collectively come up with various scene ideas to fit with our general storyline plot.

Story Line Rough Idea:
The basic storyline idea at this point is one of a family household affected by domestic violence, told through the eyes of a young boy witnessing and growing up around it. We are basing it around a monologue narrative so that the audience can really sympathise and experience the moments in the way that the child sees them.
The film is going to play with themes of alcoholism and end with a "happy ending" where the mother has brought up the courage to leave.

Scene Ideas:
1. Long shot of isolated house. Possibly involving crane movement?
2. Ping Pong scene of boy, starting with a Medium shot slowly zooming out into a long / extreme long shot to show the boy is playing alone.
3. Crying under duvet scene. Claustrophobic framing.
4. Trampoline scene, still camera.
5. Fathers friend patting on head, extreme close up on fist. No face shown for adult.
6. Poker night scene, lots of foleys and shot of boy in the hallway. Dark Lighting, possibly smoke machines.
7. Walking over broken bottles scene, close ups on feet and glass, tracking.
8. Final Fading shot, voice overs merging, still camera movement.
9. Tracking shot of boy running to his sanctuary ( maybe a tree or forest)
10. Point of view shots looking at house from sanctuary.
11. Looking at alcohol, shot reverse shot, extreme close ups/ close ups.

Now that we have main scene ideas we will go on to form a storyboard and script.