Title
As a pair, my partner and I have decided to call our British social realism film 'Maze'.
The title 'Maze' connotes Leah's current situation as it highlights her desperation to escape from her unfaithful abusive boyfriend in an attempt to create a more positive future for her baby. However it seems there is no escape because she is working class, she is unable to afford to escape as she cannot travel far enough due to limited money. Its almost a never ending cycle where she always finds her way back to the start but never the end. This title connotes many themes including; isolation, aspiration/escape, poverty, class and violence (domestic).
The theme of isolation is connoted through the film title 'Maze' as a maze is a designated space with many paths. People must choose which path to take in order to get out of the maze, but because there are so many people are left feeling trapped and alone inside of this big maze and it usually takes a long time to get out and to stop feeling like this, therefore people can feel isolated within them, just like the main character - Leah. For, example we see the theme of isolation when Leah is walking after packing her bags and her neighbour is calling her, she can hear the neighbour but is blocking her out through the use of headphones, like she wants to be alone and feel isolated.
The themes of aspiration and escape pair together nicely and are also connoted through the films title 'Maze' because in our film Leah aspires to escape from her violent, abusive relationship with her unfaithful boyfriend as she is expecting his baby and aspires to give her baby a better life away from all of this violence and abuse. However, in a Maze escape is very challenging and can leave one feeling very dazed, confused and you can end up back where you began, so these themes of aspiration and escape are connoted through the title as fulfilling your aspirations and escaping current situations can be very challenging, especially to characters with a weak disposition like Leah. The themes of aspiration and escape are demonstrated in our films content as the audience are lead to connote that Leah is pregnant and is aspiring for a better life for her child away from her unfaithful violent father and is trying to escape the violent relationship for the child by packing her things and going to the train station.
The title 'Maze' connotes the theme included in our film of poverty because a maze is a restricted, reserved space of land and when you are poor you are also very restricted as to the things you can do and reserved in the sense that you are held back a lot as you cant afford to do all of the things that you may want to. Its like a never ending cycle as you have no money to become what you want to be to earn money and therefore you can't gain wealth. You are more or less destined to be poor. An example of where the theme of poverty is demonstrated is when Leah goes to the train station and counts all of her coins and still doesn't have enough money for the train fare.
The theme of class is also connoted through the title 'Maze' as the main working class character in our film has no money to break or be freed from this class and because they are limited by the amount of money they have, they cant be adventurous and try to do what they would like to do in life and therefore will not be able to raise their class status. This theme of class is shown through the mise-en-scene as we see that a location used is a flat in a council estate. This highlights that the main character Leah leads a working class background.
The title 'Maze' also connotes one of the themes included in our film; violence (domestic). The main character Leah is stuck in a violent relationship as her boyfriend regularly abuses her. Similarly, people can get stuck in Maze's. Therefore, the title 'Maze' connotes this violent relationship in which Leah is stuck in and finds herself going round in circles. This theme of violence is shown in the film as we see Leah with a black eye.
The title 'Maze' is conventional of the British social realism genre because it is simple as it is only one word but has many connotations in relation to the films content and themes. My partner and I gained inspiration for our film title by looking at many other British social realism film titles and discussing what the connotations of each title were in relation to the content and themes. For example, we looked at the film 'Submarine'. We came to the conclusion that the title suggests that the male main character is perhaps suffocating under water in a submarine and is also claustrophobic. This instantly establishes the themes isolation because he'd be all alone under water, with no one or nowhere to turn to. Another example of a British social realism film that inspired our title was 'Fish Tank'. This title connotes that the main character/s may have big dreams, ambitions and aspire to be something great in life but is limited as to what they can be as they can't escape the environment they've been raised in as a fish tank is very small and enclosed. The fish would represent the main character/s and the fish tank would represent then environment in which they've been raised, connoting the environment is of working class and they are trapped within it due to limited resources.
Our film title 'Maze' will appeal to our target audience of 16-24 year olds as it is simple, unique and intriguing. This title has a deep meaning connoting the films content and themes as you really have to think about how a Maze could relate to a British social realism film. A maze is something to do for the thrill of an adventure and creates some confusion, therefore it will appeal to the youthful target audience (16-24 years old) as the younger generation like to explore new things and seek an adventure they will want to find out the relevance of this title to the films content as it will also have them confused. This title 'Maze', would appeal to our target audience as they may relate to the complexity of a Maze in the mundane of everyday life, as 16-24 year olds face many challenges. So, our target audience are offered many different pathways in life just like a maze would and therefore they may be confused about how we have used our title and our interpretation of a maze in relation to our films content.
As the brief instructs us to create a British social realist film's opening sequence for a n audience aged from 16 to 24 year old of preferably middle class because a working class audience would not want to watch situations that they go through on a daily basis, for example - poverty, violence, single parenthood, etc. We have constructed our film to suit and appeal to this audience. Our film appeals to both genders but more to females as our narrative is restricted and only shows the story of Leah - our main character. Therefore, females are more likely to personally identify with her and the situation she faces in her everyday life, for example, pregnancy. Our female audience will be interested in TV shows like 16 and pregnant, teen mums both exhibited on MTV and one born every minute. Both genders of our audience may be interested in soaps like Eastenders, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks, etc and the news. They will probably listen to UK grime, rap, hip-hop as the lyrics in these music genres tend to be very real and applicable to real life. They probably wouldn't be interested in reading texts like books, newspapers, etc, but they may enjoy reading gossip magazines. I have individually conducted some audience research and the following link will take you to a power-point named 'Meet my audience', this will inform you about who I believe will be a typical audience member within the target audience for my film and what their interests will be. (
http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/primary-audience-research.html)
Our film 'Maze' will appeal to our target audience as we have used themes that were suggested to us in our audience research vox pop (which is below), for example our audience liked film themes such as violence. Therefore we constructed our films narrative around this theme and included some other themes that would appeal to our young target audience, such as; poverty, isolation, aspiration/escape, class etc. The way in which the characters in our film are represented will appeal to our target audience because the characters are people you would meet in everyday life as they don't live in Hollywood and lead a luxurious lifestyle instead they are normal British people who are able to act. It was evident that our target audience of 16-24 year olds liked the characters used in British social realist films as they were down to earth and their dispositions were very much like theirs and therefore they could identify with them on a more personal level. Our films narrative appeals to our target audience, as the controversial themes such as; domestic violence, pregnancy and others are relevant to the 16-24 year olds generation. As the themes in our film appeal to our target audience, the verisimilitude in our film will also be strengthened as the target audience will believe the troubles and situations that arise as they are realistic and the target audience may have witnessed them in reality or experienced them and therefore they will like our film as they can personally identify and maybe even relate to what happens.
In film there are three stages of production, including; Pre-production (research and planning), production (filming) and post-production (editing). In pre-production we have used 'Blogger' - a social networking site to present our research and planning to prove that we have done it and actually thought about the film we are going to produce. We have also used flip cameras and another social networking site 'YouTube' to create our vox pop to gather some audience research information. In Production we will use technology like video cameras and tripods in order to film our opening sequence to shoot many different shot types, movements and angles. Finally, in post-production we will use software such as 'Fireworks' to create our graphics, the internet to use websites like; 'DaFont' to get a nice unique font for our graphics. We will also use 'iMovie' to put together the shots in our opening sequence and add in transitions, etc.
These types of technology will be suitable as they are crucial in the completion of our production as each piece of technology has a different function that will contribute to our final British social realist opening sequence.
The brief states that we have been 'approached by Film 4' and as they are a British independent production company who have limited budgets and therefore are restricted as to what technology they can afford and use. We are also restricted because as students we must use the technology our school provides us with which is limited as they cannot afford major pieces of equipment, for example, cranes.
Representation
The key characters in our film are Leah and Kevin. Leah is the main character whose life we see through the restricted narrative. Kevin is her abusive boyfriend who we see from time to time in Leah's strive to escape. We see less of him in the opening sequence and more in the rest of the film.
Due to the restricted narrative we have decided to use, Leah as the main character is the protagonist according to Propp's theory, so the audience are limited as to who they sympathize with, because as Leah is the main character they only see her life prospective and troubles, therefore they can only sympathize with her. In contrast to this Kevin is the antagonist as he is violent towards Leah and as the restrictive narrative focuses away from him the audience cannot see why he does this and therefore fail to understand his actions, so they are forced to dislike him.
We are not subverting any typical representations of any groups in society, however, we do challenge some. A typical representation of females ageing from 16-24 is that if they are involved in sexual intercourse and fall pregnant their immediate reaction is to abort it and society frowns upon it. However in our film, Leah challenges this typical representation as we see her trying to escape her violent relationship for her unborn baby's protection and in hope of creating a better life for it.
Narrative
Brief Summary:
For the protection of her unborn baby, Leah tries to escape the grips of her violent boyfriend.
Detailed summary of opening sequence:
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'.
Conventions
My partner and I decided to conform to the convention of a smash mouth opening as we were inspired by the one used in the film 'London to Brighton' and we felt this convention grabbed our attention as the audience and wanted to reproduce this feeling in our opening sequence as it raised a lot of enigma codes. We will use this convention of a smash mouth opening differently as we will have a linear narrative and the narrative information will be conveyed to the audience in a restricted way, showing only Leah's perspective. Where as in London to Brighton, a non-linear narrative was used and an omniscient narrative showing various perspectives from different characters.
To create an effect for the audience we will use s range of shots to express the main characters lifestyle through a restricted narrative. The shots included in the expression are; establishing shots to emphasize the mise-en-scene, close-ups to show how Leah feels, mid-shots to highlight Leah's body language and long shots to show the audience what she is wearing connoting her social class and the themes of the theme. We will not really use extreme angles (high/low) as it is not really conventional of the British social realism genre as we want to portray Leah's situation as it is and not exaggerate to enhance the verisimilitude. We will use frequent camera movements like pans as a replacement for some cuts to the allow the audience to follow Leah to almost try to understand her situation better and be aware of her confused state of mind. We will compose each shot used in our film considering the 'rule of thirds' (golden rule) as it is very important in the British social realism genre. We will also consider the 180 degree rule as it is important for the audience as if it is followed if prevents confusion within the audience. Each shot will be carefully framed as we want to highlight Leah's situation and the mise-en-scene, so lots of attention will be paid to detail, this will also help to emphasize the themes of the film better.
To create an effect for the audience and to emphasize the British social realism genre my partner and I will use simple/minimal editing in post production to add to the verisimilitude of our film, meaning we will not use special effects/CGI as they are very infrequent in British social realism, we will not use transitions like; wipes, swirls as these are all very apparent and the aim in British social realism is to make the editing non visible. Instead of using edits (cuts/dissolves/fades...) we will use camera movements (pan/track...) as this is conventional of the British social realism genre. We will also use an audio overlap in order to allow a smooth flow of action so that the audience can follow the main character Leah. We will use jump cuts when Leah is packing to show how erratic she is being and how confused she is feeling, this will allow the audience to sympathize with her even more.
We will use her costume as a signifier for the audience to highlight her social class - working class. Her costume will be very basic as she will be dressed in plain jeans and a top. She will wear what she can afford. The props will more or less be what is based around her naturally including the pregnancy test which will be a visual signifier for the audience as they will be able to realise that she is unable to afford many luxuries like a phone, etc. The pregnancy test will be a signifier that she is pregnant, but as they will not be able to see the result of it, enigmas will be raised within the audience.
The brief specifically states that copyright music cannot be used. Taking this into account, my partner and I will use music that has been composed but relates to our main character - Leah's situation.
Institution
The brief stated that the we had been 'approached by Film 4 to make a new British Social Realist film' and that we had to 'protect Film 4's reputation as a leader in British cinema' and therefore the film 'must conform to the conventions of the Social Realist genre'. Taking the briefs instructions into account my partner and I knew that we'd have to create a film that gets the audience thinking a lot as they watch the film for information and as film 4 as an institution have a very active audience we'd have to produce something that maintained this audience's expectations. An example of a film produced by Film 4 is 'Looking for Eric', this helped to influence the kind of film my partner and I would create as it had a restricted narrative that solely focused on the main character 'Eric' and his troubles and failure in life. This film had an impact on the narrative we produced as our film also has a restricted narrative that highlights our main character - Leah's troubles in her everyday life.
As Film 4 are an independent company, they have very limited funds for the films they create. But because they are a vertically integrated production company they market films through the internet, social networks (YouTube, IMDB, etc.) and create word of mouth as these marketing strategies are much cheaper and affordable for Film 4. For example, the film 'Shame' produced by Film 4 was exhibited at several film festivals before its actual release date which was 3-4 months later. This was done in order to slowly build the campaign and create word of mouth for the film as Film 4 did not have enough money for big scale distribution. Knowing the techniques that Film 4 use to distribute their films, we realize that our film will be marketed in a simple but effective way through a range of methods, like; film festivals, trailers and more traditional marketing strategies such as; posters and bus stop ads.
As Film 4 are vertically integrated our film is most likely going to be exhibited through one of their own exhibitors, for example, Film 4 OD, Channel 4, Film 4, etc. These platforms are popular within British society and therefore will gain predominately the British audience's attention. As Film 4 films do not have great sellability as they don't appeal to kids.
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In the fourth lesson this week my partner and I started post-production properly as we started putting our footage together in order. We done this first to clarify that we definitely had all of the shots we needed to produce our British social realist film. When our shots were in order, we started to cut the shots in accordance to their importance and what the length of each shot would signify to the audience, also keeping in mind the time limit on our opening sequence (2:00).
