Textual Analysis of 'Kidulthood' [Menhaj Huda, 2006]

STORYLINE


It's about the life of a group of teenagers living very troubled lives from up-west London.

ENIGMA CODES

Why are the two quieter girls afraid of the other girls?

• Why has everyone modified their uniform - trackies, jewellery etc?
• What's going to happen at this party every ones invited to?
• What's being drilled?
• What did he just put in the yellow bin?

CHARACTERS

We aren't introduced to the characters with names as such, but we can tell from the first few minutes who 'runs' the playground and who the others look up to and get intimidated by. They are all stereotypical teens from low-income backgrounds, and you can tell this from the way they dress and speak.

The girls have modified their uniforms to look quite scruffy, they were big gold jewellery that looks pretty tacky. This makes them seem very stereotypical and 'chavy'.

Although there are two girls that don't fit in with everyone else, and this is straight away very obvious. Their body language screams out shy and intimidated, as they are standing with their heads down. This makes the audience feel worried for them, as they clearly aren't fitting in and they other girls don't like them at all.


Most of the boys are wearing hoodies and trackies, so right from the beginning we can tell that they don't care about school or school rules. We are introduced to the 'main' boy of the school, we can tell he is the one everyone looks up to, are intimidated by and respects because other boys are on the look out for him or surrounding him.

LOCATION

All of the opening is set in school grounds, most of it being on the school playground and some in a classroom. The school playground is surrounded by walls and fences, this makes it seem to be very low-budget and run-down - suiting the social realism conventions.

LIGHTING


It is mainly natural lighting used, this is so that the film doesn't look fake or glamourised. The natural lighting makes it feel more realistic and as though you are there as it could be similar lighting to that of what you can see outside everyday.

CINEMATOGRAPHY


To begin with, in the opening sequence, there is almost a few establishing shots so the audience get to understand where the film is and what it's like there, as the first few scenes are all on the playground area.


The camera also moves quite fast back and fourth around all the different groups of friends that are on the playground showing how different they all are. The pace of these movements reflects how much tension there is within the playground and how things are very fast moving and paced.

There are quite a few different angle shots during the opening sequence. Especially in the class room when one girl is beating up another. The below image is a high-Angle point-of-view shot, this makes the audience feel as if they are there and they are the girl that is beating up the girl on the floor.

EDITING

The above images are part of an eyeline match shot. There is not pan here, it is just two different shots showing what the girl on the right is looking at. This helps keep the speed of the opening.

The above shots use the 180 degree rule. The change shots from a medium-shot to a close-up shot so that the audience don't get bored and the faces of the character's are emphasised, but they use the 180 degree rule so that the audience don't get confused.

SOUND

You can hear murmur's of conversations from all over the playground and you can also hear the guy running, for example, when he's running to his friends from putting that bag into the yellow bin. These are both diegetic and make the scene feel a lot more realistic and as if you were there.

There is music in the background, its not a song, but like an urban tune that keeps the speed of the opening sequence and could reflect what these teens like to listen to. This is non-diegetic.

TITLES

The text on the bottom two shots are both white, with the contrasting black coloured background. This seems to be a convention of social dramas. The text for the bottom two shots fade on, then fade off again... this builds tension with the audience.

For the top shot, the text and background of the text (the triangle shapes) all build up, coming flashing onto the screen on at a time, to create the final effect. This is good as it is dramatic.

Textual Analysis of Trainspotting [Danny Boyle, 1996]

STORYLINE


The storyline isn't really clear within the first few minutes of the film, but by 10 minutes it's clear who the main character is and that he wants to come off drugs. His group of friends and him are hooked on drugs and he wants to come off, but its obviously not going to be as easy as it sounds, as we find out during the opening that it's not his first time of trying to quit it.

ENIGMA CODES


Questions the opening sequence makes the audience ask themselves are:

Why are they running away, what have they done?

• Who are they?
• Why are they now playing football?
• Who's the baby? And why are they doing drugs around it?
• Who's the voice over?
• Why does he need all them things to help him come off drugs?

CHARACTERS

The characters are all introduced straight away, all in similar ways - with a freeze frame of them and their names.

The main character is introduced first, which is very important as that way the audience will know that he is an important character. The characters are represented as plain, scruffy looking people, not glamourised at all. They are all stereotypical of low/working-class people from council areas, and also don't seem to be very knowledgeable. The first (and only) female we see in the extract, we aren't introduced to, which makes the film seem to be male orientated. She is also dressed very basic and plain, she is wearing jewellery, but it doesn't look very expensive. The main characters are all male.

These factors taken into consideration and the totally run-down flat that they characters are in will not make the audience feel sorry for them, but quite pitiful. Even more so because of the baby that we see in the room next to the adults who are injecting heroin. This will have a lot of impact on the audience, as they will feel all different emotions about the baby, and the drugs... all within the first few minutes.

LOCATIONS

During this extract, we see a few different locations. The area the film starts at, from what we see of the town or city, seems to be quite dirty and not very well looked after. with natural lighting that helps bring the film to life and seem more realistic. Where the character's are playing football seems rather poor and basic, made up of fences and a couple of small goal posts. The lighting where they are playing football isn't natural lighting, but the mis-en-scene definitely creates a realistic atmosphere.

The flat is very run-down and in some ways, broken. There is a huge hole in one of the walls, and a lot of the other walls are half missing or fallen down, similarly there's wires hanging from walls etc... this all creates a very low-class feel. These are all things I would expect of a social realism film.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Camera effects:

This camera shot is right at the beginning, and works well as it creates a fast moving pace. The low-angle long shot lets the audience see the location and can clearly see whats going on. This is used to quickly set the scene and pace of the film.

 

The use of low-angle shots is used a few more times within the opening, this engages the audience well as it makes them feel as if they are there looking up at the character.

A tracking shot is used to follow the characters running away.

The above image is effect as a low-angle shot as it makes 'Tommy' seem more scared and surrounded.

EDITING

To keep the pace and effect of the opening sequence is done well by not using many different editing techniques.

At the beginning, a match-on-action is used, cutting from the characters faces to their feet as they are running. This quickens the whole scene up and creates more tension with the audience.

SOUND

There is a non-diegetic track building up in the background keeping the pace of the men running and building the tension with the audience.

Also, you can here the noise of the men running, which is diegetic, and this makes the audience feel more involved as the running then seems more realistic. Another diegetic sound is that of the car breaking. It makes everything seem more real.

TITLES

The titles sequence is very different from most films I've seen. I think it's effective how the title flashes, and I think this reflects the stability of the characters lives in the film. The white coloured text, I've noticed, is in a lot of social realism/drama films... so trainspotting clearly follows the conventions of this.

Social drama opening sequences...

THIS IS ENGLAND...
This opening sequence has worked really well as it sets the scene of a social drama really well. It does this using a number of techniques... the backing track sets the mood to be very indie and reflects the camera shots. The camera shots quite unsteady and shaky, which makes the film seem very un-glamourised and real.

picture 1   -   0.06, the frame before this cuts straight into this frame... no fading. It is effective as, as soon as it flashes into this frame the backing track starts. The way this is done seems quite dramatic, yet at the same time laid back because the backing track is an indie song. It fits really well with the social realism genre already as the frame seems to be quite simple - just being a black background with white text. I think I will definitely try to apply this effect into my opening sequence.


picture 2   -   0.12, this frame is very similar to the previous one. It flashes into this from the previous frame, and is the same fonts and colours as the last text frame, so the simpleness is still there which reflects the feel that the rest of the film will try to put over.


picture 3   -   0.16, this frame is also similar to the previous two. It has the same fonts and colours, the same backing track and cuts to the frame the same way. I like how they've done this in the opening sequence, as its giving you parts of the film, then cutting to a black screen with credits on it. This adds effect from the beginning because the way it gives you only part of the film to start with, and keeps cutting to credits, it gets the audience interested and they'll try and work out what's going on.




picture 4   -   0.23, also this frame is like the others, but I like how they've kept the 'a Shane meadows film' until the last only text frame. It makes more of an input to the audience, as it is the last one... so this should hopefully stay in the audiences mind for longer than the others.


picture 5   -   0.27, this sets the scene straight away. The location they have chosen for this shouts out social drama, and the way the camera isn't still and is moving about making it feel very un-glamourised and down to earth. The effect of putting this location in the opening sequence is that the audience will really get a sense and a feel of what the environment and society is like in this area, and will be able to relate back the that throughout the film.


picture 6   -   0.34, the text in this frame fades into the picture, which is effective as it fits the relaxed set back tone of the film so far. It really fits in with the social drama genre as its laid back just fading in and getting bigger as it goes on.


picture 7   -   0.43, I really like how the credits appear on this frame! The frame just cuts straight from the previous one, but then the name fades on, as did the title in the last frame, and then the small number slightly to the left underneath, fades in and slides of from the left and changes. I think this is really fun and very indie so it fits in really well with the genre.


picture 8   -   1.04, this is similar to the last frame, but there is more text that fades in from the previous frame before it, but the little numbers underneath fade in and slide in from the right this time, as the text is slightly more that side.


picture 9   -   2.03, another frame that is similar to the previous ones I have just talked about. All the credits on this one fade in all at the same time, and the fading contradicts the background image and indie backing track, which I find very interesting and effective. The text has been kept the same throughout and same with the colour. I like the fact this has happened as it keeps consistency throughout and the colour, black and white, goes really well the with genre of the film as it is simple and not over-the-top of glamourised.






A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS

picture 1   -   0.33, this frame sets the scene of the whole film as it very slow moving and fairly dull. It is typical British weather, with two characters who aren't glamourised and look to be within the working-class. It uses natural lighting and basic scenery, no special effects or added props, this makes it effective as it is more believable for the audience. These are all usual conventions of a social drama film.


picture 2,3,4,5 and 9   -   These frames are similar to the credit frames in 'This is England', the background being black with the contrasting white text. This is simple and basic, and with this brings across a feel of the Social Drama genre, as it's not over-the-top.


picture 6   -   This frame shouts out working-class, low income town. It is very striking in the opening sequence but really gives the audience an idea of the surrounding the characters are in. This frame was quite effective as it followed the boys walking up the street, this makes it feel like you are there.


picture 7   -   This cuts using a match-on-action technique, making the scene flow a lot more smoothly dull and plain, still reflecting the over-all image of working-class people and a social drama.


picture 8   -   This frame cuts from the other using the 180 degree rule. Its effective as you can clearly see that the man behind the counter is of working-class and no glamourised... following the conventions of a social drama genre film.

Social drama or horror?

For my OPENING SEQUENCE I have decided to go for the social drama genre.


REASONS WHY...

- I think it will be a lot easier to create a clear and well-understood 2 minute opening for this genre rather than a horror, as the storyline never really gets set in the first 2 minutes of a horror film... so my choice will hopefully minimise confusion in my opening sequence.

- This type of genre I think will be a lot more fun to play around with. Especially with the natural lighting. I won't be using any fake lighting (or at least as minimal as possible) for this, as I want viewers to be able to relate to the film and make it look realistic to meet the conventions of a social drama genre.

- I will also be able to think of a story line a lot more easy for a social drama rather than a horror, as I can relate more to this genre of film (as opposed to horror) so the storyline won't be far fetched or exaggerated and I can portray it more within the first 2 minutes.

Horror Research

POSITIVES...
 
- Horror movies would be a lot of fun to make. Doing all the special effects and props would be very interesting and I would enjoy that a lot.
- The actors in it wouldn't have to be really good at acting, as horror movies focus very much on the special effects.
- Story lines for horrors aren't hard to think of, they don't have to be complicated or dynamic in such ways that social realism's have to be. Horror movies all tend to have a basic outline of what's going to happen - people are trying to protect themselves, but then most of them die and usually one or two get out alive - this would be very helpful and simple to follow. I would also be able to exaggerate more, it doesn't have to seem very realistic as the audience will believe its happening even though they do know in the back of their minds that the possibilities of whats going on in the films are really unlikely.

- If you have a good open to a horror movie, you will engage your audience straight away. In a lot of cases with horror movies it takes a while to get into and get to the 'good bits'.



for example, silent hill (not a British horror) but it takes a while to understand what's going on and takes a while to get into before you actually are interested.

NEGATIVES...

- If you get the first 2 minutes of the film wrong or boring, you will have lost a lot of your audience as they won't be interested in watching the rest of the film. It's hard to get a good balance between giving too much away and not giving out enough details in the opening sequences.
- It will be tricky and fairly expensive to make and edit. The special effects will cost a lot more than they would for a social realism film, and it will take a lot of time when editing to edit the scenes to how you want them.

- Horror films genuinely focus on the special effects area of the film, so this is much more reliant on me to create a good atmosphere with effects and props, and make the effects just right without going over the top and putting people off.

Social Realism Research

Social Realism films are films that usually focus on low-class areas, and are genuinely more realistic and relate more to everyday life than a horror movie, for example.

above images : a 'this is england' poster

POSITIVES...

- Creating a 2 minute opening sequence for a social realism film wouldn't be too hard to do, in terms of costs as these films are usually low-budget.

- My age is within the age range that social realism films are usually aimed towards, from around 15 to 30 years of age. As people this age are more interested in social realism and things that are going on around them. These films usually consists of characters of this age range too, so it is more interesting to this group of people. So I would be able to bring to the opening sequence a much more personal feel.
- The editing wouldn't be hard as social realism films don't tend to have a lot of special effects, so the first 2 minutes wouldn't be too far out of my reach to create.

- They are more realistic. I wouldn't need to think of an intense, complicated, dramatic storyline... as these films tend to be about things that could generally happen.


NEGATIVES...

- It could be hard to think of a story line to fit in with the social realism genre, as it would have to be something genuine and realistic. This could be a problem as it could be hard to keep it under control and not over-exaggerate with it.
- My experience of social realism films is very low. I don't know of many social realism films and its not something I'm greatly interested in. Therefore I would have to do extra research to find out about how the opening sequences of these films include.
- These films rely greatly on good actors. It may be hard to find people, who are really good actors, that would be willing to give up a lot of there time to act in my opening sequences.

Preliminary task final film

I think our preliminary task turned out really well considering its the FIRST FILM me and Lauren have both planned, filmed and edited. I have definitely learnt a lot from doing this.

I really liked the way we did the continuity editing, I didn't think it would turn out as well as it did. I'm pleased with how it all flows together - especially with the variety of shots. The shots could have been done better, but for a first attempt they were pretty good. We included all the shot types (180degree rule, match-action, shot/reverse shot and eye line-match) which makes the film more effective in the way that it looks more professional.

The quality of the film could be improved, e.g the lighting and effects, but with the time constraints we had, this was hard to try and manage. although for my coursework I will definitely learn from this to bring in artificial lighting and plan out a lot more time to edit.

The sound effects in the film made the whole film join together and flow a lot better, the music really suited the feel and atmosphere I was trying to create so I think this worked really well. I also added sound effects - e.g, the door opening squeak - to add more emphasis onto that movement, as the natural sound of it opening wasn't really loud or effective enough.

Animatic!

This is my animatic

Changes from the storyboard

THE CHANGES THAT WE MADE...


We had to change the genders of both our actors (to actresses), because we couldn't find people that had time when we did to film. However the actresses both did a great job and acted very professionally.

Another change we made was in the finish. instead of having the teacher pull out water guns, we had the teacher turn into a monster... This was mainly to do with the fact that we couldn't actually find water guns anywhere before filming, so we decided to change the idea to work with what we did have - monster masks.

Process of filming the preliminary task

FILMING PROCESS...


We started the filming process on Friday afternoon, it's going very successful so far.

We plan to finish filming on Monday afternoon and hopefully the editing will be done that evening! We have many film that we we can cut out and that we can use to put on the blog to show some of the filming process.

CHALLENGES...

We faced quite a few challenges during filming, mostly because we are new to media and are getting used to the equipment. We didn't realise until half way through finishing our filming for the day that we filmed all the wrong parts because we didn't stop filming one scene at the right time... this was a MAJOR set-back and we had to re-film all the bits we thought we had but hadn't!

Another challenge we faced was we couldn't get a teacher to play the teachers role on the Friday afternoon, so this is why we have to finish filming on Monday.


tuesday 4th oct:

today we had to find another person to act in our film as the original teacher was not able to do filming. this was a challenge and we had to change the gender of the 'teacher', but they acted very proffesionally so the filiming worked really well.
we were unable to film on monday, so we had to finish off filming this morning, and also do all the editing.

we have learnt from this that we need to plan our time more efficiently, and plan out enough time for us to be able to change dates.

Preliminary task

OUR SET PRELIMINARY TASK WAS TO FILM...

1. A person walking towards a door
2. Opening the door
3. Walking through the door
4. Sitting down next to someone
5. Having a conversation with the person

MY PRELIMINARY TASK BRIEF...


Our preliminary task is based on a kid at school who gets sent to a teachers office from his class, and he is getting more and more nervous on the way to getting told off as he knows what he's done wrong. However the pupil is going to look really cute so the audience like him anyway. The teacher is scary but then decides to punish the kid in a funny way.