Welcome to MANIA

As a group we decided to do a Social Realist film, based upon choices and decisions that our main protagonist has to chose.

View our Final Teaser Trailer

View our Final Poster

View our Final Website 

View our Draft Teaser Trailer 

View our YouTube Account

View our Twitter

View our Facebook

Film Production Company

Every film has the name of their production company at the start of the film. We decided that as a group we would create our own one, this was so our trailer would seem more genuine and professional. It’s also individualistic as it wouldn’t have been used anywhere else. So the audience can instantly recognise the production company and link it to our trailer.

We decided to call our production company ‘Absolute Productions’ this is because absolute can be seen as being true and realistic to daily life, this relates back to our 'social realist' genre, as social realist films focus on topical and real issues of a modern society.

 The use of droplets is a representation of our trailer; this is obvious as the use of water droplets occurs twice within the trailer. The first is at the beginning of the trailer and the second is at the end of the trailer when a paintbrush falls in to a bucket of water. The fact these are the beginning and end images shows the significance of this image.

Evaluation Question 2 Script

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

As a group we decided that our ancillary tasks should all be linked so the audience are able to make a resemblance betweens the both the poster and the website. We chose to do this by having the same font in each task, as typography is a running theme throughout. We felt that this was effective as it meant the audience could instantly recognise our media task and could relate back to it.

We took a lot of inspiration form social realist films Fish Tank and This is England, we found that the titles were usually bold as to stand out and take your attention. We used this effect on our on all of our ancillary tasks, we used the font Helvetica amazing as we agreed that it stood out and has a gritty feel which relates back to our chosen genre.

The use of a tagline is an important factor in the advertisement of a film, it something that the audience will remember and will stay with them. Our chosen tagline relates back to the choice our main protagonist has to make, its hard hitting and also includes her love for art in the tagline

We the main inspiration for our poster from the film Fish Tank mainly due to the similar plot and genre, the photos of our main protagonist that we have used are also similar to those of Fish Tank.  The link has been made because both posters show a sad, fed up girl who wants to fulfil a dream she cannot achieve without risk. We decided to use different pictures for the website and poster to give our product more variety and to give the audience an idea of her struggle. The photos on the website all show our main protagonist in such a way that it makes the audience feel sympathy for her as the photos are mostly close ups of the girls face.

We looked at the websites for other films in our genre and found that the trailers were usually shown on the main page, this is so the audience can watch the trailer soon as they go on the website as it would be hard to miss, we decided ours should be the same, as by making it stand out more people are likely to watch it.

To combine our ancillary tasks and main product together we placed links to our Facebook, Youtube, Blogger and Twitter pages to allow an opinion from our audience, this was important as it meant our audience could participate in our media task and give us positive and negative feedback which could help further improve our final product. The date of release is also clearly shown on our website, this is to give basic information to the audience so they will know when to watch it.

We got the main inspiration for our poster from Fish Tank mainly due to the similar plot and genre. The use of a classification is important as it establishes your target audience, we used the rating 15 in our poster, and this is due to the sexual and emotional scenes seen in the trailer.

We used the Cannes film festival as a possible award in our trailer and on our poster, this is to let the audience to know about our genre as the Cannes film festival is usually associated with short independent films. Our ancillary tasks mostly conform to code and conventions of a social realist film, the shot of the dad with the belt in our trailer demonstrates this has it shows the struggle our main protagonist has in her way.

I believe combination of our main product and ancillary texts worked together effectively; each one is clearly linked as they use the same font and colour schemes throughout.

Evaluation Question 2

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

Roland Barthes (Enigma Code)

The Enigma Code is a theory by theorist Roland Barthes which suggests that a text (whether that be television, film, a poster etc) has a mystery which helps to attract the audience and make them more intrigued in the piece. It makes them ask questions regarding the text. For example in Thriller films or mysteries the question the audience may be wanting to know the answer to could be 'who committed the crime'.
Our trailer has elements of Barthes enigma theory as it is never revealed to the audience whether or not our main protagonist fulfills her dreams of art or stays at home with her abusive father.
This factor makes our trailer have an aspect of mystery which can lead to the audience becoming more intrigued in our product.

Publicity

To make sure that our trailer was seen by a wide variety of audiences we made sure we created accounts on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.
We also have a Youtube account so people interested in our trailer can track our progress and view various videos we have made during the process.
We made use of the website Survey Monkey, this was to create a survey for our audience so they could give feedback to our ideas.
It is important that we made our trailer widespread, as it allows our audience to give an opinion on our trailer and so we can receive feedback which can help us to further improve our trailer.
We placed links to these sites on our website and blog so the audience can easily access information.

Film Awards/Reviews

The nomination of awards is important for any film, if they show that they have been nominated to win a prize the audience is more likely to watch the film as its obviously of good quality.

Across Britain and The United States there are numerous movie awards, mentions and critique.

Examples: 

• BAFTA Awards
• Oscars
• Cannes Film Festival
• Evening Standard British Film Awards
• National Movie Awards
• London Film Festival
• Sundance Film Festival
• British Independent Film Awards

Reviews are also an important part of film, if theres good reviews from a newspaper or celebrity people are more likely to watch the film. Especially if its someone or something they look up to.

For our trailer we are going to use examples of this as it makes the film seem of higher quality, and shows that its been credited so more people are likely to view it.

We have decided to feature more independent films awards in our trailer because of our social realism genre.  Examples we could include are the British Independent Film Awards and Cannes Film Festivals, as these would be more realistic than being nominated for an Oscar.

Examples of films which have won in either the British Independent Film Awards or Cannes Film festivals include; The Tree of Life, The Pianist, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Senna.

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/

http://oscar.go.com/
http://www.bifa.org.uk/

Classification

Classification is an important factor in film, as it establishes what ages are suitable for viewing.

The classification for our film will a 15, reasons for this being:

Drug taking

Discriminatory behaviour

Potential psychological effects

Why we chose the 15 rating over other ratings:

Although 12's allow some drug use, they don't allow you to glamorise it.

Our trailer features only minor drug use and discriminatory behaviour,  and so isn't enough to make the 18 rating as there is no violence or strong sexual scenes.


An example of a film which is similar to ours and has the same classification is the film Fish Tank, this is due to there being portrayals of sexual activity, discriminatory language or behaviour and some strong violence.

Our trailer is of the same genre and has a very similar style to this film, so we decided it should be the same classification.


Features of a 15 include:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***')
• strong verbal references to sex
• portrayals of sexual activity
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

Depression

The father character in our trailer is going to be effected by depression. This will create another sense of sympathy for our main character, as she will be a young carer.

Through our research into depression, we found that this was not a topic easily used in films as it is quite hard to address and sad to watch. However, we will be using this in our trailer to provoke sympathy for our main character, and thus giving her an explanation as to why she turns to drugs and alcohol.

The main symptoms of depression are:

- Mood Swings
- Self harm
- Isolation- father finding it hard to get out of bed
- Angry outbursts - we will show father shouting at the girl


We hope to create a character in our trailer that will mimic the kind of frustration and sadness that someone in a real life situation feels, and can relate to.

An example of depression being used in film is 'Sylvia' released in 2003. The character sinks deeper and deeper into emotional isolation and emptiness, especially after her partner leaves her for another woman.

Props

The living room will have basic furniture in. The colours will be bland and washed out.

We will need alcohol bottles and white powder to represent drugs. Also cigarettes will be used in our trailer.

Art equipment will be set up in the girl's bedroom. Her room will be plain but with tacky pink bed sheets. 

Props include:
- white powder (flour) 
- vodka bottles, beer cans, shot glasses
- cigarettes
- art equipment (paint, paint brushes, canvas)
- depression drugs
- furniture
- letter

Costume

Our trailer is based upon the life of a working class girl therefore the costume that we include has to be of an affordable. We are going use fairly basic items of clothing such as leggings, plimsolls and a cardigan. The clothes we use have to show that this person does not really know about fashion and doesn't care much for there appearance. Fish Tank can be used as an example of this as she is working class and her appearance is not her main priority. She wears hoodies, trackies; mostly clothes that are comfortable.

           

The girls in the party scenes will be in different attire, they will be dressed in a more provocative manner. The clothes would include mini skirts, hot pants, bandeau's  crop tops etc. This also provides a contrast between the main girl and the others who are at the party.

The boys that will be in the party scene will all be wearing fairly similar clothing to show how they all want to fit in with each other. The clothing is most likely to be jeans, hoodies, polos, sweatshirts, t-shirts etc.

                        

Inspirations

We got ideas for our trailer from various different films and TV shows of a similar genre:


Fish Tank 

Fish Tank is a British Drama film which tells the story of fifteen year old Mia . We were especially inspired by this as it gave us the idea to give our character a sense of hope and purpose in the film. Mia's dancing abilities in Fish Tank helped us as a group to decide that our character should also have a talent which sets her apart from other people, which we decided should be art.


Skins

The party scenes from Skins were our main inspiration, we want to show how teenagers act at a party and what sort of things they are exposed to. The fast paced shots and quick edits which are seen in Skins will be very similar to what we will use in our trailer.

Researching Film Companies

Film 4

Film4 Productions is a British film production company owned by Channel 4 film company. It is a large contributor to British Film making. The company cut its budget and staff significantly in 2002, due to increasing losses, and was re-integrated into the drama department of Channel 4. Because of this, social realism films are more likely to be taken on board because they are low budget and we feel this would represent our genre well. 


Studio Canal

This is a film distributor company working in the UK and Ireland. They release many films, some in a foreign language and independent British films in the UK. We felt that this would be a good choice, as it is a well-known brand in social realism films. One of the films released was called 'Au Revoir Les Enfants' which we think depicts our genre well. 




IFC

IFC (Independent Film Channel) is an American film distribution company based in New York. It mainly distributes independent films and documentaries. We decided that this could be a possible choice as IFC has distributed films such as 'Fish Tank' which follows the social realist genre that we are using in our trailer.

Location Research

For the location of our trailer, we are going to film in quite rundown areas and estates to show our characters working class background.

Here are some locations that have inspired and guided us when choosing our location.

 Brixton
 West Kensington
 North London
 Hackney
 Manchester

Trailer Deconstruction 1 - Skins

Analysing Skins will help us to create the perfect party scene which is a large element of our trailer. We can get inspiration from the actions, costumes and attitudes of the characters. 

Sound

All the sound in this clip is non-diegetic. The music used sets the scene from the beginning; the quick tempo lets the audience know that this programme is associated with teenagers and their party lifestyles. The song maintains its quick tempo throughout the clip until the end where the music eventually slows down suggesting that the maybe the party has finished and the character on screen are beginning to feel the effects of what they have done.

Mise-en-scene

Throughout the clip there are many props shown on screen which can be linked to youth. Objects are regularly thrown across the room which shows teenagers rebellious nature and how they are ‘out of control’. There is also frequent evidence of drug use on screen which suggests that teenagers are irresponsible, and enjoy disobeying the rules. The toys such as the tricycle and the water pistol can be linked to the idea that teenagers don’t want to grow up and instead want to go back to their childhoods as they don’t have to take responsibility for themselves.  

Camera

The use of the camera in this clip makes the trailer seem quite in your face as there is constantly a person getting close to the camera. It uses a mixture of close up and extreme close up shots. This is mainly to show the characters facial expression, to demonstrate their excitement.

Editing

There are very fast cuts in this clip to give the trailer a quick tempo, this is linked to idea of there being a lack of control, and how teenagers lives are associated with a non-stop party lifestyle.

Twitter Page

Here is our twitter, click on the photo and press follow!

Check out our regular updates on what and how we're doing.

@maniafilm2013

Mood Board

By creating this it helps us envisage the mood we need to include in our trailer. We found some key themes as shown, and we concluded that we would focus mainly on the theme of addiction and frustration.

Social Realism In British Film

Social Realism in film began in the 1930s, they started by showing documentary films, this was first established by the director John Grierson who created films such as 'Drifters' and Industrial Britain. He decided in these films to show and give everyone an insight into the various careers and also the people behind those jobs. 

Social realism became most successful during the 1960s, this was when a new style of film was made known as, 'British New Wave' and to this day has influenced British film ever since. British New Wave is style of film which displays real life stories and subjects, they tend to be about how harsh the reality of working class Britain is. The stories they tell tend to be about peoples everyday struggle, trying to endure life in working class societies. The setting for social realist films is usually in run down urban areas.

The idea of social realist film began to develop in to something known as the 'kitchen sink' dramas, they were often referred to as 'angry young men' films. This was mainly due to to the focus of the films being on the social and economic problems a young male would endure in a working class societies. They established a male protagonist who attempted to escape society through the use of alcohol, sex, money and drugs. At this time there were many directors coming though who were creating social realist film, a few of these being Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson who were directors of the films 'This Sporting Life' and 'if....'.

Tony Richardson was a director most known or his work during the 1960s, he was a part of the 'free cinema', this was the practice of putting ordinary people with problems on to the big screen. This made the films he made seem more realistic as the featured actors weren't famous, they were merely just normal people. He is and example of a director that has adapted his films from types of literature and theatre which were full of social realism. One of his most famous films being 'A Taste of Honey' which was originally a play.

The early social realist films have largely influenced the film industry to this very day, and the films being made are still based upon the constant struggle in working class societies. The films, Ratcatcher, Billy Elliot and This is England are all modern day examples of the traditional social realist film, based around the working class communities attempt to survive at the bottom of the social hierarchy.