MUSIC influences: Mickybo and me, Trick or treat, Tyrannosaur, Submarine

Sound/Music

Music inspiration and research

Micky Bo and Me 
In Micky Bo and Me, at the start of the film they use slow music that builds up as it goes along to create tension during the chase scene. They also use a voice over to give use extra information about the date, time and setting and also gives us exposition. We have taken inspiration from this and have applied this dynamic to our own film as we thought that this was a very effective technique of informing the audience of key exposition. 

Trick or Treat
In Trick or treat we get rock music, mainly consisting of electric guitars, straight when the film starts until 5:48 seconds into the film. We have taken inspiration from this and have added the song Born to be Wild as non diegetic music in the Bad boy scene. As in Trick or Treat the rock music signifies that the character is an outsider as he is a fan of this genre of music however it is not the norm to listen to rock music in American 80s High school. It also signifies that he is a rebel. However in our film this genre of music is not used to indicate that Brad is an outsider as he is quite the opposite, but it does denote that he is a rebel.

Tyrannosaur

Music is one of he main components that we will use from Tyrannosaur. It uses slow acoustic instrumental music to create a sad and calm atmosphere but in comparison ours will get faster and more upbeat when we transfer into the shop scene. In our film opening however we will also have music running over the top but it will be soft acoustic guitar to start off with but then getting more upbeat as it progresses helping to signify our romantic aspect of the narrative. There is also a voice over which we will do also as we can hear what they are thinking which helps the audience understand key aspects about the character and setting.

Submarine

Sound and music are also other key factors that Submarine has. It uses slow acoustic music to set the scene as calm and relaxing whilst also connoting the romantic genre of the film. We can tell this by if we used the commutation test and replaced it with rock music it would have a huge change in the effect, as the genre would then be signified as a horror much like in Trick or Treat. We are going to get this effect by having a slow acoustic at the start eventually building up into normal speed.

EDITING: examples of editing techniques

Examples of editing techniques 

In Mickybo and Me the editing into 

the first shot is very smooth as it 

cross-fades in. Also half of the titles

 are with a black background and the

 other half with the film playing. This 

creates narrative enigma and also 

creates tension.

The first shot we see cuts into the film in24 seconds. The camera angle is slightly 

dutch which signifies something isn't right which also connotes with the mise-en

 scene of a rifle that there is some idiocy involved with this character. The low resolution 

of the shot also denotes that a hand held camcorder is being used; the dutch angle 

also exaggerates this. 

SHOOT 3: Tiles research, Mickybo and me, Love actually

Examples of titles we have researched

The titles in Mickybo and Me are all very 

simple which is typical of a social realist

 film. It is also a sans serif font which signifies 

this further. The spacing in titles is also 

significant as they are irregular connoting 

childishness which fits with the film well.

Also this title by saying 'introducing' shows that it has new actors in it as typical social realist films don't have well known actors in them.

In Love Actually the shot then 

fades into the title page. This 

font and colour is significant 

because of it colour and boldness

 it signifies a romantic comedy. We

 can tell this as usually a different bright

 colour is used to connote comedy and

 the boldness and sans serif font signifies

 romance.

SHOOT 3 influences: American Werewolf in London

 Even though originally we were influenced by the extreme long shot scenery shots from Submarine, I then looked into other examples of extreme long shots of moorland in the opening sequence. I found examples of this in An American Werewolf In London. These shots contain many of the same shot types and framing as Submarine. We decided to base our own shots on these.

Submarine

An American Werewolf In London

The film American Werewolf in London also uses unusual framing, making the land take up nearly 4/5ths of the frame. This is what we would want to do but the opposite way around so the sky takes up the majority of the frame. 

SHOOT 3: Titles research

Research
I also looked on artofthetitle.com. I found many different fonts used in title sequences

I really liked Fargo's font sequence as it like ours uses type over scenery as well as the interesting use of spacing between letters. I used this is our first rough cut.

These inspired me to try out different spacing between lines, words and letters.

In this I used spaces between letters

In this I used spaces between words

Again I used spaces between letters

In this I used spaces between the lines and words

However after analysis You've Got Mails tiles I also used their technique of making the name of the concerning person bold. Also You've Got Mail is a rom-com and their font used is very similar to ours, therefore this may signify that our film's genre is also a rom-com.

I made the concerning party's name bold to highlight their name

GENRE – SOCIAL REALIST CONVENTIONS: Sweet Sixteen, A room for Romeo Brass, 247, Mickybo and me, This is England

The social realist films that I have looked at are:

1. Sweet Sixteen (directed by Ken Loach in 2002) set in Scotland in 2002
2. A room for Romeo Brass (directed by Shane Meadows in 1999) set in working class Nottingham in 1999
3. 247 (directed by Shane Meadows in 1997) set in a typical English working-class town in 1980s
4. Mickybo and me (directed by Terry Loane in 2004) set in Ireland (Belfast) in 1970
5. This is England (directed by Shane Meadows in 2006) set in England (mostly filmed in Nottingham) in 1983

Common Themes

• A few of the films are set in the past (Mickybo and Me and This is England) usually during a time of political or in Mickybo and Me religious conflict. For example in Mickybo+me, set back in the 1970s, Belfast is divided by the religious conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants. This creates an unlikely friendship between the two young boys "whose friendship breaks down the barriers" (taken from the blurb of the DVD case). In This is England, set back in 1983, there is the conflicts of "dealing with the bitterness of outside influences such as racism and xenophobia, of mass unemployment and the fall out of the Falkland's War; Thatcher's Britain" (taken from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480025/). Also 2407 "denounces Margret Thatcher's 1980s and its reproductions on England's suburbs". (Taken from the blurb)
• All of these films are located or mainly set in working class areas, for example Sweet Sixteen is set in "the estates of Greennock",  in A Room for Romeo Brass make "exemplary use of working-class Nottingham Locations" (taken from the blurb of the DVD) and 247 is set in England's suburbs.

• 4/5 of these films contain a young main character/protagonist and all of them are male this shows that they are very male orientated. The only one that doesn't have a main young protagonist is 247 but it still does contain central younger characters. For example This is England's main character Shaun is 14  (left) and Sweet Sixteen's main protagonist is 15 year old Liam (right).

These themes reoccur or are mentioned repeatedly in the majority of the films
1. Drugs- Sweet 16 when Liam is forced by his farther to try and smuggle drugs over to his mother in prison.

2. swearing- is in all of these films.

3. violence- in all for example when Shaun in This is England gets into a fight with an older boy at school or in Sweet Sixteen when Liam is beaten up by his farther and uncle.

4. 'chavy' clothes - especially in Sweet 16 and 2407, but this isn't present in This is England as they wear clothes in the style of mod.

chavy costumes in Sweet Sixteen

5. chase scene- sweet 16 as they are chased by the police after vandalising a police bike, in mickybo+me when Mickybo is chased by older boys on his block for stealing their ball.

6. gang- in 2407 when we see the two rival gangs fighting over chips, mickybo+me when Mickybo says "Are you in a gang" and in This is England, but it is seen as a less violent gang that is more like a family than a gang that Shaun first comes into contact with compared to the violent racist gang he joins later.

Conventions 

• Location Shooting - The locations that are shot in social realist films are usually shot in a natural, realistic environment such as council estates or parks without the use of a studio unlike big Hollywood films.

• Types of Shot's - Usually in social realist films a lot of establishing shots are used to give the audience a bigger insight of the environment. Also handheld camera's are used a lot in a documentary style to get the preferred reading of a real life film.

• Unknown Actors - Normally unknown actors are used purely because film company's who produce social realism films cannot afford A-list stars to act for them.

• Semi-improvised scripts - Sometimes directors such as Ken Loach use semi-improvised scripts to make the film have more 'realistic' dialogue. He used this in the film 'Kes'.

• Social Issues - Many social issues are explored in social realist films such as in 'The Full Monty' where we see the issue of unemployment explored.

• Religious View's - Religious view's are shown in social realist films for example in 'East is East', the conflict between the farther being a committed muslim and the rest of his children wanting to be normal children growing up in Britain.

Music

• A varied use of music styles are used for example in Mickybo+me where upbeat Jazzy music is used to reflect the fast chase scene but also to dim out the violent side to this angry chase.  
• But in other films for example 247 the music is very subtle and light using strings which creates a more emotional mood which contradicts with the violence of the boxing. 

AUDIENCE/GENRE – ROM-COM

Rom-com audience

Rom-com definition  
Romantic comedies are hybrid films which by definition from http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms10.html, means "a film or production that combines or intersects two or more distinct genre types, and cannot be categorised by a single genre type; see also cross-over " this means that the films audience has widened as it is not restricted to just one genre so it will appeal to a wider fan base, there for increasing profits. 

British rom-coms rating in the US
Using information from http://boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=romanticcomedy.htm we can see that there are 3 British Films in the US top 50 (using the total gross) Romantic comedies from 1978 to the present day. These are: Notting Hill at 21, Shakespeare in Love at 27 and Briget Jones Diary at 47. 

BBFC ratings given to rom-coms 
From http://pro.boxoffice.com/latest-news/2013-09-11-uk-romcom-about-time-beats-riddick-with-27m-debut , we can see About time, a rom-com, received the largest gross (£2.7m) in the Top 10 Films in the United Kingdom and Ireland in September 6-8, 2013. They commented saying "It posted a comparable debut to films like 50 First Dates ($14.2M Cume), One Day ($13M), and The Time Traveler's Wife ($12.7M Cume). Universal is reporting that the time-traveling romantic comedy scored particularly well in exit polls among females over 25." This shows that rom-coms can do very well with the British public as many big hit films in the UK are rom-coms. 

Producers and directors 
A company that largely produces rom-coms are Working Title, they have produced the likes of Bridget Jones and Notting Hill both directed by Richard Curtis and which have both profited greatly globally.  Another main producer of rom-coms' is Woody Allen who has directed the likes of Annie Hall, Mighty Aphrodite and Scoop.

Target audience
Usually the audience is mainly female based but due to the comedy aspect it also appeals to men. The age target varies from teen rom-coms' to adult rom-coms', but the romcoms' usually range from 12-44. E.g 10 things I hate about you (directed by Gil Junger) is a teen rom-com' and the main audience age will be teens and adult rom-coms' like About a boy (directed by Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz) a larger older audience. 
Most rom-com ratings are 12 or 15, due to swearing or sexual content which will appeal to the 14-44 rating and that is a commonly used in rom-coms' due to the key love theme.  

GENRE – SOCIAL REALIST History

Social Realism History

What is Social Realism?
Social realism is a genre in film where filmmakers draw attention to the everyday 

conditions of the working class and the poor, and who are critical of the social 

structures that maintain these conditions. In the current era topics such as 

drugs, sex, money, religion and political views are normally highlighted as 

the key theme in Social Realist films; this has changed since the genre of 

social realism was first uncovered as it was mainly focused on political 

view's at the time; especially in the 1960s.
History

Kes Cover

Britain's contribution to cinema in the 1930s lay in a state-sponsorer documentary tradition that would feed into the 1940s mainstream. Producer Michael Balcon revived the social/aesthetic distinction when he referred to the British industry's longstanding rivalry with Hollywood in terms of 'realism and tinsel'. Balcon, in his position as head of Ealing Studios, would become a key figure in the emergence of a national cinema characterised by stoicism and verisimilitude. Combining the objective temper and aesthetics of the documentary movement with the stars and resources of studio filmmaking, 1940s British cinema made a stirring appeal to a mass audience. 

Ladybird Ladybird Cover

 Descendants of the realist flowering at the BBC in the 1960s, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh assessed the impact of the consumer society on family life, charting the erosion of the welfare state and the consensus that built it. Looking back, Loach's work seems to reflect the shift from the collectivist mood of the war years to the individualism of the postwar decades in its very form. Loach's films went from the improvised long-take naturalism of Poor Cow and Kes (both 1969) to the 'social melodrama' of Raining Stones(1993) and Ladybird Ladybird (1994), wider social issues now explored via emotional and dramatic individual stories. The breakdown of the collective consensus in postwar Britain seems to be captured in the tragicomic exchanges of Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993) and Secrets and Lies (1996). In these films, Leigh examined the fractures in domestic and social life wrought by divisive Thatcherite policies in an increasingly fragmented and multicultural Britain. If the New Wave short-sightedly blamed women for the blighting of British manhood, women in Loach and Leigh are often complex and powerful individuals.

Life is Sweet Cover

'Text above' 

Conventions 

• Location Shooting - The locations that are shot in social realist films are usually shot in a natural, realistic environment such as council estates or parks without the use of a studio unlike big Hollywood films.
• Types of Shot's - Usually in social realist films a lot of establishing shots are used to give the audience a bigger insight of the environment. Also handheld camera's are used a lot in a documentary style to get the preferred reading of a real life film.
• Unknown Actors - Normally unknown actors are used purely because film company's who produce social realism films cannot afford big stars to act for them.
• Semi-improvised scripts - Sometimes directors such as Ken Loach use semi-improvised scripts to make the film have more 'realistic' dialogue. He used this in the film 'Kes'.
• Social Issues - Many social issues are explored in social realist films such as in 'The Full Monty' where we see the issue of unemployment explored.
• Religious View's - Religious view's are shown in social realist films for example in 'East is East', the conflict between the farther being a committed muslim and the rest of his children wanting to be normal children growing up in Britain.

Social Realism Examples

List of social realist films

• The Full Monty (1997)
• Mickybo and Me (2004)
• Billy Liar (1963)
• East is East (1999)
• West is West (2010)
• Kes (1969)
• Naked (1993)
• Tyrannosaur (2011)

Here is 'Cathy Come Home' by Ken Loach