Analysis of the opening of a film

I have chosen to produce a social realist piece for my project; I feel this with my available resources and personal preference will be a logical choice for my project. I have chosen to analysis ‘This is England’, this is a new age take on social realism which has had great success with not only the specialist film audience but also a more mainstream audience through its catchy sound track and its close representation of the skin head culture and the national front movement. I think the target audience for the film would originally be more film literate audiences with a specific preference for social realism and other directors work such as Loach. There is the recognisable presentation of political movements and situations of the era in the very beginning showing a montage of clips from the time in which the film is set, these include shots of Margaret Thatcher, the Falkland's War, skinhead culture and riots throughout England. There is also the character role of Shaun, a young man caught in a situation which he is not in control of with only the desire to better himself, which is particularly typical to British social realism and the British new wave. I find this typical character role interesting and I feel that with the content I have chosen this will evoke the empathy I want the film to convey, however I think I am going to experiment with having more than one main character, even if they will both be from the same background and the same age. The location of the film is key in building a social realist genre. The film is set in a working class area, which is a very strong narrative convention as the genre is nearly almost in the point of view of a working class character role which allows the director to work around very controversial and hard hitting social and political issues. The introduction of Shaun is very interesting as there is initially a shot of a photograph and the reinforcement of the year shown in text no screen. The shot of the photograph is extremely important in creating a narrative expectation for the audience, especially a more intellectual audience as they will recognise this a enigma code and be intrigued by its initial unapparent connexion to the narrative. We of course then realise its extremely important as the situations Shaun experiences are almost brought on by the death of his father (the man in the photograph) The opening of ‘This is England’ has made me realise the sheer amount of footage I will need to create impact in the very few minutes of the beginning of the film. I will need to set up narrative expectation which is going to be relevant to the issues of the time I’m setting my production in, the present day. I also want to try and create a enigma code some where within the 2 minutes; although this will prove to be difficult I would like to include one to reach a more sophistication audience as this is one which true social realist pieces should interest.






My audience will be of C1-C2 on the Jincars scale, aged 18 onwards maybe ended at the late middle age group as the content of the genre may prove too explicit and challenging for a much older audience, just as it would for a younger audience. My audience I assume will be aspirers as the images of the working class and their troubles provoke ambition to better yourself. I think they will also be individuals or non-conformists as the genre is not typically mainstream. This will also target my film at more film literate audiences as they will go and seek more serious and realism based films instead of generic mainstream genres. Although I imagine the audience not to be of a working class area or occupation, I feel there is a possibility that they would come from this sort of background as these events and situations of the film will evoke emotion and as I said possibly creating a relation to the characters. The audience however I would imagine to be well educated and intellectual to have a preference for the social realist genre. I think my target audience would spend a lot of their free time watching films or reading a broad sheet newspaper, newspapers such as the guardian which includes a less mainstream section of reviews for film, art and literature. On the other end of the scale for my audience I think younger audiences may be interested in productions in this genre if they have an awareness of film or study film at a higher education level.








Synopsis

Two young best friends Ben and JJ are average teenagers, half way between childhood and adulthood they strive for acceptance by those around them, leading them to act out. The Sunday when their worlds get turned upside down was a day like any other day, boredom stricken they adventure out into the back fields of their council estate, tearing up the scenery around them and messing around as boys their age should. This is when they discover the corpse of a girl they recognise from the estate. They’re naivety shattered they realise she has overdosed thus capturing they’re attention into the highly dangerous drug scene of the area and emerging them into it before they can even realise.