Product Research

Conventions of Social Realism Films

A British Social Realism Film is generally an exaggerated version of British reality.

British Realism films are usually based upon certain issues which can be seen in ordinary, every day society. Things such as gender, youths, sexuality, crime, drugs etc are emphasised within realism films. Most of these films are usually set in lower, working class areas with a degraded environment such as council estates. The cast within Realism films are usually youths or lower class families with typical gender roles - women stay home mostly, but they seem a lot more independent and strong willed, and males often work and dominate the household.

A British Social Realism film will acquire funding from different organisations. The amount that the government puts into these films depends on how effective they think the message delivered is.

In this topic for my AS Media Studies I will be studying the conventions of British Realism Films. I will be mainly focusing the codes and conventions used in the opening 2 minutes of both 'KES' and 'Twenty Four Seven', but also in other British Realism films. Such as:
-KES
-24/7 
-Bullet Boy
-Yasmin
-Summer
-The Full Monty 

After analysing the techniques used in these films, I shall then brain storm the most effective conventions and then apply them into my own film opening. By doing this I shall gain the skills to create the most professional and realistic opening two minutes. 

First 2 Minutes of British Social Realism films

Here is a table of 6 British Social Realism films. I watch the first 2 minutes of the films and recorded the amount of edits, characters, Locations and titles there were. These are the results:

From creating this table, I found that:
- Average number of edits is 13

- Average number of characters is 3

- Average number of locations is 3

- Average number of titles is 6 

I will use these averages when creating the opening two minutes of my own Brisith Realism Film.

Opening two minutes of KES


Here I shall analyse the opening of the Film 'KES'. I shall focus on just the first 2 minutes and the techniques used.



The titles are on for 19 seconds



The rest on the two minutes consists of only one shot showing a bed with 2 brothers lying in it talking. The shot is  mid long shot which manages to show both characters and the bed. The opening is very dark with only brief dialogue which is spoken with a regional accent which contributes to the British Social Realism techniques.  



Opening 2 minutes of Yasmin


Here I will study the opening 2 minutes of the film 'Yasmin' which is proven within the opening to be about Muslims within Britain. 



The titles last for 14 seconds.



There is evidence here of racial discrimination and the characters act as though it's an everyday thing which gives us a hint into what the film might be based upon. 

The opening scene shows a degraded comunity populated mainly by Muslims, suggesting that the location is a cultured area. There is evidence of racial discrimpination within the shot.

This is the establishing shot, setting the scene and showing the audience waht type of British country the town is situated

This long shot of a Muslim woman getting changed into traditional western clothes on the side of a hill, raises the question "Why is she being so secretive?". This technique may draw the audience in. 

Opening 2 Minutes of Bullet Boy

Here I will examine the opening two minutes of the film 'Bullet Boy' which is evidently about a young male that has been imprisoned. This instantly raises questions form the audience - Bathes Enigma Code. 

The titles on Bullet Boy are upon a black background, but then begins to fade into the first shot around 30 seconds in.  Also, the British Film Council fund this film, which is soon to be scrapped by the government. The Lottery will not fund British films. 

Dialogue does not begin until 1:06. The character we see is a young male wearing a grey hoodie in a prison cell. The colouring of the scene is very bright with the walls being white, which is a contrast to the dark scene seen previously. This connotates innocence. The scene centres around this male, which tells the audience that he is the main character.

Here a long shot is used to show the division the desk hold between the police officers and the male. This represents a sense of inequality, suggesting the male feels seperated from society. It is in this scene that we hear the male speak for the first time. His strong London accent is a convention of British Social Realsim films.

The editing increases in pace as the opening sequnce comes to a close and cross-cutting is used between the first male and the male in the car. This establishes a connection between the pair and creates tension and suspense.

Shane Meadows


Shane Meadows is well known for his British Realism films. He was born on the 26th December 1972 and is well known for his work directing such films as '24 7: Twenty Four Seven', 'Once Upon A Time in the Midlands' and 'This is England'. Meadows started his career by volunteering at Nottingham based Intermedia Film and Video Ltd who let him borrow cameras and recording equipment providing that he worked for them for free. He then started recording his own short films, using friends and family, and showing them at an old cinema. Meadow's first feature length film was '24 7: Twenty Four Seven' which lacked attention from modern audiences who didn't want to watch a black-and-white film. However, he had much more success at the box office with 'This is England'. In fact the film was so popular, a spin off series was made for Channel 4 entitled 'This is England '86'. The series was also incredibly successful, so much so that a second series 'This is England '90' is in the early stages of pre-production.





Andrea Arnold

Andrea Arnold is one of the few female British film directors. Andrea is well known from her film 'Fish Tank' - made in 2009. The category for this film is a British Social Realism. She has also created a film based upon the book Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte. Andrea also writes screenplays for films, including three in which she directed herself. These films are Wasp, Milk and Dog. 


She managed to receive an award for her short film 'Wasp' in 2004. She also received a BAFTA award for her film 'Fish Tank', and has recently been awarded in the Queen's New Years honours List in 2011.

Who finances British Realism Films?

Films are mainly funded by the government, film organisations and independent investers.

Many of the British Realism Films created are funded by Working Title Films.

Working Title Films was set up by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1983 and is situated in London. Bevan and Eric Fellnar now co-own the company. In 1992, Polygram became the company's coporate backer. Later, in 1999, Pollygram merged and was sold to Universal Studios

Vertigo Films was created in 2002 and was founderd to create and distribute 'comercially driven independant films'. It was orginally founded to fund The Football Factory and It's All Gone Pete Tong. Now, its aim is to produce four films and distribute four films each year.

The National Lottery has invested more than £60  million in 79 features. Whilst the National Lottery does not fund  the whole film ( They fund on average 26% of a films budget ) they play a key role  in funding home grown films.  National lottery money is handed to the UK Film council who then use it where they deem neccesary. However as funding for the UK film council is being cut funding for UK films is being sought for from somewhere other than The National Lottery

Barthe

Barthes suggested the idea that a text can have many meanings when looking it from another perspective. These meanings can be complete opposites. He came up with the idea that its like a ball of thread, and each separate thread has a completely different meaning. You can pull one out and see it from one perspective, and then pull out another which might have a completely different meaning.

Barthes separated these threads into two main categorise which he named 'Narrative codes' These are:

Action code - Plot events that lead to other actions. E.G. If one character threw a brick into a window, we'd expect for the owner of the window to become angry.

Enigma codes -  Plot events that raise questions by the audience.