Signed Talent Release Forms

Talent Release Form Template

Chris has created this form to give to our main actors so that we have permission off of them to go on the blog. Once all actors have signed we will upload there signed copies onto the blog as evidence.

Filming Schedule

Casting

I have asked around for people willing to play the roles I created in the character profiles and have found people willing to play these four main characters:

Peter Warren: Dad

Peter Warren as Dad

Anna Gravett as Sarah

Daniel McLaughlin as Dealer

Tom Chapman as Shaun

Tom Chapman: Shaun

Anna Gravett: Sarah

We have also got a group of around six people who have volunteered to play as extras in scenes of the trailer with no main characters or scenes where the main characters interact with sub characters.

Dan McLaughlin: Dealer 

Character Profile- Sarah

Name: Sarah
Surname: Shaw
Age: 17
Occupation: Sixth Form

Background

Sarah is new to the area at the time of the film. Her life has been hard and she keeps herself to herself for the most part, trying to do better than how her parents lived. When she was younger she lived with her two parents in moss side Manchester and since she can remember the relationship was never a good one. They would constantly argue and fight, both were alcoholics and when they drank things became physical between them. It eventually reached the point where Sarah no longer found it safe to live with her parents and social workers stepped in to care for her when she was 8 years old.

She was placed in a care home and was adopted at the age of 10 by an older couple in their mid 50's and Sarah sees them as a grandparent figure. They are both kind and caring and showed her love that she had never been shown by her real parents who she cut all ties with. The elderly couple lived in Yorkshire a couple of hours drive from Manchester and it is here that she spent her teen years up until she was ready to do her A levels after getting straight A's and A* in her GCSEs.

Instead of staying in Yorkshire with friends and a loving family, she chooses a Sixth form college in the suburbs of Manchester. Her reasons being to put to rest her bad memories by staying in a location with easy access to where she spent her troubled childhood. She believes this ill help her move on with her life as even though she was happy in Yorkshire, she always had her past following her like baggage.

At the school she meets Shaun and develops a connection with him as she begins to discover that he is going through a similar situation she went through and she feels that by helping him she will also help herself the way in which her adopted parents helped her.

Character Profile- Dad

Name: John
Surname: Smith
Age: 49
Occupation: Warehouse Worker
Widowed

Background

Father of Shaun, John, prior to his wife's death lived a healthy and happy life with a decent job as a manager at a local textile firm, earning a healthy living to provide for his wife and young child. He was a family man at heart, always pushing to provide with the best opportunities and this was reflected in his decision to move away to the suburbs of Manchester away from the inner city estates where he had grown up, so that his son could enjoy a life that he was unable to have when he was younger, a life free of the gangs, drugs and crime that he had to endure.

For a time this decision proved to be worthwhile. He managed to keep his well paying job, the wife was happy and Shaun was turning into a hard working and respectable teenager. Pride swelled within him as he would see Shaun go from strength to strength with each year leading up to his GCSE's, coming home with reports of praise for his A grades he would continuously earn across all subjects.

However, he was beginning to notice subtle changes in Shaun's behaviour; coming home late and smelling of smoke. When he confronted Shaun he received an angered response to which he was shocked by and hurt. This was the beginning of the divide between him and his son  which was completely fulfilled with the death of his wife a month after there initial confrontation.

Destroyed by grief he turned to alcohol, becoming drunken and violent which completely destroyed any relationship he had left with his son. It lost him his job so he took up part time work doing manual labour at a Warrington warehouse in which he spends most of his money on drink and bills leaving Shaun to fend for himself. Has he turned Shaun on the path that he worked so hard for him to avoid?

Character Profile- Dealer

Name: unknown
Codename: Dealer
Age: 19
Occupation: Drug gang leader

Background

Despite his young age the dealer is notorious in his area where he has lived his entire life. Growing up he had a number of social problems starting with being raised solely by his mum when his dad received life imprisonment for murder during a robbery before he was born. His mum prevented him from ever seeing his dad believing that he would corrupt him through his misdeeds. Therefore he has never met his dad his entire life and so has grown up to hate authority because despite her best efforts, his mum could not control him as a child.

His first run in with the police was when he was seven years old after shoplifting with his mates. Since that first taste of crime he has gradually got worse and worse; Graffiti,vandalism, robbery, smoking in school. Eventually he ended up working for  a small time drug dealer selling at school and making deliveries to houses. When his boss was arrested when he was 17 he assumed the position as head of the gang and since then has been busy making contacts to build up his control over his area.

He brought in new and addictive drugs that were low in use in the area but 2 years later in the period in which the period in which the film takes is when he entrusts a new and rising member of his group, the main character Shaun, with the dealing of the drug at his local sixth form.

The character is violent, controlling and relentless which will be shown in the narrative in his quest to deal with Shaun towards the end of the film.

Character Profile- Shaun

First Name: Shaun
Surname: Smith
Age: 17
Occupation: Sixth Form

Background

Shaun lived with his Mum and Dad in the suburbs of Manchester and like any typical family they argued and shouted, yet they still loved each other dearly. They were close and would always spend time together and Shaun used to enjoy these times when he was young, going for walks in the park and bike rides with his dad were some of his most cherished memories.

Throughout his school life, from primary to high school, he worked hard at his work and remained popular among his peers and so retained a large group of friends who were always supportive and good to have a laugh with. However all this changed with the death of his Mum.

The news came as a complete surprise as no sane person would think that your mum would walk out of the front door in the morning to never walk through again after dying in a car accident. Like water from a bath, Shaun's energy and life was drained away in the weeks following his Mum's funeral. his Dad had taken up drinking leading to violent confrontations as Shaun confronted him about it. These fights tore their relationship apart and they now no longer speak.

Shaun has since fallen into a bad crowd, selling and taking drugs supplied by the local dealer. The film centres around Shaun's dark path down a road of self destruction in which it appears there is no way out. As the film progresses web begin to see hope for Shaun but will it be a happy ending?

Location Conception Moodboard

I have created this moodboard in order to give me inspiration as to what I will look for when I go out to do my location research, therefore I now have an idea of the types of locations that would be ideal for our trailer setting. All the pictures I have found relate to the narrative and moodboard we created so this will help me to find similar locations to film in.

Group Roles

In order to spread our research work equally we have decided to split the roles between us so we can focus on them in more detail to create the best trailer that we can.

Group Roles:

• Sam Warren: Location and Costume
• Chris George: Camera Shots and Editing
• James Scott: Lighting and Props

I will be looking at location and costume. When looking at locations to film, first I will create a moodboard of pictures that would best represent our narrative using existing pictures and photos then I will search for similar locations that we could use in order to create a similar effect to that shown on the moodboard. The environment I will be focusing on is urban because that is a common setting in British drama films.

Story Board

This storyboard details the chronological order of shots in the trailer and some of the main angles and transitions we want to capture in the trailer.

Final Narrative

This narrative is the combined ideas of Myself, Chris George and James Scott as we have found the most similar aspects of our narratives and added them to the main narrative to involve all our ideas in the production. Also by studying the narratives we were able to decide which ideas were unachievable due to equipment and budget therefore we wouldn't have problems when we come to those points in filming.  I like our finished narrative as it is designed to be hard hitting and realistic because in reality things are rarely an ideal or happy ending but everything has a message. The death of the main character is sad but the final part of the film would show his potential and what could have been, therefore sending a clear message that making the wrong life decisions will ruin what potential you had, therefore you should remain on task no matter what life throws at you.

The main character is a 17 year old male who attends his local high school to study for A levels. However he leads a troubled life as early in his teenage life his mum died, driving his dad to alcoholism and an abusive relationship between father and son. They would constantly argue and bicker over the drinking and most issues that faced them, the petty arguments eventually led to physical confrontations that would ensue whenever the main characters father would drink heavily and as the months passed on this became every night.

Originally Shaun was an A grade, punctual and attentive student at school. He had a large group of close fiends with similar but also different interests to himself which complimented his ability to communicate with anyone no matter what background they had and this made him a very likeable character. It was unlike Shaun to get into trouble for anything with anyone, always did what he was told and finished classwork and homework on time with the occasional late hand in. He and three of his friends were very active together going to the GYM most of the days of the week and playing football on the weekends which kept him healthy and got him away from problems at home.

The characteristics that his father has past on only become prevalent later in the plot of the film. Before this the character starts hanging around with a friend he has met through his other close friends and he soon realises that this persons has different pass times than he and his normal group of friends do. This person introduces the main character to smoking cigarettes at first ,which is unhealthy but not too bad but as the weeks go by this escalates to harder drugs and getting up to criminal activities such as theft. He does these things to get money to purchase the harder drugs as he cannot hold down a part time job with the constant absences and going in late he gets fired from most of them.

Because of his regular drug use our character developed a working relationship with the dealer and began to sell drugs for him at school discretely as a way of making money to pay for necessities at home and personal items as his dad was still absorbed in alcoholism and spending the majority of money on himself. Despite the characters lifestyle he still managed to get 7 A-C grades at GCSE securing himself a place at his schools sixth form. Unlike the other students his priority wasn't to get the grades he needs for a better life but to keep him self close to his regular customers. By now he had developed enough trust to start selling harder drugs to his customers and was entrusted with introducing them to cocaine. This brought him an increased income, but his "mates" from high school who failed their GCSE's were stuck as runners, delivering drugs to houses that had ordered from the the dealer. They become jealous and begin to harass the character questioning him why he was abandoning them when they were the ones that made his "success" possible. This leads to a fist fight between the main character and his best mate that would also have a strong narrative within the early film to establish him as a character, but the main character ends up winning the fight and the mates split up with a sour taste lingering in their mouth.

As the weeks progress the main character becomes friendly with a girl who is new to the sixth form and doesn't know about his life and so as they begin to talk after sitting next to each other in a class, they begin to fall for each other. As they begin to date the main character opens up about his life and instead of her abandoning him like he expected she stays and helps him to turn his life around. Our main character begins to study for his subjects and gradually starts to move away from the life of a drug dealer eventually cutting ties with the dealer and his associates to go straight. He even begins to try and reconnect with his dad despite him still being a drunk, but years had passed since his mother death and their physical fights had decreased once the protagonist could fight back. they began to talk and slowly rebuild the relationship they had lost.

Around two months pass without the dealer having any contact with the main character and so he sends one of his enforcers to check out the situation by sending him to his house to ensure that he doesn't tell anyone about what he knows. The enforcer finds the house and knocks on the door. The protagonist opens it and immediately recognises the enforcer as one of the dealers people and tells him he is no longer under his employment as he can better himself through lawful means. The enforcer reacts by threatening the protagonist in order to ensure his silence, threatening him and his dad. Although the protagonist had been clean for two months and no longer associated himself with his criminal contacts he still had the mentality that had been drilled into in recent years. To not take threats and respond with violence. He grabs an empty beer bottle his dad had left by the door and glasses the enforcer over the head cutting him deeply. Surprised the enforcer recoils back in pain and the protagonist puts the broken bottle against his throat and tells him if any of his men come back he will do permanent damage to them. Clutching his head the enforcer runs off to inform the dealer of the confrontation and the protagonists words.

After hearing about the confrontation at the protagonists house the dealer decides that the protagonists knows too much about his operation and needs to be silenced. He orders a hit on the protagonist and tells his old friend to do it to make it more personal for the protagonist glassing his enforcer.

The friend knew where the protagonist lived and the route he took to and from school. He gets two of his other mates to help him ambush the protagonist on his way to sixth form and decides that the side street by the river is the best place to do so. They make there way to the spot the next day and he orders his two mates to sit on a wall and chill for a a bit whilst he took position in a hiding spot. When the protagonist arrived he would spring his ambush.


Unaware the protagonist walks down the passage holding his folders when he spots the two the two teenagers sitting talking by the wall and recognises them as the enforcers runners. He decides to walk past them to show them he isn't afraid of the dealer or his threats when both of them stand up and block his path. Before the protagonist can react his old fiend jumps out from hiding holding a knife and hearing him come up behind him the protagonist turns around to see his attacker as he plunges the knife into his stomach. The two lock eyes and pause for seconds that feel like hours before the attacker twists the knife and pulls it out and the group run off in multiple directions. The protagonist falls against the wall and holds onto his wound. His breathing raspy and his body cold he looks down at his wound and sees nothing but bright red. Looking up at the sky the thinks of the past few months and how he was changing his life around for the better and the girl who made it possible. He smiles as he thinks of her and looks once more at his wound. Despite what has happened, he wouldn't have changed  his decision to go straight he thought as he looked up once more. They were the best two months he had had in years and he was happy that he had tried his hardest to fix his his life. He smiles an even wider smile. Then he's gone. 

Production Company

For our film we think it is most suitable to use Film4 Productions as our production company seeing as they have regularly worked on low budget British Drama films, including:

• 12 years a slave
• East is East
• Fever Pitch
• Mr Turner
• London Kills Me
• Nowhere Boy
• Once upon a time in the Midlands
• Suffragette
• Iron Lady

It has produced both successful and unsuccessful films, that have been popular or barely heard of which makes it suitable for our production because our film is low budget and targeting a niche audience in the British public which Film4 caters towards with the majority of its films.

Decision on Film Narrative

Today we had a discussion about which narrative to use for our trailer and so we had a discussion on the pros and cons of each and how we would film it. We came to the conclusion that we shall use aspects of both Chris's and my own narrative because we felt they were the most in depth and because they are similar we can incorporate each others ideas into the trailer.

Left: Sam Warren    Centre: James Scott   Right: Chris George

Narrative Mood Board

Font Ideas

Using the website "www.dafont.com", I have identified a handful of unique fonts that could be acceptable to use in both the ancillary products and trailer of the film, based on their aesthetics and how it relates to the films setting.

This first font style is based off of graffiti art styles found on city streets and is representative of the gang culture that is seen in the narratives we have established so I feel that it suits the setting and narrative the trailer is trying to show. The thick, bold, upper case lettering also make it easily legible making it applicable for use on the posters and magazines as people can immediately identify the name of the film.

This is my least favourite of the fonts I have looked at as it just seems a bit boring and plain. The only thing that is unique about it is the cracks in parts of the letters. This may be representative of the main characters life being fractured in my narrative however the overall aesthetic of the font is boring because it doesn't look too unique and could just be a standard font if it didn't have the cracks.

I like this font because it looks like faded graffiti as if it was made with intent and purpose but over the years was forgotten about. This could be seen as the reason why the character in my narrative joined his gang. He had is reason, to have some sort of escape from the life he was living, but over time this reason faded and gave way to new reasons such as addiction and money. The downside to the font is that it might be hard to read on a poster or magazine so, although interesting, it may not be the best choice of font.


                                                                                                 

I find this font the most eye catching due to the contrast between the black/white backgrounds and the colour of the letters making each letter stand out. The randomness instead of a pattern also makes it seem slightly chaotic which is representative of the main characters life. I feel that this would be best suited to the trailer instead of the ancillary products as this would be good with effects added to it, however I think on a poster or magazine it would look a bit too out of place.

The final font I have looked at I think would look good on a poster or magazine due to its bold, block style and upper case lettering making it stand out. The scratches at the bottom look like scars, which many of the characters would carry both physically and mentally, making it suitable for the narrative.

Font Research

Font is extremely important for all aspects of the course. It has to be unique and eye-catching but also fit in with the theme of the film. The same font can be used across all the media platforms we will be using; poster, magazine and trailer, as a recognisable brand that an audience can identify with.

Examples:

 This font is from the film " Adulthood". It is the follow up to kidulthood and has many of the same characters from the first problems dealing with the events of the previous film. The font is big and bold helping it to stand out on the poster but the one lower case "d" helps the audience to understand that the characters are not fully grown adults as some act the exact same way as they did in the previous film. 

Greenstreet's font is designed to look like a common street sign that you see on the pavements across Britain and helps to convey the idea that the group in the film is a small community in one area. The wear and tear on the sign is also representative of the violence of the film, which is one of the key aspects and draws of the film considering the subject is football hooliganism. 

This Is England also has a font that fits in with the theme of the film as it uses the Union Jack colour scheme for the font and so represents the themes of nationalism in the film.

Starred Up has quite a basic font style but has a metallic apparel to it signifying being locked up behind bars, identifying the setting as being a prison. 

Legend has multiple fonts for the different magazines and posters that it has been featured on. They all match with the colour scheme and try to stand out by using contrasting pairs of colours such as blue and white, red and black and orange and black. I feel that using the same style of font throughout our course work will help to give our film an identity but using different colour schemes for the different products will allow for more diversity and creativity.

BBFC Rating

BBFC rating inform the audience of a film the minimum age legally required to buy the film or view it at the cinema. The reason given by the BBFC for their rating system is that it is there to protect the younger audience from content that is unsuitable for their age, or content that may be damaging to them. For each film they will review the language looking for references to violence, drugs, sex, discrimination and more in order to judge the most suitable age rating for the film.

The ratings are:

• Universal
• Parental Guidance
• 12a
• 12
• 15
• 18
• R18

We have decided that our film will be rated 15 because of the strong violence and drug references throughout the film that are not suitable for younger audiences. If we were to censor aspects of the film in order to show it to a wider audience in the terms of age, then the realism of the film will be dumbed down and so it will not have the same impact as we initially intended.

However it isn't appropriate to create a trailer with high levels of violence and foul language, therefore it would be better to make a greenband trailer, which informs people of the narrative for the film through the trailer but cuts out aspects that would have it either band from airing on television or restricted to later television hours or just for online viewing. Redband trailers are trailers that are restricted due to containing scenes which aren't suitable for all audiences.

Magazine Comparison

Magazine Analysis- Total Film

Magazine Analysis- Empire

Magazine Analysis-This Is England

Updated Narrative Idea- Young Breed

I have decided to change my narrative idea as I don't like the story I created for the first idea as I feel that some concepts of the film are too unbelievable for the narrative to have the desired effect of being dramatic and inspiring sympathy towards the character. I want to keep some of the outlining plot points such as the character being a sixth former and a strong drug present in the film.

The main character is a 17 year old male who attends his local high school to study for A levels. However he leads a troubled life as early in his teenage life his mum died, driving his dad to alcoholism and an abusive relationship between father and son. They would constantly argue and bicker over the drinking and most issues that faced them, the petty arguments eventually led to physical confrontations that would ensue whenever the main characters father would drink heavily and as the months passed on this became every night.

With a non existent relationship with his father and no comfort at home, the character fell into a bad crowd at school around halfway through his upper school life, just before his GCSE's. They lead him down a path of no return as they introduced him to small times drugs and the local supplier in the town. After a year of recreational use and hanging out with the group of lads the character had been excluded from school several times for fighting and being caught in possession of cannabis leading to confrontations with the police.

Because of his regular drug use our character developed a working relationship with the dealer and began to sell drugs for him at school discretely as a way of making money to pay for necessities at home and personal items as his dad was still absorbed in alcoholism and spending the majority of money on himself. Despite the characters lifestyle he still managed to get 7 A-C grades at GCSE securing himself a place at his schools sixth form. Unlike the other students his priority wasn't to get the grades he needs for a better life but to keep him self close to his regular customers. By now he had developed enough trust to start selling harder drugs to his customers and was entrusted with introducing them to cocaine. This brought him an increased income, but his "mates" from high school who failed their GCSE's were stuck as runners, delivering drugs to houses that had ordered from the the dealer. They become jealous and begin to harass the character questioning him why he was abandoning them when they were the ones that made his "success" possible. This leads to a fist fight between the main character and his best mate that would also have a strong narrative within the early film to establish him as a character, but the main character ends up winning the fight and the mates split up with a sour taste lingering in their mouth.

As the weeks progress the main character becomes friendly with a girl who is new to the sixth form and doesn't know about his life and so as they begin to talk after sitting next to each other in a class, they begin to fall for each other. As they begin to date the main character opens up about his life and instead of her abandoning him like he expected she stays and helps him to turn his life around. Our main character begins to study for his subjects and gradually starts to move away from the life of a drug dealer eventually cutting ties with the dealer and his associates to go straight. He even begins to try and reconnect with his dad despite him still being a drunk, but years had passed since his mother death and their physical fights had decreased once the protagonist could fight back. they began to talk and slowly rebuild the relationship they had lossed.

Around two months pass without the dealer having any contact with the main character and so he sends one of his enforcers to check out the situation by sending him to his house to ensure that he doesn't tell anyone about what he knows. The enforcer finds the house and knocks on the door. The protagonist opens it and immediately recognises the enforcer as one of the dealers people and tells him he is no longer under his employment as he can better himself through lawful means. The enforcer reacts by threatening the protagonist in order to ensure his silence, threatening him and his dad. Although the protagonist had been clean for two months and no longer associated himself with his criminal contacts he still had the mentality that had been drilled into in recent years. To not take threats and respond with violence. He grabs an empty beer bottle his dad had left by the door and glasses the enforcer over the head cutting him deeply. Surprised the enforcer recoils back in pain and the protagonist puts the broken bottle against his throat and tells him if any of his men come back he will do permanent damage to them. Clutching his head the enforcer runs off to inform the dealer of the confrontation and the protagonists words.

After hearing about the confrontation at the protagonists house the dealer decides that the protagonists knows too much about his operation and needs to be silenced. He orders a hit on the protagonist and tells his old friend to do it to make it more personal for the protagonist glassing his enforcer.

The friend knew where the protagonist lived and the route he took to and from school. He gets two of his other mates to help him ambush the protagonist on his way to sixth form and decides that the side street by the river is the best place to do so. They make there way to the spot the next day and he orders his two mates to sit on a wall and chill for a a bit whilst he took position in a hiding spot. When the protagonist arrived he would spring his ambush.

Unaware the protagonist walks down the passage holding his folders when he spots the two the two teenagers sitting talking by the wall and recognises them as the enforcers runners. He decides to walk past them to show them he isn't afraid of the dealer or his threats when both of them stand up and block his path. Before the protagonist can react his old fiend jumps out from hiding holding a knife and hearing him come up behind him the protagonist turns around to see his attacker as he plunges the knife into his stomach. The two lock eyes and pause for seconds that feel like hours before the attacker twists the knife and pulls it out and the group run off in multiple directions. The protagonist falls against the wall and holds onto his wound. His breathing raspy and his body cold he looks down at his wound and sees nothing but bright red. Looking up at the sky the thinks of the past few months and how he was changing his life around for the better and the girl who made it possible. He smiles as he thinks of her and looks once more at his wound. Despite what has happened, he wouldn't have changed  his decision to go straight he thought as he looked up once more. They were the best two months he had had in years and he was happy that he had tried his hardest to fix his his life. He smiles an even wider smile. Then he's gone.


I feel that this is an improvement on the last narrative I wrote because it focuses on less characters allowing for the audience to become more attached which is the purpose of a drama. I also feel it has the potential to be more hard hitting and gritty which helps conform to the conventions more of a British drama.

Consent Form

This letter was used to agree that all the people shown in the focus group gave there consent to be on the video and have it posted on our blogs. All those involved have signed it.