Poster Analysis- This Is England

Trailer Analysis- This Is England

The trailer starts with the production company logos as the first shots however they only last a second as a drama films focus is on the story and British films tend not to have instantly recognisable institutions anyway so focusing on them would be a waste of screen time in the trailer.

Sombre music immediately  starts from the beginning of the trailer setting the tone for the audience into the topic that the film will be covering. The low angle wide shot of the beach is synchronous with the non diegetic guitar as it shows an overcast in dull lighting and a single person walking down the hill in the background. This all adds up to make a scene showing the conventions of British film, of being emotional, dark and with a depressing undertone. This feeling builds as we see the centre of the imagery being created. A young boy. The following scenes give us the information that he will be the main character as it gives us a background into his life, such as a hint that his dad is dead, he has no friends and is being bullied.

The mood changes as the guitar fades out to just the boy and the bully talking before a pan tracking shot of the Shaun running at the bully to hit him, demonstrating the violence in British Drama films. just as he hits him the screen flashes to a jump cut with more cheery, upbeat music typical of the 1980s to lettering in the style of a newspaper cut-out, again providing a British spin on film conventions. This is followed by iconic scenes of the period to familiarise the audience with important headlines of the time so they can identify with Shaun's struggle growing up in a country at war with high unemployment. It helps sell the realism the film is aiming for giving context to the world Shaun is growing up in.

The music changes to a more upbeat, Caribbean style, as the trailer introduces us to the other support characters that take in Shaun as part of the group. As one of the characters introduces Shaun to the gang there is a close up of each of their faces as we hear there names, so the audience will recognise them when they watch the film. Each characters outfit fits with the setting. They appear to be part of the punk scene that was popular in Britain at the time and the fact they are all wearing similar outfits gives them a sense of identity, belonging and unity.

Following this there is a montage of seeing Shaun's life improve with his new found friends as he enjoys life with slow motion shots of laughing, playing football and scenes where he gets a new haircut and clothes,making the audience happy for him because at the begging of the trailer we find out he was being bullied because of his clothes.

However, there is a change in the tempo and style of music once more as we are introduced to the character who appears to take Shaun down a darker path, seeming to be a racist nationalist. The guitar becomes electronic and tempo speeds up as we see close ups of Shaun relishing the scenes he's witnessing of a man threatening Arabian men and  boys with a machete and taking Shaun to EDL rallies. The man is adorn with small face tattoos associated with prison indicating to the audience that he will be the main antagonist in the film and take Shaun on a path that can only have a dark outcome.

This part of the trailer closes with the guitar suddenly cutting out with a bang and cut to black as the skinhead kicks directly at the camera, again highlighting the violence in British films, and the next scene is a shot reverse shot of a close up of  Shaun's mum asking if he is alright and when we see his face, he is clearly not ok, suggesting he has seen things a kid shouldn't see. Here the music once again becomes sombre as a montage of slow motion shots appear, fading away for each transition and all containing either a praising review or some sort of award.

The music continues to a final close up of Shaun as he stares sadly in front of the camera at something off screen before looking straight into the camera just as it transitions to the company credits and the trailer ends. This was used as the final shot as we see Shaun as he appears to be at an emotional low and the effect of Shaun looking at the camera is almost asking the audience to come and see his story and if he ends up in a lighter situation.

Audience Research Lesson

Today, as a class, we looked at methods in which we can research our target audience and how we can incorporate them into the development of our final product- the film trailer.

Things to consider:

• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Niche vs Mass Audience
• Target Audience
• Actual Audience
• Uses and gratifications

Ways to conduct research

• Quantitative-Statistical
• Qualitative- opinions, thoughts and ideas                                                                                         

Both these sets of data can be acquired through a questionnaire that has a mix of open and closed questions in order to get the audiences general opinion of how they feel about our genre of film and what we can do to make it more appealing and unique. The questionnaire itself mustn't have leading questions such as  "don't you think that..." as we want the audience to say what they think truthfully and not what will suit us as this will force us to make changes to cater the film to our audience making it better. In addition the questions should be straight to the point and not waffle on in order to avoid confusion.

Here is an example of a good questionnaire:

Here is an example of a poor questionnaire:

Another option would be to also do a focus group of around 6-10 people fore 15 minutes in order to hear everyone's views on the questions we ask verbally and to generate more of a discussion amongst our audience. The questions must be open ended in order to get the most out of the groups ideas and we must ensure that there is a clear purpose behind the questions and must:

• Determine what's popular
• Determine what the audience likes about the genre
• Determine where there are gaps in the genre that can be expanded on or what is overused

As a group we came up with some early ideas for questions that we could use in either our focus group or in our questionnaire. These include:

• Their opinions on the genre and why they have that opinion
• What they want from a film experience
• What aspects of British Drama need updating
• Thoughts on concentrating a film around one person vs a group of people
• Influences that we could take from other genres

Finally we were given a booklet outlining the things that we covered in the lesson.

British Drama Genre Conventions

British films tend to often fall under the genre of drama, however they have additional conventions to a typical drama film. For instance British films will, as a rule, have lower budget than its Hollywood counter parts and so although it may have the same core conventions as american drama films they cannot afford the same visual spectical of them and so take a more realistic and grittier approach to it. A prime example of this would be Titanic. It shares the same conventions as British drama films but is an overall much flashier film using CGI and special effects on a much grander scale shown by its increased budget to $200 million compared to Bronson's £230,000. The reason why Titanic had a larger budget is because of scenes such as the sinking scene that required huge amounts of funding to recreate realisticly, which is a convention of the drama genre.

Drama as a whole tends to follow these conventions:

• They are real life situations that can either be related to or are based of a true experience.
• Portray a journey of character development.
• Intense social reaction.
• A dramatic storyline used to drive the audience to various emotions.
• The biggest scene of drama is found in conflict between characters which can include inner or outer struggles depicting hardship and pain.
• Audience can relate to the characters.
• Uses climaxes and anti-climaxes within the structure in order to more emotion within the audience.
• A form of realisation at the end.

British dramas have these same conventions but add something that makes them have a more unique identity. Many British Drama films share these conventions:

• Violence is used in many British films as a way of expressing the brutality of life, especially in films denoting crime or in settings of a lower socio-economic background.
• Alcohol is a drug that comes hand in hand with the violence and so can be expected in films portraying hooliganism and teenage life.
• Britain can often be a dimly lit, glum environment and is reflected in the way British Dramas use their lighting in low key to portray this and to also create a grittier atmosphere, which has become a staple of British films and what makes them identifiable. 
• Sexism is used in British films as a way of empowering the male characters whilst making the females seem more vulnerable, adding to the emotion that the audience will feel in a typical drama film.
• Finally, a British Drama film will use British actors and actresses, not just out of convenience but also because the A list actors of Hollywood are to expensive for the typically low budgets of British films which means that they have to resort to lesser known actors from Britain.

Successful British Dramas that include these conventions are Kidulthood and Adulthood, Greenstreet Hooligans and Football Factory.

My Chosen Task And First Thoughts

The task I have chosen to do is the film trailer, accompanied with a poster and magazine front cover as the ancillary tasks. I feel quite comfortable with this task as I know filming techniques such as the 180 degree rule and how to edit, unlike during the AS coursework where everything was completely new to me. In addition I have thought about what sought of film I personally would like to make a trailer for that can be realistically shot to a good standard and have looked into films within the British Drama genre. I feel that this is a good genre to work on because I can relate to it (being British) and many films in the British Drama genre are shot on a low budget, such as "This is England" (£1.5 million) and "Bronson" (£230,000) staring Tom Hardy. Both these films were shot on a low budget with little use of special effects, meaning atmosphere and tension was built through the camera work and mise-en-scene, much like how myself and my group will have to shoot our trailer. My only real concern for filming would be our choice of people who can act for us as a film trailer is supposed to give a brief outline of the narrative of a film and so if the acting isn't believable, especially in a drama, then it may struggle to attract an audience. However I believe I can still make a compelling trailer and two high quality ancillary tasks if I get the research and production right.

Here are the trailers and posters to the two films that I previously mentioned in the blog to show you what I would like to base the way I shoot the trailer around and the sought of imagery I could use on the poster and magazine.

SWOT Analysis

I did a SWOT analysis of the tasks to see the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities we would have in each task and made a decision based on what we thought would suit us the best.