Group 044’s (Lee, Ellie, Louie and Carla) Presentation

For planning, we looked at different social realism films like “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Adulthood”. Our film genre is social realism, so we can use the features used in these films in our opening scene. The features are:•Camera angles to show view of bystander.•Story centered around crime.•Story involves teenagers.•Location of story a poor area with a lot of crime.•Involves the story of a good criminal and a bad criminal against each other.

Our story

Our story begins with a long shot of the area the scene is set in. Thereis a shot of two muggers walking down the street, talking that theyneed to mug someone for money. The scene cuts to two drug dealerspreparing drugs in a house. The character is going to deliver the drugssomewhere and the other drug dealer threatens him if the drugs gomissing. The character goes out of the house to the street and startswalking, but he gets mugged by the two muggers. The muggers runoff, and the scene cuts to them looking through the bag. Their shockedwhen they find drugs. The scene cuts to the character talking to theother drug dealer, explaining to him how he lost the drugs. The drugdealer shoots the character, and the shot fades to the character lyingon the floor. The scene ends here.

Target Audience

For social realism films, teenagers are the target audience, sotherefore our target audience are also going to be teenagers. Weresearched this by looking at professional films of the samegenre and to see the majority of their audience and to see whatthe age group could understand the character’s situation.Another research approach is a questionnaire that we gave tomembers of the public to see which age group liked socialrealism films the most.

Characters

The first character is the person who delivers the drugs, the“good guy”. The “bad guy” is the drug dealer and maker and twocharacters who mug the good guy. The audience will fellattracted to the good guy because he is doing this as he has nochoice, which makes him innocent. The audience will hate thebad guy because he forces the good guy to do his dirty work forhim. The audience will also hate the muggers as they are beatingup the good guy who has done nothing. We are going to confirmthe audience’s preconceptions as it will make the characters andtheir situation easier for the audience to understand if theyknow the characters well.

Settings and locations

For our location, we will use Reigate. This is typical for socialrealism films as Reigate has some urban areas, like an socialhousing estate, in it that will give the feel that this is everydaylife for some people in low income areas. The location is alsopractical for us as it is easy for us to reach and it doesn’t takemuch time to get to Reigate. An example below of the locationthat we’re looking for.

Key scenes and effects

Suspense will be created at the end of the opening scene whenthe character will be shot and the audience will be left towonder whether he survives.Action will be created when the character gets mugged as thepace will be fast when this action takes place. There is enigma around all the characters as we don’t know whythe two drug dealers are dealing drugs for or why the muggersneed to mug people.

Mise-en-scene

Costumes that we are going to use are hoodies and jeansbecause this is commonly worn by the people who have thislifestyle in real life, so therefore the audience can see who thecharacters are meant to be.

Props – ladies handbag, powder (sugar/salt or flour) for drugs ina clear plastic bag

Lighting/colour – dark setting in the house, normal day light inoutside scenes (ideally cloudy, grey day).

Institutional details

Title: Working progress Production company: Working progressDistributor: Film 4Sponsors: Screen SouthFilm festival link: Edinburgh Film Festival

Editing Techniques

• Straight cuts for most transitions to keep it as realistic as possible (e.g. as in beginning of Lock Stock, Shifty)

• No Special FX as they are not used very much in social realism films

• Fade to black may be used at the end of the opening sequence where character is about to get shot. This will let the audience think about what has happened and what will happen next. This will also avoid having to show the shooting which could be very difficult to do properly.

• Titles will be superimposed over the top of the film content.

Group Roles

• LouieScript writer, director, acting.• ElleEditing, Special effects, acting.• CarlaStory planner, camera angles, angles.• LeeActing, scribe, props manager, in charge of scenery.

Outside advice

Have the two muggers at the beginning of the scene arguing thatboth of them don’t want to mug this person and that this is a lastresort. This way, the audience feels sorry for these characters,and will forgive them when they do mug the male character.