Narrative/Performance
Throughout the film the protagonist (Tate) is shown to not even talk at all; this shows how much he wants to keep away from society and the people around him. He is a very quiet and introverted person, with the only person he did talk with and opened up to was his ex-girlfriend. We got this idea from the British social realism (BSR) film Fish Tank, as the main character from Fish Tank is also shown to be very secluded from her surroundings and doesn't even attempt to open up into the paths of social interaction and happiness. As our opening sequence progresses, as Tate finds out his girlfriend cheated on him, he tries to escape this awful reality by heavily drinking and getting himself into trouble outside. His movement after this becomes very inconsistent and gingerly; to show how much he is trying to soothe the pain of his betrayal by drinking to the extent of unable to be control his actions. We also got this inspiration from Fish Tank as the main character is seen to drink a lot of alcohol to escape from her troubles and pain. We have shown the solitude and isolation of Tate from society by excluding the use of close up shots on him. This will be able to emphasise and give an idea of how far away Tate likes to keep him self from others around him, as he dislikes being close to people.
Settings/Location:
We have decided to set our location in the streets of Vauxhall and Stockwell. Originally we filmed a majority of our opening sequence near the River Thames in a very quiet and rather posh location. We believed that since the number of people who walks through this path is rather low, it will make filming some of our scenes here rather efficient and worthwhile. However, from editing and watching the scenes we have filmed in this area, and from the advice from our teacher the location was deemed too posh and "attractive" to be used in a BSR (Shown below). As a result of this, my group decided to film these scenes near a dirty and gritty area, which goes along with the conventions of a BSR. The location of the protagonist is also a council estate, which connotes to the financial and lifestyle troubles Tate may have. We got this inspiration from Kidulthood as in the movie, many council estates are seen to convey the lower class and people who may have social status troubles.
Effects/Transitions:
The transitions we have used includes: fade to black, fade in, fade out, cross dissolve and parallel editing. Fade to black was used to show the transition of the opening credits and the current life of Tate. His life is seen as rather dark and dull, which is connoted by the fade to black transition and this impacts the video; the target audience will be able to assume that the life of protagonist is worth heavily sympathizing for. Fade in and fade out both respectively show the transitions between the protagonist's actions and decisions he makes when he finds out about his girlfriend is pregnant. Furthermore the use of parallel editing was used at the end of the the 2 minute opening sequence. It showed the regretful and sorrowful face of the girlfriend of Tate, who is now pregnant, contrasting to the hateful and drunken protagonist.
Lighting:
The lighting we have used only consists of natural lighting because natural lighting is usually one of the conventions that is found in a BSR. We believed that having natural lighting, which was dark at the beginning - showed the audience how dull and mundane the life of Tate and how there is nearly no "light" in it. My group decided to only use natural lighting, not ambient and/or artificial lighting; adding from the point earlier, natural lighting is able to convey the audience the realistic life of someone who is going through an extremely tough situation.
Conventional editing pace/Narrative originality
The editing pace of our movie my group agreed, is a bit too fast of what you would usually see in a BSR. This is because we had to fit many things into the 2 minute clip: opening credits, Tate finding out his girlfriend is pregnant and venting his aggression outside. In addition to this, our narrative is generally original because our main character, Tate who's is Asian, is suffering from depression. You generally don't find Asians being the main character in BSR movies so you could say he is a counter type.
