Evaluation Part 1 - Keira

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Social realism as a style began as an attempt by film makers to represent those who were often stereotyped in film (for example, the working class) in a more true-to-life way than they had previously been, a key example of which is 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning', directed by Karel Reisz in 1960. This meant developing the format of film to have a more realistic feel than the more melodramatic style that had been used up until then. We stuck to this key idea predominantly, providing a more truthful representation of many teenage relationships than what would have been provided in, for example, a fairytale love story where everything always ends happily. However we also decided to draw upon another genre (romance-comedy) in certain ways to engage our target audience of teenagers more effectively. This meant divulging from an entirely realistic style at times, which I will discuss later in how we challenged the conventions of our chosen style.

For research and planning I looked at a number of films of the social realism style to help further my understanding from what we'd learnt in class, and it was helpful to see it in practise so that the particular elements we wanted to use and didn't want to use were clearer.

How we used forms and conventions:

• From Andrea Arnold's work, the unsteady camera movements which make the audience feel more involved in the scene rather than just passive viewers, and is a more documentary-style of filming which adds to the naturalistic feel. We wanted to put this across to our audience at certain times in the film (for example, when the couple are standing in their separate groups of friends we used a shaky camera effect to make viewers feel like they are more involved) -->
• Naturalistic mise-en-scene in terms of lighting and costume and props. We didn't use any of our own torches or redheads for lighting the scenes and instead decided to rely on sunlight and the lights in the house because we wanted it to be entirely natural. If we had filmed at night, of course, this may not have been possible but as all our action took place during the day this wasn't a problem. The only time we had an issue with this technique was in the continuity of the final scene (when the couple are watching TV) as we had filmed the shot above earlier in the day when there was lots of sunlight coming through the window, then came back in the evening to film a tracking shot of Kate walking back into the room, which when we looked at it was unsuitable because of the sudden change in brightness. Luckily, this shot was not needed and we just filmed it to see what it would look like so there is no continuity problem in the final product with lighting. For the costumes we simply asked the actors to wear whatever they would normally, as they both dress in appropriate ways for the representation of a modern female and male teenager. We did ask Tom, however, to wear the same thing twice (even though in the film the scenes take place on different days) because we wanted to communicate the laziness of his character. This was further built with the placement of specific props (for example, the beer can next to him when he is playing bass). I suggested this after watching 'Conversation Piece' again and noting how the characters are built through the focus on props around the living room in the title sequence:

Realistic characters are an essential part of social realism as the audience need to believe the story could be true, as the stories are often comments on important and very much real issues in society. This was taken into consideration when choosing who would the couple in our film and to make it as realistic as possible we used a real couple and named the characters after them.

Additionally, a locations were a main consideration for realistic mise-en-scene. We gained inspiration from films such as 'Happy Go Lucky' (Mike Leigh, 2008) and 'Looking For Eric' (Ken Loach, 2009):

 Which both respresent the parts of the country in which they are set (London and Manchester) with on-site filming rather than using studios. Obviously, this was convenient for us and we chose to film in  the actors' own houses and college and local park with which they are very familar to make the action more realistic.

•  We used mainly eye-level shots, which we discvovered as another traditional convention of social realism (shown here used in 'Eight' by Stephen Daldry <--). These are used as a method of making the audience identify with the characters as we view them at their own height, almost face-to-face. It also helps to show the character's status as neutral, neither above nor below the others, which is what we wanted to do for Kate so that her and Tom are represented equally in terms of status.
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  When editing a social realism piece it is essential to maintain continuity as any mistakes would break the believability of the film. Therefore one of our main concerns when editing was to make our piece flow so that the cuts weren't obvious and didn't detract from the action. We achieved this using the rules of continuity - we deleted any shots where the camera broke the 180 degree rule, used match-on-action in a few shots which jumped from further away to closer up (for example, in the park scene where they walked along the path in extreme long shot then it cut to mid shot):

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 We also used a lot of cross dissolve and fade transitions which we felt helped the piece flow. 

• We also used some of the forms and conventions in the rom-com genre. For example, the plot contained romance and in the way of that romance were obstacles (e.g. Tom's imperfections, and the fact that the relationship is unbalanced in terms of feeling). The mise-en-scene used locations such as the park, college, bedrooms which you often find in rom-coms. Using some close ups on character's faces to show their emotion. Moments of comedy also created by close ups on expressions (for example, when the couple are in bed together), we framed the shot to create the idea of Kate trapped in this awkward situation.

How we developed forms and conventions:

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   The themes and issues explored were a different twist on a generic storyline (boy meets girl, they fall in love) and it challenged the traditional expectations of romance by considering what happens when a relationship is unbalanced. The idea of an imperfect relationship was inspired a short film I watched called 'The Space Between Us' by Magali Charrier (watch here), in which we follow the story of a girl who has anxieties about her relationship with her boyfriend, whom it turns out loves her just as much. We took this basic idea and pushed it further by ending it on an unresolved and unhappy note, in which Kate is about to tell Tom that she loves him, while he is about to break up with her. This kind of uneasy ending is typical of social realism and achieves our aim of leaving the audience wanting to know what happens, and craving a happy ending.
• Another key element of the above film that inspired me when creating the original concept was the use of voiceover. The woman (Anita) narrates by telling the audience her feelings towards the man (Paul) like so: 'A month ago I met Paul. And I fell for him. That was it I thought - love, simple and undemanding. Perfect. But I'm still falling - relentlessly, scarily. I wonder if he's falling too.' In the same way, I wrote the script entirely as a voiceover, but developed this original concept by having both characters narrating rather than just one. For example, Kate's opening lines are: 'We haven't been going out for long. Three months and 11 days...but I've liked him for ages.' and Tom's later on are 'We've been going out ages...like, 2 months at least. She was always staring at me so I knew she liked me.' I thought this would provide an interesting concept for the viewers and would give them equal perspective on both sides of the relationship. Here is a clip of 'The Space Between Us', to illustrate the effect of the voice over:

How we challenged forms and conventions:

• The narrative structure of our piece was unlike any films we had watched for research. When trying to think of an idea for our storyline, 'The Space Between Us' made me think about the insecurities in relationships and that it might be interesting for a viewer to see both sides of one and their thoughts
  
  about each other. I wanted to create a parallel between the two characters by showing similar images when they talked about each other, but saying different things. For example, over an image of pizza, Kate's dialogue says: 'He's always eating...and I mean ALWAYS eating. It's quite disgusting actually. He never leaves any for me and he's got no manners.' While Tom's voice over later of a similar image says: 'She always lets me have the most and NEVER complains.' We had several of these in a sequence to show the differences between them, and it switches from Kate to Tom and back again throughout, providing an equilibrium between the identification with the audience. Unlike in Todorov's theory of narrative structure where by the end the equilibrium has been restored, our film ends on a cliffhanger (but one in which the audience are aware of what will happen) and the story has mounted to a climax which we are left with. In classic social realism fashion, the story is more realistic to real life where everything doesn't always become easily and happily resolved.

• The editing of our film was probably most of its most important and distinguishing features, and helped us to create a more original and interesting narrative structure within the short film format. I came up with the idea of using parallel editing to create irony at the end when the shot switches between Kate and Tom quite quickly, and they are both thinking the same words but with different meaning behind them. I faced a difficulty in editing at this point as we had to edit the images together before the voiceover had been recorded, which meant having to estimate the amount of time it would take for the characters to say each thing before switching shot back to the other. For most of them I was accurate, but for some I left the time for too long which meant there was a gap between one character finishing talking and the shot changing, which looked untidy and didn't create the quick-fire effect I'd imagined. We got around this for the most part by cutting the sound up and putting more gaps in between to make it last longer, but with this there is the danger of the viewers being able to hear where it's been cut. However, I think it was mostly successful and the only bit which doesn't look quite right in my opinion is on the word 'love' where the sound seems to have been cut slightly to close to the word and it sounds shorter than it should.

• In a similar way to '500 Days Of Summer', there are elements of our film which are somewhat reminiscent of fantasy. The fades and dissolves between each of our scenes are an effect often used for dream sequences, and the use of voiceover throughout rather than any diegetic sound (other than birds at the beginning and the television at the end) is challenging the boundaries of social realism and introducing elements of other styles. There are also a couple of shots in the pizza eating scene which we either slowed down (when he is taking a bite) or sped up (when he is taking the pieces) the shots very slightly to increase the comedy, though not enough to be too noticeable and divulge from social realism.

As for the poster, there are also clear conventions for social realism within this medium. For example, the above poster for '500 Days Of Summer' is an original and interesting design, but still holds some of the same basic rules for a social realism poster that I have identified through research. Below I will go through these conventions and see which we have stuck to:

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  The main character(s) clearly displayed - Yes. Tom and Kate are the main image, in the centre and taking up almost the whole poster.
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  Reviews and awards - Yes. We have two reviews and two awards shown. However, these are not necessarily easy to see or read and are somewhat messy-looking. In the other posters I have looked at the reviews are made very obvious. See 'Happy-Go-Lucky', for example (--->) Very simple layout, but with the reviews clearly displayed on a different coloured section in large writing at the top.
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  The use of more demure colours (greys, whites, dark blues) juxtaposed against bright colours - Yes. We have desaturated everything in our image apart from Kate (to show her love towards Tom), the title (to draw attention to it), and a few of the bricks behind them (to echo the poster for 'Fish Tank'):

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  The director and actors' names clearly shown - No. You can only see these names in barely visible writing at the bottom. We did this because it's usually only well-known names that are put largely on posters to sell the film, rather than newcomers. However, perhaps to better stick to the conventions we've learnt we should have pretended we were well-known anyway. 'This Is England' is a good example of this technique:
 It says direcly underneath the title 'A film by Shane Meadows', which is a highly well-known name for the target audience of this poster and therefore a selling point for the film.
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  The setting for the image shows where the film is set (which in the case of social realism is almost always urban, working class sorts of areas). We have tried to mirror this as best we can with the brick wall behind them, although it is quite irrelevalnt to the film which could be potentially misleading. Perhaps it would have been better (considering other posters I've seen) to take the photo against a background of one of the locations actually used in the film.

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  Tag line clearly displayed underneath or next to the title - Yes and no. Our tag line is made clear by it being in red, as a contrast to the grey behind it, but it is in quite small writing (compared to the other posters I've looked at) and is at the bottom rather than directly next to the title, meaning the viewers' eyes aren't immedietely drawn to it. We made the decision to put it where it is, however, on the basis that any writing against the brick wall background is quite hard to see (as the reviews demonstrate) and it is far easier to read against Tom's shirt.