Textual Analysis of 'Kidulthood' (Menhaj Huda, 2006)

(stop viewing after 3:15)


Storyline
Within the first few mintues of the film, we can assume the structure of the narrative and storyline. The mise-en-scene states the ages of what a majority of our characters will be (15/16 years); this is clearly indicated by the school ground location/setting and the costumes of the characters being school uniforms. The narrative cuts from one group of characters to the next. This helps the audience to know where each group stands socially within the school. It is unknown what one character is doing, as we see him using some drilling equipment, yet it is not revealed as to what it is. We assume it is either something dangerous or illegal because he secretive about the object and hides it.

Enigma Codes

• What was that character doing with the drill?
• What was he hiding in that yellow bin?
• Why were the girl and boy behind the tree worried about others seeing them together?
• Why were the two girls getting bullied for?
• What did the group of boys that weren't in school uniform doing on school grounds?
• Why were they looking for a girl called 'Claire'?

Charatcers

• We feel empathy for the two girl that were getting picked on. From this we already have identified these two as 'unpopular' among fellow students.
• The boys that were not in school uniform were in conventional 'gangster' clothing (hoodies, use of colloquial language). This gives them an intimidating persona, as proven when the other students are fearful when approached by them.
• The character that is shown using the drill is undecided, he could be using it for some sort of school work. However on the other hand if what he was doing was innocent, then he wouldn't be hiding it.

Mise-En-Scene
Location: set on school grounds to indicate the ages of the characters and to help to show they social standing.
Lighting: natural lighting as it is during the day outside.
Costume: most characters are wearing a school uniform, except for those who have been given typical 'gang' clothing to set them apart from the rest.

Cinematography

• The camera is almost constantly moving, even when focusing on a certain point it is still slightly moving.
• When the narrative is going to change to one of the other groups perpectives, the camera pans quickly over to them. This gives you the illusion as though you were in the scene walking around and turning to look over at each group.
• Close-up and extreme close-up shots are used when the camera is focused on the boy using the drill. This then keeps the audience unknown to what the object it, as it may be a crucial part of the storyline.

Editing

• When the camera is panning across the scene, as people walk in front of the screen the shot is cut to a differnt group of people.
• During the opening credits of the film the shot of each credit is cut from one to the other.

Sounds
All the sounds made are dietgetic. The background noise of other students running around, kicking a football and talking can be heard throughout the opening minutes.

Titles
Font: type/style of font is varied. Logos or name brands have to be in their own style, opening credits were in a easy to read font yet the size of the text was slightly too small. Then the name of the film was in its own unique font type as well.
Colour: other than one logo/brand the rest of the text was in white, which made a strong contrast on a black background.
Positioning: all text was in the centre of the screen.

Textual Analysis of 'This Is England' (Shane Meadows, 2006)

Storyline
From the first few minutes of the opening credits, a sense of what the storyline may entail is given. This is displayed through the selection of short clips of different events that happened and are recognisable from the era that the film is set in. Frequently featured are clips that centre around the protests/riots, some racism and political figures. This would suggest that the storyline will follow the struggles in society at the time the film was set in (1983).

Enigma Codes

• Will the characters be involved in a riot?
• When will we get introduced to the main characters?
• Which side of the riots will the characters be on?

Characters?
We aren't introduced to the characters during the opening minutes and therefore can't make a judgement on their characteristics. However we can assume from the opening credits that the characters will be a part of the riots or the youth sub-culture group called 'skinheads'.

Mise-En-Scene
Location: shows run-down, graffitied garages/walls/council flat areas; suggests the charaters are working class.
Lighting: natural lighting because all clips used were filmed during the time that the events accured.
Costume: Typical clothing worn during the 80's

Cinematography

• Long shots are used to show the clothing worn to inform the audience of the era that the film is set in.
• At times the camera unstable in it movements as though it's hand-held. As well as the pixel/quality of the film clips are poor, this suggests most of the clips were filmed by real people on their own cameras.
• Panning movement of the camera provides a wider view of what is happening in the events shown.

Editing

• For the first 30 seconds the opening credits are inter-layed, for the rest of the credits the are super-imposed over the clips of video.
• The film clips are cut from one to the other, as if made by someone during that time to give the audience a feel of what life was like back then.

Sounds
The only sounds made are non-diegetic. A song is played throughout the whole of the opening credits, ('54-46 That's My Number' by Toots & the Maytals). The volume of the track increases as the credits progress.

Titles
Font: a majority of the credits are in capital letters and vary in size. All is easy to read, even though the font is worn out slightly in places of the text, it is to represent the era in which it is set.
Colour: all of the font is in white which stands out among the films clips used. This can also stand for the innocence of a main character and the worn out areas of the text shows the negative influence of the situation on the youth of England at the time.
Positioning: opening credits are varied in their position on the screen.

My Coursework Genre

After careful consideration of the pro's and con's of both genres, I have decided on my opening film sequence genre to be social realism. I have numerous ideas of how to present my opening film credits and feel that I have better access to locations in which to set my sequence. Unlike if I were to do the genre of horror, my desired setting would be slightly difficult to retain the level of access I would need to film in. Resulting in my finalised decision on social realism, as it would be the more successful on the two.

The Pro's and Con's of Horror

The conventions of horror are:

• Usually a female victim
• An antagonist; (a majority of horror films show this character to be male). For example, 'Scream' (1996), 'Hands of the Ripper' (1971), 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (1974) and 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999)
• Mise-en-scene is mainly set at night in a isolated area.
• During times of an intense action sequence a fast shot pace is used.
• Point of view and over-the-shoulder shots are used to make the audience feel more involved in the film. And close-up/extreme close-up shots are used to show the emotion of the character at that point in the scene.
• Sometimes short periods of silence are used at certain points in the film to help build suspense of what is yet to come.

The Pro's

• A strong set of stereotypical conventions that are easy to follow and are well known.
• Location/Setting would be reasonably easy to find as the conventions can be applied to a variety of locations. (Keeping in mind the lighting and the atmosphere created by the setting).

The Con's

• When following the mise-en-scene conventions of the film commonly being set in a dark location could prove difficult. The image/action may not be seen clearly and loose its effectiveness of the audience.
• Depending on how I plan the narrative, a majority of the could be revealed if the antagonist is introduced within the first two mintues.

The Pro's and Con's of Social Realism

The conventions of social realism are as follows:

• Characters are realistic and easily relatable to the audience
• Dealing with real social issues
• Location/Setting tends to be within an Urban area
• Usual characters are at a disadvantage
• Follow a slow shot pace
• More focus on dialogue than action

The Pro's

• It would be easier to find locations to suit the genre for the film sequence; for example housing estates, council flats, places around the town area to give the illusion of a city.

• More room for creativity when presenting the opening creadits.
• When sticking to idea of realism, there is no need for any kind of special effects or over-exaggerated editing transitions.

The Con's

• Trying to convey the genre to the audience, (not many know of the genre social realism or how to spot it's conventions).
• The be able to create a film idea that is unique and hasn't been done repeatably before.

Preliminary Task Film and the Editing Process

Editing Process

After I had finished filming I turned my attention towards how to edit the shots together. The only special effect in transition I used was the fading out of the clock into another shot of the clock, but at a different time to show the progression of time. I feel this was a more successful route than to simple cut from one shot to the other. I did however hope to try to superimpose the first shot over the top of the other. Unfortunately this was unable to happen and so I decided to use another transition.

I hoped to keep the editing nauralistic and believe to have done so. Having never been overly confident in the area of editing film, I feel as though during this task that I have built on my skills and confidence. Also with the edition of the music/sound effects joined with the video helps to set the atmosphere. The creating of music has never been my strong point, but again having to re-learn the skills that are needed have helped to increase my knowledge of music and it's effects.

Finished Preliminary Task Film




What have I learnt?

In doing this task I have learnt of the continuity techniques and how they are used in film. I know this will help me when I come to creating my opening film sequence as I know how effective they are when used correctly.

Filming Process

To try to ensure that no complications arised while filming I had planned out my wanted location of filming, actors being used and the equipment/props.

However I did encounter a few problems in the filming process.

My original location that I wanted to film in was unavaliable. Therefore by moving to a new set I had to re-think the cinematography and layout slightly to suit the new mise-en-scene.

Although I think that the extra space of the location can to become an advantage by giving me more room to get a better effect of the match-on-action technique used.

The use of the 180° line in the film sequence was good to a point. On the other hand I think I should have used the over the should shot more evenly as a they were only used for one character and not the other.

The only aspect of the storyboard that I subverted from was in adding another shot near the end of the sequence to help clear some confusion that I noticed. Whereas before when one character glanced off-screen I didn't follow through to an eyeline match shot. This is where I thought the audience would feel confusion as to what the character was looking at. Once I noticed this while filming I decided to include a shot of the clock that the character looks at, turning it into an eyeline match.

Planning

Designing the Storyboard

Once I had decided on my narrative, I thought it well to write out each of my shots before I started to draw them onto my storyboard. This proved sufficient as from this I could picture each shot and think through which shot type I wanted to use. Upon completion of this process I moved onto drawing each of my shots as a storyboard.

It was slightly difficult as to what to put under dialogue. As I had not begun to film yet, I did not know if where I was going to be filming would consist of the diegetic noise of people talking in the background or not. However I figured this could be added in on my storyboard if needed later on. Another slight issue I feel I may have with the filming and editing process is the timing of my shots which contain non-diegetic dialogue from both characters. Although, I have given what should be a sufficient amount of time for the dialogue to be said and therefore am not overly worried.This can be easily overcome in the editing process.

Creating the Animatic

After all the details had been written down on my storyboard the next stage was to develope this into an animatic. Once the photos of the storyboard had been formulated into an animatic the music was to be made and added in. I found this quite challenging to be able to find music to be able to amplify and help get across to the audience the emotions of the characters. By keeping the piano piece I decided on consistent throughout a majority of the animatic helped to keep the audience aware of the first characters emotions.

Interpretation of Preliminary Task Brief

For our preliminary task we were asked to plan, storyboard and finally film a simple narrative following these instrustions:

• A character enters a room
• The character then crosses the room
• The same character sits down opposite another character
• A few sentences of dialogue are exchanged between the two charcters

We were then told to include all four of the continuity techniques; the 180° rule, match-on-action, shot/reverse shot and eyeline match.

Brief summary of narrative

First character is sitting at table working. Another character sees this and sits down at the table as well, a few words are exchanged. The first character gets tricked into doing the other charcters work. Time passes. Second character picks up finished work and leaves the first charcter at the table.

Continuity Editing

The 180° Rule

When filming two characters talking the 180° line must be established. This is crucial as it helps the audience know where the characters and settings are placed.

It may help to imagine that where the two characters are facing each other is a straight line, this is known as the line of action. Usually the camera will show a side-on view of the characters to establish the mise-en-scene of where the characters are. From this point onwards the camera does not cross the line of action, always keeping the same left/right relationship with each other.
      However if the director wants to swap onto the other side of the 180° line they may do this by panning the camera around the back of one of the characters to show this change.




Match-On-Action

This form of editing shows the action or movement of a character or object in one shot continuing into another. For example, a character walks towards and through a door frame away from the camera in one shot. And it is then cut to another shot from inside the room and the character is still walking through the door frame, but is now walking towards the camera.

Shot/Reverse Shot

When a character is shown looking (often off-screen) at another character, and then the other character is shown looking 'back' at the first character.


(Shot/Reverse shot is shown at 1:50 - 1:55)


The Eyeline Match

When the director wants for the audience to see what the character is seeing, also known as a POV (point of view) shot. This begins witht the character looking off-screen, then the shot will be cut to the object that the character is looking at.

Previous Filming Experience

Previous Filming Experience

During both Year 10 & 11 of Media Studies I have used a variety of filming techniques, shots and angles, as well as editing. Especially in the area of planning for the final result. In classes we have created a film poster, the front cover of a music magazine, then later went on to design and film our own chocolate advert (lasting 30 seconds) and music video. When planning for our adverts and music videos storyboarding was essential to be able to progress onwards with the filming.

Although I am confident in my skills for this course I look forward to being able to build on my skills. I know that I will be learning new techniques and will enjoy having to incorporate them into my filming.