Iconic Directors ~ Shane Meadows

Shane Meadows (born 26 December 1972) is an English film director and screenwriter. His films follow the style of 'kitchen sink realism' and have mostly been set in the Midlands. They often follow a semi-auto biographical basing on his own experiencs in Uttoexter.

 

A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)

Despite this film having more comdedic elements than dramatic it still portrays a gritty style through its naturalistic acting and suburban setting. As a group we are looking at a more built up urban enviroment but the way in which Meadows had captured this setting creates a very somber atmosphere that is higlhy effective. The same elements can be found in 'This is England', even though the story has more violent and contradictory themes, which is not something we are looking for in our narrative, the setting and style still portray elements of Social Realism.

This Is England (2006)

 

Busking Mood Board

This mood board is a complication of different buskers in London, male and female as we have not gathered feedback for our questionnaire. It shows the most popular places for a busker to play and also shows good ways of showing them and capturing their passion and skill within the photo and therefor what we could use within our film. I have also found that every busker I have chosen the picture off is playing the guitar, this is because most of the pictures that I found were of buskers with guitars, but also they photograph well as they have a good shape to put in an image. This will be a good thing to this about when creating our narrative and deciding shots.

London Mood Board

 

This mood board looks at different locations, times of day and moods of London. I have also included in this different sized photos as we are looking at what aspect ratio we should make our trailer in, as we like the idea of making it widescreen.

Also I have put various filters and edits in here so we can see different effects we could use to give the feel of different moods. This included black and white, neon and my favourite in the top left which gives a dull but distinctive look and feel, I think this could work really well for a trailer.

Social Realism Mood Board

As social realism is our chosen genre I have created a mood board including some social realism films, certificate ratings and common locations.

The typical certificate rating of a social realism film is usually a 15 or 18. This is due, for example, the content usually containing violence, crime, money or drugs.

Typical locations for social realism films include council estates, parks and cities.

Films included: This is England, Fish Tank, Kidulthood and London to Brighton.

Questionnaire Responses

Before deciding on our final idea we feel it is important to ask our target audience questions that address any concerns we have about our film idea. We sent out our questionnaire to 100 people aged 15-20 and these were the results:

After watching different social realism films, such as Fish Tank, we discovered that usually the main character is a young female. However, we needed to check with the audience that this was their preferred main character, and these results show that the majority of the audience would prefer the main character to be female.

 We decided that we want the main character to be busking as a way of trying to earn money in our film, but we were unsure on what instrument we wanted them to play. These results clearly show that the guitar is most recognised as a typical busking instrument, so this will be what we will use in our trailer.

 

We were unsure on our storyline before sending out these questionnaires, and we thought that it would be good to have the main character to be either secretly rich or poor, because we knew we wanted our film to be centred around money issues. To decide which storyline we were going to use we asked the audience which character they would relate to more, and the majority choose poor. Therefore, we will be including this element into our trailer.

Our last question that we asked the audience was which setting they thought would be best. The highest result was Central London. We were pleased that this was the highest outcome because we are all familiar with this area and know many different locations within this area that could be potential places to film.

History of Social Realism

Captain Phillips Theatrical trailer

The production company title sequence generates the audience's first impression of the trailer. Columbia is one of the larger and more well known companies, suggesting that the film will be of a higher caliber in terms of budget and production. The title sequence will often be tailored to the theme of the film, in this case tones of red are prominent to match the warm tint given to the film in order to generate a sense of heat and uncomfort.

The next shot is footage from the film and this sets the scene, giving the audience a sense of location and theme. It also highlights the isolation of the ship. The shot without music could suggest a bliss moment - a cargo ship floating over a calm  horizon of ocean, however, the music that accompanies this scene delivers the message that something is not quite right. Moreover, that the settled equilibrium may be disturbed.

The next sequence of shots starts to create a picture of what might happen to the boat, and also what kind of film Captain Phillips could be. The shots of the ships radar suggests that two boats are heading straight towards the cargo ship. The bleeps of the radar sound bridge in to this next shot. Along with the bleeps a steady beat builds tension, reflecting the mood of the Captain. When Captain Phillips then says "I dont like the look of that" it is then confirmed to the audience that the boats, just about visible through the binoculars, are antagonists. The music then alters to fufill the concerned mood; this is then enhanced when one of the ships crew members says "they're coming in fast"

This next shot hypes up the trailers film even more by saying "based on a true story" this gives the film gives the film an element of credibility and paired with an almost tribal esc somalian themed music linking in with the fact they are actually pirates. The next series of shots is when we start to get an idea of what the antagonists look like. Their clothing and props show the antagonists as pirates, moreover, due to the fact the film is based on a true story, there are guns visible and a boat load on angry pirates we can tell it will revolve around the genres of drama and thriller. The furthest shot on the right is an important one as it shows the originally large, independent cargo ship to be small and outnumbered by the two speed boats full of armed pirates. In addition, the water around the pirates speed boats is more disturbed and violent in contrast to the apparent calm and innocent American vessel. This again adds to the aggressive portrayal of the antagonists.

The extract of dialogue between Captain Phillip and the naval base is important to stress the vulnerability of his boat - " we are an un-armed freya, we have two skips approaching with armed intruders, potential piracy situation" the woman on the other end of the line abruptly dismisses his call for help. The captain then says " they are not here to fish" The diverse contrast between the props used by Captain Phillip and the woman at the naval base (large maps and graphics compared to a wired telephone) effectively points out the lack of capability the cargo ship has compared the even the woman sitting in a base of the navy base. In addition the blues and darker colors used in the naval base accentuate the technical and modern sense it has in contrast to the warm hues used to underline the danger and vulnerability of the ship . The intensity of the situation is then increased as the Captain and his crew, along with his boat, are then deserted by their main and only life line. They will have to survive the situation, which has already been made immensely horrific by the use of techniques described above, on their own.

The next few shots show off the action that features in the film. It also plays on the portrait being painted of the pirates in the film, violent and trigger happy, which may be played on more late on in the film when the pirates board the ship. Sounds of gun fire hitting metal and panicked faces fleeing for cover play up the situation Captain Phillips is in. " this is not a drill this is a real life situation" is sounded through a loud speaker from the ship as Phillips addresses the situation they are in.

The pace of shots increases to distinguish the desperation between both sides. The shots used successfully demonstrate the need to disallow the ladder to make contact with the ship - Captain phillips exclaims "we cant let 'em attach that ladder" the range of shots from different angles showing the ladder attempt to mount the ship increase the tension, entirely heightening desperation and build up to the inevitable outcome. While the frenzied events take place, music in the background helps rise suspense and anxiety experienced by the viewers, pulling them in to view moreThen a fade out to black along with silence realizes the fate of the crew on board. The next shot shows the Captains disconsolate face. Contrapuntal dialogue assists the shots showed next. "listen up, we have been boarded by armed pirates". Meanwhile a series of shots showing the pirates barbarously boarding and searching the ship accentuates the fear the audience experience for the crew onboard the ship. 

After a few shots of panicked crew members running to hide in what is called "lock down" we see an eery shot of a pirate searching a dark corner of the ship, again building tension for when the crew are inevitably caught by the pirates. The shots shown repetitively play on the theme of isolation.

After a shot of the pirate on the left speaking down the phone to the rest of the crew saying "in one minute i will kill all your friends" he bluntly tells Captain Phillips " look at me, look at me. I am the Captain now." The pirates wide eyes bring fear to those who look into them and he is portrayed in a fitting way to be the main antagonist during the trailer.

After these this quick transition between a multitude of shots showing action, danger, guns knifes and sweaty faces panicked and full of emotion the trailer fades out to black with diegetic sound from the voice of a man saying "Captain Phillips, Can you hear me? Captain Phillips, Can you hear me?"

ANALYSIS

The Captain Phillips teaser trailer uses the first few points from Todorov's theory to pull the audience in, giving them something to be concerned about ( Captain Phillips and his crew ), however finishes on a cliff hanger, leaving the audience wondering what happens to the ships crew.

By using a mix of typical shots for its genre, like tracking shots - to follow action and a lot of close ups for focusing on the emotions of characters and particular props that carry heavy significance on turning points in the trailers story.

Propps Character Theory

Vladimir Propp.

Vladimir Propp developed a character theory that stated that there are only 7 character types in the 100 fairy tales that he analysed. his theory is that these can be applied to any story. 

The 7 types if character are:

1. The villain (struggles against the hero)
2. The donor (prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)
3. The (magical) helper (helps the hero in the quest)
4. The princess (person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative)
5. The false hero (perceived as good character in beginning but emerges as evil)
6. The dispatcher (character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off)
7. The hero or victim/seeker hero, reacts to the donor, weds the princess

Tzvetan Todorovs Theory

Izetan Todorov was a Bulgarian structuralist linguist who published influential work on narrative from the 1960's onwards.

He suggested that conventional films are typically structured into five stages...

1. A state of equilibrium (All is as it should be.)
2. A disruption of that order by an event.
3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred.
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.
5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium

Todorov's theory can be applied to many mainstream films, such as the Star Wars trilogy and even classic children's tales such as Little Red Riding Hood. Some films can suggest his theory to be inaccurate, for example the film Fight Club. Although, Todorov's theory is so flexible it could be argued that Fight Club could fit in to the theory.

Barthes Narrative Theory

 

This is a video to explain Bathes Narrative Theory: