Research Into: Shane Meadows & Ken Loach

Researching directors and people who are famously associated with the social realism genre is another great way of gaining a knowledge on the typical ways which the films and themes are approached and presented by professionals.

I decided to do some brief research on Shane Meadows and Ken Loach, two directors who are very famous within the genre.

I didn't want to gather too much research on the directors, as I felt film research was more useful and gave us a more of a first-hand experience rather than reading internet sources on the internet about these people. I also felt watching interviews of the men was a lot more useful than reading as it is them personally speaking rather than what someone has recorded and possibly assumed at some points.

This interview below was extremely helpful as it was Shane Meadows being interviewed by an A Level class, much like our own. He answered the questions they asked and gave quite a few points which were very influential and helpful for understanding how I would approach this project. There were two parts to the interview, however I found the first part more helpful, so I will embed just that one below;

There were also these interview clips I found on YouTube about This Is England (also by Shane Meadows) which was quite useful as it helped me understand the themes in the film better;

For Ken Loach, I did find and watch a half an hour long interview, however I feel it is a little long to watch as a viewer on my blog. I will however embed it below for anyone interested. It explored Ken Loache's ideas and commentary on his social realistic film 'My Name Is Joe'. I found it very useful for gathering rich information on how he got his opinions and views on society across, particularly in the working class world.

Here is another great interview (in HD too, compared to the other older videos above) that also explores Ken Loache's ideas on the social realism film industry. He is also joined by another director, Rebecca O'Brien, who could also well be a good name to remember during the production of our film.

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Raymond Williams & Other Notable Mentions

Raymond Williams is a famous author, critic and academic. Williams released a variety of novels and studies on culture and society, one of his focuses being the idea of social realism. He suggested the main features that are supposedly (and understandably) needed to create something that is correctly class as socially realist. Put into the context of film, here are some of the required aspects and characteristics;

Another person called Tori Amos once said,

"Our generation has an incredible amount of realism, yet at the same time it loves to complain and not really change. Because, if it does change, then it won't have anything to complain about."

I believe this to relate to social realism films because they are always filled with conflicts, problems and bad scenarios which aren't far off from most of our realities. We spend a lot of time complaining about things going wrong in our lives, yet we find it hard and hesitate to change any of it. I believe this suggests why all social realism genre based films have quite negative themes within them; to point the fact out that they are out reality and that even when we can, as viewers and observers, see the problems occurring and relate to them, we still don't stop to live in that type of world regardless to the awareness you may now have.

This also relates to another quote I came across from someone called Jean Cocteua who said;

"True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing."

This also supports and links to the previous quote and idea I got from it, as it also suggests the idea that what we see in social realism genre films are actually our reality, however we might not entirely notice or take in any awareness of what we have just seen. From what should shock us is seen as normal to people in this day and age.
That is what realism is about. The times a person or people live in; their reality. Just like Raymond Willaims said, it's about the reality that people live in during their contemporary/modern times. Society has it's ways which are considered as normal and reality deals with the views in different ways.
I will continue on with my research by researching social realism directors and specialists.

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Research Into: Film & Short Film Industry Companies

Studying companies that specifically produce short films was also a great idea for me, as it allowed me to understand the typical structures and elements to short films and how different producers and directors approach creativity in them.

Channel 4's Random Acts

I took note of a short film host program that I have often watched on Channel 4. Channel 4 have their on segments of air time after advertisements that is solely based on showing and promoting short films and their makers. This air time is called 'Channel 4's Random Acts'. Being broadcasted on Channel 4, the short films are often of an abstract, artistic style and representing the directors views on something; much like social realism.

Here are some examples of short films I have seen on the TV through this broadcasting channel;
Don't Panic

I really liked this film. Not only did it have a slight humour factor to it that kept me interested and eager to know what they would do next (it felt a little bit like a prank/stunt show like Jackass or Balls of Steel, come to think of it), but it also left me thinking about how would I react. I'd probably act the same way, as members of the public do in the video, to some of the acts of kindness that were displayed in the film. Due to stereotyping, we automatically assume that people who talk in their sort of tone and have that clothing are bad people only looking to humiliate or act anti-social towards people. It also happened to carry a realism factor to it by this and will definitely influence my later project work I think.

The Mob Film Company
The Mob Film Company is a company that I am previously familiar with, as I decided to go job hunting a little while ago and did some research into this particular media group. The Mob Film Company are a media based company, that are part of the Red Arrow Entertainment Group, that create a variety of different films and moving image pieces to express their creativity and offer interesting advertisements and visuals for other media companies (such as products in need of advertising). They also focus strongly on culture and international commissioners. They create lot of short films and are really good at it! They base they purpose on  creating high quality videos and trying to look and be as professional as possible, without being a major production company. Considering they are only a small company, they are doing pretty well for themselves!

Here is an example of work by The Mob that I found on the Channel 4 Random Acts hosting site.

GCSE

This short film is quite uncomfortable to watch, but very creative and effective for getting its point across. This short film was written for and based around a poem that a person had written, expressing their opinion on GCSE's and studying in general. This is all express via the teacher of the class though. It seems almost as if she is mocking the way students talk these days, bring a reality factor to the piece as it makes you wonder if other people ridiculed your own generations speech and opinions back then.
The angles in the film are very clever, as they all make it seem as if the teacher is sitting in lots of different areas of the classroom without even moving. It also has some lovely imagery to show how the class are feeling throughout her speech, ranging from agreement and laughter to feeling and annoyed and disappointed.
I think this film would be a great one to reference if the short film I created revolves around school, as school is a very common location and theme for a social realistic film. It will really help us understand how teenagers are seen to speak like and present themselves, as teenagers and youth are almost always an essential for social realism films.

Yellow

Yellow is a very abstract styled film, which really explores imagery. Although I didn't like it very much due to the uncomfortable feel it gave me (via the actor in all honesty...), it will be a great reference for how to create interesting imagery that represents things, mood in particularly  Yellow is often associated with happiness and energy, thus why the video is most of the time highly energetic and on a high, positive note. By understanding how to present moods via imagery, I will be able to create a piece that can successfully get my feels of my films point across to the audience.

Click here to see a video montage of examples of company branding they have created!

Click here to a see video montage of various digital moving images they have created for various commissioners!

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Film Analysis: Fish Tank

Fish Tank is another British drama/social realism genre film that was released in 2009. It was directed by Andrea Arnold and created by big British film companies; BBC Films, UK Film Council and Kasander Film Company. These companies are particularly known for creating and endorsing films that hold a lot of cultural relevance and represent British accurately. The film was also distributed by IFC Films, a distributer owned by the big American media company AMC Networks.

Fish Tank follows the story of a 15 year old girl called Mia Williams and her life living in a rough estate area in England. She lives with her mother and younger sister, both of which she has a sour relationship with. She is then introduced to a ‘friend of her mums’ who happens to be a man she finds herself drawn and attracted to. The story then begins to unfold a darker back story and plot that ends up putting Mia in danger.

The main character Mia is played by Katie Jarvis, with Fish Tank being her first acting job ever! She was literally found walking in a street one day and confronted; to be asked to be the main character in a film. Andrea Arnold thought that Jarvis looked exactly how she pictured Mia to look. This technique of casting is commonly used in social realistic films; using inexperienced or non-actor people in order to create a realistic character in their films.

I decided to review and gain research from this film. You can view the trailer to this film below:

Environment:

It is extremely clear through the trailer that the settings in the film are very typically found in social realism based films; such as estates, poor households and living environments (particularly flats), parks and areas where youths tend to gather and loiter around. From these first few screenshots I took, we can see Mia standing on the balcony of her flat estate building, overlooking an urban, rough area. In all of these screenshots, we can see the very plain design to her living place and the quantity her building holds. This could suggest to the audience an idea of us all being a number; however I feel that’s too much of a dramatic assumption for a social realist film.

Although the scenes are quite grubby and plain, we can see the film creators attempt to show a nice side to area with filmed shots of sunshine and sunset. This looked really nice and added a sense of calm to the clips. Also, overall the films look isn't too bad. A lot of the clips are very nice to look at due to the colours and nice angles that have been taken during filming. I find this eases the viewer into watching the film more comfortably, rather than feeling a bit put off by too dull scenes.

Another common environment style through the trailer seems to be dark atmospheres, particularly in points where some form of conflict and drama is happening to the main character. This happens in a lot of films, not only in the social realism genre, however it also seems to be an essential to a social realistic film as it explores the darkness and ugly sides of live of the characters and their lives.

From the frames I got screenshots of above, we can see Mia in three different ‘dark’ scenes; all looking very dramatic, negative and involving some form of conflict. Since the social realism genre is built on conflicts and problems of lives, using darkness in shots is an essential to explore these conflicts and enhance how much of an effect they have on characters lives.

There are however some clips throughout the film that contradict this darkness and have a really lovely style and feeling to them via positive themed mise-en-scene and lighting environments. An example of this is the screenshot below; a scene where Mia is interacting with her ‘love interest’.

It shows how she is feeling by using positive, natural lighting from the sun and the really pretty scenery around her enhances these feelings. The shot itself, being a long shot is really nice too as it shows both characters together when before, Mia was always on her own and only in company when there was the emotion of anger or sadness present. It suggests that not everything should be looked at as bad and that there are happy parts of life. I really liked this touch to the film, I felt more films need to include positive, and maybe even cute, scenes like that to give the audience some comfort in knowing not all is bad; to see the brighter side of something (regardless to the bad events that happen after this scene…).

Character & Costume:

One of the features of the trailer (and film) that I personally felt stood out was the characters and costume in the film. They all felt very realistic and suited the film and its themes. I took screenshots of the main character Mia to explore her character.

From what we can see, Mia is an outcast from other people; she is often very aggressive or rebellious towards other people and finds it hard to form nice, working relationships with anyone. She typically wears quite a plain wardrobe and is rarely seen looking ‘flawless’ and ‘pretty’, as she doesn't seem to take much care into her appearance.

The only real changes of effort we see to her appearance are when she either ties her hair up or leaves it down, and occasionally has no make up on. This leads the audience to believe she has a rather simple life as she doesn't seem to bother with her appearance or the way she is presented to anyone. Even when she gains a ‘love interest’, she still doesn't seem to change herself much. This shows either a stubborn behaviour or unawareness to her appearance and how people look at her compared to her peers.

I believe this doesn't really follow the real-life aspect that social realism requires, in my opinion. People in modern times are often said to be TOO aware and conscious of their own appearance  not letting themselves be themselves. However, this film does perceive the idea that if you do not take so much attention to looking perfect, you could be classed as an outcast, which is evident in cases of bullying and other real life scenarios. This shows the corruptness of people and communities, where the pretty and most attractive ones are always 'the best'.

Relationships:

The relationships explored in this trailer and film seem to be very typical and common amongst other social realist films. The films tend to include at least one of these main relationships types; a best-friend, a rival group or person (antagonist), a love interest who tends to have something that conflicts with the protagonist (whether it be age, background or that they're truly an antagonist) and almost always living within a broken family.

Fish Tank includes all 4 of these typical social realistic relationships, this being because these are common relationships to have with people in the real world (especially for people living in the areas and conditions the main character exists in).

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Short Film Analysis: Procrastination, Soft & Too Shy

Short films were, in my opinion, a must for research in this project. Without researching and viewing short films, I wouldn't have a clear knowledge on how to create my own. I created an analysis piece on Prezi to record my research. You can see the short film analysis Prezi embedded below.

Click on the link below if the embedded piece above is unavailable:
http://prezi.com/icg2xb9kmqf5/short-film-analysis/

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Film Analysis: This Is England

This Is England is a feature length film, running for around 101 minutes, which was released in 2006 and directed by Shane Meadows, a man who is particularly known and famous for working with projects involving the social realism genre. The film was created by, the equally well-known names to work with the genre, Film 4 and Warp Films and was distributed by Optimum Releasing (or their name nowadays, StudioCanal UK); the same company who are very well known for focusing strongly on distributing films that strongly revolve around culture and the ways in which different countries live and explore film.

You can view the trailer for This Is England below:

This Is England’s plot is based around a young boy of age 12 who’s father died in the Falklands War and how he and his life is influenced by his areas ‘skinhead’ groups. He begins to join gangs and live amongst quite violently led people. The film shows how he begins to look at people as role models and how they influence his own behaviour, suggesting how easy it is for children in those sorts of environments to gain the same anti-socialist attitudes in the working class, poor estate area he lives in. The film is also led with ideas of ‘white’ culture and how much it conflicted with people of other ethnicities in those days, as well as being relatable to some corrupt people in our modern times also.

In this film, there are themes of racism, violence, masculinity, culture, political corruptness, gangs and shows the contemporary life that people used to, and in some cases still do, live with in some areas of the United Kingdom (bearing in mind it is based in 1983, so some behaviours like these would be disciplined a little more in our modern times).

A lot of the environments and settings in the film are quite similar and all follow a grubby, grungy or broken style, as well as share a very similar mise-en-scene. I took key frames of some key environments in the film, and we can see from these the settings are all looking very rough, exhausted and lacking proper upkeep or care.

These descriptions come from the fact that almost every setting in the film has certain aspects to their designs that give this image off; such as graffiti or tags on at least one surface, overall grubbiness, dirt or untidiness, stained with various forms of dirt or liquids and covered with rubbish and broken items in some cases. All of these items would be typically seen in various poorer areas of the United Kingdom, making the mise-en-scene of this film very accurate and realistic.

One of the scenes that stand out to me is a long-shot outside of a church. Although it might not be an important or even essential clip in the film, I felt it presented a lot of detail and representation of themes in the social realism genre.

In particular, the fact there is graffiti, including some profanity, even outside of a church, a place with is almost always associated with peace and harmony. Yet it is covered in a form of tagging where someone had found it necessary to revel against society even in such a religious place.

The fact that the gang members are also hanging outside the place, trying to look as masculine as possible, is also a good representation of real people in my opinion. It shows the rebellion of people and how they lack care for simple things that could possibly make their lives a lot simpler and maybe even more optimistic, but are instead being seemingly run on pure gang culture and other anti-social behaviours that could only have a negative effect on their lives. It's quite ironic really considering a lot of characters in social realistic films complain about their lives being 'dead-ends' or bad overall, perhaps this is a small pointer outer to the audience?

Another aspect to point out about this film was that all of the actors were one of two things; either completely new to acting and having no experience in it what so ever, or they only ever had strong experience in working with directors and films of the social realist genre. They would have also only been given brief scripting of the scenes they would act in (giving an overall outcome or any important messages etc), allowing the actors to improvise and show how they would expect the characters to act or scenes to be played out. This technique of casting is used frequently in film of the social realism genre, as it creates a raw, realistic look to a characters actions, rather than following a script of what a director or writer would THINK is the authentic way to act in the film. It is however a risky move to make in case the actors end up not entirely knowing what to say or giving a boring scene. However, these would have been avoided using takes or post-production cuts.

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Film Analysis: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a film that was created in 1960 from a novel (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning) written by Alan Sillitoe in 1958. It was directed by Karel Reisz. The actors in this film were not necessarily famous at the time of filming and most originated from theater, in those days it would have been thought that the experience in acting may help create realistic and raw acting, however this isn't the case as much nowadays. The actors include; Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field and Rachel Roberts (these being the main three characters in the plot).

The themes of this film include alcohol, deceit, relationships & sex, abortion, working class life, poor family relationships and poverty; all of these being quite dark and depressing subjects at times. These tend to be what build a realistic story though, as a lot of them can be experienced in real life. For example, an action filled life being chased by dragons and meeting the love of your life is far less likely to happen in real life; whereas an unwanted pregnancy that shakes life up is far more likely to occur to an average, everyday person.

Here is a clip of the opening sequence, posted by u9s56, on YouTube.

Just from this short opening sequence, we can see the pieces of the social realism genre perfectly.
The very first shot in in a film is a long shot of a working-class work place; a factory. In the shot we can see lots of people at work, wearing scruffy uniforms (most with their sleeves rolled up and dirty) and of all ages, which shows that even the older generation are suffering in poverty and need to gain finance somehow. The lighting in this shot is also very dull, which faint beams of light seeping through small upper windows if any. This helps to show the atmosphere that these workers would have been working in; creating a rather dull and undesirable mood. However, this low yet busy mood is used in a lot of films with this genre to show that not everyone lives a happy, colourful life like in a lot of other films, it's an extremely effective way of depicting how a film is going to turn out.

 Another really important scene for this film are the shots of background workers. These people would have been included in shot to help show the atmosphere of the factory and show you the types of people that work there, for example in one shot they show 3 workers sitting down in a line formation (see picture below). In this shot, the people are all different age, shape and sizes which shows that anyone that needed the money would be working in the factory, regardless to those factors. But the part is consider isn't the characters they play, but the fact they were not hired to act as workers, they really are the workers of the factory in real life. This means it was filmed on set of an actual working factory and all of their actions would have been real.

Even from screenshots taken at completely random points during the film, we can see it contains many features that we can recognize and match up to be part of the social realism genre.

From the first screenshot, we see the man standing near a playground with rough, grubby looking swings and other play equipment. By showing the playground, there are two things we can pick up from it. One that it is a typical 'poorer' place to be, as children may spend less time at home and more out in parks and streets with the levels of poverty in the area. We can also relate it to Arthur though, suggesting he isn't a small child any more and how life is more serious at his age, which he may not like the idea of. There is also a chain link fence which looks typically restricting and rough itself, this may show how he doesn't have complete freedom. The sky is grey and dull (minus the fact it is a black and white film, you can still recognize how vibrant a scene is) and the whole scene seems urban and lower-class. All of these things are typically seen in the social realism genre.

In the second screenshot, we can see a group of friends and the main character drinking in a pub. In this particular shot, the main character (who is in his young 30's) is trying to out drink a man who is a lot older than himself. This would have been to assert his dominance and youthful nature and lifestyle, suggesting he can take his drink and probably drinks regularly. Alcohol is a very common theme within the social realism genre.

One thing that does not necessarily match the idea of a social realist film is the ending; it's quite a happy one. Most films in this genre end on a low note, with the character being punished and realizing their mistakes at the end. However this film ends with the suggestion of him being married and living with the girl of his dreams. However it could be argued it does have a slight sense of realism to it, possibly suggesting the idea of 'a happy ending is always possible' or possibly 'you're young and have much more to come in life, so don't mope in the past, enjoy the present and future' which is a phrase that is often said to younger people in their lives.

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Social Realism - What Is It?

Social Realism is a genre of media that is seen in various different types of media, ranging from art to music to film. Social realism is much based around how life is really experienced for people, particularly those of the working class or from a poorer background who struggle to live in some cases. Social realism often revolves around and contains themes of, what would be considered, 'problems in reality' within these lifestyles, and carries lots of typical themes and ideas within it. I will however explore these themes later on in my research...

I created a small collage of various (and famous) film posters that are predominantly, or at least slightly built with, based around and includes many features of the social realism genre.

Whilst I was going about my first pieces of research for the social realism genre, I found a very nice segment of a documentary piece by BBC2 called 'British Film Forever - Social Realism'. In this footage, it briefly explains the genre of social realism and shows the opinions of it from the point of view of people who work in the media and some of whom have worked within the genre themselves.

You can view the documentary by clicking this link!

In the film industry, there are a few notable names and companies that specialise or frequently commission, distribute and release films that have the social realism genre within them. Some of these names and companies include;

• Film4
• Ken Loach
• Woodfall
• The Crown Film Unit
• Shane Meadows
• Revolver Entertainment

I will also put some more research in to some of these companies or people later on in the project.

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