semiotic analysis

This film opening uses many codes and conventions of the social realism genre. It features dual protagonists preparing for a night out. Its set in a council estate in the north of England. This is at the equilibrium stage of Todorov's narrative structure as it is at the start of the film.
Mise-en-scene is used in this clip to create verisimilitude in the digetic world for the audience. The digetic world is established at the start as being located within a council estate. The overcast weather connotes the reflection of the current economic status, this is an example of prophetic fallacy.
The setting then progresses up the stairs with the mum into a female teenagers bedroom.
There are a number of different props used in this clip that create various meanings for the audience. When Linda's sat on the bed shes reading a magazine juxtaposed to Jen sat on the floor reading a text book; this starts to establish a binary opposition between the 2 characters. Whilst in conversation with Shannon, Linda is using a mobile phone which helps to establish the diegetic world being set in present time. Near the beginning of the montage Shannon tides up a magazine, feather bower, toy blocks, lamb rattle and calculator this signifies how she attempts to juggle herself around her baby, social life and her presentation.
The denotation of the 'baby pink' lipgloss is its a symbolic sign which helps to create the narrative enigma revealed at the end that Shannon has a baby.
Both characters start off the scene wearing school uniforms which connotes their innocence, however they change into more revealing outfits for their night out this transition signifies their sexual activity as they get made up, starting to age their characters appearance. This creates the preferred reading encoded by the producer that the two characters want to be older than they are.
In the shot of Linda and Shannon laughing as a result of smashing a glass, Shannon's dress is low cut showing some cleavage this connotes femininity and maternity.
The dominant colours in my film opening are where Linda wears a gold dress which connotes happy go lucky tack trying to look expensive. At the beginning Shannon's wearing a white and green uniform which connotes that shes good innocent and sensible, juxtaposed to the binary opposition of herself where she changes into her black dress that signifies a more irrational and uncaring side to her personality.
The lighting used is low key which is a common convention of the genre social realism also reflecting the current economic state.
A shallow depth of field is used throughout with the characters in the centre signifying importance, while keeping the conversation obvious to the audience.
Both objective and subjective camera work is used in this clip creating meaning for the audience.
The first shot is an establishing shot which establishes the digetic world; being in a council estate. A close-up shot of Shannon's lips is used during the montage, this connotes femininity also making it obvious to the audience that the characters are attempting to age themselves. A long shot is used on Shannon and Linda's conversation incorporating the rule of thirds which shows the literal separation, connoting the binary opposition of the gap between the two personalities. A mid-two shot is taken of the two girls having a shot of alcohol connoting the the influence of how Shannon is influenced by Linda. A high angle shots used to highlight Shannon's vulnerability, juxtaposed to the low angle shot of Linda which connotes her power and dominance in the relationship between the two.
Theres a tracking shot followed by a tilt of the characters putting on their heels and fishnet tights. This shot follows the action so that its positioned centrally therefore obvious to the audience. A head-cam was used to reinforce the effect of a first person perspective whilst filming Shannon tidying up, this shot was shaky which is a common convention of social realism films. At the end of the film opening theres a zoom into the baby which adds impact after creating tension to the sudden realisation that Shannon is a teenage mum.
This scene follow the generic editing conventions of social realism films. Continuity is maintained in this scene by following the 180 degree rule and also the 30 degree rule is mostly followed apart from in one shot. This shot was the jump cut during Shannon and Linda's conversation this detracts the audience from the film by making editing obvious to them however this is only for a short time.
Theres a shot reverse shot with both characters looking into the mirror and then the camera looking back with a close-up as the mirror, which helps to anchor the binary opposition. This also gives the audience an idea of spacial continuity between the two characters.
The head-cam shows a point of view shot whilst Shannon is tidying up which connotes her struggle to balance her busy life of motherhood, social life and appearance.
An example of temporal editing in this clip is when a montage is used. The montage was used to speed up time of Shannon and Linda getting ready for a night out, this montage connotes an ellipsis of real time within the film.
We used quick cuts throughout our film in keeping with the common conventions of social realism keeping it simple, also so not to detract the audience from the social issue within the film and helping not to attract the audience to the audience which would take entices off the issue in hand.
Sound is used to create verisimilitude, continuity, and to engage the audience. A number of different forms of external digetic sound are used, the first example of this is the ambient sound of footsteps as the mum walks up the stairs this creates realism and also the volume of the footsteps connotes power over the teenagers. Dialogue is also used throughout this scene to help convey the relationship between the two girls. 'I'd been up a few times the night before', this example creates an enigma for the audience asking the question what had kept her up the night before. A sound effect of a smashing glass is used to add verisimilitude as Linda kicks it off the table, which signifies that the girls are care free.
Non-digetic music is also used in this scene, as the montage begins dance music is layered over it, this is incidental music as it builds up the audiences expectations of whats going to happen on the night out.Incidental music also occurs at the end of the scene with the sound effect as the camera zooms into the baby. This creates tension for the audience as the realisation that she is a teen mum becomes apparent. All of the editing in this film opening is synchronous because as something occurs visually, it also occurs aurally e.g. the the door closes you hear it close creating realism and continuity for the audience.

Final Cut

Evaluation

In our media product we have used developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media products. From our research we found that often in social realism films that location is a working class environment, this convention is also seen in films such as 'Bullet Boy' and 'Kidulthood'. This often entails mise-en-scene such as run down buildings and un-kept surroundings. We demonstrated this in our product the opening establishing shot is of a council house in the local area which helps to reinforce this convention whilst also establishing the genre.
We also found that social realist films are usually set around a current issue in that area like in 'Billy Elliot' with the miners strike, however we felt that a prominent issue for today's working class society was teenage mothers, of which we included in the form of our central protagonist. Although we decided to go against the stereotype of the teenage mother being an outgoing, confident, and presently active but instead is introvert, academic and sexually inactive, meaning that we developed it from its typical form.

This was included to attract our target audience as it enabled to associate with the characters more easily.
Finally our media product challenged the convention of 'dry humour' in British films in the scene where Linda's reaction to Jens final choice of clothing attempts to create visual humour, facial and physical reaction, which could almost be classed as 'slapstick'. This form of humour could though entertaining to the audience could detract them from the genre.


In our film we have focused on one main social group. The general term for this group is 'youth' but in the media they're perceived as 'hoodies' and 'chav culture' which are both negative generalisations of the youth age group. An example of this can be found in the following newspaper headline:

'Our nation of obsessive teen-haters must wake from its complacency. This Labour government has stayed silent while public attitudes to the effects of poverty on children have hardened' The Guardian, Friday 3 November 2006 (accessed online: 01/04/2009). This headline shows how the media representation on teens is has slowly been absorbed by the audience over time, this links to cultivation theory. This headline is contradicting this representation in a way similar to our film.
Our media product represents the 'youth' social group as being; sexually active, underage drinkers teens to appeal to the age group of 15-19years old.
Although our representation of social groups supports those of in the media, later in the film as the the characters cope with caring for the baby and also relationship issues the characters are represented as far more responsible than that of media representation, which is first signified by Shannon's personality as the opposite to what the audience may have perceived her to be.
In relation to this social group we have both attempted to reinforce and dismiss media representations, this gives the audience a chance to empathise with the characters, what would later in the film after gaining the stereotypical representation of them in opening.
However we didn't use a multicultural ethnic cast because our location Northern working class Britain is traditionally associated with Caucasian as majority.

The kind of media institution that may distribute our product would be 'The UK Film Council' which branches off into 'EM Media' and 'Screen Yorkshire', 'Screen Yorkshire' would be the most likely to fund our film because it usually funds regional films.
It would be most likely to be firstly distributed on the Internet at www.channelfour/film , and shown at film festivals such as 'Leeds young peoples film festival',if its such a film festival our film was to receive awards or become critically acclaimed it would mean that distribution could become more widely spread for example to be shown on E4.
'Film four' have the ability to distribute both online and on television which opens to vital distribution paths if i were to choose an institution such as that.
All of these media company's including Warp-x focus on producing and distributing British film, so would better know how to target my target audience.

There are a number of different groups that could be classed as being part of our broad target audience. we have been able to split these down into smaller groups to see how they directly apply to our media project. The groups that can link into a broad target audience are teenagers, the working class, females and parents.
Our primary target market, the one we encoded the product to target are female teenagers. This is our main target audience due to the social issue in the film being centred around this group. we have been able to target this group by encoding the film with a number of different things ranging from props to characters. We selected this as our primary audience because we felt that because we are in this audience we could work out how best to gauge their attention. By selecting the social issue of teen pregnancies we were able to transmit our target audience. By also incorporating props such as the bottle of Archers we again we using a social issue often covered by the national media of teen binge drinking. Again by doing this we were able to identify with female teenagers. Finally the two main protagonists in the opening two minutes of the film are in this group. Along with the social issues, props and characters we have been able to encode our product to identify the primary target audience.
We also have a few of secondary target audiences. Though the film is not encoded to attract these audiences, we feel that they may still be attracted due to the genre and social issues. These three audiences are the working class and also parents of teenage girls and also male teenagers. These audience will be attracted to the film because it looks at issues that they may deal with in their lives. This film also looks at the relationships between the teen girls and characters within these target audiences. These relationships give the audience groups something to relate to in the film which may help them identify and engage with the film.

We attracted our target audience by using a similar aged cast of characters and tackling similar issues to those which affect the target audience. Such as Shannon and Linda the main characters in our film opening are playing 16 year olds, one of which is a teenage mum. This is one of the simple ways in which we have been able to attract the audience. We have also used a number of different props such as make-up, straighteners and clothes to signify their age group and help the audience to relate more easily as they'll be familiar with these props most of which having their own as they're in fashion, which keeps our film opening up to date.

Our location is in a working class area in the North of England, this is a common convention off social-realism films, this is further anchored by the iconic sign of the casts northern accents. This attracts regional areas to the film as they're familiar with the surroundings, as well as a girls bedroom which helps to address the teenage girls audience. We have used simple locations and signs that help the audience to relate to the text which in turn attracts them too it.
We tackled the issue of teenage pregnancy and the stress of coping with juggling baby and social life, for both the mum and those around her. However the teenage mum wasn't stereotypical in her personality, as she wasn't that confident or slack off work. However she is hard working, quieter girl this attracted a wider social audience within female teenagers.

The speech was spoken in a northern accent which is a typical convention of social realist films, also the vocabulary was crafted to identify with the target audience, by using slang terms such as 'erugh no what a minger'.One of the props we used was a babies cot, of which we borrowed from one of our media teachers, as before this all we had was a wash basket stuffed with a pillow which didn't look realistic at all.Although the cot was a vast improvement from our innovative wash basket it still wasn't quite suitable for our genre in that a common convention of social realist films is the form that they're often set in underprivileged areas so wouldn't have much money for a new cot so would probably be a handed down cot.

From using technologies through the construction process of my product i have learnt how to use Imovie6. This was done during the construction of my microdrama, preliminary task and film opening in which i found out how to; cut, edit, add sound, transitions and titles. All of these were used in each of the three projects however I was able to progress and develop these skills through each of the projects. An example of this is in the cutting of each of the separate clips. In our microdrama we found that when cutting down clips we were taking a large amount of time and still leaving sections of the clip on that we didn't want. By the time we were reaching the end of the film opening I was able to quickly cut clips to a more precise point saving time and eliminating unwanted footage.

As it was the first time we had used these technologies we made a mistake during filming, we shot the scenes the first time 4:3 however the second time we shot in 16:9 giving the impression of a wide screen, due to time we were unable to re-film any of these, however next would obviously film it all the same way probably being in 16:9.

I also learnt how to use a SONY camcorder; where by i demonstrated my practical skills in cinematography. i have shot a number of different framing's, angles and movements. Through the three projects i have been able to develop my skill in each of these three areas. I have learnt how to use the camcorder to more precision whilst also developing my own skill and innovation away from the screenplay in both angles and framing's. The main areas I have improved with the camcorder is in zooms, pans and tilts. When shooting both the microdrama and preliminary task I found that I always made these shots quite jerky which would distract the audience. In our final production i had become more competent with the technology and found that i was able to shoot each of these to appear steady and smooth.
For our film opening i made a head-cam using a bicycle helmet and securing the camcorder to the top of it, it was then worn by myself as i played the character of Shannon for the shot using the head-cam whilst picking up a magazine and building blocks amongst other things, tidying them away.

This helped the audience to feel empathy with the character as it gave them a first person perspective of Shannon's life. This was also an unusual shot compared to the rest of the shots used in the film which gave us another opportunity to further engage the audience.

The disadvantages of using a head-cam were that it was hard to keep the camera secured tightly to the helmet compromising its movement, also the movement s had to be emphasised to increase the apparent effect to the audience.However the advantages were that it allowed us to include an unusual shot in the film which helped us to engage the audience. It also meant that i had free movement of both hands making it easy to create the effect. It also meant that we did not have juggle two people during the shot, with one person shooting and one using their arms as Shannon.

Since producing the preliminary task there are a number of different areas in which I feel I have progressed and improved in. These include areas in editing, directing and cinematography. Ive learnt how to construct shot sequences more smoothly by achieving invisible editing. In the preliminary task we used a large range of transitions. This made it look disjointed, unprofessional and also distracted the audience. In our final production however we were able to choose transitions to make the film run smoothly and appear professional. Although we only used simple cuts, this was chosen for a reason, this being that it fitted with the conventions of the genre. Though i have improved my editing in some ways i feel there are places where i could further improve, such as half through the conversation between Shannon and Linda where a jump cut occurs.I was able to direct my casts speech and movement quite easily as they both take drama so were both great actresses, when compared to the preliminary task where the actors were other media students so untrained in acting.In the preliminary task i found it hard to converse my thoughts directly on the actors speech and movement to the actors themselves, which made it difficult for the audience to understand the plot of our film.The dialogue was also quite incoherent at times, which we improved on in our film opening by experimenting with numerous takes of the same shot varying the volume of the actresses voices each time, we also had a rehearsal which included the actresses reading out the lines in a loud clear voice.In our preliminary task our shots weren't very subjective in that the camera wasn't focused enough on the characters and their reactions but taken too far back so that neither emotion or speech could be seen nor heard clearly, making it difficult for the audience to follow.However in our film opening we discussed and planned cinematography thoroughly beforehand so that our filming process was efficient and backed up for most eventualities. We were also able to achieve objective filming more clearly in our film opening by using shot reaction shots combined with invisible editing and a head-cam, which provides the audience with a first person perspective of the film , encouraging empathy to be felt with the characters, in particular the central protagonist (Shannon). When Linda passes the phone to Shannon you can see that there is no text on the phone. If we were to produce this again this is one of the things along with the jump cut that we would improve. Though i feel i have improve vastly throughout the tasks, this shows that there are still areas i can develop in during my next production, particually paying attention to small details such as this.

Final synopsis/the pitch

Final Synopsis and Pitch: Girl coping as a teenage mum.
'This is England meets Mean Girls'

Distribution:Our film would be likely to be distributed by a media institution such as 'Screen Yorkshire', 'Warpx', 'Film Four' or 'Working Title'. As they all specialise in unique social realist films, a lot of which are set up north as ours is.
The Internet and film festivals will be the main source of distribution. This is because as first time producers it would be hard to gain funding for any other type on distribution. The Internet would allow us to distribute to a wide audience and easily receive audience feedback this could be done on www.channel4.com/film. Film festivals such as Leeds Young People's Film Festival would allow us to distribute direct to our target audience whilst also having a low cost.

Genre research and intertextual links

Our media product uses the form of wearing uniform to anchor age and put across pre-conceived thought of teenage girls, from the films; 'Kidulthood' and 'ST Trinians', it further develops this by changing the pre-conceived thoughts of the central protagonist as shes not loud and outgoing continually sexually active care free teenager as first thought but a quiet introvert loving teenage mum which unknown until the end of our film opening.

We also intertextually used the theory of narrative enigma by Levi Strauss from the film 'Collateral' as at the start of the film its unclear to the genre of the film, other than the suspicious 'bag drop', this incorporated into our story by the audience not knowing that Shannon is a teenage mum until the end of the opening apart from the conversation between her and Linda where Shannon says 'Oh, i was just tired, been up a few time the night before'.Our genre (social realism) needed simple low key lighting which is more plain and mundane, as oppose to Hollywood which is high key lighting so more glitz and glam.

We saw this convention of lighting in 'Wish you were here', so tried to mimic the same lighting effects in our own film and did so successfully, using various lamps.

Another form used intertextually linking to 'Wish you were here' is the character name as (Sarah Jepson) as named Linda as the central protagonist in 'Wish you were here' is called as they have very similar personalities in the sense that they're both sexually active, confident and outgoing.
The location of the bedroom where the girls are intertextually links to 'Donkey Punch' where a group of girls are getting ready to go out together drinking etc in a bedroom, we therefore had our location in a girls bedroom with similar events taking place.

Our media film also needed the correct shoot style which is often more like documentary as oppose to Hollywood e.g. having shaky movements emphasises the realism as the audience can relate t it as if they were there as if it were them, our shaky movement were taken using a handheld camera as the she walks up the stairs in the second shot.

We then then use a headcam when the character Shannon is picking up toys a magazine etc which helps to connote and reflect her struggle as a teenage mum to do everything never having a spare moment for herself, this works well as the shot is seen by the central protagonists point of view.

We considered the possibility of making our film opening into a hybrid genre however decided it wasn't suitable for our particular story within this genre but could be moulded into a hybrid of social-realist/horror as carries on.

Genre Research: I felt that to be able to understand the genre of realism and to be able to use it effectively in media studies i had to do some research on the genre. For this i have used 'The Media Student's book, Third Edition' By Gill Branston and Roy Stafford. There is a huge chapter in this book and it focuses on realism's alone. 'Realism is a concept which writers and producers fight over- a politically charged term with an apparently obvious meaning, but also a long and varied history, which needs to be understood if it is going to be used effectively in media studies' Many reality TV programmes have developed from realist film, TV shows such as the channel 4 Big Brother. For genre research we also watched and analysed some social realist films, most of which were old so it was slightly difficult to link them to our film because our film is actually set in the 21st century but we did manage to pull out some links. One of the Films we analysed was 'Wish you were here' and one of the links we pulled out of this was that in this film there was a teenage girl who ended up having a baby and the same happened in our film, one of the teenage girls has a baby at a young age. Another one of the films we analysed was 'Bullet Boy' this had a link in with our film because it was actually set in a council house and our film was set at a council house. As well both our film and 'Bullet Boy' are aimed at a working class audience (C2DE).

Sound and music

We needed a soundtrack to go with our film when it got to the montage stage because at other times the characters use dialogue. For this we had to use Copyright free music and i did some research into which sites on the Internet to download the copyright free music from although i had to be careful of the royalty free music. i did however find some very useful websites of which i was able to download some music and some sound effects for as our film does also include sound effects of a door shutting and a glass smashing, some of these websites are :
htpp://freeplaymusic.com
www.Akmmusic.co.uk
www.soundzabound.com
www.Audio.lgfl.org.uk
www.Audiojungle.net
www.trackline.com
http://phlow-magazine.com
We needed music to fit in with our genre, the time/ century the film is set in and the age and the personalities of our characters so for this we needed fast paced hip music which was quite tricky to find.
In the end we hired a music specialist to produce us a piece of music as we couldn't find anything on the Internet we felt appropriate and that would fit in with our film.

Locations, mise-en-scene, costume, props

Our establishing/mastering shot is used to set the scene at the beginning of our film opening, we chose to take this shot of a house in a council estate because it best reflected the characters socio-economic group(C2DE[working class])/status of the characters, which also helped a wider audience identify with the characters, as they would now have pre-conceived views of the characters next on screen, it also helps to set the tone of itself and future scenes.

Both girls wear school uniforms at the beginning which provides anchorage for their young age (being underage drinkers)

They then change into more revealing provocative clothing which reflects their loose morals whilst under the influence of alcohol and others.

Make-up;lipgloss- the 'baby pink' lipgloss is used because its tacky so reflects age/maturity, low economic wealth and therefore working class, its also a signifier of whats to come, that Shannon (Jen Roberts) who uses the 'baby pink' lipgloss is actually a teenage mum and has a baby girl.

Linda staring into the mirror generously applying mascara connotes the pressure and struggle to look good in society today as well as metaphorically reflecting the struggles of life to cope with to come.

Alcohol;(wine glass/shot glasses/archers)- were all used as Linda (Sarah Jepson) drank from the wine glass, the wine glass is seen to be used by an older more sophisticated female, Linda drinking from this connotes that shes mimicking this ideology (possibly her mother) as she wants to be seen as grown up like this, however the opposite is achieved when she accidentally kicks and smashes it metaphorically smashing her ambitions for the night into pieces, it can only go downhill from here.

Linda is a more stereotypical character this is reflected through the shot of her using GHD straighteners as most girls with her age/older and status would use them everyday.

We used my sisters room to shoot the vast majority of the filming as it perfectly reflected our target audience and characters in the scene as their all generally of the same age, gender, ethnicity etc...

Within this room there are 4 walls, 3 of which are cream which connotes purity, with 1 being dark pink this last wall reflects the bad influence in Shannon's life despite being girly and pink its dark signifying a dark side to herself and life.

The duvet is white again reflecting purity but with multicoloured hearts on it which signifies Shannon is trying to please all that she likes/loves, but these hearts aren't coloured in reflecting her love is thinly spread and she needs help.

The pink feather bowers on the wardrobe door behind Shannon's (Jen Roberts[central protagonist]) head whilst shes sat talking to Linda (Sarah Jepson) connotes her fun and feminine side which led her to her downfall before the film (getting pregnant and having a baby), and that this crops up there and a lot in different shots reflects that its always there and will be forever just like the problem of being a teenage mum.

The fact that Shannon is sat on the floor in her own bedroom at a lower level to Linda who's on the bed reflect their statuses and the relationship between the 2 that Linda is in control and free because despite being a non-academic isn't tied down with a baby. It also connotes that Linda's more confident than Shannon.

This is mirrored in the film 'Bend it like Beckham' where Jules is in bed and Jess stood on the floor in this scene Jules has power as Jess comes to ask for forgiveness.