Costume Research

This Nike bomber jacket is mostly worn by youth with street affiliation. With what I have seen myself  in reality and in social realism movies this jacket is commonly worn by them, mainly because of the puffiness of the jacket and the secret pockets embedded in the coat which maybe used for storage for illegal items. The hood is very big as well which enable the users to pull over their face to not reveal their identity while committing crime.

                                                                                     

In this mood board I picked out a range of pictures from different social realism films to help understand my costume arrangement for my characters in the trailer. 

From my mood board  I Inferred that hooded clothing  are stereotypically worn by mainly the Afro-Caribbean ethnic  group. Hoodies are seen to be quite intimidating . The media has left a negative stamp on the young generation by labelling hoodie-wearing teenagers as suspicious and sign of intent to commit a crime

When adults see a young person wearing a hoodie they automatically stereotype the teen as “thug” or a “trouble maker” the media has exaggerated the stereotype of hoodies  so much that it created a moral panic in some societies.

People forget the real reason for the wearing of hoodies for example to  feel comfortable and warm during cold weathers.

social realism films 99% of the time if not all the time conform to the negative stereotypes of hoodies, for example the protagonist characters that are seen wearing hoodies are normally up to no good. If you go  back to my mood board you will see a picture taken from the movie “shank” on the bottom left, which shows a group of teens hooded up armed with harmful weapons and obviously the body gestures of the group suggest to the viewers that they have a negative motive.

Evidence

    Also the protagonist characters are generally from a  lower social class,  which is shown by their costumes and  mise-en-scene of the area. In the social realism pictures I have shown the female actresses  conform to the stereotype of an average female from a materially  deprived family which are conveyed to be quite trashy and ‘ratchet’.  ‘Ratchet’  is an urban term used to describe ‘A diva, mostly from urban cities and ghettos, that has reason to believe she is every mans eye candy. Unfortunately, she's wrong’ (www.urbandictionary.com) 

Challenging the stereotypes

In my trailer my male protagonist characters are going to conform to the stereotype in the way they are dressed. The reason I am conforming is because  the way social realist films dress up their male characters is the same way some dress in today's modern society, especially in the area my trailer is located the dress sense is very common. For example a hooded jumper,  tracksuit bottoms and casual trainers

I am going to challenge the way females are portrayed in social realist films. In most social realist films females are dressed up in ‘trashy’ clothing for example wearing tracksuits and hats like as you see in the image below

normally the females that are dressed up in that kind of way it influences their lifestyle and  results in  having no ambition and conform to the stereotype of women dependency on men. But  in my trailer I am to challenge that  stereotype  by dressing up my female character in decent clothing as females are starting to become more independent than in the past and also having ambitions and wanting to play a part in the bread winning role which known to be played by men alone.

Colour Scheme

Here is a selection of pictures of colour schemes the group is considering to pick.

Magic of DAfont

Here I used the fonts from DAfont so i can apply them in the group's trailer. I done by downloading the fonts from DAfont then installing them on computer system which enabled me to apply them in trailer as they were in the list of fonts available on Adobe After Effects CS4.

Poster Sketch

The main character is in the foreground to convey his importance and centrally framed to add emphasis on the male, the dominant role. The knife in the characters hand is there to symbolise his wayward lifestyle and the microphone is in binary opposition to that by conveying his dreams, faith and hope to escape his from his lifestyle that may lead him near death on in prison. As you can see I placed his girlfriend on the right where his microphone is showing her support of him to abandon his negative lifestyle and focus on his talent he posses which is rap and follow his dreams, and his friends that influence him negatively are deliberately positioned on the left side where the knife is to show how they support his bad lifestyle and want him to carry on going down the road his going and not in support of his dreams.

Created by Sean Okpa

This is my sketch of a possible design that we could use when creating our poster. I envisioned splitting the poster into two; the city of London which I represented by using images of the Shard and Gherkin and the city of London where our protagonist lives. I also wanted to illustrate the hypothetical 'split path' that our protagonist could take in a literal way. I did this by drawing a path with split roads leading to his friends or his pregnant girlfriend. I aimed to implement the purpose of are trailer which is dreams and escapism through every aspect of our poster, including the title. I focused on having 'Dream' in a dreamy or bubbly font which would connotate the happiness of a dream whereas the 'Z' was written in the same italic handwriting as 'the hood' which would add edge to the title which I believe our film represents.


Comparing my sketch to an existing Social Realism poster, I've reevaluated what I expect to be on our poster. The Shifty Poster doesn't detract from the main characters as it is on a very plain background whereas on the poster I had designed there was a lot to focus on from the buildings to the main character to his friends and girlfriend. On my poster design, I focused too much on the actual images and including a title, rather than including the other necessary conventions of a film poster such as the film ratings and sell lines.

Created by Abena Amoako

Dreamz in the Hood Poster: Draft 1

Using the hue and saturation panel process, I managed to use the colours from https://kuler.adobe.com/explore/ to get the background above using Photoshop CS4. This is
just a draft of how the group would like our potential poster to look like.

Created by Solomon Ssenyonga

The general idea behind this draft is simplicity. We wanted the poster to reflect the "hood" in which the protagonist dreams of escaping from, however we wanted the audience to be attracted to the protagonist despite him facing the city. We therefore used a soft focus on the city so the main focus would be the protagonist.
This was essentially just a draft to give us an idea of what we intended to created and provide us with a foundation to build on from here which may explain as to why some necessary conventions such as ratings and tag lines have not been included.

Created by Abena Amoako

Animated Story Board Feedback

We gained some feedback from our draft of the animated story board our feedback included things such as:

• The changing between the two sound tracks we used - Class mates advised us to try and create a blend between the two which will make the change in tune less obvious to the audience and generally make it sound much smoother.

• Another point given to us was to alter the pace and timing on some of the images included on our story board - This was because it seemed as if some of our images were crammed in and did not give the audience enough time to view, understand and follow the narrative of our trailer.

• We were advised to add some sound effects if possible - which would help the audience understand the narrative and what is going on within the trailer.

• We were complimented on our use of titles, at the beginning middle and end of our trailer - this also helped establish the genre, narrative and characters within the trailer. Titles are also a common theme within the Social Realism film genre.

• We were also complimented on the narrative of our trailer - as it was put across clearly to our audience through the use a variety of images.

Call Sheet

SHOOTING SCHEDULE:

Saturday 30th  November 

10:00-12:00

Shoot opening scene including:

• Ramel on the balcony of his estate
• Additional establishing shots of his estate
• 'Drug Deal' with extra Salliah
• Passing of the bag with Femi and Ramel
• Ramel on train

Saturday 7th December

• Shooting Motorway Scene
• Car scene including Ramel and Kieron

Saturday 28th Decemeber

• Shooting Estate deal with extras

Saturday 4th January

Shooting park scene including:

• Ramel, Femi and Kieron stealing bike from extra's 
• Ramel, Femi and Kieron chatting in park
• Walking round the Estate with Ramel and Stacey

Monday 6th January

• "Out of Area Shoot" including Femi and Kyle

Friday 10th January

Shooting all scenes including:

• Ramel in kitchen looking at knife
• Ramel in kitchen looking for food
• Ramel and Stacey in Ramel's home
• Ramel walking away from Stacey

Friday 17th January 

• Ramel in studio

Monday 20th January

• Playground scene including Ramel, Femi and Keiron

Created by Abena Amoako

Animated Storyboard

This is our first version of storyboard, with mixed images with some drawn and some found images because i could not find all of the images online.

These images are a resemblance of how we want our trailer to eventually turn out, we understand that it will change according to the locations and actors available to us.


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Production Company Logo Research

I like this logo because of the unique structure it retains, I would like to use some ideas from this logo to help create my groups logo. The logo stands out because of its simplicity, the use of contrast between black and silver. I like the merging letters of U and A on how it comes together and emphasises on the meaning of the word "United" .

This logo caught my attention for the fact that it contains the same initials as my group name. And for how it looks it gives us a good sense of how our logo will look as I also want to merge the initials of our groups name in the logo.

This is the first logo I designed to use to represent our company, but we did not end up using it at the end, with a strong team discussion we came to a conclusion that we will not like to proceed to use this logo as our first and final draft as we do not like the tiny squares in the background.

I used my Photoshop skills to remove the square boxes in the background, I created another layer on Photoshop and used the brush tool and magic wand tool to assist me in making the transition made to my previous logo draft which.

This is our final draft, as a group we came to an agreement that we would use this logo to represent our company. The removal of the squares in the background made our logo look more professional and appropriate to use.

Soundtrack Research

In this post you will find information about the type of music that will be used in our trailer. We carefully selected music that is affiliated with the genre of our trailer, such as Grime/UK rap which is a popular music genre that is listened to in  the South East of England.

Music in Existing Social Realism Films
Adulthood Trailer 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhrJBUMxNMQ

The track played in the adulthood trailer is from a well known UK artist that goes by the name of 'Bashy' with his huge fan base it attracted even the people that are not particularly fans of social realist films to go and watch adulthood in the cinemas simply due to Adulthood's usage of star marketing.

SKET Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sc3SaZy4n8

In this trailer they use a UK Artist named 'Ghetts' who is well known by the youths in London. 'Ghetts' makes grime music which is a common genre played in social realist films because the lyrics of hardship normally relate to the characters lifestyles. The reason why the grime genre is so popular in social realism films is because of the the target audience for most social realism films are normally from 15-25  in London, and grime attracts people form that age group.

Possible Artists We May Feature

• Mover
• Nines
• K.koke
• Shaks Corleon
• Joe Black
• Chipmunk
• Skepta
• Squeeks

Top 3 Selected Tracks

• Nines - My Hood
• Mover ft future 1 - Where do I go
• Joe Black -  Real N*gga Music

Completed by Sean Okpa

Edited by Abena Amoako

Filming Locations

We would like our trailer to begin with our protagonist character overlooking his city or neighborhood.  We would like this establishing shot to be taken from a high stand point therefore we want to go to a story block as it gives us a good view of the area. We would then take the shot from behind the protagonist to get a third person point of view.

We also aim to film within the estate that Ramel lives in. Actively walking or playing with his mates. From this our audience will be able to see Ramel's involvement in his community (not a positive one) and therefore be able to present his environment as one that he should aim to escape from. We felt we could achieve this with shots of parks and alley ways where we can show Ramel getting up to mischief. 

Our main character Ramel will find a leaflet for a talent show on a train. Because Ramel will be alone in this shot, our audience will be able to identify the emotions of this character without the interference of the other characters. It is also another way to establish the setting to our audience.

We will be shooting a scene in the home of ‘Ramel’, with his girlfriend as here we can show the characters in their comfortable environment to try and get a sense of both Ramel and Stacey's relationship. This scene will be where the climax starts off and ‘Ramel’ is left with decision of whether to take part in his talent show or meet up with his friends. 

One scene will be shot at a studio. We wished to present our protagonist as an aspiring rapper and therefore wanted to show him in his element. By doing this we feel that we would be further anchoring the musical element of the trailer and give the audience the opportunity to see Ramels talent and then why this talent show would be important to him.

We intend to film in the playground of characters (Ramel, Femi and Kieron) as we can present them in  a playful way so our audience can gain insight into the personality of each character when they are together as well as the influence they each have on one another.

Created by Abena Amoako

Shots Storyboard

Storyboard Frame Sheet

Name of Student: Kortney Hudson Product Title: Dreamz In The Hood 

Timings	Sketch Frames	Visual	Audio
Time: 6 seconds Frame No:1		Wide establishing shot that zooms out to reveal Sean’s character on the balcony overlooking the local neighborhood. Suggests a time of deep thought.	Non/diegetic sounds of police sirens and natural diegetic sounds of the wind in the trees. Possibility of a non-diegetic sound-track being played.
Time: Frame No:2		Mid-shot of Sean on the train. Still in deep thought. Natural window lighting however, the lights used on the trail will be used to our advantage.	Diegetic sounds of the train and natural activity.
Time:4 seconds Frame No:3		Close up of a leaflet promoting a concert for young talented rappers Sean’s character finds on the train. This reveals Sean’s characters “Dream”.	Non-Diegetic sound of silence.
Time:5 seconds Frame No:4		School tracking shot with the three boys walking through the corridor. Natural school sound settings. Sean’s character is centrally framed which suggests that he is the most important in the group with his two boys standing on both sides of him.	Diegetic school sounds. Sounds of the characters speech, talking about the leaflet found and other business they engage in.

Timings	Sketch Frames	Visual	Audio
Time:4 seconds Frame No:5		Mid shot of Sean’s character and his girlfriend in the house talking.	Diegetic sounds of the characters speaking.
Time:5 seconds Frame No:6		Sean’s characters phone rings, camera shot of a close up on his phone revealing it’s one of his “boyz” & Sean picks up after his girlfriend reveals she’s pregnant with his child.	Diegetic sound of speech and diegetic sound of his mobile phone ringing.
Time: Frame No:7		Close up of Sean’s character when he shouts at his girlfriend. His facial expressions will help the audience understand his emotions at the time.	Diegetic sounds of the characters speaking and possibly the diegetic sound of the Television playing.
Time: Frame No:8		Tracking shot of Sean as he runs out of the house. The screen then dissolves to black and reveals the final scene.	Non-diegetic sounds of the sound track being played in the background.
Time: Frame No:		Final wide/establishing shot of Sean’s character standing at the beginning of two paths. This shot will make it clear to the audience that he is indecisive at this point in which path to take, metaphorically speaking.	Non-diegetic sound of the wind. Non-diegetic sounds of the trailer theme tune playing in the background.

Film Title Brainstorm

Together, we have decided on basing our film  trailer on the social realism genre therefore the title of the film was fundamental in catching the initial attention of a target audience.

We agreed that ‘Dreamz in the Hood’ would be our final film name, however before coming to this conclusion, we had anticipated using several other possible film names.

‘BOYZ’: was our first runner up film title choice. We believe that social realism films tend to be male dominated and that ‘boyz’ were going to be the focus of our film trailer therefore it would be effective to simply call our film ‘boyz’. We didn’t end up going with this film title as we didn’t believe that this title doesn’t do well in grasping the attention of our audience or make them interested in pursuing the idea of watching a social realism film with this title.
 ‘Road Runnerz’: was our second runner up film. As a group we felt as though ‘Road Runnerz’ sounded good as a potential film name but we didn’t believe it gave our audience enough insight into what our film was going to be about. But we agreed that the film name had the second most potential. 

The last five names which included:

• Choice is Yours
• Our Life
• Hope
• Way Out
• Ragz 2 Riches

Proved to be the least favorite both among our audience and as a team. We felt that these titles were the least effective in revealing the most prominent themes within our film trailer. Someone we had questioned about the film title 'Hope' stated that "it better suits a romantic drama". We also received general feedback which varied from informing us that the titles were "too simple" or " too broad".

This led us to the conclusion of choosing 'Dreamz in the Hood' which we felt most related to our story line as "dreamz" connotes escapism which we detected as being one of the most common themes in a social realism film. Adding the 'z' in replacement of the 's' at the end of "Dreamz" adds more appeal to the film and those we intend to watch it, this was said by random members of our audience. 

Completed by Abena Amoako

Titles Ideas

Initial Ideas Brainstorm

Here, I have included images of us in the process of brainstorming our initial ideas for what we intend the story line of our trailer to be. 

The most reasonable setting we have chosen was London, where we would then move around different locations to get the most ideal shots. 

We also decided that our soundtrack for our trailer should be UK Rap/Grime as from our research it appeared to be a common theme and had considered some possible tracks we felt would work well with some of the themes that we show in our trailer.

We have decided that our trailer should be focused on the lives of 3 boys between the ages of 17 and 18. One idea that was considered was that all 3 boys would have a route out, but it was also suggested that to create a dynamic and more realist plot we would intend for only one of the male protagonists to have a talent however is restricted as his two best mates which are referred to as 'Boy 2' and 'Boy 3' on the mind are bad influences and have no ambition. 

Created by Abena Amoako

Independent Film Magazine Preferences

This is an example of the Sight and Sound Magazine which is published by the BFI featuring Johnny Depp. By analyzing this front cover I became interested in the pose of the actor. Most magazines feature images with a direct mode of address to compel and audience towards the magazine and the person featured on the front cover. This image however takes a different approach as it appears to be in motion and has no eye contact with the audience. I found this to be effective as it relates to the film and title "gangster special" as the image anchors the "gangster" impression with the gun and disguisable outfit. 

Here is another example of an issue which features Johnny Depp however, for his role in 'Charlie and the Chooclate Factory'. I chose to analyse this issue also as I feel it is a good embodiment of how each issue is adapted to suit the chosen film despite the magazine featuring the same actor. This image has a direct mode of address as it resemble the kind of character 'Willie Wonker' was for example, friendly and approachable which is what the direct mode of address helps to create through the image. The Logo for 'Sight and Sound' has also been adapted for this issue, however it is still identifiable by the use of yellow and black which is consistent among all issues, this helps to establish the 'Sight and Sound' brand which is important for customers when coming to by a magazine.

Created by Abena Amoako

Independent Film Magazine Preferences

The reason I like this independent film magazine is because of the effective photo used and how they put the buildings in the background in soft focus to make it clear to the audience what to pay attention too (the artist image). Also the layout of the magazine is immaculate it does not look too tacky and the sans serif font is a good way to convey the genre of the magazine.

I like this magazine in particular for the clarity and quality of the photo used as the cover. Likewise the masthead is very big which reassures the readers to not to forget the company name. I also like the layout of the sale lines and the positioning of the bar code which I think from my point of view is unique. Furthermore the direct mode of address from the model gives the readers a sense of engagement.










Created by Sean Okpa
Edited by Abena Amoako

Independent Film Magazine Analysis

Created by Abena Amoako

Mainstream Film Magazine Analysis

Created by Abena Amoako

Mini Research Evaluation

Six key findings we found out whilst carrying out our research tasks were;

Who our target audience is using our psyco-graphic and demographic – Solomon

Used powerpoint to create mood boards identifying key target audience.

Inner London youth, males aged between 15 and 25. People in the C1, C2 D and E categories as they’re most likely to watch these types of films.

The key conventions of a social realism film – Solomon

Used youtube to watch trailers and identified key themes within social realism.

Talk about costumes, lighting, language, common actors used, budgets, local setting, on location shooting, protagonists behavior.

Where social realism films are consumed – Sean

Used serve monkey to create a questionnaire and found out that..

Local London cinemas. Usually the smaller chain or independent cinemas. DVD release, illegal online websites and legal online streaming such as Netflix.

The locations and settings of a social realism film – Sean

Used IMDb to find out current filming locations of recent social realism films

London Estates, parks, blocks of flats and normal streets. Usually filmed with hand held cameras and filmed on location.

We found out they receive more critical success than commercial success – Abena

Researched social  realism film history, posters and profiles and found that

Usually don’t make a lot of money. Posters and DVD covers usually have good quotes from film magazine and newspaper reviews.

Finally we found out that social realism films represent the youth of today - Abena

Deal with local and real life issues, such as drug, gun and knife crime.

Created by Kortney Hudson

This Is England Poster Analysis

Created by Kortney Hudson
Edited by Abena Amoako

Shifty Poster Analysis

Completed by Solomon Ssenyonga
Edited by Abena Amoako

Mood Board Analysis: Target Audience

What is a Teaser Trailer?

A teaser trailer is a short trailer which is used to advertise different media forms such as television programmes, games or in this case film trailers. Teaser trailers are usually released a while before the film creating suspense, which draws an audience’s attention to actual release of the film.

I have created a mood board which I believe is a good representation of our desired target audience for our trailer. From looking at various trailers, age group and audience have been similar. From my mood board clear images ranging from young black males to district line trains have been illustrated. I added these images considering social realist films are usually directed to a niche target audience of people in the 'C2' - 'E' socio demographic income bracket. I also believe that our trailer would be of greatest interest to those who can most relate to it, which is why there are images of London buses as London would be the area in which our trailer would be set as appose to say the countryside which is not known for regular gun crime or violent teens. The mood board is dominated by young males as I believe that social realism films which depict violence usually appeal more to males than females and so I added only one image with females in it to show the uneven ratio of males to females who are most likely going to watch the film. 

Created by Abena Amoako

Mood Board Analysis: Costume

Mood Board Analysis: Social Realism Films

Social realist films focus on modern issues within today’s society. Controversial issues which always spark a debate about the film.  For example, issues in Adulthood such as knife and gun crime, violence and sexual acts are all common features of a social realist film however the issues always spark a riot as there's always moral panic over the imitable behaviour it may cause.

 All of the film posters on my mood board are desaturated which I believe gives a small insight into the story of the film together with the image. Compared to a Disney film which has saturated bright colours.

 The social realism genre is also known for its casting of unknown actors such as Kate Jarvis from Fish Tank. Social realist films are all very similar as they mainly explore the same issues, this is why they are targeted at such a niche audience.

As you can see there are similarities between the “This Is England” poster and the “Adulthood” poster. They both show groups of people who  are the main characters in  the movie.

However there some differences in  the two posters as the Adulthood one focus’ on  the youth in  the film whereas the This is England one focus’ on the characters of all ages. This is also one of the main differences between social  realism films set in the 80’s and ones set in  the present day.

There are also similarities in with the “Fish Tank”, “This is England”, “Shifty” and “Bullet Boy” posters.  As you can see they all  feature some quotes showing off their critical success. Critical success is vital to social realism films as that is where most of their success comes from as they do not usually do as well with commercial success. However, Slumdog Millionaire is a rare example, of a British social realism film from the UK that has been both critically and commercially successful.

A reason why Slumdog Millionaire may have been so commercially successful may have been because it has a happy ending and makes the audience feel good. Another season it may have been successful could be because it is a hybrid film (Drama, Thriller, Romance)

Created by Kortney Hudson