Our film trailer is called Jacob. This film follows a young boy as he struggles to escape his social class and abusive mother. He has no choice but to conform to his working class background even though he has bigger aims. The film shows him finding an unexpected friend in the form of an elderly man who helps him to try and escape the chains of his social class.
Heroic- proportionally she is filling the majority of the poster, this suggests a need to overcome her background and economic struggles. small buildings in the background: tower blocks, flats connote council estate and working class.
Weather behind is blue sky and clouds as well as sunshine gives a sense of hope and happiness, however, this is contrasted with her serious and distant expression, suggesting this happiness is faced with trouble and disruption.
The font/text is bold- orange font contrasts with blue sky. this represents the girl contrasting with her lifestyle in society.
The light shines from the left creating shadow on her face, connoting a side of darkness and unhappiness within her character.
She is wearing a hooded jumper, portraying the "hoody" stereotype- associated with having to act tough and stick up for herself. The media represents "hoodies" as intimidating and are typically referred to as ASBO's. Her hood acts as a form of identity, the wind appears to inflate the hood as if to show her true identity.
Small white font informs the audience of actor names, awards, success of the film and ratings. This text is positioned at the bottom of the poster because is it a social realism film and so actors are not famous.
Fishtank as a title demonstrates the idea of captivity and a sense of claustrophobia within society. This shows the idea that we are all fishes trapped in society and cannot escape however hard we try.
This is a picture Maria took in japan. The picture shows hundreds of colourful origami cranes which are traditionally a symbol of honour and loyalty, they also say in japan that if a person folds 1,000 cranes they will be granted their greatest wish. We wanted to include this symbolic feature in our film as it implies the hope and desperation for a better life. In our trailer we want the central shot to be of our protagonist and the antagonist walking into a room (in the antagonists house) exposing hundreds of cranes hanging from the ceiling. This shot will represent hope in the old mans life and showing it to the boy is the passing on of hope as he tries to rebel against his working class upbringing.
This moment in the film shows Shaun as he takes the side of combo because he can relate to him in regards to the Falkland’s war, Shaun sees Combo as a mentor figure and gets wrapped up in his nationalist and racist views. The atmosphere changes from a comical mood with Shaun being chased round the shop by the owner, Shaun uses racial abuse however the shopkeeper can handle it as Shaun is young and naive, with the entrance of combo as he reveals his weapon it is shocking and dramatic, the audience see the danger that Shaun is ignorantly getting into. This scene needs no music as the language and images are dramatic enough on their own.
We see Shaun at the end of his journey as he experiences Combos xenophobia when he severely attacks milky, the only black member of the group. He abandons Combo and discards the English flag he gave him, however it is ironically patriotic as he throws it into the sea. The music is mellow and melancholic, a cover of the smiths which is music from the time making the realism more authentic. The location is strangely beautiful, perhaps made more so through the music and emotion created through the loneliness of Shaun. He walks down a path, almost a path of discovery as his joyful views of England have been corrupted by the Nazi ideology of combo. The scene ends with an extreme close up of Shaun, his face almost aged and worn, his expression melancholic as if he has given up, a direct look at the camera ends the scene, this contact is moving and brings to life the hole film as Shaun breaks the fourth wall.
This image shows the person we have selected to use as our antagonist. We wanted to use an elderly man becuase we though the bond between the two would be more unexpected and interesting to view.
His dialect and appearence connotes working class and so he would be perfect for our trailer.
This image shows one of the possible boys we could use for our protaganist. We feel he suites our characters appearence and his dialect strongly connotes working class. However one of the strong codes and conventions of a social realism films is convincing and natural acting and so we decided to look at other options.
This is our second option for our protagonist. He fits the age most popular in our questionnaire. We liked his small frame and his unconventional appearance as he is not stereotypically "beautiful". However his appearance still allows the audience to sympathise when the character is suffering hardships, this is because he is not "ugly" either. We are trying to convey normality as much as possible and after doing some filming with Oscar we believe he is suitable.
This is an image we found on the internet and we were inspired by it for our ending shot for both setting and lighting. We like this shot for our ending shot because although it is a pleasant setting which would imply a happy ending, our character is walking away from the camera and into the light creating a silhouette allowing the scene to be more ominous, giving a sense of hope for the character.
This is a photo we took ourselves of a sunset. The shot creates the atmosphere we want as it is beautiful yet remains slightly melancholic because of the darkness created by the cloud. We still need to play around further with sunset shots so we find the right lighting to create a silhouette.
Social realism, also known as socio-realism, is an artistic movement where life struggles such as racial and social injustices and economic hardship are portrayed through the visual. The subject depicted is often showing the working class and their activities as heroic. In the artistic movement, the image depicts a scene that would usually convey a political and social protest and would typically be edged with satire. This was reflected in the social realism movement in the cinema with Britain adopting it as its main cinematic style. The idea of working class hardships was portrayed in films taken from Dickens and Thomas Hardy. One of the first film makers to establish the change from pictorialsm to naturalism was James Williamson. His films are considered innovative as they offer a narrative which was not common in earlier films from this time, in 1902 his films became available in America and influenced other film makers to construct a narrative through a number of shots.
The social realist films typically show working class struggles and how they are dealt with in early day life. Mostly set in the north films such as ‘Kes’ and ‘Billy Elliot’ show the struggles of young boys from a working class background.
