SR: Film opening 6: This is England (2006) - Shane Meadows

Social Realism is an genre, which is often used by the film company Warp, that produced this film. The genre is based on real life and even though the story's are mostly fiction, the stories are supposed to show a reflection of the world we live in.

The characters, dialogue and the entire mise-en-scene are all used and inspired by the real world.

The film opening from "This is England" is very useful when looking for a good example of the social realism genre.

The film opening also represents a lot of historical context. It shows many uprisings and demonstrations on the streets. People going on strike, wars and bombing of houses and ships  etc. During many different clips we also see images of Margaret Thatcher, who was the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. By knowing this, we can state that a lot of the scenes may have been shot at that time period.

During the entire film opening, there are people and stories portrayed on screen. These show everyday characters and their working class backgrounds. This use of untrained actors and everyday situations, is a typical convention of a social realist film. It also makes the movie more realistic and the audience might also be able to relate themselves to the movie.

We also see a lot of different shots from the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Princess Diana, which took place on the 29th of July 1981. These pictures again show the audience that most of the scenes are shot in that specific time period.

A lot of scenes are emphasising on what Britain was like back then. The non-diegetic song in the film opening is called "54-56 What's my number?". The band "Toots and the Maytals", has written this song to show the ability to grow and thrive against injustice.

During the film opening, we see a lot of shots of demonstrations and also people fighting against the police. Since the song is about fighting injustice, we can conclude that many of the scenes were about people who felt unjust.

Comparing: Warp VS Working Title

Warp Films

Warp films use Sheffield, in Yorkshire as their main filming location. Their films often don’t have a specific genre. They usually target audiences in England.

They are an independent company, who therefore don’t get very much funding.

They focus on allowing the actors to develop their own roles.

They use a lot of urban areas to shoot locations to emphasize the real life situation.

The themes in the films focus more on the “grungy” and real aspects of life.

Working Title Films.

Their filming location is mainly London but also in the areas around London. This is something that is found a lot in working title, and many of the other production companies.

They focus on many different genres but romance in particular.

They are able to spend more money on actors and mise-en-scene due to them being given much larger budgets.

Their audience is much broader and ranges from children to middle aged women to entire family movies.

The image for working title is “cleaner” and idyllic. The costumes and filming locations are often nicer.

SR: Production Schedule Version 1

15th of January - creating idents

22nd of January - Deciding on exact costume of the girl choosing her exact clothes and make-up (stereotypical girl, wearing pink possibly heels as well)  

23rd of January - Creating the 5 photos that the girl will hold in the "Auchan scene" (taking pictures with the girl and her friends, guy/stalker wearing black in all of them with a mask.

23rd of January - Starting the filming procedure in Bronwen's basement, filming the scene where Olivia is threatened with a knife. Focusing on the mise-en-scene with candles, sheets etc.

2nd of February - Filming the Auchan scene. Focusing on the acting and the costume of Olivia.

5th of February - Working on the editing, using Final Cut, and looking at which shots are missing and if we have a good sound, continuity and shot variety.  

16th + 19th + 20th of February (after holidays) - add title sequence and idents, using Final Cut, finishing editing

Storyboard 1

As the art student in the group, I was assigned the role of creating the storyboard.

As a group, we sat down and went through the plot of the film opening. I quickly sketched a draft storyboard, using stick figures. We decided what kind of camera angles we wanted to include and what effect they would have on the film opening. 

I then went away and did the real storyboard, using watercolor paint and fine liner. 

Group Pitch 1

With my group, we decided to create a new pitch for our film opening. We also created a Prezi to go along side this, which includes things such as the production schedule, which we decided to leave out of our group pitch.

Individual Pitch

Pitch for Film Opening

My Pitch was about my idea for the opening 2 minutes of a film.

At first, I had a few names in mind such as "The Basement", "Torture" or "The Torturing". However, after doing some research, I found out there are already movies with these titles, so I think the movie will be called "Torture Underground" or "Underground Torture". However, this is something that may change later on in the production process.



This is the video I had playing when I did my pitch. I timed it so that what was playing was relevant to what I was saying.

Vodcast 3: Narrative Exposition

This is the 3rd vodcast I did, based on narrative exposition in horror film openings. I did all of these vodcasts because I knew I wanted to do a film opening in the horror genre.

Vodcast 2: Semiotics

The second vodcast I did was on the semiotics of horror film openings.