Sweet sixteen trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWEpdJ8zcXI

Sweet sixteen is similar to our film as it is about two male friends (in our case brothers) bonding. It is set in a very working class area of Scotland where life is hard and the main character is having to live with his sister as his Mum is in prison and he falls out with his step-dad because he wouldn't sneak drugs into prison for him.

The first shot of the trailer is of the two lads together. The setting looks like a typical British town as it is dull and gloomy. There are wearing sportswear and a cap to represent their class. There is a voiceover of the tape he sends to his mother when she is in prison and in the background you can hear 'I'll stand by you'. At this part of the trailer it seems to be uplifting and show hope. There is a shot of a baby which represents innocence and shows he has something he loves. There is then a shot of him shaving with his sister and her friend laughing at him. This shot shows that he is starting to become a man and also that there is a sign of happiness in the house he is living. There is then an estabalishing shot of a caravan by the lake in the country with one of the lads saying 'Paradise man'. This is quite ironic as not many people would see it is as paradise but these lads see it as somewhere they can escape to.
The title then comes up and the music then changes to upbeat drums and strings to show tension which is used to show an interruption in the happiness and they are brought back down with a bang. There are then numerous shots of him with older men who look like nasty piece of work. It is binary oppositions as he looks young and naive where as they look old and experienced. This shows him being out of place and out of his comfort zone. There is then a shot of him with a knife with fear on his face. This is showing him coming of age as it is a masculine and intimadating symbol. There a quick jump cut to him running away which is ironic as it shows the complete opposite of the last shot. The titles come up again then the music once changes to 'I'll stand by you' but in this case it is used differently as he is stood alone on the phone to his Mum and they both seem upset and she tells him it is his birthday which also symbolises him coming of age.

What is social-realism?

Social-realism films are very often about working-class life in Britain and give us a story that many of us find it easier to relate compared to a hollywood blcokbuster. There are often very blunt and rarely have a happy endings; it shows us a slice of life. They usually have a low-budget so don't have special effects and the equipment mainstream films have. However, the resources they use are often effective as the genre is very popular in Britain. In recent times, social-realism films have been dominated by Ken Loach with films such as 'Sweet Sixteen' and Shane Meadows with his infamous 'This is England'.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We have used mobile phones to take pictures of our work. We found this useful as we didn't need to do all of our work online. This is effective as our mood baords can be bigger on paper and it is clearer. We used Apple Macs to edit our trailer which helped us greatly as it is very self explanatory and easy to use. We found that using photoshop for our film poster and magazine helped us aswell as it is very detailed and advanced. However, we did have problems we used as the battery life on them was very short so we could only do little bits of filming at a time and then we had to keep charging it up.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We had very positive feedback to our trailer from our peers and teachers. We found that the music we used gave the trailer a lot more emotion and helped them empathise. A lot of people commented on the tagline 'Love Will Tear Them Apart' and found quite clever and amusing which I think would help boost viewings.We were also complimented on the fact the camera work was very steady even though we didn't use a tripod which shows that one isn't always neccesarily needed. We have been told that the text we used was very important as it let them know what was going on and they might have been struggling to know what it was about otherwise.
However, we have learned that we should film our shots for longer then we actually need to as we found that the last shot would be better if it went on for longer.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The three main characters are present in all three tasks which helps the audience have familiarity with them. However, there is a different actress in the film poster and the magazine to the film as we has difficulty as we found she wasn't reliable enough. We have used conventions of social-realism films in all three of the tasks; the film poster is in black and white to show depression which links in nicely with the film as thew colours arevery dull as a lot of the filming is on the streets. The shot for the magazine portrays the boys to be quite laddish as those pose is quite promiscous. This will help atrract the audience as we hae found that this is what they look for. The production website link is present on all three of the tasks which is good way of advertisement.  The tagline (Love Will Tear Them Apart) is present in the film poster and the trailer which we have used to attract the audience because of the link to Joy Division.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have analysed numerous trailers and I feel that our trailer has challanged forms and conventions of the genre. For example, we havn't used much dialogue in the trailer but used a piano piece over the top to create tension. We have used text to help show the stroyline eg. 'Two Broken Brothers'. This makes up for the lack of dialogue and so the audience know what is going on. We used the tagline 'Love Will Tear The Apart' which is a twist on the song 'Love will tear us apart' by Joy Division. This will help give the audience familiarity as our target audience are likely to know that song. This will inspire them to go watch the film. There is a quite clip of the two brothers fighting in our trailer which can be seen as a convention of social-realism. For example, it is present in the 'Sweet Sixteen' trailer. There is a shot of me up against a fence looking out into fields. We have used symbolism here as it suggest that he is trapped because of the baby and he is looking out into the open world. Drugs can also be seen as a covention of social-realism fillm which is present in our trailer where Danny deals cocaine to another boy. This is showing that he has turned to crime. The last three shots are quick cuts of each of the the main characters. It shows how each of them is dealing with the stress of the pregnancy. The first shot shows Danny drug dealing which shows that he doesn't seem very affected by it. The last two are of Cora then me who are both sat down looking depressed. This leaves the audience worried about their welfare and will make them wnat to go watch the film to see how it ends up. The film poster also challanges the codes and conventions as Danny is wearing white which represents purity and innocence but we know he is the antaganist and is very sly whereas Jack is wearing black to show darkness but he is actually quite innocent and hurt.

Update

In the past two weeks, we have started filming our trailer. It has beeen a struggle as one of our actors has been ill so it halted the process. We also have a photo for our poster and have the layout on photoshop so we just need to upload the photo and edit it on. I have researched other socail-realism film posters and have analysed the 'This is England' one and decoded it.