Initial Research and Planning

To start the planning of our opening film sequence, we met as a group and brainstormed idea’s discussing a numerous amount of narrative ideas and various genre’s we could explore.

We wanted to create a film with a contrasting genre to our preliminary task; horror. Initially a group member suggested a romantic comedy, however I suggested that with the age of  the group members it would be challenging to create a realistic romantic comedy, with teenagers as actors. I also raised the point that generally British Romantic comedies tend to be based on predominantly white, middle class adults.  We then agreed to explore social realism and perhaps create a teen drama as we felt we could make it relevant creating roles other teenagers could relate with and it would be best suited to our actors and the surrounding urban locations.

We discussed individual attributes of group members so we could allocate roles accordingly. Being the only person in the group with previous experience in camera work and editing I volunteered to do both filming and editing, also offering to help Bruna demonstrating how to use the camera and use the editing software ‘iMovie’ so she could get a chance to edit and film. Nkiru and Raymond, both studying drama, suggested they would perform as actors.

We  then started the reaserch into other films of a similar genre that we could take inspiration from. We researched ‘Kidulthood’ a gritty british film set in inner-city London. Following the protagonist Trife, 15, giving a 24hour insight to his day to day struggle, caught in the trap of violence and drugs. The socially real narrative includes moments of romance, humour and poignant emotional moments. This is a hard-hitting reflection of what life is really like for 21st century teenagers. In my opinion the reason kidulthood was such a phenomenon was due to teenagers feeling they could relate to some of the troubles and decisions both Trife and other characters experience throughout the film, either personally or things they are exposed to living in a city. This is something I felt was important to the plot of our film as the primary target audience would be teenagers.

I also independantly looked into a Channel 4 TV drama ‘Fallout’ which was aired last year, written in response to the Damiola Taylor case (a young teenager who was murdered). Fallout tells the narrative of the teenagers on a rough estate in London, after the stabbing of Kwame, 16, a studious well-behaved teenager. A murder investigation takes place, causing Joe a policeman to return to his former estate (where the teenagers live) to work on the investigation. He tries to make the group of boys associated with the crime, and prime suspects in the case, to admit the killing. Targeting the vulnerable Shanice girlfriend  of the murderer Emile; after persistence of Joe eventually Shanice  confesses Emile stabbed Kwame. The drama gives an insight of the hard lives of the young perpetrators and the murderer of Kwame. This drama helps us to understand why some youths of today would arm themselves and commit such devastating acts of violence. In our film I thought it would be interesting to explore the stories behind the criminal activities of teenagers.

The writer of ‘Fallout’ Roy Williams says: 'I remember following the Damilola Taylor Case, and the feelings that I had. Anger with the killers, anger with whoever had let those kids down. I felt it was important as well as necessary to write a piece that allowed all my feelings, and the feelings of those kids and police to be expressed.'

LINK TO WATCH;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoW67lju0Uk&feature=related&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DehepBWYRquc%26feature%3Drelated&has_verified=1

I also watched the opening to 'Bullet Boy' which tells the story of two brothers growing up in one of London's most rough estate, where a minor street clash escalates into a cycle of violence  causing  tragic repercussions. The film follows Ricky, 18, who is released from a young offenders institute and desperatley wants to avoid the the temptation to fall back into his criminal lifestyle. With his right hand man 'wisdom' still very much involved in crime It seems inevitable Ricky will be dragged down with him, but it's also only a matter of time before Curtis his younger brother will be drawn in to the trouble on the estate, against Ricky and his mothers wishes.