Casting: Who and Why

When choosing our cast member's, their were many factors that we needed to consider when picking key cast member's. As already stated the only person from the group taking part in filming is Paul (Who will not be a main character). The factors we considered when choosing our Cast member's were:

1. Whether they conformed to the stereotypes we are portraying
2. Whether they have some relation to the character they are playing
3. Whether their appearance will conform to the stereotype that we are portraying.

Initially we had many people lined up to play various characters in the opening sequence. The characters we will be casting for are:

• The unnamed youth worker.
• Young DJ
• 3 Males for a fight Scene

First Casting: Youth Worker Ages

We started casting for the Un-named Youth Worker as this character is a main character.

Jack Joyce- Age 17

Jack Ward was our first consideration for this role. To ensure that we made the right decision we made Jack react a point in our opening sequence in order to see if could fit the stereotype we were trying to conform to a 23 year old youth worker who under the influence of drugs. We came to an agreement and decided that Jack was not ideal for the role of this character. Jack had the right demeanour and look for the role but he is about 8 years younger than the character and so he lacks the presence and sense of experience needed.

Josh Osbourne- Age

Josh Osbourne was another consideration for this role. We made him react a small scene in our opening sequence. When this test was carried out we realised that he fit all the requirements and could handle the characters emotions and status on camera. Also he we didn't need to give him pointers and directions regarding how to look and how to generally handle the demeanour of the character. We encountered one problem though when looking to cast Josh, and this was the fact he revealed that he might not be able to make filming days and was unsure of his availability. As a group we decided not to cast him but keep him as a back up if we did not find another person to fill this role.

Conrad Stegnar- Age 16

Conrad Stegnar was our final consideration. Like the other people we considered we made Conrad carry out a reenactment of our opening scene. When looking at how Conrad handled the character we were really impresses as to how much he conformed to the character and how we could manipulate his appearance to enhance this stereotype. Also his initial appearance was ideal as well. The only problem we ran into when casting Conrad was his ability to look older than his age. As a group we cam to a decision to implement different measures in trying to make me look older than he is.

Second Casting: Young DJ

We started casting for the character Young DJ who also another main character.

William Ward

When considering Will, we initially pointed out that his appearance and how this could either enhance the character or hinder the character. As we are casting for a young DJ, it happens that Will is an actual DJ and this could also help when filming as he already fits in the characters shoes a bit, the only problem we came to with Will was his availability and the fact his appearance may be too young for us. As a group we decided to keep Will as a back up Cast member.

Olly Merson

Olly had confirmed he would be available to take part in the opening sequence. When giving him a scene to re in-act, we saw that he didn't look like the type of character we were looking to portray. As a group we saw that he looked to much of a sweet boy and didn't have that rough edge we needed, and there for this was undesirable for this character as the character is meant to represented as a hardened youth.

Alex Eagles

Alex had fitted all the character stereotypes we needed. the only problem we had was Alex's availability to film and whether he would be reliable enough. Alex also played out the scene we gave him but his lack of concentration showed as he was unable to keep full focus throughout the scene we gave him. His appearance on the other hand was conforming to the character that we wished to display.

Final Casting Decision:

After discussing the people who we wished to cast for our characters, we decided to go with:

Conrad Stegnar to play the youth worker.

Will Ward to play the Young DJ.

Location - When and How

As a group we had to consider the different locations where filming would take place. Many factoors were taken into account:

• Whether we will construct our own set or use a prinary location
  
• Finding a realistic environment without having to spend money on dressing and accessorizing it to portray the concepts.
  
• The locality of the set, and if it is easy for us to travel to frequently if needed.

We decided on some primary locations for which we will carry out filming of our opening. Every Location will be considered important because it will be representing our chosen genre as well as the theme/topic within the storyline that we are trying to display and make the audience relate to.

Location 1 Streatham Hill Train Station
We chose this location because it was local to the group and it appeals to the viewers as most of them will have recognition of where it is. Also many people will be passing through this location and therefore it will be realistic to have this atmosphere portrayed. Also we will be trying to set contrast to the characters surroundings in comparison to him and his aura. We needed to have a busy background noise where everyday surroundings can be displayed and made evident to the audience.

As a group we care familiar with the station as we all live locally and therefore transportation of equipment Will be easy and our characters will be able to get to this location easily as they live locally as well. As we are familiar with the station it was will not be difficult to gauge what would be possible in terms of camera shots and character movement.

Location 2: A room Within Paul's House
Our second Location, we have decided to use one of the group members house, Paul. Paul has room situated within in his household where we will portraying poverty and social problems relation to the main protagonist. This room will have to made to look like squat and as we are using a room in Paul's home we will need to alter the appearance a bit in order to achieved the desired effect that we are trying to show the audience.

Regarding access we have full consent from Paul's parents regarding filming within their home and the group as well as the cast can travel easily to this location. The room within Paul's house has a window and a solitary mattress. As this is indoors there are a few variables we will need to take into account such as whether this location is necessary and whether we will be establishing where the character is by filming the front of the house.

Blogged by: Channan Toussaint

Deciding On Our Target Audience

We will need to clearly define a target audience for who will be catering for. Previous research helped us get an idea as to who British Socialist Dramas are aimed at, these people are 20-40 year olds. Occasionally British Films will relate to younger and older viewers beyond the age boundary stated.

Target Audience Research

We surveyed a group of people on British Films, so that we got more background information on what we would like to include in our film. Looking at the results of our questionnaire it is evident that British Film isn't quite as popular as we expected it to be.From looking at our results not all the films we listed have been seen by the people that competed the questionnaire forms.

Out of the 20 people we asked our results followed:

Target Audience Survey Results Females: 11 Males: 9 How many British Films do you watch in a month? 0-5 16 8 females 8 Males 5 to 10 4 3 Females 1 male 10 to 15 0 0 0 15+ 0 0 0 British Social Films Seen: Kidulthood 13 Looking for Eric 4 Nil By Mouth 2 Nark 3 Adulthood 12 Harry Brown 4 Fish Tank 3 East is East 11

We As a group came to the conclusion that we will try and make our film as open and diverse as possible so that it can attract the target audience selected, which is aged 21 + male and female. It was clear to that the most watched British films were those that had been recently released also their was a majority of people that watched kidulthood whereas there was a few who watched Nil by Mouth. Problems mentioned about British Films is that they tend to be exaggerated and over the top also that many issues shown were unrealistic and came across as offensive. This can be applied to the stereotypical view of young people today. On the other hand British Films were praised for their address on issues and scenarios that currently happen an example of this would be youth crime which is displayed in the most watched film in our survey Kidulthood. From reviewing what was said in our survey We have chosen to cater to: 21+. We decided this because most British Social Film is aimed at well educated people, but as well as these people we also want to aim it at people who are currently experiencing some of the issues that will be displayed within our film opening. Our specific target audience will include young adults, they will be well educated university graduates as they will have a better appreciation for the social realist genre.

Written up by: Adeel Ikram

Blogged by: Channan Toussaint

Prior Planning

Before we made any definite choices, We brainstormed ideas around our chosen Genre. This planning helped us discuss the ways in which we can portray our chosen Genre. Within this discussion we broaden our view on what we would focus on such as camera shots and techniques that we would use such as Fade.

Brainstorm 1: Our first Initial Planning

This brainstorm was beneficial because it enabled us to through our first idea onto paper and then evaluate them and decide on whether they will be useful or not.


Brainstorm 2: Audience Focus
In this second Image we focused on our audience as we will have to be ensure that it is diverse. With this mean that It can be related to many people young or old. Rich or poor. Generally we were trying to establish what audiences look for today and this was evident from our Questionnaires which we carried out in order to gain some research and information about audiences today. This Audience focus was beneficial as it enabled us to see who and what audience we were catering for.

Mood Boards

We created mood boards in order to group our concepts together. As you can see we did many mood boards on different aspects of our opening film:

• British Social Realist Films


• Location


• Characters

With these mood boards we expect to develop our ideas further and use them as a guideline of our storyline that we to will develop as well. In the First Mood Board their are loads of images relating to British films, they also have a relation of what we might do in our film, thus them being a source of inspiration to us.

Genre: British Social Realist Drama

The most 'Typically British' Of all Film Genres

What is British Social Realist Drama?

British social realist dramas puts the experience of real British people life's on screen. The opening of this style of film generally sets the expectations of the what to expect in the rest of the film. Usually, the cast are represented from a working class background and is a representation of real life situations. These types of films also document there day to day experiences which is considered to be a representation of life.

Directors set these beginning expectations by using different techniques. Through the use of mise en scene, lighting helps to create a certain feeling- whens there's a complete lack of artificial light, it makes the scene look quite cheap and grotty which sets the atmosphere as very bleak. In films such as Nil by mouth, director Gary Goldman used ambient light in most inferior scenes like 'Ray's jealousy' scene where Ray beats his wife. Lighting is often Dark creating shadows downing the atmosphere and in scenes shot during the day, the ambient light was effective as it made it feel more real. This scene is supposed to give the feel of depression and make the viewer have a first hand experience of the characters lives. This was inspirational as it gave us an insight into how to create this type of atmosphere and proved that on a low budget film, the genre were looking to carry out and portray can easily be done.

Other uses of mise en scene such as camera shots and camera work also sets our chosen atmosphere of depression which is what most British Social Realism Directors Strive for. The grainy effect on the camera eliminates the HD quality making scenes a lot more dull and gritty. Close up shots of characters details certain aspects of characters making them obvious
'Characters portrayed as lower class and poor are set out to look quite dirty and rough'.
This is made more evident by using make up and more blatant through the close up shots. Again, Director Gary Goldman used this technique in many shots in Nil by Mouth and sometimes used filters over the camera also used by Director Shame Meadows in films such as 'This is England and Dead Man Shoes' to portray scenes in either a warm feeling, using an orange or yellow filter, or even a cold isolated atmosphere using a blue filter.

Our Inspirations for British Social Realism Dramas

Our Inspirations for producing this film opening comes from films such as:

• Half Nelson
• Nil by Mouth
• East is East
  
• Harry Brown
  
• Adulthood
• Kidulthood
  

The plot of the film was inspired by Half Nelson and the subject of 'Suffering' was also inspired from it. Although the film drama is not British, the director Ryan Fleck was expressing the same theme of a socialist drama. He opened up his opening sequence and set the expectations from the audience, by using his main character to be centered in the frame which allowed the viewer to gain knowledge of the character. We begin to understand the character had spent the night asleep sitting up at the coffee table. This codes him as lazy, unable to care for himself, and suffering from some sort of condition. The cast used for that film opening also inspired us in choosing the type of cast needed and ways of portraying their personalities in the opening sequence or in come cases hiding there identities creating an enigma.

Blogged By: Channan Toussaint