Textual Anaylsis

Camera

The trailer begins with a mid-shot of three British and United Kingdom flags to represent the British social realism genre. When analysing the film "This is England", we noticed the consistent use of patriotism; for example English flags hanging in house windows and Margaret Thatcher plastered over TV screens to highlight the time period as well as Britain itself.

Like most social realism films, for example Fish Tank, main important codes and conventions found under the genre are urban cityscape's which reflect the working class life. A prime example of this is in Fish Tank when there is several shots of council estates and youth gangs surrounding the parks. We included this extreme long shot as our establishing shot because it sets the scene for the audience, and again represents the genre of our film; establishing the location of it also.

The Third shot we included within our trailer was a close up of the main protagonist Lottie. By including this shot of her at the beginning of the trailer, the audience are able to see her at the beginning of the film and watch how her life deteriorates as the trailer goes on. Additionally this shot allows the audience to create a relationship with her- identifying her as a main character.

The next three shots within our trailer represents Lottie as an ordinary and very mundane teenager.

The following birds eye view shot of Lottie and her friend who is a part of Lottie's gang. This shot shows a close bonded relationship- with the topic of boys. This accurately represents ordinary teenage girls, as the majority of their time is spent talking or worrying about males.

An extreme long shot of Joanna has been included within the trailer, who gets hit by a train, witnessed by Lottie. The importance of this shot and the following shot is significant because at this moment, Lottie's life went down hill. When filming this shot we took into consideration of the setting, using small narrow alley ways and graffiti walls to emphasise the social realism genre through urban locations.

Later in the trailer we introduce another character, one of Lottie's friends, belonging to the 'gang'. The audience are left intrigued at the beginning of the trailer when Lottie is discussing a boy she likes. This long shot of Lottie and her male friend leaves the audience wondering is this the boy she likes?

The male from Lottie's gang found in the above shot, is seen smoking in the following close up. This helps the audience build a relationship with him, as the audience are easily able to identify him as a character.

We have used another birds eye view shot of Lottie on the toilet, which leaves the audience confused to what she is doing. However, we particularly like this shot as the walls of the toilet cubicle look like Lottie is almost isolated from the outside world.

The following shot shows Lottie from and eye line point of view, straight in front of the toilet. By doing this we built up slight suspense for the audience as they are then exposed to the fact Lottie is taking drugs. This shows a contrast to the beginning of the film when Lottie was achieving a grades.

This over the shoulder shot of Lottie and her female friend, found at the beginning off the trailer, arguing, shows how the incident she witnessed has affected not only her college life, but her friendships. At the beginning of the trailer, the shot of the two girls dancing represents them as both happy and content with life, whereas this shot shows the opposite.

This is a close up of Lottie's face after therapy. When we was analysing several social British realism film trailers, we noticed the consistent use of close up shots to show the emotions the characters are feeling. This results in the audience watching to feel empathetic towards them and additionally form a connection with them. From the following close up of Lottie, we are able to see that she is hurting through her glowing eyes and sad facial expression. Again this makes us an audience to feel similar emotions.

Mid shot of Lottie and her mother arguing is another effective scene within our trailer as it shows Lottie's life has been affected in all areas.

This extreme long shot of Lottie running through the snow, surrounded by open fields is significant to the trailer. This shot represents Lottie trying to run away from the problems she is facing in her life.

This mid-close up shot works nicely with the running shot of Lottie as she is stood stationary with her head looking around as if she is "Lost". Again this effectively represents how she is need for help, and is trying to search for the comfort in someone.

Editing

At the beginning of the trailer we have gave credit to the Lottery who helped fund the film. also this logo indicates that the film is most likely independently produced. This is useful for people who are a fan of niche production companies.

Followed after these two shots, we have included the name and logo of our production, so that the viewers watching will know who created the film and where to find films produced by the same company who produced "Lost".

When editing and filming the trailer, we have aimed to edit Lottie centre frame to show she is an important and significant character to the film. Like in this shot of Lottie and the female gang member dancing in Lottie's bedroom. Lottie is made the main focal point when she is edited to be centre of the screen, this overall highlights that the film revolves around her and her life.

"October 2008   9:21" is displayed to represent the day Lottie's life changed. This is the date and time of her witnessing someone cut short their own life. We particularly like the type writing font which holds a very spooky, serious and very professional tone. However, the font makes it look intriguing. This shot effectively and subtly hints the storyline of the film, as well as tells the viewers watching,  when it all went wrong.

We edited the trailer so that the following shot would be of Joanna who commits suicide. This being an enigma and action code within the trailer.

This shot is followed by a shot of a train zooming past. These three shots together reflect the incident Lottie saw, however without directly seeing it happen on screen.

After witnessing the incident Lottie's life goes down hill, however we have included text saying "Life doesn't last forever so make it worth it". However, Lottie takes it all too far when every piece of her life becomes to crumble apart. Like in most British social realism films, such as "Fish Tank", the editors included text to narrate what is happening in the characters life- reflecting their emotions and feelings. Therefore we have included text in order to fit the genre of our film as well as making it loo realistic to an audience.

Continuity is an important aspect when placing two shots together that film part of the same scene. When editing these shots together, we used the editing software to cut the running down the stairs shot just before Lottie is about to open the door. This means that the shot after of Lottie slamming the door, will flow nicely together.

More text has been included which shows how Lottie's life begins to change. "But wit all comes crashing down" responds to the previous text "Life doesn't last forever so make it worth it". By including the below text into our trailer it works like a narrator, telling the audience that her life as gone from good to bad.

This quote from The Guardian- a newspaper with a working class readership which happens to mirror the demographics of our target audience. This quote shows that the film is successful, and persuades people to watch it. This is because people will trust in The Guardian, therefore will rely on their source of information.

This shot of Lottie running towards the camera, shows how she is trying to run away from her problems, rather than confidently facing them. We have used a shot reverse shot editing technique when the following shot is of Lottie and her mother arguing. The scene becomes mildly violent when her mother pushes her into the work surface. This shows that their relationship is broken and the suicide she witnessed has affected her family life. When editing we placed another running shot of Lottie, although running away from the camera. This shot reverse shot works effectively to highlight how Lottie wants to run  away from her life- reflecting the title "Lost".

The below date represents the date Lottie attempted to kill herself, in order to feel content- vanish her problems, as well as her life in the process. We particularly like this edit because it allows the viewers to see how long Lottie was going through this pain in her life, as well as linking back the beginning of the trailer.

Sound

The trailer starts with no-diegetic music, the music is by the Same Streets, a local indie rock ban we were able to get permission from. We used there song because indie rock fits in with our social realism genre and is suited to the music our target audience would like, because if they like small indie films, they are most likely to be interested in small indie bands, the music fits well as it is upbeat and happy, fitting in well with the first couple of scenes creating a cheerful opening to our film.

The first use of dialogue used in our trailer is our protagonist Lottie shouting ‘Hey mum look, I got an A!’ This is representing before the crash how well she was doing at college, it also makes the audience gain a relationship with Lottie, therefore they will feel sympathy for her when everything starts to go wrong this will make the film sad and emotional to the audience. Social realism films are always emotional and it is important for the audience to have a relationship with the main character so they will feel the emotion they are supposed to feel for that character though out the film.

We have then used diegetic sounds of a train which is an enigma code foreshadowing what might happen later on in the film followed by a dramatic change in the non-diegetic music to emotional music. This could represent the dramatic change in Lottie after she witnesses the girl getting hit by the train.

The non-diegetic music again changes to more upbeat and jolly, to the scene where she is walking with her crush, telling him how she took ‘one or too many pills’ This is portraying Lottie going out and having fun, and trying to forget about everything.

However again the non-diegetic music dramatically changes to slower music and then again to even slower and sadder music this is representing Lottie's life coming crashing down, and her relationship with everyone deteriorating. We have had inspiration from other social realism films such as ‘Fish Tank’, where the trailer starts by being upbeat and then there will be a sudden change in music representing where things start to go wrong in the film. This is a common code and convention of a social realism trailer.

Effective pieces of dialogue we have used are Lottie's friend shouting ‘Your just not the same anymore you need to sort yourself out!’ and Lottie saying ‘It’s not going to be alright’ This is representing how Lottie feels like there’s no way out and that she is stuck. Loneliness is a common theme in social realism films an example of this would be ‘This is England’ Loneliness is represented though the main protagonist character Shaun.

We have effectively used non-diegetic train sounds in scenes with only Lottie, this is portraying the train sounds are stuck in her head and this is why she cannot escape this horrible memory, the train sounds in her head are getting louder and louder, this is representing how its mentally effecting her more and more, when the sounds are getting louder, it is building up tension and suspense and getting the audience hooked.

The trailer ends with loud diegetic sounds of the train going by leaving the trailer on a cliff hanger, leaving the audience wondering if she killed herself or not. A common code and convention of a trailer is that it should end on a cliff hanger, as it leaves the audience wanting more.

Lighting and colour

Our establishing shot at the opening of the trailer shows high key lighting over the miserable town, we took inspiration from ‘Fish Tank’s film trailer, a common shot used in social realism films, a look at the colourless urban city. The bland colour at the start of the trailer foreshadows the trailer will not be a happy one.

However in the first few scenes the colours we have used are bright and jolly representing Lottie’s happy life before the crash. We have also used high key lighting to portray a positive scene.

During the club scene there are flashing bold lights this could be conveying Lottie’s excitement of going out for the first times and taking drugs with the gang.

The lighting then turns to low key lighting, when Lottie is talking about how she took ‘one or two many pills’ This is representing the darker side we are now seeing of Lottie and how the film is beginning to get darker.

The colouring when Lottie is on her own taking drugs is very dull and bland this could be suggesting her life becoming dull and dark; therefore she is turning to drugs to try and make herself feel better.

We have used bright high key lighting on the scene where she is running away in the snow effectively. We have contrasted the pure white snow against the mood and Lottie’s confusion and depression.  

The final scene we have used very low key lighting at the train station making the scene very mysterious and dark and adding tension to the cliff hanger.

Mise-En-Scene

We planned mise-en-scene very carefully when filming for our trailer. We created this very individualistic persona for Lottie  and her "Gang". As we can see from this shot of Lottie doing her makeup, we notice the authentic original Adidas top from the three lines on the sleeves. We wanted to create aa fashionable character, however using clothing that we already had in our wardrobe. Lottie's overall look is very casual.

Throughout the trailer, Lottie is wearing popular brands such as "Adidas" , "Fred Perry" and "DR.Martens". To keep up this authentic and "Indie" persona, we clothes Lottie and her friends in similar clothing. The dancing scene in Lottie's bedroom highlighted the similarities they share, as they are dressed similarly to each other- which creates a realistic representation of female teens.

Like most social realism films, they are based on realistic life situations. In order to keep up this realistic storyline, setting are important to show working class Britain. We filmed in rough, graffiti areas to conform to codes and conventions of the genre.