Reflective Analysis

The title of my film is Addict. I chose to base my cinematography and conventions in the style of British social realism. The theme of my film is drug abuse. This required a realistic approach to filming, and because the sequence I chose to film was a scene about the protagonist coming off drugs, it would have to be quite hard-hitting for the audience to view. Here is a paragraph from my aims and context to show what I was aiming for with my work.

'I aim to create a short three minute scene from my imagined film which is titled Addict. The scene itself will be a montage of the protagonist of the film enduring giving up drug use. The genre of my film is drama, it is a serious comment on drug abuse. The full story of my film is to be found in my synopsis.'

The conventions of the typical British social realism film are:

• Usually portrays characters not usually shown in mainstream films, such as the working class, drug addicts etc.
• The leading characters are often anti-heroes, which are protagonists that lack the usual traits such as nobility and kindness.
• Portrays the ‘ugly realities’ of the working class. Usually the poor.

My film conforms to the conventions of this genre, I will talk about why.

In the first stages of the creative process, I knew because of my chosen genre that it would be foolish to have certain camera edits such as a wipe or dissolve, as they would look totally out of place in a supposedly realistic film, they would break the atmosphere I was intending to create. I stuck to fade-outs, fade-ins and the simple cut to keep in with the realism. During filming the lighting was a real struggle. I wanted it to look grim and dark to make the audience feel claustrophobic, that they were in the room with the character, Leon. But, I didn't want loss of quality in the film! I struck a balance between the two, but I feel that if the quality and graininess of the video was improved the overall feel of the scene would be much better and I would appreciate it a whole lot more. I managed to get hold of a torch and shone it towards the scene but upwards at a diagonal. This created really impressive shadows to work with, which were especially effective during the close-ups of my characters stricken face, it made shadows under his eyes to emphasize his physical tiredness and distress. I didn't feel the need to use a tripod because the film was to be intentionally jittery and shaky, to suggest unease, make it that little bit more interesting. It also really helped with time, the fact I didn't have to mess about with the tripod. Setting it up and moving it around for every shot made it a lot easier to get the filming done.

I feel that I could have had more of an interesting range of shots, rather just than MS, LS, CU etc. More high-angle shots would have made the character seem really small, emphasizing his loneliness and pain. Sound was important in my film. Without the non-diegetic sound - the drum ‘n’ bass track in the background the emotional response in my film would have been a lot less. The track was very tense and yet energetic to emphasize the panic Leon was feeling. The use of song in the background helps convey the passage of time in my film sequence, almost like a montage. I also used a few fade to blacks to help show the passage of time and break it up into segments; building up to the pinnacle of stress and paranoia the character is feeling. I didn’t want the audience to pity the character, only feel his pain with him, this is why I chose to have the character moaning and looking incredibly distressed and also have a lot of close-ups, to show the emotions of the character.

My establishing shot is high-angle shot showing Leon on the floor surrounded by filth and alcohol bottles. The mise-en-scene is extremely important in this shot, as it generates ideas about who this person is. He is sat in a dirty hoody with his face in his hands, sat crossed legged, this connotates that he is changing from what he was, he feels vulnerable and feels pain for what he’s going through and what has happened with his brother. It has already been established from previous scenes in the whole of the film that he is a social creature, a fun loving party animal, and slightly unlikeable. I wanted my character in the end to be a likeable character, even though he does bad things and for a lot of people he may be considered the ‘dregs of society’, I wanted people to understand he’s trying to make his life much better and appreciate that from a person. This sequence is important in that sense because it shows his comeuppance for his wrong doings.

The colours in Addict are de-saturated and drained, which connotates that this characters life-force is leaving him, that he can’t take anymore what is happening to him. It also emphasises the grittiness of the film as the colours look dirty, dark and pale. When Leon is looking around the room franticly; the camera showing what he see’s through his eyes, what I was trying to show was him being paranoid, as the shots that follow them Is him moving his head fast as if he was looking around in panic. I feel that this could have been done more at the start of the film rather than in the middle. It works well in adding to the panic but not that well in showing paranoia which is what I wanted to be.

Overall the sequence suits what I needed, what I aimed to make it satisfies it, but I do not think that the quality of it is good enough professionally. But I used the skills I learnt from FM1 during my AS year in mise-en-scene and stylistics quite well to satisfy the aims and context. If I had the opportunity to do it all again, I would much rather film a scene in stage one of the film, during the first equilibrium stage, because if during the scene there were other characters involved, I could show more of a typical British gritty film.