ANALYSING BRITISH SOCIAL

REALISM – GENERIC

CONVENTIONS. Kid

ult

hood

.

THEMES: VIOLENCE. ‘Kidulthood’ starts of with a scene of a class or year of teenagers

in a playground, then there’s a shot of one student modifying a gun. Straight away we see a weapon of violence before we’ve even been introduced to the main characters. When Katie and her friend are talking there is a shot over to a group of girls who are seen as Katie’s bully’s, we can tell this from when her friend says ‘their watching us, did you finish the coursework for them’, this gives us the idea there is tension between these groups of characters. We also see forms of violence between different sex’s when we see the main character Sam spits in Katie’s hair just to get her to tell him something, also in this part of the opening sequence we always see verbal violence between Sam and another girl when he says ‘what you looking at you fat bitch’. A British social realism audience may relate to a theme in a film like this because it is something real that is going on in peoples everyday lives and maybe something they have witnessed before.

THEMES: SEX From this opening sequence we can see that one of

Kidulthood’s main themes is sex. Straight away we hear two girls talking about things that have done, and the way their so open about it and are speaking reasonably loud we see that it is a normal thing they discuss in their everyday life. The next image of sex we see is from Claire and Jay behind a tree, hiding from her ‘boyfriend’ and cheating on him, we hear him say ‘you like this init’. As a theme sex is shown through the rest of the film as something that creates a storyline and is one of the things which carries the film forward. This will appeal to a British niche audience and less likely to appeal to a mainstream Hollywood audience because their not used to such themes being in a film.

THEMES: SMOKING, ADDICTION AND DRUGS. In this opening sequence there isn’t a lot of talk about

drugs and smoking yet we do get a vibe as an audience that this will be involved when two boys are talking about their party and saying how anything can go and how his parents aren't going to be there, which may suggest things that they know their not meant to be doing will be happening. We hear Becky and Alisa talking about drugs although she says she’s given up. Addiction to sex can also be seen, with Jay and Claire doing things behind a tree may imply they cant wait till they get home and that they need it. This may appeal to a British audience because some of them may relate to the theme of smoking, addiction and drugs, they may have experienced this in their life.

THEMES: CLASS Right away from this opening sequence we see that the

characters in this film are all from either working class family’s or underclass family’s. This can be seen by a range of things starting at their dialogue and also the mise-en-scene of the film. The names of the characters can also be stereotyped as names for people from a certain class or of a certain ethnicity, for example there are people we see right away that are called; Shaneek, Carleen, Trife and Moony. These are names you would not associate with a Middleclass family. This may appeal to a British audience because their aware or certain situations in classes and some may be in the same class as the characters.

MISE-EN-SCENE The mise-en-scene in the opening sequence of Kidulthood

shows the situation that the characters are in. The location is on the school grounds and also we see that all characters are wearing school uniforms this means right away we connote the age of the main characters. However each character has done something different to their uniform for example Becky is wearing large hoop earrings which is usually against school uniforms, this could be a sign of them showing a sign of rebellion. British audiences may relate to the mise-en-scene because the main target audience is teenagers and they can relate to being in school and wanting to rebel against teachers and authority figures.

DIALOGUE: The dialogue in kidulthood’s opening sequence is very

chatty and there is a lot of swearing even when it is not needed. Right away we see Becky and Alisa talking about things they have done over the weekend and we hear them say ‘Proper ghetto, proper grimey’. This is language mainly only people from London will understand. The characters also have a strong East London accent. We also hear one of the main characters Sam call Katie a ‘pussy hole’ and her friend a ‘fat bitch’. This is something that was uncalled for as they are just standing there and haven’t done anything to him. This may appeal to a British audience because all the characters are English and also speak like people do in everyday life.

EDITING: The editing in the opening sequence of Kidulthood really

helps show the location, characters and the storyline right away. The amount of shots that are shown in the opening sequence help connote to the audience straight away who the main characters are and the relationships between them. There are a few shots where the pace is faster and this may show the rush for the characters to grow up, or hurry out of school. There is a slow motion shot of a boy playing football and we see this shot many times, it used to break down shots and connect ones together but you can also denote that they have nothing better to do and that they could be doing school work but are not, or we could connote that not all teenagers are thinking about sex and smoking and some are just having fun.

CAMERA (SHOTS, MOVEMENTS) Also the camera work in the opening sequence of

Kidulthood helps show the audience the mise-en-scene well. There is a pan were we as an audience feel as if we are in the film with the characters. There’s a shot-reverse-shot where we see who Katie and her friend are talking about and we see the look that they give them to show us that their being bullied. The camera shots while Trife is modernising the gun makes the audience not know what he is doing and this therefore makes them want to watch more and understand what is going on. We get a shot on each of the main groups of characters in the film.

SUB GENRE:�One sub genre for the film Kidulthood may be teenage life

style. All the characters are teenagers and the themes are all things that appeal to a British working class/underclass audience. One of the first locations we see is a school and this also relates to teenage lifestyle. Teenage crime and violence can also be a subgenre of Kidulthood. Right away we see that a young teenager is modernising a gun which right away gives us a feel that there is going to be a lot of violence throughout the film.

QUESTION: What impact has this research had on

the development of your ideas?

This research has helped me develop my ideas of themes that I may include in opening sequence and also has helped me decide if I am going to follow the conventions for a British social realism film or if I am going to go against them. I’ve realised how much, mise-en-scent, camera work, dialogue and editing has an effect on what themes are being portrayed and how they also effect the genre and sub genres. This research has had a large impact in the development of my ideas.