FOR SOCIAL REALISM

Influential Figures...

What’s the genre?

For our media production, we decided to make a film based around the genre of social realism. With this in mind, we want to possibly include conventions such as wider and social issues explored through the use of emotional and dramatic character stories and the erosion of regional identities.

As this genre is not designed to capitalise specifically on box office success (i.e. it is not for the mass market) like genres such as Action and Horror. Therefore we wanted to make our film more unique and influential to our target audiences.

Relevant Directors...

Shane Meadows • Shane was born on 26th December 1972, in Staffordshire, England.•He has been a British director, screenwriter and actor since 1995.•The majority of Meadows’ films were based in the Midlands area of England and were often associated with what is known as ‘Kitchen Sink Realism’. This refers to the cultural movement of the 1950’s, whereby theatres and film companies evolved into producing media products which focused more on social realism and domestic situations involving ‘working class’ people.•Some of Meadows’ productions/films include: ‘Small Time’ (1996) and ‘The Stone Roses: Made of stone’ (2013)• The majority of the content of his films was semi-autobiographical and was based on his experiences in Uttoxeter (where he lived as a child).

Continued...

Tony Richardson • Tony was born on 5 June 1928 in Yorkshire•The most famous film of Richard’s work is ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner ’ which was released in (1962), and was adapted by Alan Sillitoe in the later years. The film is about, what was known as a ‘working-class rebel’ and how he gets himself well known with the wrong crowd of people and the character ends up in prison. Therefore the only way he can escape from the trauma of being in prison is by long distance running, hence the title. This film is more organic, and challenges dominant ideologies, as well as showing its realist observation, which is displayed well to its target audience, particularly as this is an independent film.

How have they influenced us?

As Meadows’ film were based ‘Kitchen sink’ realism as mentioned before, we wanted to try and replicate this kind of narrative and include social and organic scenarios.

In addition ‘Small Time’ (see left) is based around a small gang of criminals and how they live their lives in a suburb of Nottingham. As this is kind of similar to our narrative, we are going to possibly incorporate storylines inspired by this film, but obviously without copying it!

Shane Meadows’/Tony Richardson advertising

Key/ reoccurring actors of the social realism genre...

Andrew Shim

Vicky McClure

•Andrew was born 18th August 1983 in Miami, Florida.•He has been an English actor and MMA fighter since 1999 to present.•Shim is most famous for his appearance in Shane Meadows’ film ‘This is England’ (2006) and played the part of Milky.•

•Vicky was born 8th May 1983 in Nottingham, England.•She is an actress and model and has been since 1999.•Vicky is best known for her roles on Shane Meadows’ films, such as her role as Ladine in ‘A Room For Romeo’s Brass’ (1999).•Vicky has won a variety of awards over the years, such as the RTS best actress of 2011 and the 2011 BAFTA award for best Television actress.

How have these actors influenced us?

Many Social realism actors (in particular, the ones mentioned on the previous slide) would have used a well known technique to get into character, which is known as method/organic acting.This was primarily introduced through playwrights, such as Henrik Ibsen and Constantine Stanislavski, which was then adapted to modern film products. This technique may involve the occasional use of ‘What if...?’ where the actor has to imagine that they are actually in a certain situation and ‘act’ accordingly, or use emotional recall, whereby the actor uses emotions felt from past experiences to convey ideologies within a narrative. These techniques may be the only way that an actor can portray a particular emotion.

Relevant Institutions...

Film 4 productions

BBC (Their Film Network)

•Film 4 Productions is a British, independent film production company that sometimes works with other subsidiary companies such as ‘Pathé’ in order to produce various films such as ‘Slumdog millionaire’ and ‘Shaun of the dead’.•The reason why we feel this horizontally integrated and not necessarily vertically integrated company is relevant to our media production, is that this production company has involved itself in a variety of different narratives and documentary themes.

•The BBC was founded on October 18th, 1922.•This independent broadcasting and film company is vertically and horizontally integrated and often does not involve any parent companies.• The BBC in particular, has a public service remit as a public service broadcaster. This means that the company is committed to educating and entertaining their audiences and therefore, they would support the social realism genre. Furthermore, the BBC is argued to be ‘left wing’ and therefore they are concerned about social issues and inequalities (like the ones we want to explore in our opening sequence.)