Impact of Film4 on our opening sequence

Pre-production

As you can see Film4 usually has a small budget for their films, and usually work with other production companies to create their films as well. This meant that when planning our idea for the narrative it had to be something that could be achieved with a low budget.

Pre-production

The themes in Film4 films are usually to do with taboo topics, such as gang activity, violence, drug abuse and drinking.

Therefore we also included taboo topics in our film. In the opening sequence we see the protagonist walk past a person drinking, people dealing drugs and someone smoking. We see the girl doing drugs in her bedroom. The protagonist is Straight Edge which is a topic seldom shown in films.

This is England

Trainspotting

Attack the Block

Pre-production

I watched some Film4 films that helped plan my opening sequence. I looked at the beginning of Fish Tank where there was shaky camera movement as she walked however it was still framed well throughout, this impacted the camera language I used in my own piece. I also looked at the themes that come up in This Is England which helped me think about what taboo topics I could include, and the language I could use i.e swearing. I also watched Looking for Eric in which I liked the mundane every day things the main character did, so I decided to have my main character doing something mundane i.e walking down the street.

ProductionThe actors used in Film4 films are usually typecast to be quite average looking, to make the plot more believable and add to the kitchen sink ideology. Also they tend to use people who haven’t had acting experience. We chose our actors based on personality rather than looks or acting experience. This added verisimilitude to our piece as we weren’t trying to convince people that gorgeous Hollywood-looking characters were doing drugs or being Straight Edge.

Production

Film4 use real, gritty locations rather than built sets. ‘Fish Tank’ was filmed in Dagenham and Barking. ‘Looking for Eric’ was filmed in Manchester. ‘Attack the Block’ was filmed in Islington. These are places where you can find run down council flats and alleyways to film in, the use of such locations adds to the kitchen sink element of Film4 films. We filmed our opening sequence in Romford, we used an alleyway which had graffiti all over it and was surrounded by council flats. We also filmed in a council estate in Barking. This also affects budget as you don’t need to pay to film in these areas.

Production

Film4 is known for using minimal equipment in their filming, such as a simple camera and tripod. This makes the film more realistic and involves the audience. We used this and also only used a camera and tripod. Although mostly we didn’t even use the tripod as the unsteady camera would add verisimilitude and a gritty element to our work. Film4 also don’t use any special effects so there were no added visual effects into our work. We didn’t add special sound effects either, but left the diagetic sound as it was when we filmed it.

DistributionTo raise awareness of our film and build a fan base for it we would make a trailer and release it on YouTube, also posting it on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This form of viral marketing would allow us to target masses of people and help create word of mouth by getting them to share it with their friends. This would also mean we would be reaching our target audience of 16-24 year olds as they are the main users of social networking sites. We would also take our film to film festivals as there are film enthusiasts there who would appreciate our niche storyline. There would also be film critics there to help spread word of mouth as people would trust their opinion. Our film would also get distributed in Art House cinemas to reach more audiences. Finally our film would be premiered on Channel 4, as they own Film4, and later shown on Film4 after being released on DVD.