Sommers Town- After Viewing

4) How would you categorise this film in terms of genre? Does it remind you of any other films you have seen? I would class the film summertown as a drama/feel good film. The film includes many aspects of a range of genres including comedy, crime, and to some extent an adventure film. I think the main purpose of Shane Meadows including these sub-genres is to broaden the target audience for the film, and make the film appeal to more people, as there are many different bits that would appeal to different people.

5) What do you think is the film’s appeal for audiences? The main features that would appeal to the audience would be the fact that it is filmed in black and white and created on a low budget like a traditional English film. I think that the setting of the film also reflects on the traditional English film cultures as this films characters are mainly of the working class and show the life of the working class, which is a convention of traditional English films.

6) As well as being in black and white, the film is subtitled during a conversations in Polish between Marek and his farther; there are also sections in French. In what ways do these factors affect your responses to the film, the situation and the characters? I think the way that the film is in black and white helps the audience get involved more with the film. It really helps to set the scene of the film, and the effect makes it seem like a traditional English film. I think the subtitles have been put in place so that Marek and his father can still retain their original language, which has a nice effect to the film.

7)To what extent do you think the audience is expected to be ‘comfortable’ with this portrait of two teenagers? I think that the audience start of quite surprised at the fact that Tommo is so young, but living on the streets without any friends, family or money. As the film goes on and the plot unravels the audience may take a liking to the teenagers witty and pleasant character and become involved in the film by becoming happy when he meets Marek. The two teenagers come amongst each other in a café, but don’t get off to the best of starts, which could be to do with the fact that they are only teenagers and can be immature. The film portrays teenagers as occasionally trouble makers, but mainly out to please, which is why the film has a pleasant feel about it.

8) A sign on the estate reads “ children playing on these grounds is prohibited”. In what different ways do Tomo and Marek seek to amuse themselves within this enviroment? Do you think the film encourages us to judge any of their actions? In such an enviroment, you might think that the two teenagers would find it hard to have fun without causing trouble. However, they find a wheelchair and decide to treat the French waitress (who they both have crush’s on) to an escort home. I think the two boys make the most out of the enviroment they are living in. It comes across that Tommo is the more outgoing one of the two, and Marek is still finding his feet, however this still does not stop him enjoying themselves.

9)What message of childhood adolescence do you, or could you, take away from the film? A key theme of the film is friendship. Both of the boys have such a strong friendship towards the end of the film as they have been through some quite hard times together. Both being new to London, they needed each other and it was good for them to have someone there for them.

10)Do your reactions towards the boys change at different pionts in the film? Which moments in particular?
a) Encourage you to sympathise with the boys: I think throughout the film the audience sympathise the two boys simply because of the fact that they are so young. Both boys are new to London and the fact that Tommo got his only possessions stolen of him makes the audience feel sympathetic towards him.
b) Make you unsympathetic towards them: One scene In the film where I felt unsympathetic towards the boys is when they steal the bag of laudry and the clothes turn out to be woman clothes. I think this particular scene is quite comical and adds a spark to the film and prevents it from being serious but lighthearted.

11)some of the other characters include marek’s father, Mariusz, Graham the cockney neighbour, and a French waitress, maria. To what extent would you agree that Meadows is playing with stereotypes in his representation of these characters? The sterotype of Marek’s father is a polish labourer who is muscular and very hard working, (according to his boss, one of the best workmen he has ever had!). Maria sterotypes the typical character of a French woman, as she is pretty and very friendly to the two boys. Graham plays the typical cockney neighbour who is willing to sell anything to make some money. He is very friendly and has a keen interest for football, which is a typical convention of someone of his character.

Sommers Town

As part of national film week, my media group and I went to watch the film called Sommers Town. The film was directed by Shane Meadows and made in 2008, however the film is in black and white (until the last few scenes where it changes to colour). Sommers town is Even though the film was made in 2008, I think the purpose of choosing to shoot in black and white is to make the film seem like it was in the 1950’s which is the time period in which the story was set. In 1950’s they wouldn’t of had colour in films, so maybe Meadows was trying to recreate the same effect as original black and white films did. Some people may say that they don’t like the fact that it’s in black and white, others do like it, but after the first five minutes you completely forget the fact that it is colourless as the film is really interesting.
Sin City was directed by Frank Millar/Robert Rodriguez and was released in 2005. The genre of the film is action/crime/thriller. The film received many awards, 16 wins & 29 nominations. s an Robert Rodriguez is amercian filmmaker, writer, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He is best know for making profitable and crowd pleasing independent and studio films with low budgets and fast schedules by HollyWood standards.
The Man Who Wasn’t There was directed by the Coen brothers. The release date of the film was 26Th October 2001. The film was Nominated for Oscar and another 19 wins & 32 nominations. The genre of the film is crime/drama. They are known in the film business as "the two-headed director", as they share a similar vision of their films.
Rumble Fish was released on the 21st October 1983 and was directed by Francs Ford Coppola. The genre of the film is drama and was nominated for Golden Globe and had another 2 wins & 1 nomination. Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is an Italian-American film director, producer and screenwriter. Away from showbusiness, Coppola is also a vintner, magazine publisher and hotelier. He is a graduate of Hofstra University where he studied theatre. He earned anM.F.A. in film directing from the UCLA Film School. He is most renowned for directing the Godfather films, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now.
All of the above films are share themes of drama/crime. This could be linked to the use of black and white footage as the colour black connotes dark thoughts and maybe could relate to the film.

1. The film is named after Somers Town, the part of London in which it is set. Most of the filming also took place on location in that area.
a) Given the London location, what iconographic sights and sounds might you expect from the film?
As it is in London you would expect to see quite a lot of the famous landmarks, such as Big Ben and the houses of parliament. Also the film is set in the 1950's when the chanel tunnel was being made so you would expect to see clips of that. Marek and his dad comes over to England from Poland in order for his dad to be able to work on the crossing. I would expect to hear quite a lot of non diegetic sounds that reflect on the busyness of London and in particular the trafic congestions. There may be sounds car engines and buses.
b) What are you expectations about character and narrative based on this setting?
The setting of this film seems like quite a poor area of london, and you might expect to see people living in cramped and uncomfatable places. The main character Tommo plays a typical teenage boy character, but he still retains the fact that he is still young as throughout the film he finds himself in many bad situations.

No Country For Old Men

No Country For Old Men is a thriller film that was released in 2007, directed by the Coen brothers. We watched the ten minutes in class and looked out for typical conventions of thriller films included in the film.
The film is set in United States–Mexico border in 1980. The opening scene features a voice over of Sherriff Ed Tom Bell, and lots of shots of open landscape. This creates a quite eerie feel to the film already, as it is very quite and builds a lot of tension. The shot of the open scenery gives off the theme of isolation, which is a typical feature in thriller films. There is sound of wind in the background, which again promotes the theme of openness and also gives a spooky effect to the film. Apart from the outside noises, there is no non-deigetic sound in the first few scenes. This creats tension for the audience and allows them to focus on the storyline and it also makes the outside noises more noticable.
We are later introduced to the psychopathic murderer when he gets arrested by the sheriff. The look of the character gives the audience the impression that he has no feelings at all, and he shows no remorse after murdering people. The outfit the character shown in the mis en scene is all black. The connotations of black are dark character, and usually a bad person, in this case a murderer. The man does not really say very much, which arises suspicion and mystery about his character.
The first murder scene takes place in the police station. The sheriff has just come off the phone to another sheriff, raising questions about the oxygen tank occupying the man. Whilst the sheriff is doing this, in the background we see an unfocused image of the man untangling himself from the handcuffs. He successfully does this and then moves over to the sheriff. As soon as the sheriff puts the phone down, the man is strangling the sheriff with his handcuffs. There is a lot of blood spurting out of the sheriff’s body, which is another typical feature of thriller films.
A few scenes later, we are introduced to another character, a hunter who is shooting deer. He is dressed similarly to a cowboy. He shoots one deer in the back, but it does not die instantly so the man has to trace the deer’s steps and find the it. Whilst doing this he comes across another trail of blood and follows it above a rock face. Bellow the rock he sees three trucks and dead bodies with guns on the floor. This tells us that there has obviously been a gun fight which is a typical feature of a thriller film. The man goes down to get a better look. He searches the vans, possibly for goods, or for clues of what exactly happened. He cp,es across an injured, but alive man in one of the trucks. The injured man begs for water, but the other man practically ignores him and searches the rest of his truck. He finds a large amount of what appears to be drugs in the back of the injured mans van. This hints to the audience that the gun fight could related to drug incidents. The man then just leaves the injured man to die, which shows he is quite heartless. Another thing noticeable in this scene is that the man doesn’t really seemed to be shocked at all at the scenario in front of him, suggesting that he has scene death before, and he is not effected by it.

Final Cut Pro/Express

Final Cut Pro is a film editing software created by Apple. The software has a simple, yet affective layout that allows navigating around the software to be a easy hassle free process. The software enables you to edit video footage that you have taken on DV tapes. The software features a well-structured browser, where you can create bins to help you organise your project, a viewer which shows you what your are currently editing/viewing, a timeline which shows the time of each clip and allows you to layer clips on top of each other, and finally a canvas which shows contents of the timeline. Apple have also created and released In 2003 a less expensive version of Final Cut Pro, entitled Final Cut Express. It uses the same layout as Final Cut Pro, but it features less of the “film specific” tools, as it is an less advanced form. Final Cut Express retails around £100 and Final Cut Pro retails around £400 so there is quite a significant price different between the two versions. The software is currently only available on Apple Macs.

Thriller

Thrillers are films that include frequent overlapping sub-genres. They are normally filmed from two characters point of view, for example the “baddies” point of view and the “goodies” point of view. Along with this, cross cutting is used to distinguish a divide in the two groups, and also to allow the audiences to see what each group is doing at different parts of the film. The characters in thrillers are often characterised by the clothes, and look of them. For example if there is a man dressed in black who has a scar across his eye, the audience would presume that this man is trouble and possibly the bad character. Themes of thrillers are generally murder, terrorism, and loneliness. Thrillers can also include for-shadowning, this will build up the audiences tension and anxiety as it may give away hints as to what will happen at the end of the film. Many thrillers effectively use the contrast or light and dark. This also help sets the scene for the audience. Music also plays a big part of thrillers, with fast, uppasted music for energetic action scenes, and if something is about to jump out, generally the music builds up as the fright is about to imerge. Here is a list of the top five thriller movies according to imdb: The God Father, The God Father Part 2, Pulp Fiction, The Dark Knight, Rear Window.

hey my name is harry white and i attend reepham college. I study media, economics, chemistry and human biology. I did media at gcse and got a grade A overall. The purpose of this blog is to show all pre production of the course. I hope you enjoy :)