Character Profile- Sarah

First Name: Sarah
Surname: Shaw
Age: 17
Occupation: Sixth form

Background

Sarah was brought up by her mum and dad in Moss Side, Manchester and worked hard in order to try and have a better life than both her parents who both had a tough upbringing. However, her relationship with her parents wasnt always great with many arguments and fights. Both her parents were alcoholics and after having a drink they would often become violent. At the age of 8 she was taken into care as her parents werent capable of bringing her up in a safe environment.

At the age of 10 she was adopted by a couple and raised her with love and care unlike her real parents. As a result of being well looked after by her new family, she did very well at school, getting straight A's at GCSE. She then went on to do her A- Levels.

Sarah moved from Yorkshire, where she had been living with her new parents, to go to Sixth form in Manchester. She wanted to move back to the area where she grew up as she thought she could forget about all the bad memories she faced in the past.

During her time at sixth form she becomes very close to Shaun who has experienced very similar situations to what Sarah went through. She gets closer to Shaun and she wants to help him like her adopted parents helped her as she feels it is best for Shaun and herself.

Character Profile- Dealer

Name: unknown
Codename: Dealer
Age: 19
Occupation: Drug gang leader

Background

The dealer was brought up by his mother after his father was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of murder. In his local area he is well known for his actions of dealing drugs and getting into trouble. He has never seen his father as he was sent to prison before he was born and his mother didnt allow him to see his father in prison as she didnt want him to be influenced by what she thought was a criminal. His mother had a tough time trying to bring him up as a child as he was known for getting into trouble with the police.

At an early age he was caught shoplifting and ever after he continued to commit crimes and get into trouble with the police. As he became well known he began hanging around with the wrong people and began working with a drug dealer, selling drugs in school and outside of school. However, one day his boss was arrested and he became the new gang leader, taking over the main role of supplying drugs for people to sell, becoming ever increasingly popular in the local area.

At the time drugs in the local area werent a massive thing until the dealer began selling more unknown drugs and after a while he recruits a new member to the group, the main character Shaun, who begins to sell drugs he has supplied to sixth form students.

The Dealer is a character you wouldnt want to get the wrong side of as he will punish you if you dont do what he wants. He is dangerous and thats why he is successful at being a dealer, as people respect him otherwise they are beaten up.

Character Profile- Shaun

First name: Shaun
Surname: Smith
Age: 17
Occupation: Sixth form

Background

Our main character is called Shaun and he lives with his mum and dad in Manchester. Like most families, they would often argue but would always spend quality time together. Shaun enjoyed his upbringing and loved his family.

Growing up he was always a popular person amongst his friends and would often be socialising. He was always very hard working and this showed in his results at school. He had a large group of friends, however, when his mum died.

His mother was killed in a car accident. This had such a negative impact on Shaun and after the funeral his dad was drinking again. As Shaun tried to help him they ended up fighting and arguing. This affected their relationship and they no longer spoke to each other. Shaun was no longer the same person after this.

As a result of no guidance from his dad, he began doing things he shouldn't have. He was amongst a bad crowd at school and began taking and dealing drugs with a local dealer. We see how Shaun gets into bad situations but could there be light at the end of the tunnel for Shaun?

Character Profile- Dad

Name: John
Surname: Smith
Age: 49
Occupation: Warehouse worker
Windowed

Background

John is the father of Shaun and he lived an ordinary lifestyle and was happily married. He had a good job which provided for his family. John as a child had a tough upbringing in rough areas of Manchester and he didnt want Shaun to grow up surrounded by violence and drugs.

They moved to the suburbs of Manchester and John continued in his role at work. Shaun was doing well at school, getting good grades and not getting into trouble. Everything was looking good for the family and Shaun was expected to do well in his GCSEs.

However, things began to change and John was beginning to notice that Shaun was being his normal self. He was staying out late at night and began smoking and when John spoke to him to try and help him, Shaun got very angry and caused a lot of stress between the two. This came at a bad time as shortly after his wife died.

John began drinking heavily to try and take his mind of the death of his wife and became quite violent, ruining any relationship between him and his son. He lost his job and any money he had was being spent of drink, providing no support for Shaun. This resulted in Shaun becoming something his father didnt want him to become.

Costume Research

Ive looked at some British film dramas so that I have an understanding of the costumes used within the films. However, the majority of the film dramas dont have teenage characters who are still in school. Therefore, some of the costumes that we use will go against typical British film drama conventions. Within most of the films I have looked at, the typical costume has been either tracksuit or jeans and a hoodie.


This is an image of Renton from Trainspotting in the opening sequence of the film trailer. As you can see he is wearing jeans, a top and a jacket, with what looks to be a hoodie wrapped around his waist. This style makes him look like a regular person walking the street, however he is not dressed smart and formal, which is evident in the films I have looked at.

This is an image of the characters from the film The Firm, which is to do with football hooliganism. As you can see the characters are dressed very casually and one of the characters is in a full tracksuit. The use of a tracksuit highlights that they get into trouble and it represents a sense of a gang. The others are wearing jeans and a tracksuit coat with trainers suggesting they dont have lots of money to buy more formal clothing.



This is an image of the characters from The Football Factory. The characters are wearing jeans and jackets with trainers. They are all dressed very similar as it highlights their unity as a gang. In addition, they are about to create violence so they are not going to be dressed smartly. Finally, some of the characters are wearing baseball caps to hide their identity.


However, in our film trailer we will be filming scenes within school, as our characters will be dealing drugs in school. Therefore, these characters will have to wear suits as they are sixth form students. This will go against typical costume conventions, but will highlight how different these characters are in school and outside school.

Font Research

I have been looking at various British films and have been looking at the different fonts they use for their film titles. Font will not only be important for our film trailer but for both our ancillary tasks as well, the poster and the magazine cover.

This font is from the Trainspotting, which was a successful British comedy crime drama. The font used is very simple, however does stand out. The title used is a white font on an orange background which stands out due to the contrasting colours. The font is just ordinary text and not in capitalised like most title fonts used.

This is font of the film The Football Factory, which is a British film drama about football violence. This font is bold, capitalised and in white font to make it stand out against the red background. The font has lines it and is not joined together properly which could signify broken bones due to all violence within the film.

This font is of the film The Firm, a 2009 British film drama about football hooliganism. The font used is bold and is all in lower case writing. However, the font used is similar to bubble writing. The blue font is a masculine colour relating to the story. It stands out against the white background.

Production Schedule

Lighting and Props Research

Group Roles

As a group we have decided that each member should do their own individual research on areas that will make up our film trailer.

Me: Lighting and Props
Chris: Camera shots and editing
Sam: Location and costume

I will be looking at the most common lighting and props used in British Drama films so that I can feedback my knowledge to the group and so we can include in our film trailer. I will create a presentation to show my research and post it on my Blog.

Location Moodboard

Finished Narrative

The main character is a 17 year old male who attends his local high school to study for A levels. However he leads a troubled life as early in his teenage life his mum died, driving his dad to alcoholism and an abusive relationship between father and son. They would constantly argue and bicker over the drinking and most issues that faced them, the petty arguments eventually led to physical confrontations that would ensue whenever the main characters father would drink heavily and as the months passed on this became every night.

Originally Shaun was an A grade, punctual and attentive student at school. He had a large group of close fiends with similar but also different interests to himself which complimented his ability to communicate with anyone no matter what background they had and this made him a very likeable character. It was unlike Shaun to get into trouble for anything with anyone, always did what he was told and finished classwork and homework on time with the occasional late hand in. He and three of his friends were very active together going to the GYM most of the days of the week and playing football on the weekends which kept him healthy and got him away from problems at home.

The characteristics that his father has past on only become prevalent later in the plot of the film. Before this the character starts hanging around with a friend he has met through his other close friends and he soon realises that this persons has different pass times than he and his normal group of friends do. This person introduces the main character to smoking cigarettes at first ,which is unhealthy but not too bad but as the weeks go by this escalates to harder drugs and getting up to criminal activities such as theft. He does these things to get money to purchase the harder drugs as he cannot hold down a part time job with the constant absences and going in late he gets fired from most of them.

Because of his regular drug use our character developed a working relationship with the dealer and began to sell drugs for him at school discretely as a way of making money to pay for necessities at home and personal items as his dad was still absorbed in alcoholism and spending the majority of money on himself. Despite the characters lifestyle he still managed to get 7 A-C grades at GCSE securing himself a place at his schools sixth form. Unlike the other students his priority wasn't to get the grades he needs for a better life but to keep him self close to his regular customers. By now he had developed enough trust to start selling harder drugs to his customers and was entrusted with introducing them to cocaine. This brought him an increased income, but his "mates" from high school who failed their GCSE's were stuck as runners, delivering drugs to houses that had ordered from the the dealer. They become jealous and begin to harass the character questioning him why he was abandoning them when they were the ones that made his "success" possible. This leads to a fist fight between the main character and his best mate that would also have a strong narrative within the early film to establish him as a character, but the main character ends up winning the fight and the mates split up with a sour taste lingering in their mouth.

As the weeks progress the main character becomes friendly with a girl who is new to the sixth form and doesn't know about his life and so as they begin to talk after sitting next to each other in a class, they begin to fall for each other. As they begin to date the main character opens up about his life and instead of her abandoning him like he expected she stays and helps him to turn his life around. Our main character begins to study for his subjects and gradually starts to move away from the life of a drug dealer eventually cutting ties with the dealer and his associates to go straight. He even begins to try and reconnect with his dad despite him still being a drunk, but years had passed since his mother death and their physical fights had decreased once the protagonist could fight back. they began to talk and slowly rebuild the relationship they had lost.

Around two months pass without the dealer having any contact with the main character and so he sends one of his enforcers to check out the situation by sending him to his house to ensure that he doesn't tell anyone about what he knows. The enforcer finds the house and knocks on the door. The protagonist opens it and immediately recognises the enforcer as one of the dealers people and tells him he is no longer under his employment as he can better himself through lawful means. The enforcer reacts by threatening the protagonist in order to ensure his silence, threatening him and his dad. Although the protagonist had been clean for two months and no longer associated himself with his criminal contacts he still had the mentality that had been drilled into in recent years. To not take threats and respond with violence. He grabs an empty beer bottle his dad had left by the door and glasses the enforcer over the head cutting him deeply. Surprised the enforcer recoils back in pain and the protagonist puts the broken bottle against his throat and tells him if any of his men come back he will do permanent damage to them. Clutching his head the enforcer runs off to inform the dealer of the confrontation and the protagonists words.

After hearing about the confrontation at the protagonists house the dealer decides that the protagonists knows too much about his operation and needs to be silenced. He orders a hit on the protagonist and tells his old friend to do it to make it more personal for the protagonist glassing his enforcer.

The friend knew where the protagonist lived and the route he took to and from school. He gets two of his other mates to help him ambush the protagonist on his way to sixth form and decides that the side street by the river is the best place to do so. They make there way to the spot the next day and he orders his two mates to sit on a wall and chill for a a bit whilst he took position in a hiding spot. When the protagonist arrived he would spring his ambush.


Unaware the protagonist walks down the passage holding his folders when he spots the two the two teenagers sitting talking by the wall and recognises them as the enforcers runners. He decides to walk past them to show them he isn't afraid of the dealer or his threats when both of them stand up and block his path. Before the protagonist can react his old fiend jumps out from hiding holding a knife and hearing him come up behind him the protagonist turns around to see his attacker as he plunges the knife into his stomach. The two lock eyes and pause for seconds that feel like hours before the attacker twists the knife and pulls it out and the group run off in multiple directions. The protagonist falls against the wall and holds onto his wound. His breathing raspy and his body cold he looks down at his wound and sees nothing but bright red. Looking up at the sky the thinks of the past few months and how he was changing his life around for the better and the girl who made it possible. He smiles as he thinks of her and looks once more at his wound. Despite what has happened, he wouldn't have changed  his decision to go straight he thought as he looked up once more. They were the best two months he had had in years and he was happy that he had tried his hardest to fix his his life. He smiles an even wider smile. Then he's gone.

Storyboard

In the lesson we have created a storyboard to follow when we begin our filming. It shows how we plan to film the shot and includes information about the camera shots and editing.

 

Film Narrative

We have decided that we are going to use a combination of Chris' and Sams narrative as our final idea. As a group we looked at each of our film ideas and tried to see which would be most suitable and relatable to our genre. We are going to create a storyboard taking into consideration both narratives in order to create one film trailer. We chose both Sams and Chris' film narratives as we felt the structure and the detail was there in order to be able to create a successful film trailer.

Production Company- Film4 Productions

Film 4 Productions is a British TV channel owned by Channel 4, which shows films, usually low budget British films. Film 4 Productions is not known for showing huge, popular films or blockbusters, but tends to show in house films which include many British actors. Film 4 Productions is a successful production company and we think it would be best suited for our film trailer as our film has been produced on a low budget and is going to be watched by a very niche audience. Film 4 Productions has released a lot of films that many have not heard of or are not regarded as huge films. These include; Fever Pitch, Mr Turner and 12 years a slave.

Narrative moodboard