Continue with Shooting Production

After our short delays in filming, my partner and I arranged to film on weekend, we arranged our props and location. My friend, Greta, allowed us to film in a spare room in her house. We wanted to shot the scene in a room to show portray a private and exclusive area only opened to the girl and her companion. The room symbolizes (connotes) a sense of individuality, privacy and a protection of walls (which can either be in a positive way or negative way) I also included a poster (mise-en-scene) use to display a sign of rebellion, on the poster it included ‘Love Is a Drug”Paracetamol and talcum powder to portray drug-use, giving the audience false imagery in order to make the actions realistic the props brought corresponded with mise-en-scene (the visual theme) to our film trailer.  We researched into drug-users behaviour and we found that they commonly use, and we found that stereotypical roll-ups of paper are used to snort the cocaine, mirrors are used as the surface for the cocaine and credit cards are used to break up the substance. For our trailer we wanted to get a high-angle shot of the girl using the cocaine, as depicted in our storyboard. 

Tara taking drugs

This is so it gives a sense of realism to our story-line. Referencing to our research we found that it is usually conventional and stereotypical for institution to involve drugs when portraying young teenagers and also as a technique to establish a relationship with the young audiences.  We wanted our readers to engage by using short cuts of the film shown to compose a trailer, and through our research we found that interesting and dramatic scenes often made the audience passive to the transmitted message. 

We decided to include an extra scene, even though it was not written down in our film plan, we thought that we would go for the most recent convention ‘sex sells’ many films or adverts portray sex as a natural norm and it has been very popular for audiences to come across overexposed and most controversial subject. My partner and I planned to use a shoot a long shot of the two couples (Tara, main girl and Ben, influential boy) engaging in a intimate scene, we felt that since our target audience is teenagers, we wanted to relate it to how teenagers behave in the contemporary society. Compared to the more traditional days teenagers having sex would be seen as an abomination and unheard in contrast with today society sexual intercourse amongst teenagers are widely acceptable and often mediated- films such as Kidulthood, display sexually active teenagers as an identity or statement- scenes also referred to the importance of sex and the status you receive if you have engaged in the act. 

Figure 2 shot of the passionate scene

However, on the filming day I decided to challenge the motion of sex amongst teenagers as something that has been accepted by the western cultures (society) but it seen as a taboo in other cultures, such as the Middle East. So the theory of teenagers cannot be referred to everyone, as it is exclusive to one culture and society.       I decided, on the day of filming, that the focus would be on the audience perception of sex, I didn’t want to make the audience passive by being biased and objectifying sex as positive or negative but the audience can respond to it actively, making their own decision.  For the shot I decided to film a long shot of the couples to distance the audience from them and also to make the lighting darker

On the day of filming, Michelle, my partner was unable to attend for the week, so I had to work independently on the filming, I found it quite strenuous because operating the camera and directing single handling takes a lot of adjustment, especially if you are not familiar with filming.  However it was a success because I learnt how to independently direct and film and also how make decision based on my independent thoughts. I also noted the importance of planning because I did not have to think on the spot I could refer to the plan drawn up. However the size of room restricted some shots to be established, such as the high angle shot of the girl snorting cocaine resulted to a, medium long shot instead. Although this was a minor issue, the intention was that the audience can see that the girl has become powerless to the issues surrounding her, her mothers death, the bad influence an the drugs has made her into an inferior and ‘looked-down upon’ by society. It was meant to follow the theory that people result to crime as the last option, Matza, a sociologist, stated that crime occurred when individuals go through an ordeal in their life. For my character her ordeal or ‘demons’ that she was facing was the loss of her mother. 

Figure 3: Drug-use scene

However I was advised my peers to change my shot to a medium close up, because of complications with the room. The positioning was like this the boy who influences her sits behind the main character, this showed that she was persuaded and encouraged to carry out these deviant acts. It follows conventions to the point that the ‘bad’ characters always stands behind the damsel in distress in this case and utter wrongful advices. It also relates to individuals being wary with their peers, as it is common for adolescences to be pressurised into wrongful doings. 

                                                                   Shots taken for the drug and gun scene 

This is arranged in no particular order because additional scenes would be placed but they have not been recorded yet. 

 A side shot of Tara drinking, form this point the audience would interpret this action as deviant, following on from her mother death we see a sense of change. The death was a disruption to the equilibrium creating an unequal balance to the society. Stereotypically, teenagers would be deemed as alcohol and drug abusers but what i wanted to convey was that, when something effects us we automatically turn to something that would give us a temporary gratification. The side shot gives the audience an objective view of Tara, so they can make their own judgement of the situation, is this an action that they dispute? do they understand? do they find it normal? My aim was to allow the audience to make up their mind on the story, I didn't want them to be passively sitting there injecting the messages but instead think more actively in regard to it. The props used made the scene more realistic and the change of color from the character from black (which resembled sorrow) to grey (which resembled a bleak and less vibrant persona) 

A close-up shot of one of the manipulators into Tara life, his name is James. The first thing i wanted to capture was the attitude which instantly sends out a message that he is a 'bad boy' 'ghetto' 'bad influence' all these labels attached to someone. However what makes him bad or evil? The circulating stereotype that black or mixed race boys are manipulators and are a bad influence on middle-class white girls, i often say this imagery or message being passed through films. I wanted to challenge existing media products by showing that situations can make people fall they are not influenced by black or mixed race boys. I wanted to challenge this motion. 

I did a long shot (objective). The consumer can see the two characters engaging in drug-use, we can see the mise-en-scene of levels, Tara is kneeling down to symbolize submission of drugs and lust and James is sitting down on the bed to show a sense of experience and influence. Ben is obvious the  love interest in this shot,  although both characters are not physically engaging with each other we see that they are together because of the lack of personal space. The both evade each others spaces. Tara is taken class A drugs whilst Ben is taking class B, normally we would expect it to be the other way round because of the lack of experience Tara has, however, we can argue that she chose to do this action in her own accord. As stated before I didn't want to follow normal stereotypes of black males i wanted the attention to be focused on class. It is a well-known fact that upper-class people are most likely to possess class A drugs. Class A drugs is seen as more dangerous and more restrictive than Class B, which the working-class usually possess. In this shot Tara who is of a middle class is possessing class A whilst James is not.
We can see the element of red in the shot, this becomes my common theme as the teaser trailer continues it foreshadows the future and represented the present. Red connotes lust-which is clear in the scene and also death which is a theme that comes up later. 

Close-up shot of Tara taking drugs, we did a close to dramatize the scenes and make it more realistic. A close up shot provides the consumer with details of the action. The action of rubbing the nose is a common gesture that represents snorting cocaine.
With the music in the background it groups this image with the other images.

An extreme close-up of James smoking 'weed' as explained before weed is seen as a working-class phenomenon. Weed is a drug that is popular amongst youth- they can relate to this shot and decide if this is deviant or not? Although is looks appealing to the eye and might be argued to be passively telling the audience to engage in such activities. This shot was inspired by Kidulthood, I wanted to create a similar imagery to it because it is captivating to the audience. However, i didn't want to glorify it but instead make the consumer think if this action is acceptable or not.

The shot of the gun becomes the symbolized item, it becomes part of the stage because it connotes various of things. It is stigmatized as dangerous, the source of trouble, criminal, fearful, intimidating, power. What was interesting to me was that crime often held the gun as 'bad', in contemporary society an individual holding a gun (especially is lower class) would be deemed as a criminal, dangerous and in need to repressive social order however gun is used in wars created by politics and countries. The context of which the gun is used in makes the audience automatically think of death. We view Tara and James as potential criminals and dangerous however, the blame would be pinned more on James because he of a lower class, and many sociologist such as Robert Merton perceive crime as a lower-class phenomenon. However i wanted it to be directed at Middle-class Tara because I wanted to project a message explaning that the upper-claas society do commit the most vile crimes. e.g.. Civil war is often stirred by the upper-class. What justifies the upper-class from murdering but not the lower-class    

A shot of Tara looking at the gun in shock horror shows that this has amazed her but not to the point that she would leave, we note that she would accept this gesture of the gun.