Part 1 - Brief

Here is the Brief we were working to.

THE BRIEF; 'You have been approached by Film 4 to make a new British social realist film aimed at British 16-24 year olds. To give Film 4 an idea of how your film will develop they have asked you to produce the first two minutes of the film. providing a clear sense of the graphical, editing and musical style your film will use. To protect Film 4's reputation as a leader in British cinema the Film must conform to the conventions of the social realist genre, and meet all audience expectations for this type of film. Finally, to keep costs low, all visual and audio material used in the film must be entirely original, with the exception of stock sound effects.'

I feel that me and my partner done a good job of meeting the requirements of the Brief. For instance we made it clear that we are making the film for our institution company film 4, as the logo is included within our opening sequence and is evidently displayed right at the beginning. The protagonist within our film is 17 years old which meant that the target audience, which are aged around16-17 will be able to relate to her lifestyle and the situation that she is in. In pre-production we done major research on the British social realist genre to conform to the conventions and maintain the audience expectations for this type of film. We watched and analysed a range of British social realist films such as; kidulthood, adulthood, Fish tank, yasmin and few more, this helped us recognize the essential conventions of the BSR genre, and include it within our own production. The feedback we recieved on our opening sequence was mainly the fact that we kept it original as we showed religion and poverty from a different perspective.

THE TITLE; 'Fake ID'

The title of our opening sequence is called 'Fake ID', This title simply connotes the fact that the main character is living with a 'fake' identity, which not everybody knows about. Me and my partner have decided to use this as our title because it represents the theme and narrative of our film which is about the protagonist, living in two separate lives, one of which she implies to be a well-behaved, religious girl and the other secret side to her is that she is a westernized prostitute. This title creates confusion, enigma and questions, as the audience would gain more interest on wanting to know about the storyline and why she has a 'Fake identity'. The reason why we decided to call it 'Fake ID' rather then 'Fake identity' was purely due to the fact that 'Fake ID' sounds much more unprofessional and improper, which again represents the BSR theme and the characters within it, accurately. 

THEMES OF BSR; Throughout our opening sequence, me and my partner have portrayed clear, British social realist themes. Fake ID includes themes such as; Religion, Poverty, sex, Rebellion, isolation and exclusion; All themes are portrayed evidently. The main themes of 'Religion' and 'rebellion' is obviously displayed in the powerful, effective scene (0:30-1:22) of when we see the main characters mother praying whilst switching shots to Ayesha (protagonist) stripping her religious gown & hijab off and getting changed into something much more revealing and westernized. Another key theme; 'poverty' is also denoted within our opening sequence, this is seen through the typical bsr conventions that i have included. For instance we see Ayesha getting changed in a filthy, broken down alley way which connotes that she may be un-wealthy or financially unstable. The gritty location gives out a sense of realism and emphasizes the harsh living conditions of working class people.

                                                                       Yasmin

During pre-production we had a chance to research on British social realist themes, this made a great impact on our own production. Researching on this made me realize that most of these themes display the hardship and reality of working class people, themes such as; Sexuality, Sex, Poverty, Violence, Drugs, Rebellion, Domestic abuse and so on, all portray the struggle that the working class people live in. When researching into how British social realism themes are used, I analysed the themes within five different BSR films. I looked at existing BSR films such as; Fish tank, Anuvahood, Trainspotting, Yasmin and London to Brighton. Having watched all these films I came across many themes, I identified the themes of; Dysfunctional families, Rebellion, Drug abuse/Drug experimentation, religion, Isolation and exclusion. I watched the film 'Yasmin' couple times for inspiration, which is how I got the idea of portraying the theme of 'Religion' within my production. In the Film Yasmin we see the main character going against her religion as she prefers to be more westernized, this influenced our opening sequence a little, as we decided to have the protagonist go against her religion, but we made the storyline original as we had a deeper meaning, the fact that she is a secret prostitute.