Social Realism

Social Realism presented in films is the representation of British society within the last century. Recently, many British films have been based on the genre of social realism because it is recognizable by us, their target audience. Although we enjoy our big Hollywood blockbusters, it's interesting to see the actors we know living lifestyles similar to ours on our TV screens, experiencing what we do..in places we live close to. It portrays a variety of discrimination we see today, the social, sexual and racial issues that have developed in the 21st century as well as financial hardship or family lives we live as heroic - and beneath all the violence and suffering we see, we are eventually revealed a sensitivity toward these characters and story lines.

Conventions of a Social Realism film may include:
- Realistic settings/Urban locations - London, Manchester, Birmingham etc. Places we're reasonably familiar with in Britain.
- Realistic events and situations - we may not all experience what we see in Social realist films, e.g. This is England and Fish Tank - but we read about them and hear about them just as much!
- Believable filming technique - Rather than being filmed like the blockbuster films we see, they're more personal and natural - possibly to create the impression as if we're there ourselves.
- Hard luck/21st century villains - We witness several characters misfortune and deprivation, which molds them into the villain of the film, though when the story develops we often find ourselves sympathizing.
- Economic hardship - There is often a financial deprivation in these films, a single mother, a family on benefits struggling to provide for their family and trying to stay together.

Films and programs that are based on Social Realism:
- Waterloo Road
- This is England
- Sweet Sixteen
- Billy Elliot
- Ratcatcher
- The Boys
- The Plague

Below is a trailer for a couple of Social Realism films:

This is England


Billy Elliot

Preliminary Task

For my preliminary task I worked with Max, Joe and Liam. We were given a short script which we adapted our own ideas to and produced a short film. There were four characters, which Max played two of, as well as Joe and Liam who played a character too. My role was to incorporate a variety of camera angles in each of the scenes in order to emphasize the mysterious theme we were aiming to portray - we wanted to create a twist to the simple and boring script we were given.


I used panning when characters were walking toward danger in order to create suspense and wonder as to where the characters were being lead to.. I also included  close up shots to create empathy towards feelings and emotions. I found two person shots and shot reverse shot were useful when a conversation was being held.


Although we were all pleased with the camera shots we produced, unfortunately the lighting wasn't as successful. On several scenes we found the lighting was far too bright and interfered with the camera - in future we must avoid filming by windows!


The quality of sound was quite well too - fortunately we filmed in quiet corridors during class time as we knew we weren't likely to experience any sound distractions from other students at that time, there weren't any muffling or crackled sounds interfering with our filming.


We all took part in editing the short film, choosing what shots best fit each other to complete the filming efficiently in a well structured way that made sense and followed on from one another correctly. We came across some funny clips which we later decided to edit into an 'outtakes' slide at the end of the film. The editing made the film seem a little more professional, we were also able to create a sense of the theme we were creating with music and sound effects.


I'm happy with the short film we produced though in future I want to ensure we think about setting and faults we may find with the setting, e.g. the lighting by windows ruined the scene as viewers were unable to see characters faces properly. Other than this, I was pleased with the camera angles, sound and editing we all used in order to successfully create our short film.