TH
TALEN HAMILTON
MEDIA STUDIES A LEVEL
8098
Social Realism Drama Genre
Socail Realism has come onto the filming genre world in a blast, in countries like the United Kingdom and America. Usually during a social realism drama film, we stereotypically see life focused on a minimal amount of characters (1-3 people). The plot during the film revolves around the focus of the main characters life, which throught the film is told and we learn more and more exclaiming to the audience an in-depth knowledge of their lives, for example one of the most renoun films with the social realism drama genre is Fishtank. Produced in 2009, written and produced by Andrea Arnold. The story is a predicament of Mia, who has no role model, neglected by her mother and living in a estate, living on scraps of food and very little money. At only 15 the central character certainly has a controversial agenda set for her. From sleeping with random strangers to drinking anything dangerous, Mia seems unfazed. Seeing her younger sister drinking beer with her mother in the next room changes this uneccesary motion British cinema is some of the most dramatic and flinching cinema in the world. From Trainspotting to This is England there are always issues of realism and points to convey and with this 2009 appraised release we see more hard drama.
The codes and conventions of a Social Realism drama genre are : Location Shooting (non-studio), Wide Shots, Semi-Improvised Scripts, Non-proffesional Actors, Humour and seriousness, The erosion of regional identities, Wider social issues explored via emotional and dramatic individual stories and also Triumph over adversity. By using locations rather than the studio, it makes the film seem more true to real life for the audience to watch. An example of this is in Fish Tank as it uses an actual council estate within the film. British Social Realism films use a range of camera shots but use a lot of wide shots within their films. This is for the audience to get a good understanding of what's going on, or where the setting is. British Social Realism films use non-professional or unknown actors as it adds to the realistic look. Also, many British Social Realism films cannot afford popular, Hollywood actors to be in their films as the budget is usually quite low. For example, Katie Jarvis (main character in Fish Tank) was spotted in a train station arguing with her boyfriend. Semi-improvised scripts are sometimes used in British Social Realism in order to achieve ‘realistic’ dialogue and true to life-like conversations.
For example, Ken Loach used semi-improvised scripts in his British Social Realism film – Kes.