A1. To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre? (30)
Fish tank is a British social realism film that gives a very realistic portayal of british society. Social realism is a way of representing real life with all of its difficulties. Films within this genre are usually gritty, urban dramas demonstrating the struggle of every day life.
Fish tank is very typical of its genre as it uses conventions very common in this genre. These dramas use predominantly diegetic sound, handheld camera movements and narrow depth of field. The use of these technical codes reflects the concept of the film and makes it realistic. In the scene where Mia goes to find Connor the camera follows her with a hand held motion. It places the audience in her shoes and allows us to see the world as she sees it. This has been done to gain empathy from the audience as it almost seems like she is walking aimlessly, with little direction, almost like her life. She is alone, almost alienated from the rest of society and other social groups from the area. Alienation can be main theme of social realism films, also bringing up issues like homosexuality and relationship problems. When Mia Speaks to Connor we look at Mia from his point of view and the camera uses a shallow depth of field. This is when the foreground is in focus but the background is not.
You are correct the technical codes you list do help project the concept of the film and its genre. I like your point on alienation and you could maybe give examples of other social realism films to strengthen your discussion. A good start but keep going, we need more points and further scene detail, think when we did Bond we wrote a large amount on 2 minutes of footage, look for scenes on Youtube peprhaps.
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