Question 2

Question 2

How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

In our opening sequence, we spotlight on portraying different types of social groups throughout the film such as teenagers that have had a bad upbringing and that spend all of their times on street corners spending money on alcohol and drugs, and then there is another completely separate group of people, such as social workers that are there to try and help others.
In many drama genres the character has usually always got a big problem that will get dealt with along the way, with a lot of struggle on the way. Therefore the character has to reflect a certain look and personality to carry out this role:
 British female named Lauren Ealing aged 20
 Brought up in Stratford, East London in an estate
 Lauren has had a bad upbringing and childhood and so has been under the influence of drugs since an early age 14
 She hasn’t got a steady job as she was living of benefits that she receives
 She suffered abuse as a child and therefore this has had a big effect on her mentality
 She has lost her daughter as she was unstable and never able to properly look her
 Due to her huge loss she once again turned to drugs
 In our opening sequence, the audience are only able to see the character looking for drugs while grieving for her loss, but at this point at the beginning of the film they would have no idea of Laurens childhood and therefore they would’ve have had much of a negative opinion on her drug use. However, later on in the film the audience would have been able to see the whole of Laurens past as the rest of the film would have been based entirely on her past filled with all the regrets and mistakes she would have made, which follows the conventions of a drama genre which is of course featuring drug use.

Laurens character is similar to the main character Jim Caroll from the film ‘The Basketball Diaries’. Jim Caroll uses heroin to escape reality, which is the equivalent as Lauren Ealing. They both have a strong addiction to the drug and they both do not have any self control of themselves, although they both understand the effects and consequences of using the drug.

Setting is used to represent the character in our opening sequence. Our lighting is dim so that the audience are able to realise what a lonely person Lauren is as the surroundings seem dark and deserted. However, in the rest of the film, the setting would be mainly based on the street highlighting the character returning back to her teenage state and troubles. However, being set in a care home where care workers and social workers will be helping Lauren through her battles during her pregnancy with her child.

Lauren wears black tracksuit bottoms in our opening sequence. This shows her personality as a street girl as street girls tend to wear casual rough clothes like this. Her hair is also very messy and it looks as though she hasn’t washed it in many days which highlight the point of her not having enough money and proper living conditions.
When it was time for our group to choose our cast member for our opening sequence, we had a lot of factors we needed to take into consideration.
 If the person would be able to portray the characters feelings and emotion without using any dialogue/minimal dialogue.
 If the person would be reliable on the day and will be willing to wear the costume and do her hair and make up the way it needs to be
 That the person would be dedicated to their role
 Their acting skills were outstanding and good enough to fulfil the character
After sometime and thought, we decided to ask Reka if she was willing to be our main role for our opening sequence. But before doing so we needed to ask what her timetable was and what lessons were free for her to be able to come back and rehearse so that we could get her body language and facial expressions perfect. However, we did come across some issues with cast, as the costume had to be perfect; we had to find the right outfit along with making the characters hair look like she has been alone without proper living conditions for a long period of time. This was challenging, but we managed to stay on task and do it to our full potential.
I had to direct our actor to stay true to the representations of our character Lauren. I did this by making sure Reka (the actor) was wearing the correct costume that will portray Lauren as a street girl living the street life. Therefore she wore a full black tracksuit, making her look temperamental and dejected. Reka also had to acrt as though she has suffered a tragic loss, and therefore her body language had to reflect this, therefore when walking down the stairs I made sure that she walked down the stairs in a slapdash fashion so that the audience understand that she doesn’t really care for herself and that this loss she has suffered has made her feel helpless. Also, when the character walks into the basement, she kneels down and looks into an empty alcohol bottle. I made sure Reka looked into the body as if she is hoping there is still some drink still left in there. This allows the audience to recognise that she is desperate for all she can get. Also, after doing some research on taking heroin and how addicts react to it, I picked up on some habits that Reka can use to make the use of heroin by Lauren look very realistic. Therefore, I directed her to clench the belt that she used to tie around her upper arm with her teeth so that it looks as if she is tightening the belt as much as she can so to make her vein available and visible, this looks very realistic.

The props used in our opening sequence reflect our characters personality and issues. The camera pans over a table that shows baby toys, clothes, bottles and accessories, implying that the character misses her daughter that she has recently lost and she still hasn’t grieved over her yet, however, there is a contrast as while the camera is still panning, the shot brought to us next is a shot of drugs and alcohol bottles. This shows the part of Laurens personality that the audience are going to learn about more later on in the film.

Other social groups that have been used in our film are the group of friends that badly influence Lauren into doing things that she should never have been doing. They would all be dressed similarly to how Lauren was dressed in our opening sequence and their attitude would be a highlight from the activities they become involved in.