Response to Brief

Name of Movie: BLEAK

Name of main character: Damien Taze

Name of main character 2: Michael Cortez

Ethnic Background: Both are black or one white and one black. This will represent the different cultural backgrounds in South London.

Age of characters: 15 to 18.

Length of opening scene: 2 to 2.5 minutes.

 O p e n i n g    s c e n e    I d e a 

Scene starts of with our main character Damien walking through his hometown.This lasts for about a minute or so while non diagetic backing music is played, or perhaps we see a match-on-action shot of him pressing play on his phone/ipod and we hear the music that he's listening to as the backing music to the scene. This music will be representative of the culture in the area to set the scene to the audience. He walks past an alleyway and he sees a group of youths hassling/ robbing a young girl/ boy. Damien stops, stares for a few seconds and we see close ups of his face which will display his emotion to this event, but he decides to walk off. Then after walking about 10 meters or so, Damien stops walking and comes to a stand still. While he's facing the camera, we have a close up shot of his face having second thoughts of turning back. As he decides to ride back to help the youth, the camera points up to the sky and as this is happening, non-diagetic music comes on and we see the title of the film appear.

F I L M   T R E A T M E N T

The plot of the story is about a Boy named Damien who has never really been able to stand up for himself or others and has avoided gang culture despite being in a deprived area of London. He then see's a boy getting robbed and stands up to the youths but gets stabbed. He then builds a relationship with this boy throughout the film. He then goes back home and gets back to normal family life until he hears rumours how theres a new feared gang on the road that had stabbed a boy and put him in hospital. Damien realises it's him that they're talking about. His school holidays have come meaning he is free so he investigates further to find out who put him in hospital. He then gets dragged into a underground society of gang culture through the boy that he saved from the youths. Damien starts to carry a knife incase he gets approached. Damien tells his friend what he's going to do to his stabber when he finds him but she insists he leaves him and doesn't get involved. He then finds out where his stabber lives and awaits outside his house for him to come out to get revenge. Damien follows his stabber until he's alone on a quiet road and stabs him only to injure him, but then realises he's killed him. Damien runs home, buries the knife and burns his gloves and shirt which has bloodstains on it. Later on in the evening, police turn up to Damiens house and Damien is struggling to find out what to do or if he should hide. The police enter his house and tell his mum to call him down. Damiens mum calls him but he doesnt respond and she goes upstairs to find his room empty with an open window and she picks up a note on his desk that says "sorry mum". The film ends here showing the two police officers and the mother with a shocked face.

Examples of other Films

Here we have tried to find films that are specifically similar to the films that were making in terms of genre and setting.

(No copyright infringement intended)


FISH TANK (2009)

Fish Tank is a great example that represents the lives of struggling teenagers with failing families. It's very upfront and goes into the personal life of a teenage girl who wants to succeed but is held back due to her troubled circumstances. It shows a teenager trapped in a world of little opportunities, much like the idea of film. So it would be wise to analyse scenes from this movie to see how the teenager is represented through the codes of conventions.

SHANK (2010)

Shank is another film portraying gang violence in London. Although not recieving good reviews from the film critics, it still can be a vital part of our research in terms of analysing the camera movements, storyline and types of music used.









Below is a chase scene from the movie shank, in my opinion possibly one of the best scenes of the movie. The use editing is very fast paced to emphesise the extremeness of this chase scene along with the shaking of the camera while it's moving gives you the feeling of struggle from the character being chased.

KIDULTHOOD (2006)

Kidulthood is another film which has inspired us for our film idea. It portrays the troubled life of struggling teenagers in the Southern end of London. The lighting effects and mise-en-scene is something we wish to replicate as it sets the mood very well for our type of film.