We decided that we would choose British Social Realism as our genre. Social realism in films is representative of real life, with all its difficulties. The stories and people portrayed are everyday characters, usually from working class backgrounds. Typically, films within the social realist genre are gritty, urban dramas about the struggle to survive the ‘daily grind’.

This genre helped influenced the decisions we made as a group, for example, most social realism is set in working class areas, this was good as we had a lot of access to council estates and run down areas that are stereo-typical in many films of that genre.

My specific role in the creation of our product was ‘Sound Designer’ this meant I was in charge of all sound, for example, Diegetic/non-Diegetic sounds, voiceovers and Soundtracks. I started by researching other social realism films like ‘Reservoir dogs’ (Quentin Tarantino, 1992), ‘This Is England’ (Shane Meadows, 2006), ‘Kidulthood’ (Menhaj Huda, 2006) and ‘Sexy Beast’ (Jonathan Glazer, 2000). ‘Sexy beast’ was one of the films that influenced me the most; it is a highly stylised film with many sounds that affiliate with the Social Realism Genre. Also Shane Meadows used a Voice over in the opening of the film, this voice over was so stylised and did a lot to show the audience what genre the film was in. I used these ideas in my own work and managed to reflect the genre through them. After researching these films it came apparent that they all focused around the same kind of soundtrack, this soundtrack was a mixture between ‘pop’ music and ‘jazz’. I noticed that these soundtracks gave the scenes a certain emphasis that wouldn’t have been achieved by using different genres of music. I discussed how I wanted the sequence to look, and decided that we wanted an opening scene similar to that of ‘Reservoir dogs’ (Quentin Tarantino, 1992). Our opening scene would introduce each character and have a cut scene of them doing ‘what they do best’. Then I started writing my soundtrack.



I used an up-tempo drumbeat and jazzy trumpet loop to add to the effect of the genre. Then I added some bass rhythm that added a darker atmosphere to the product. This worked very well as we were able to edit the product so when the bass rhythm started, the cut scenes started, this added a certain professional atmosphere to the product, which was what I aimed for from the beginning. I also had to work on the sound for some of the shots, for example there are a few shots that benefited because of the Diegetic sound: Cars passing by, water running and footsteps, all of these sounds added an effect to the sequence that, even if they are not noticeable, bring the sequence closer to the intended genre. Finally we decided that we wanted a voiceover to introduce the characters, we added a voiceover using the built in sound recorder on the camera, after this I had to adjust the levels of the soundtrack and the voiceover so that either one didn’t over-power the other.

As I was the ‘Sound Director’ for our project I had to work closely with all of the other group members. Specifically the Editor and Cinematographer, first of all whilst out filming. I had to picture what mood the soundtrack presents, in turn this made me give my input to the cinematographer about what camera angles and shots would reflect the genre. Secondly whilst filming I had to listen to the sound around us and think would our sequence benefit from this. I had to work very closely with the editor, as we both wanted the soundtrack to run smoothly with the edited sequence, we achieved this by cutting both the sequence and the soundtrack to make them sync correctly.

Whilst creating my soundtrack I thought about how I wanted the audience to respond to my piece. I wanted them to feel what genre the film was set in; I wanted the audience to respond to the micro aspects that I added to make the sequence of a higher standard, for example, the Diegetic sounds.



(This soundtrack inspired me in the way the artist uses bass together with drums and other instruments)



(This is the soundtrack from ‘Reservoir dogs’ (Quentin Tarantino, 1992), this gave me lots of inspiration as it harbors many aspects that i added, for example, drums, bass, up-tempo, jazzy)

On the whole most of the feedback that I received about my micro feature was positive, it showed me that the effort I put into making it had shown off. There were a couple of negative comments about my feature too, for example, someone said that the volume levels needed to be adjusted a bit more, just to add that professional feel. I agreed with this comment and will use it in my future work.

I believe that my technical skill helped me very much with my micro-feature. I have been using music software for about a year now, which helped me as it gave me more knowledge in what I had to focus on. My Technical skill enabled me to make creative choices confidently and efficiently.


(This is our Final piece)