Part 1- The Brief

Before production, we were given a brief which we made sure to refer to throughout the whole process as it helped guide us in terms of who our audience is, the duration, where it will be distributed, which company we are making this for and the limited expenses we have available.

"You have been approached by Film 4 to make a new British Social Realist film aimed at British 16-24 year olds. To give Film 4 an idea of how your film will develop they have asked you to produce the first two minutes of the film, providing a clear sense of the graphical, editing and musical style your film will use. To protect Film 4’s reputation as a leader in British cinema the film must conform to the conventions of the Social Realist genre, and meet all audience expectations for this type of film. Finally, to keep costs low, all visual and audio material used in the film must be entirely original, with the exception of stock sound effects."

I think my opening sequence did meet the brief well as we used many themes which are typical in the BSR genre and which we found would be relatable to the 16-24 year old target audience; such as  sexual abuse, corruption of youth and the main being unwanted pregnancy. Our film is suitable to our target audience as the themes involved are young and current, along with the characters themselves. We aimed to represent our characters truthfully so that our audience can easily relate to what they are going through and find similarities between the film and what they have seen or even experienced themselves. As stated in our treatment, Britain has a sky-high level of teenage pregnancies, with 2.9 out of every 100 girls aged between 15 and 19 giving birth every year, we thought this would be relatable to our target audience as it is a universal issue and we wanted to show that pregnancy isn't always their fault, unlike films like Juno where she becomes pregnant from her own choice. 

The title of our film is called 'Positive' this contrasts the negative events occurring throughout, but connotes the theme of pregnancy as it hints the results of the pregnancy test will be positive. Or could connote the involvement of a sexually transmitted disease, being HIV positive. This title is conventional for the BSR genre as it is one word, two syllables, quick and memorable and gets the audience thinking, is it just the pregnancy test that turned out to be positive, or will there be another positive event occurring later on in the film which helps Becca get back on track?

Our opening sequence starts with past time of Becca getting ready for the party that night, on her way there, she is shown being grabbed by a boy and is taken round the corner. This cuts to present time where Becca takes out a pregnancy test, throughout this process, there are flashbacks of the rape. Whilst waiting for the results, she sees a pair of scissors and is debating whether to commit self harm, cutting to the rape at each stage of decision. As she sees the pregnancy test is positive, she drops the scissors. 

The first theme our opening hints at without going into too much detail is through the text "Sorry my dad won't let me", this connotes that there is tension at home, her Dad does not give her much freedom to go out and enjoy herself, typical of the genre as the families are not usually strongly bonded, for example Fish Tank, the main character does not have a strong relationship with her Mother.

Another theme we explored was sexual abuse, a common theme in the BSR genre, this is first introduced at 0:44, where Becca is dragged in the alley. We did not want to dwell too much on this rape as we did not want to make it too unsettling for our audience to watch, so although it is brutally impacted that the pregnancy is not Becca's fault, it is only shown for brief shots.

We also briefly presented the theme of self harming, from 1:24, it cuts between Becca reaching for the scissors and flashbacks of the rape. This theme is not given away too much, as she is stopped by the results of the test, this connotes to the audience that this character is unstable, and she may act on this later on in the film, leaving them on edge.