Short Film Research - Megan Trigg

Short Film Research - Megan Trigg on Prezi

Cotton Stones - Social Class/Regional Identity/Gender

Social Class

• Working class – mise en scene important in conveying this. Costume and setting particularly important, stereotypical costume combined with houses typically connoted with working class. Interior of house demonstrates a working class lifestyle as it is very untidy and there is leftover food on the table (use of props is significant)
• Dialogue also contributes to the representation of social class. Slang terms used, suggesting working class.
• Use of camera helps create a representation of working class. For example, near the beginning of the film there is a medium shot of the two boys walking towards the camera which appears to be handheld. This helps the audience understand a representation of working class as the shot size allows us to focus on the characters and the use of mise en scene surrounding their costume.
• The film is primarily shot from an eye level angle, creating a sense of realism for the audience as they feel directly involved. Helps reinforce a representation of working class as the audience is positioned to understand the lives of the characters and how their class affects them through this camerawork.

Regional Identity

• Northern England – mise en scene in terms of setting is important for conveying this. Establishing shot of where they live is quite barren which is associated with Northern landscapes.
• The accent used by the characters is the main feature of the film that allows us to see that this is set in Northern England, as they have typical Northern accents.

Gender

• Female – at one point she seems to conform to typical gender roles, when she starts tidying up after the male characters in the house.
• There is only one female character in the film who is depicted negatively, so the film does not have a positive representation of females. She is cheating on the male character and seems vulnerable throughout.
• Male dominance is key in the film, which links with Social Class as working class men are often expected to be, or like to see themselves as being dominant over females.
• The brother has a slightly different male representation, as he is not part of the ‘tough’ image that the other two males in the film have. This also links to class and particularly status as he is shown to be weaker than the others because of his intellectual ability. In this sense he is more like the female character which is shown in the scene where she invites him to sit with her on the sofa, as she seems to sympathise with him. 

Editing does not appear to be hugely significant in Cotton Stones. For example, there are long takes in between cuts which could suggest that the focus is on the action and not on the production, though could also simply be chance as the film was shot on 16mm film and therefore having very quick cutting would have been expensive to produce as it would probably have required much more film.