Advanced Portfolio Brief: you are to promote a promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer (DVD) together with 2 of the following: A website homepage for the film A film magazine front cover, featuring a film (A4) A poster for the film (no larger than A3)

British Crime films

Research into British crime films Characters Crime thrillers developed around sinister actions of criminals or gangsters, particularly, bank robbers or who operate outside the law, stealing and violently murdering their way through life. Film gangsters are usually materialistic, street smart, immoral and self destructive. Narrative Crime stories in this genre often highlight the life of a crime figure or a crime’s victim. Or they glorify the rise and fall of a particular criminals, gang, bank robber, murder or law breakers in personal power struggles or conflict with law and order figures, an underling or competitive colleagues or a rival gang. Rivalry with other criminals in gangster warfare is often a significant plot characteristic. Crime plots also include questions such as how the criminal will be approached by police, private eyes, special agents or lawful authorities or mysteries such as who stole the valued object.

Setting and location Gangsters/crimes films are usually set in large, crowded cities to provide a view of the secret world of criminals. Normally in dark nightclubs or streets. The settings on the crime films normally start off with the heist to show what they are taking. For example in snatch it shows this diamond that everyone wants to steal. Costumes In crime films the gangsters are normally dressed in long leather jackets, top hats shirt. Formal looking to show they mean business.

Snatch Snatch is a 2000 crime film written and directed by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, featuring an ensemble cast. Set in the London criminal underworld, the film contains two intertwined plots: one dealing with the search for a stolen diamond, the other with a small time boxer promoter named Turkish who is played by Jason Statham who finds himself under the thumb of a ruthless gangster known as brick top.

The opening… Narrative: It is clear to see from the opening scene that the film is going to be about the ‘stone’, however, we are unsure as to why or what happens to it. Also, we are also fascinated as to how much the diamond costs; as it is much larger than the ones that we saw the robbers grabbing previous to the man asking “where is the stone?” As the viewer, we establish in the opening, that there is obviously a gang but whether there is a rival gang, we are unable to determine. Furthermore, in the character introductions we see a lot of money and gold being exchanged as well as a man being beaten by a bolster. Mise-en-scene: the characters look like stereotypical Jews. Therefore we assume they are religious believers and thus good people. Which is completely contrapuntal to the shot where the robbery begins, as underneath the ‘costumes’ they have hidden guns to complete the robbery and steal the diamonds and precious ‘stone’. We believe that the ‘office’ is below ground level as they push the ‘down’ button the lift. This signifies ‘dodgy-dealing’ as basements are usually associated with excluded areas that secret happenings take place. The film starts in black and white as we are following the CCTV footage until the characters enter the office where everything becomes colour. The room however is very dull and bleak with hardly no vibrancy showing at all. The contrast of light and dark shows that doing something evil and vicious in a good place. we presume that its during the day when the robbery happens as there are people working, however we see no daylight so we also presume that the building is hidden and maybe is a secret location.

Costumes: in the opening scene to get carter the men are wearing suits showing they are rich, but it also tells the audience that these men are gangsters as gangsters tend to wear high priced suits. Setting: The scene takes place in one of the gangsters home. It is not apparent if weather it is night or day however there is a lack of lighting because they have dimmed them to watch the slide show. Props: in the opening scene the characters use lots of props one of the characters is operating a switch that allows him to change the slides on the projector, the other gangsters are using litters to light cigarettes and cigars also Michael Caine’s character makes himself a drink. Mise En Scene - Get Carter

Costumes: in layer cake have been used to show the audience that the film is about drugs and gangster and there a lot of examples of this in the opening sequence. The first being the robbers they are wearing black clothing and they are using tights as masks, this shows off the gangster aspect of the film as gangsters usually hire people to carry out robberies. We also see hippies at a party the hippies are dressed in long shirts and baggy trousers, this highlights the drug aspect of the film because common stereotypes show us that hippies smoke a lot of drugs. Next we see prisoners where the same uniform this being jeans and a blue jumper. Setting: the opening sequence takes place in three locations the first being in a street during the day where a robbery is taking place, the lighting is very dim as it was cloudy during filming. The second location is a house full of hippies as this was filmed in the day the room is being filled with natural light instead of artificial light. The third is the prison scene it is dark in the prison and there is not a lot of artificial light or natural light this is do to make the prisoners feel depressed about being in prison. Props: there were many props used during this opening scene the first being the shotguns that e robbers were using and the drugs that the hippies had in there home. Mise En Scene - Layer Cake

British Crime Films Timeline

Dystopian Genre

Research into Dystopian films The dystopic novel evinces a strong theme common in much science fiction and fantasy fiction, the creation of a future time when the conditions of human life are exaggeratedly bad due to deprivation, oppression or terror. This created society or ‘dystopia’ frequently constructs apocalyptic views of a future using crime, immorality or corrupt government to create or sustain the bad quality of people’s lives, often conditioning the masses to believe their society is proper and just, and sometimes perfect. It can provide space for heroism in disrupting the dystopian setting

Post modern films Postmodernist film attempts to articulate postmodernism through the medium of film. Postmodernist film attempts to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure, characterization and destroys the audience's suspension of disbelief. Typically, such films also break down the cultural divide between high and low art and often upend typical portrayals of gender, race, class, genre, and time with the goal of creating something different from traditional narrative expression

Dystopian Timeline