"Americans have shown they want pictures reflecting the simple emotions. We are trying to crash into their market by offering them gloom-sadism-and-soft-focus. We must aim at the box office and not the art gallery. It is no good aiming over their heads. It will not help us earn dollars."
1947 – Kine weekly on Social Realism
Codes and conventions powerpoint is below this info on SR
Social Realism in cinema finds its roots in Italian neorealism, the films of Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and to some extent Federico Fellini. Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner In British cinema
Early British cinema used the common social interaction found in the literary works of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. One of the first British films to emphasize realism's value as a social protest was James Williamson's A Reservist Before the War, and After the War in 1902. The film memorialized Boer War serviceman coming back home to unemployment. Repressive censorship during 1945-54 prevented British films from more radical social positions.
After World War I, the British middle-class generally responded to realism and restraint in cinema while the working-class generally favoured Hollywood genre movies. Thus realism carried connotations of education and high seriousness. These social and aesthetic distinctions have become running themes; Social Realism is now associated with the art-house auteur, while mainstream Hollywood films are shown at the multiplex.
Producer Michael Balcon revived this distinction in the 1940s, referring to the British industry's rivalry with Hollywood in terms of "realism and tinsel." Balcon, the head of Ealing Studios, became a key figure in the emergence of a national cinema characterized by stoicism and verisimilitude. "Combining the objective temper and aesthetics of the documentary movement with the stars and resources of studio filmmaking, 1940s British cinema made a stirring appeal to a mass audience," noted critic Richard Armstrong.
Social Realism in cinema was reflecting Britain's transforming wartime society. Women were working alongside men in the military and its munitions factories, challenging pre-assigned gender roles. Rationing, air raids and unprecedented state intervention in the life of the individual encouraged a more social philosophy and worldview. Social realist films of the era include Target for Tonight (1941), In Which We Serve (1942), Millions Like Us (1943), and This Happy Breed (1944). Historian Roger Manvell wrote, "As the cinemas [closed initially because of the fear of air raids] reopened, the public flooded in, searching for relief from hard work, companionship, release from tension, emotional indulgence and, where they could find them, some reaffirmation of the values of humanity."
In the post-war period, films like Passport to Pimlico (1949), The Blue Lamp (1949), and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1952) reiterated gentle patrician values, creating a tension between the camaraderie of the war years and the burgeoning consumer society.
A British New Wave movement emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. British auteurs like Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, and John Schlesinger brought wide shots and plain speaking to stories of ordinary Britons negotiating post-war social structures. British New Wave films include Room at the Top (1958), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), and A Kind of Loving (1962). Relaxation of censorship enabled filmmakers to portray issues such as prostitution, abortion, homosexuality, and alienation. Characters included factory workers, office underlings, dissatisfied wives, pregnant girlfriends, runaways, the marginalized, the poor, and the depressed. "The New Wave protagonist was usually a working-class male without bearings in a society in which traditional industries and the cultures that went with them were in decline."
Codes and Conventions of British Social Realism from hannahmedia123
How social realism films are released and marketed.
•A high number of social realism films are made on low budgets so they are limited on the marketing and promotional aspects.
•For social realism films the majority are created by independent film production companies, examples of independent companies include Scenario Films, Coffee Films, Bargus, Fractured films and many more. Also a key point about independent film companies is that a large number of them are British which links to our film trailer as we have produced it in Brighton.
•They can be distinguished by their style of filming and content, plus the way in which the filmmakers create an artistic approach to visualize.
•Social realism films usually only have limited release due to their small budgets instead of wide releases which link more to mainstream films.
•Marketing schemes such as ‘viral marketing’ involves reviews, interviews and trailers –reviews and online sources were the top features in how people discovered the film ‘Fish Tank’.
•Viral marketing again was one of the best marketing strategies for ‘Kidulthood’. According to the UK Film Council, 33% of the people who went to see the film heard about it through word-of-mouth. People tend to hear from family and friends, plus social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter which links to web 2.0.
marketing strategies will in some ways be similar to the way in which ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Fish Tank’ marketed there film. Firstly as our target audience is 15-25 year olds we want to market and promote our film at places where people in that age group will be.
film poster and magazine front cover, a good idea would be to place them around schools and colleges as a large number of 15-25 year olds are within both of the campuses daily.
market trailer would be using viral marketing and web 2.0. because today the majority of 15-25 year olds are using the internet in some way; social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are the most popular websites where we could promote for our trailer.
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