The film I will be analysing is ‘Bullet Boy’ by Saul Dibb. The film starts with non-diegetic sound playing and with a graphic of a fire or explosion which turns into the BBC films logo. This already sets the mood for the film giving us a sense of the drama which will ensue. The font or typography of the credits appearing on the screen is very simple as it is a plain white font, simple in style. This helps to set a pace to the film along with the non diegetic music. The quality of the pice of music adds to the atmosphere of the scene. We also hear diegetic sound of a car driving with the volume of the Non diegetic music increasing which helps to create an atmosphere of dynamism and to intrigue the audience. We see a medium shot of someone who appears to be a young boy in a dark cramped place. The diagetic sound of the car’s engine whilst we are shown the continued shot of the young boy invites us to make a connection between the two pieces of action. The film language in the scene is important as it is synthesising Editing and Sound to portray the whereabouts of the young boy and to engage the audience. The use of an intercutting technique is used to encourage the audience to make guesses as to what will happen next and intrigues the audience. The use of these technical elements in the film language leads the audience to presume the Boot of a car. The ambient music with the nearly pitch black lighting gives a mysterious mood straight away from the start of the film. The character takes out a small flash light with a blue light and points it towards the camera which then fades into a white screen appearing with the title of the film. The flash light which the character uses has a spherical nature, which creates an almost bullet line of sight, which links back to the title ‘Bullet boy’. The gives us the impression of maybe the character doesn’t know where they are and maybe they are lost. The whole beginning scene still gives the sense of maybe a Drama film. The audience in this case may be people who enjoy drama films and have maybe been recommended to see the film.
This then fades into a medium shot of a foggy or glazed window with scratched/etched markings on with the figure of a person behind it. The camera then unfocuses then focuses again through the glass to see a black middle aged looking male lying down. The camera is unsteady, almost like a hand held camera shot which ties in with the diegetic sound of jingling which as an audience we would suspect to be keys. These things may all connote a jail cell as the character sits up to show barred of windows and a very plain room with very little in it. The effect of the clouded glass shows the characters lack of clarity at this point. The use of Mis En scene is also important in this scene. This character is wearing an all grey tracksuit surrounded by plain white walls. This may suggest that the character is a changed man due to his time spent in prison. The camera wobbles more and becomes more unsteady as the door opens and the character sits up. The camera wobbling, giving us a sense of the character body movement, suggests the tension and uncertainty he has inside of him, which contrasted with the Mis En Scene, emphasises the uncertainty and ambiguity of the character. We find out for certain that the character is in the jail cell. The use of a tight medium/wide shot helps to show the confinement of the character. The use of this shot and a similar shot to show the cramped place that the brother of the character is in gives a sense of parallelism, linking the two situations together. This is due to the film language connecting the two characters, that are in 2 very different situations together through a synthesis of camera-Mis En Scene and editing. This creates a symbolic conclusion. This gives us the sense that the younger brother is at risk of following the same life trajectory of his older, which later see become evident. For example we see a parallelism between Ricky +Wisdom and Curtis+Rio. This is as we know Ricky owes alot to Wisdom as we find in the first few scenes of the film. We see a parallelism between the two pairs when Rio says to Curtis “You owe me” This is creating a constant comparison between Curtis and Ricky. This is also evident in the use of the flash light resembling the barrel of a gun.
The character that is being portrayed in the jail cell may be seen as a stereotype, as he is wearing a grey nikey track suit, a gold chain etc. This could be seen as a stereotypical ‘chav’ or ‘youth’. We might establish that maybe the character was involved in some gang related crime or violence, due to the stereotyped view that some people may carry.
The character starts talking to the LP by saying ‘Alright guv’.His accent together with the slang in his speech suggest regional identity, East London or an East London borough.character is most probably from London, as he is using slang which most commonly used is London . This may help establish an audience. It may be people from London and who have maybe involved in gang crime in the streets of London or maybe been a victim of gang crime. It could be people who have seen or are interested in films such as Kidulthood, Adulthood and Shank etc and may have not heard of Bullet boy before these films, as they are of a similar style as they share some of the same themes and issues. However the use of technical codes and the narrative of the whole film show us as an audience that the director is trying to do the oppostite to some of these films and not glamourise gang violence. This may be due to the directors personal experience of gang violence.
We see a medium shot of the LP as he asks the character to step back from the counter. The way the LP acts is very confident and as he has dealt with many similar situations before. We are then shown a close up/medium shot of the character to show his reaction to the LP’s attitude and then the shot cut backs to the LP, this is obeying the 180 degree rule as the conversational line is kept the same, this helps to give a more realistic feel to the whole scene. When the shot cuts back to the close up of the LP with him replying with ‘You’re not out yet are you?’ This is intended as a rhetorical question tot eh character as we can see by the facial expression of the LP, in addition to this while camera is showing the close up, we here diegetic and ambient sound of things such as phones ringing to give a realistic feel again of a work place. However the Non diegetic that has been running from the start is still running in the background. This is still helping to create a mood and atmosphere. After a close up shoot of the main character, the camera cuts to a wide shot to show the setting of the whole scene which we see to be a police station. This helps to establish a clearer picture as to what’s going on, in the audiences mind. We hear the character as being born in 1984 which implies to us that he is maybe in his early twenties. This helps to establish character along with some other character codes. After this shot, the camera then cuts to a close up of a stamp and some documents then back to the stamp pad, this shows to us that ehy are some sort of legal document to do with the character maybe getting out of prison or something like this. We then shown another conversational close up of the two characters then a medium shot of the character picking up his bags.
The next shot we see is a point of view of a driver. The scenery is of a country side which get the sense of being quite as there are no others cars on the road.
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