Social realism film editing deconstruction

Editing deconstruction of social realism films

Our coursework will be a social realism film so to get some ideas for how to edit our piece I am going to look at editing techniques from social realism films already out in the world.

Fish tank (2009)

This film is about a 15 year old girl called Mia who lives in Essex with her Mum and little sister. Her mum is not a very good role model for her children and is tarty and reckless. Mia is kicked out of school and spends her days aimlessly until her mum brings in her new boyfriend, Connor. Mia builds up a friendship with Connor who encourages her one true passion, dancing.

To look at editing techniques in this film I am going to use the opening sequence.

The editing of the first part of the opening scene is all match on action of Mia out of breath then standing looking out of the window, walking towards her bag, making a phone call and getting her stuff before going to leave the room. Match on action is used to see the action from different angles. The editing is slow paced as there is not much happening and it is just Mia alone in an unknown location.

After this there is cross cutting to show her walking over some grass until she arrives outside a block of flats and picks up some small stones from outside, once she has the stones she starts to throw them at someone's window. This all happens in one tracking shot. While Mia is talking to people including her little sister Tyler and the man that comes from the window she threw the stones at, shot reverse shot is used to show who is talking. During this time Mia has more frame time to show she is the protagonist of this film and she is the character the storyline follows.

Following this we see Mia Walk away from the block of flats and towards a car park where there are a group of girls dancing and a group of boys sitting on the fence watching them. Mia goes and sits on the fence to watch the dancers and you see her reaction as they are not good. Shot reverse shot is used frequently during this section of the opening scene. During this section it is the dancers that have more frame time as that is what everyone is watching. The editing is slow paced and uses match on action to show the different people and their actions/reactions at different times throughout the clip. The pace starts to build up when one of the dancers stops and looks at mia before shouting "what the f**k is your problem". This pace is due to the build up in tension between Mia and the group of girls. The pace is fastest when Mia lashes out and head butts one of the group.

The selfish giant (2013)

Another example of a social realism film is the selfish giant. This is about two 13 year old boys, Arbour and Swifty. They are excluded from school and outsiders in their own neighbourhood. Seeking fortune the boys get involved with a scrap dealer named Kitten. Kitten favours Swifty as Arbour grows greedy and exploitative until a tragic event happens that changes them all.

I am going to look at a fight scene that occurs between Arbour and Kitten as well as some other characters that join the fight.

The pace of this scene starts off slow as Arbour approaches Kitten because Kitten does not think there is anything wrong until Arbour hits him and attempts to strangle him. The pace picks up even more when a woman joins in followed by more people that work with kitten. There is lots of match on action used in this clip as there is lot of action that needs to be shown. This match on action is made up of lots of tracking shots as the camera follows the action to keep up the pace of the scene.

In this clip Arbour and Kitten have the most frame time as they are the most important characters in this clip and what happens to them will affect the plot for the rest of the film.

The pace slows down at the end when four of the other people working with Kitten pick up Arbour and carry him away from their boss before shutting him in a building on his own. We then see Kitten recovering from his attack this is slow paced to highlight the contrast between the fight and what he feels after the fight.

To summarise I think the pace of the editing should depend on what is happening to make it reflect the action on screen. Also, match on action should be used to show the action in a more interesting way as long as it complies with the 180 ° rule so it does not disorientate the audience.