Fish Tank

Themes and Situations

Fish Tank is a verisimilitude film about the British lifestyle based around a 15 year old girl named Mia who struggles to achieve her dream of becoming a dancer. The area and the lifestyle she has stopped her achieving her dream with all the pressure of her mum sending her to a private school and her mum’s boyfriend staying with them. There are situation that the girl is involved in which actually happen in real life such as stealing from people, kidnapping, getting too drunk at a young age.

Mia's life become more complicated when her mum's boyfriend came to stay with them and then developed feelings for Mia. This inappropriate relationship between Mia and Conner reveals Conner's identity (that he has his own family and was cheating on his wife). 
In my film I would involve real life problems that people have, to build the social realism like in this film has using all these situations.

Representation (Stereotypes & Archetypes)

The representation of a typical Essex teenager is shown through Mia's behaviour and language. She gets involved into fights fast and uses foul language (swearing). 

The little girl doesn't have the stereotype the audience would expect to see. Normally a little girl would be shown as being an innocent and polite girl but she is represented as a foul mouthed little girl.

Connor is represented as a 'player' as he first has a relationship with Mia's mum and then Mia. We then find out that he is actually married and has a young daughter.  He used all 3 females in this film. This would be social realism as it shows how some men actually are in real life.

The mum doesn't have a stereotypical representation of being loving, caring and responsible parent but instead is the opposite; she is constantly swearing and abusing her daughter. She is shown as an irresponsible parent when Mia tells her that she is leaving home and she tells her to go rudely.

The use of stereotypes of teenagers would be good to involve in my film as its shows a believable side of teenagers. e.g. being irrresponsible.

Mise-en-scene

The location chosen for this film is an unvarnished area in Essex, London. The main location is the flats in the films which is where Mia and her family live. They live in a council flat as you can tell from the props (items) they have in their flat. The locations used show the real/believable lifestyle that British people have.

Mia's costume is what you would see normal teenagers' wear: joggers, hoodie. This is a typical costume u would see people wear in Essex. The old loop ear rings are known for being a bit 'chavy' which Mia wears. These would be normal for girls to wear who live in the same area as Mia. 

Throughout the film is use of natural lighting. This is because Film's budget is low and has a niche audience. As there hasn't been any effects or better lighting used, this film portrays how a real teenagers life would look like.
Using an unvarnished place such as barking would show social realism in the film so i would do this in my film as it makes it seem like the audience are seeing someone else's life in an area they know of.

Music & sound effects

The diegetic music we hear in the film would be mainly from would Mia listen to such as R n B, reggae music/Jazz and Hip-Hop. These are the type of music genres teenagers' would listen to so this representation of Mia being a stereotypical teenager is quite accurate.
The music they use in this film is known worldwide and this would get more people to watch the film so using globally known music in my film would get a bigger audience and it would make the film see, more believable as the would be music the audience know.

Camera work & Editing 

The camera shots and editing are quite basic. There has been pans used to let the audience see the area as the characters act. There were some hand held shots which wasn't clear. This shows that this film didn't have a high budget and didn't have the equipment to use for used the hand held. Film4's budget is low as they have a niche audience which is why they can't afford the equipment needed.
The close ups to Mia's face were used to show how she's feeling and her facial expressions.

The editing of the film had scenes on the same shot for a while which made it easier for them to Film especially with their low budget.
In my film i would use the different basic shots they use in this film such as hand held or long take to show how the characters are feeling.

Dialogue

The characters swear quite a lot when they speak. This could be referred to as being chavy. Seeing all ages swear would be a negative point to bring across to the audience and this wouldn’t be done by Hollywood as they would lose their audience.
To make my film believable I would make sure that the audience can tell that the characters are British by them having a British accent.

Secondary Research

Institutional background

Fish tank was released in 2009 and was directed by Andrea Arnold.

The productions companies that were a part of this film were: BBC Films, UK film council, Limelight Communication, Content Film and Kasander Film Company.

Audience Breakdown

This film would be aimed at a teenage+ British audience as they would be able to relate to the film maybe with their own experiences and as there are cultural references which they would understand more than other non-British people.

Marketing Strategy

To market this film, they released the trailer to make people aware of the film and get people talking about it more. There were also a few posters made to advertise the film.