RESEARCH: BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS

Link to the BIFA website: Here

I have been following the BIFA website with interest recently, looking up the nominations as well as seeing all of the winners.  I have research the BIFA (British Independent Film Awards) to have a look at the winners from this years awards. American Honey which is a new British independent film has had a few nominations as well as a few wins for certain awards. I have decided to research this because I am also making a film opening which will be classed as independant as well as having a low budget like many of the winners of the BIFA. We also know that in American Honey they didn't have big name actors which will be the same with our film opening. We also learnt about Independent film when we went to the BFI study day. We learnt the American Honey is in fact an Indpendent British Film which had a relatively small budget of $3.5 million. It is an example of a BFI and Film 4 funding project. Andrea Arnold, the director of American Honey, is also well known for her directing of Fish Tank (2009) which had a budget of only £1.3 million. Comparing this with the budget of £230 million from Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). 

Another independent film that was succesful this year in the BIFAs was I, Daniel Blake which is a more significant film due to its real story line and current issues in recent times within less fortunate communities in the UK. This is called social realism. The director Ken Loach is know for, within his films, addressing very real and relatable within many communities. Some of these issues are petty crimes, illness and not having enough money.

PLANNING: THE TOP LINE AND THE BIG QUESTION

I watched a video on Frank Ash who is the creative consultant for BBC Films, who has taught storytelling and creative techniques to people and film crews across the BBC and beyond. 

  
THE TOP LINE: The story is about police discrimination towards adolescents, who are placed into police custody. However one day the tables turn... The policeman hits a adolescent and he happens to be related to the two discriminated adolescents that are put in police custody. The next day the two adolescent people confront the policeman, they are now in control. 

THE BIG QUESTION: What will happen to the policeman? Will justice prevail?

TREATMENT: The scene is set in the street. Outside two boys are in a huddle. We see a police officer approach the teenagers who are in a suspicious formation. The police officer has visions that the boys are spray painting the wall, we see that the boys have a spray can in their hands. The boys exchange looks as the police officer comes up behind them. The police man asks them why they are spray painting, the boys deny this and run off. A middle aged policeman who has been watching the boys, shout: 'hey you!'

Cut to interview at police station.

Cut to teenagers being released from station and greeted by a friend who is waiting for them wearing a distinctive hat.

Cut to scene in which the police officer takes a call from his superior.

Cut to scene where police officer is driving home from work and pulls out into the path of a teenage cyclist, the cyclist turns out to be the boy that the other teenagers met up with earlier with the distinctive hat.