Case Study - Kidulthood

1. KIDULTHOOD
An example of a social realist film is 'Kidulthood'. Kidulthood is a social realist drama about the day in the life of a group of troubled 15 year olds growing up in west London. The film was produced by small independent UK industries, Stealth Films, Cipher Films, TMC Films and received funding also from the UK Film council. Many other companies were involved in distribution and providing equipment for the production, such as Revolver Entertainment and Kodak.
The film had a budget of an estimated £600,000, and received over £100,000 on its opening weekend in the UK (3rd March 2006).

This social realist film focuses on the hard truth and reality that teenagers face in day to day life in London, in contains pregnancy, violence, crime, racism, drugs and alcohol, swearing and sexual scenes. This production sticks extremely closely to typical codes and conventions of the social realist genre. It contains financial hardship, family and friends issues, drug abuse and crime. The trailer(right) has been made to include all the violent and hard-hitting exciting parts of the film, this helps in appealing to its audience, (15 to around 28) because young people are more entruiged by an exciting storyline. Because it focuses on teenage issues, it is more likely to appeal to that age group. This is what we aim to do in our production of a trailer. We plan to include the exciting and gripping parts of the film, without giving too much of the storyline away, like the Kidulthood trailer does, and we aim to target a teenage/young adult audience by using teenage actors and addressing the everyday issues that young people face. This film was rated a 15 because of its violent nature and sexual references. Our production will aslo be a 15 because of the complex issues and violent/abusive scenes.

 < This screen shot from the film shows a gang of young lads in a town centre. They are wearing typical clothing associated with troublemaking teenagers, hoodies, hats and one of them is holding a bottle. This represents them negatively, however, it is very realistic. We aim to keep our costume design realistic in our production.

 This shot shows a young girl of 15 smoking. It is an extreme close up shot, that emphasises her youth and her smoking. It blurs out the surrounding background, making it clear to the audience that what they want you to see is her use of drugs. >

< This shot expresses gang violence. It is shown in a low angle shot of them kicking and attacking someones face. It is a powerful shot and makes the narrative seem exciting and thrilling.







This close up shows a young girl realising she is pregnant. It is realistic and a pressing issue within young people and helps connect with an audience. We are aiming to use realistic and hard-hitting issues within our production also.