About A Girl

About a Girl was released in 2001, it was produced by Silver Films and won a BAFTA. Julie Rufferford wrote the original story; Julie decided to write a story about a young girl struggling with life. She was influenced by the pregnancy rates of young females nowadays. The film had a budget of thirty three thousand pounds, which is a lot for a film that lasts 9 minutes and 50 seconds.

The introduction is simple but effective; it straightaway opposes the mainstream film “About a Boy” and uses modern technology of mobile phone texting to creative an effective title. The use of the mobile phone text attracts the youth audience in which this film targets.

The first shot shows the main character as a silhouette, the camera work is effective as it is a low angle shot, this represents her dream as she sings and dance’s to a Britney Spears song. The camera shot is effective as it informs us as an audience that this is where she wants to be and where she feels that she belongs. The lyrics of the Britney song that she singing are also relevant as they have meaning to her and how she’s been brought up.

As she begins to walk and talk she looks directly at the camera, this is effective as it makes you feel that she is directly telling you her story. In the background mise-en-scene helps establish the scene by showing urban surroundings, a lot of brick walls are used this could represent a barrier in her life, she can’t get past her brick wall so to speak.

Her strong accent gives away the location and setting of the film and from then on we can see who this film targets and what category it fits in, in this case being social realism.

When camera shots are shown with her and her family we see that she is pushed to the side and is isolated. In the first shot we see of her family mise-en-scene and the diegetic sound sets the scene as we can hear dogs barking, police sirens, baby crying. From this we can tell that this is not the best of places for a single mother to raise children, because of this we feel sorry for the main character.

Throughout the film experimental camera work is used, this connotes the unpredictable main character and what she is going to say next. She shares the same dream with her friends who have all had a similar upbringing. She often turns to her father for help however her father is not a responsible adult and he pushes her away time after time this emphasizes her loneliness.

The ending is a shock for its audience and throughout the ending no sound is heard as the visuals dominate the viewers attention, after the film has ended we feel guilty because as an audience we didn’t take her seriously and thought she was just a little child but as the ending occurs we start to re-judge the main character and offer sympathy.

Referencing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL2z8Qzn1dc&feature=player_embedded