Camera LanguageThe shooting style is handheld which gives the film its more rough and gritty edge, as it isn’t the sophisticated and comfortable viewing of a steady shot. Plus, the opening is filmed on a mobile device, thus the picture is grainy. This reflects the film trying to establish the cheapness and working class filming style, and in relation to these hooded youths it matches well to real life. The mixture of gritty handheld with grainy, phone footage adds to give an unnerving mood to this area of Britain; and it creates an intimidating identity for the young characters seen in the opening scene – and this area of Britain in general.

Camera LanguageThis low angle shot of the youth alleviates his importance and forces us to look up to him which creates an unsettling effect, and so conforms to the real stereotype of Britain’s youth being intimidating, which in turn makes a negative portrayal of Britain and, especially, these deprived working-class estate areas. The mood is again discomforting, and a theme that seems to be materialising is on the aggression of youth and perhaps the gang culture of the country.

Camera LanguageWe see here a longshot of a mother with her a child and then the camera tracks and circles the mother. All this from the viewpoint of the youths, which is like us being taking on a ride and puts us in the position of the antagonist, which makes the viewer disgusted by what they see and perhaps guilty because they British audience have allowed sections of their youth to be this violent because the circling echoes an animal stalking its prey, and then in the end they shoot the innocent mother. Violence is a theme that seems to be appearing now, and the mood is still harsh and frightening.

EditingThe opening has two long takes (separated by a title) and this creates verisimilitude as it is an imitation of our real eye, for we see continuously, not via the cuts in standard films, and so these long takes reflect reality and act like a window for the viewer to peer into and consume as if it were real, therefore making the content more believable. And when the content itself is not most pleasant it doesn’t create a positive of Britain. Plus, couple this with dodgy mobile footage, it really does construct a believable world and makes the horrors much more horrific.

Mise-en-scene Here we see two hooded youths both dressed in dark clothing and then, more interestingly, a bright white light in the background which renders the boys as, basically, silhouettes. The light shining on them gives them a ghostly presence and this, mixed with the shady clothing, gives a chilling portrayal of the youth of Britain. All the signs in the frame create a downbeat image of the characters and the location, a dingy, graffitied wall, doesn’t help either. It all adds up to make a quite cold atmosphere and one that really isn’t inviting or enjoyable.

Mise-en-scene The hooded youth is being given drugs and this is a very real issue in today’s society. The colour palette is dark and bleak and the only light in the frame comes from the lighter, which connotes some sort of us false hope. It makes the representation of Britain in this area to be very deprived and almost lost to a large degree, and that these kids have no hope or prospects. The mood, if anyone on earth could possibly analyse all this from one frame of film, seems to be quite sombre because of how bad things are.

Mise-en-sceneIn this frame, we see the single icon of the gun in the hands of the British youth, and the light shining down upon it gives it some special importance. It is almost as if this frame could be taken out of the film, because it is so definitive, and be the image of today’s British gang culture among the country’s young people, and the gun shows the very real and violent problem of weaponry. This Social Realism has chosen to illustrate urban youth issues and more specifically the vicious problem of gang violence.

Mise-en-scene The shot here shows the estates themselves and so centralises the film onto these urban, working class environments. A very common convention in British Social Realism film, this shot has now established location. The building itself looks old and degraded, and the dinginess of it matches the themes and moods of the film and the characters themselves.