Actors

Chris - Tom Hemington

Tom has a kind face, making him approachable, but is still stocky enough so that he can appear intimidating. He has a soothing voice and calming demeanour and is able to carry himself with the same self assurance that we wanted to convey with Chris. Tom is also effective at conveying a sense of total control over his peers, a quality that is perfectly suited to the character of Chris. Toms accent will not need to be too heavily altered either as his voice will be tampered with in post production.





Robbo - James Wilson

James is very good at creating an intimidating and somehwat volatile seeming character through his use of posture and gait. He will be able to use his voice in such a way as to give Robbo's text a sense of being ominous. He is not extremely tall or well built but this is suited to our needs as we wanted Robbo to appear more scrappy and sneaky than over bearing and imposing. Obviously his presence on screen will be unnerving to the audience but this will be acheived through a demeanour of surliness. James will not have to worry too much abouthis appearance as the costume provided will help him to build his character more easily, giving him an idea of where to build from.





Carl - Ranya El Refaey

Ranya is extremely kind and warm hearted and brings a sense of calm to any situation. This air that she carries with her is perfectly suited to the characer of Carl, who acts as a mediator between Robbo and Chris. She has a soft and soothing voice and a kind face which makes her approachable and likeable. She also has a lovely smile which would warm the heart of any hardened veteran of the streets. Carl went to school with Chris and Robbo and so refers to them and acts around them with a sense of calm and control that is not acheived by any other character in the film. As well as all of this, Ranya is Arabic, helping to bring some much needed diversity to the cast.



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Shotlist

Location Recce 2

Location Recce

Location: Influences

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Aesthetics: Mood & Tone Inspiration

Our drama is a sports documentary with a blend of 'urban' drama, and do it needs to incorporate an energetic pace with a certain darker mood. Themes include struggle, relationships, sportsmanship, redemption and triumph over tragedy. 

A lot of the colour palette will adhere to a grey/blue-tinged grain similar to Fish Tank and Into the Abyss (bottom right and bottom left respectively), a typical representation of urban landscapes in order to establish the audiences' expectations and understanding of the geographical context . However we will aim to subvert these visual stereotypes by including more green landscapes such as parks, flowers as trees, in scenes with the tennis court and in the park. After all, almost 40% of London is covered by green space, particularly the numerous commons and parks in South London, so it would be wrong not to include those aesthetics. Furthermore, youth culture is extremely dynamic and creative and this should be represented at least through colourful and stylish clothing; this varied the palette and make the film more visually exciting and avoid drab stereotypes. Inspiration for this can be taken from This is England, where fashion plays a large party of cultural identity and representation of the time; in this case with the characters expressing themselves as members of 80s counter culture (center bottom). Other aesthetic influences include China Heavyweight (Center), because although these people may come from small town agricultural/industrial China, they still present their individualism through their bright clothing and adoption of Western brands. This perhaps may be seen as a visual metaphor as they desire to break free of their rural, insular background and achieve their dreams on an international platform. 

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Rough Narrative (Trailer)

The first ‘act’ of the trailer will begin by laying out the premise. It will introduce the key characters and the area in focus through the use of pieces of footage and of sound bytes of interviews from the film. The primary theme of the film will not be revealed at this point (street tennis), it will seem as though the film is more concerned with the social issues and problems with youth in the area.

The second ‘act’ will introduce tennis as a pivotal part of the film, shots of gang members playing and watching tennis, interviews with gang member discussing street tennis and how it is significant or relevant to their group. The advert will show the violence inherent within the game of street tennis also through the use of shots and sound bytes.

The third ‘act’ will show a series of distressing images in a montage displaying how ‘difficult’ these gang members lives are (most importantly the two main characters) and how they are getting too deep into the seedy underworld of street tennis. This sequence will end with a shot of the primary main character falling to the ground in the distance (having been shot). This whole sequence will have an emotive piece of music over it and maybe a sound byte of a gang member discussing the hardships that they have been through and how street tennis affects their lives.

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