Testament of Youth review - BFI film festival

Adapted from Vera Brittian’s memoir, Testament of Youth focuses on the life of Vera (Alicia Vikander) and her memories of the First World War. The film Testament of youth was directed by James Kent and is a biographical war film which includes the main themes of friendship, love, betrayal and sacrifice. Friendship and Love are themes shown throughout the whole film whilst betrayal is shown only during one scene where the man she loves leaves her earlier than she expected to fight in France and sacrifice happens as a big event because she gives up her dream in order to save those in awful situations. Choices and duty are also recurring themes as all the characters in the film have their youth taken away some way or another.

Before the war Vera spends her summer studying and spending time with her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) and his friends Victor (Colin Morgan) and Roland (Kit Harington). Throughout the film Vera is shown to always be fighting against the conventions and stereotypes of what is expected of a woman in the 1900’s. She was a feminist, who strived for an Oxford education rather than to sit around, play the piano or become someone’s housewife.  

Vera refuses to stand around and do nothing when Roland, Edward and Victor find themselves duty bound to sign up and she hears of all the fatalities that have already taken place a few months into the war, so she decides to help and chooses to abandon her university life that she worked so hard for and volunteer as a nurse. She was pre-judged at Oxford and proved them wrong and now again as she enlists as a nurse she is almost dismissed due to her upbringing but this only drives Vera to work harder.  Kent presents the female experience of war with tactical practicality, likening the nurses’ hospital training to a kind of rigorous boot camp as the head nurse walks up and down the line of women who’ve volunteered as nurses.

At the start of the film the war is over and Vera is shown standing in the middle of the street surrounded by people cheering in happiness. However the sound is drowned out and quieter than it should be so that all the focus is on her rather than the end of the war. The drowning out of the sound shows that at this moment Vera is in a daze and that she isn't thinking straight, she's unable to focus on what is around her. It also shows that vera does not feel like the others, she is not as happy that the war is over due to the torment that she went through during the war.

The performances were stunning especially from Alicia Vikander who played Vera. She gives such a humbling and compassionate performance. The emotions she portrayed were very believable and they caused me to feel upset. I did have an emotional attachment towards all the characters because they all showed themselves to be caring and loving people, so when the news came in that they were hurt the emotions did kick in. I liked the scene where Vera is rubbing her hands and feet in the mud as if she is trying to put herself in the position of the men at war. This really made Vera seem strong-willed and courageous as if she wishes she was there with them before the deaths.

Mark Kermode (Observer Film Critic) says:
"The entire ensemble cast work hard to inject personal passion into the stiff-upper-lip storytelling, and individual moments are haunting. It's a powerful story, and one that deserves to be told and retold, albeit in rather more adventurous fashion."

In my opinion I thought the film was really enjoyable. The characters emotions really shone through. It also showed how difficult it was to accept the concept of war and to convey how much it consumes leaving nothing but heartbreak, grief and suffering.

Him. Magazine

We were given a week to create a magazine in groups. The members of our group consisted of: Ben, Helena, Michael, Anna, Nick, Rebecca, Alex and myself.

We all had individual roles within the completion of the magazine:
Ben: Music - Top 5 Songs
Helena: Editor and Fashion
Michael: Sports article
Anna: Health and fitness - later changed to sexual facts
Nick: Game review
Rebecca: co-editor
Alex: Game - influential games
Myself; Technology article

We looked through a variety of magazines too understand how we needed our articles to look. We focused on mainly magazines targeted at men because our audience for our magazine was 16-19 year old males.
We called out magazine Him. and our front cover was a photo of the four boys in  our group. We took it inside the college because that would show that our audience was their age range/and college students. The back cover was all the boys in the same position but from behind. The photos were then taken to Photoshop and edited by Helena.
We had 6 articles based on different topics: Technology: Iphone 6 is it really worth the money?, Game: Top  most influential games and Shadow of Mordor game review (This was our main article), Music: Top 5 songs of this month, Sport: England vs San Marino, Health: Health and fitness with Dr.Wilson and Fashion: This season's fashion inspiration.
The health article however was changed into sexual facts and the fashion article did not make it into the magazine because the completion did not meet the deadline this was because this article was being written by the same person who was the editor for the covers of our magazine.

My article was about technology and the Iphone 6: Is it worth the money? I feel the article worked well because after looking at what I did before and after a big change is obvious. In my final article I made sure that everything was more interesting and different. I made the background of my article look like an Iphone but the layout of the page stayed the same as everyone else's with the blue bar behind the title and the blue writing for the subheading.

What went well:
 I think that we all worked really well as a group and helped each other out on the design so that the layout on every page looked the same. We also ensured the font was the same. All the pages included a picture/s so that they wouldn't look boring and our titles were made large and appealing. I think the final magazine defiantly  linked with our audience because it didn't look too upper-class.

What could be improved:
I think that all our articles would have been completed it we hadn't spent so long on our magazine name on the first lesson. We should have added a contents page and some advertisements to give the magazine a more completed realistic feel. Overall we could have worked quicker as a group when deciding fonts etc. so articles could have been completed earlier.

Shot sizes and sequences

Telling Lies

Telling Lies is a short film that is created using only words written and directed by Simon Ellis.
It is a dramatic animated comedy that is used to show thoughts a feeling without the use of characters.
During this film many phone conversations take place between a series of voices.
I enjoyed this film because the way it took place was very creative. Each characters speech was written in a different colour which may have portrayed how the character was feeling. For example one characters speech was written in orange which may portray that they were annoyed or angry throughout.
However during the conversation some of the writing was replaced with white writing which showed what the character was actually thinking whilst they were talking rather then them actually saying it. This white writing showed when they were telling a lie and it was white to show it was a white lie; a lie that's told to avoid hurting someone or confrontation.
The writing was also bigger when someone was shouting which was a great way to show someone's reaction without actually seeing a character or body language. I think the use of the white writing was really useful because usually in a film you do not know whether or not a character is lying or how they are feeling so by doing this you were able to see clearly what a person is thinking.

Love Does Grow On Trees Thoughts

Love does grow on tree's is a short film written and directed by Bevan Walsh.
It's about a young teenage boy who discovers pornographic magazines and girls at the same time and is stuck with the dilemma of which to choose.
The genre is coming of age because it shows how he changes from a child into a teenager, which is the same transition that all boys go through.
I think that the film was effective because there was a clear difference between the magazine photos and the teenage girl he meets at the bus stop. On all the photos from the magazines all the women are portrayed to be sexual beings which is an unrealistic representation of women in everyday life. Before meeting this girl he may have imagined that all women are like this and would have put an unrealistic image in his head.
I like the sound effects that were used when he discovers the images that are falling from a large tree because the music made it sound like a fantasy or as if he were dreaming which gets across that these women in the photos are more likely to be found in dreams rather than in real life.

Ralph review

Ralph is a short film written and directed by Alex Winckler that lasts for 12 minutes 37 seconds. It is about a young boy who travels to France alone in search of his friend whom he claims to be in a complicated relationship with. He spends a lot of time at a cafe outside of the train station and meets someone new.

Ralph is played by Ralph Laurila, Julie (Waitress) is played by Julie Dray and Claire is played by Emily Seale-Jones. Claire is who Ralph has travelled over to France to visit and Julie is the waitress who he meets at the cafe.

The film is a romantic drama that includes the main themes of loneliness, love and friendship. All these themes seem to be used at different times throughout the film; loneliness is portrayed mainly at the start when Ralph first arrives in France because he has come alone and cannot speak French. Love is also a theme that is shown because he is very eager to get in touch with a friend who he has come to visit; love is the only theme to be shown throughout because there are constant reminders to why Ralph is in France, this reminder is usually Ralph making phone calls and looking back at the piece of paper which has all the numbers he has tried. Friendship is shown nearer the middle of the film when he makes friends with the lady at the cafe. This budding friendship then drops the theme of loneliness because Ralph is no longer in an unknown country where he doesn’t know anyone

Camera shots are used during this film in different ways. Mid shots are probably the most used shot. I think this is used because then you are able to see the emotions of the characters clearly but you can also tell things from their body language. Body language is shown when Julie is talking to her boss, her shoulders are usually risen which shows that she is tense. Close ups are used a lot when the other characters around Ralph are talking French this helps the audience to understand how Ralph is feeling. When the other characters around Ralph are talking he looks confused which some audience members may be able to relate to if they also cannot speak French.   Over the shoulder shots are only used when conversation takes place between Ralph and Julie. These are used to establish the positions between the two characters because at some points Julie is kneeling so they are showing things from Ralph’s point of view.

Dialogue is a key and a very dominant aspect throughout the film. What the characters say helps you too understand what is going on during the film and is used a lot more than things like body language to show how they are feeling. When the characters speak in French they do not use any subtitles which I think is effective because it makes the audience feel as if they are in a foreign country and it puts the audience in the position of Ralph. Not very many sounds other than dialect are used during the film; the only sounds that are used are just what is happening in the area, for example the sound of cars can be heard however these sounds are not quietened down even during speech which I think is a very clever and effective way to put the audience in the scene.

In my opinion I think this film has defined the characters very well within the short time, you can create an opinion on all the characters. I liked the open ending because it allows the viewer to decide for themselves what happens next.

Narrative, Genre and Mis-en-scene