Kidulthood opening sequence

On this particular youtube video the opening in my opinion ends at roughly 3:31 minutes.

Kidulthood (KiDULTHOOD) is a social realism drama directed in 2006 by Menhaj Huda

Narrative Context


Kidulthood follows the life of several teenagers all attending the same school in west london. The film focus on the troubles that young teenagers from different social and ethnic backgrounds face when growing up in a more rough area of london. And focuses on there troubles with sex, drugs, violence and family.

The opening sequence particularly focuses on all the characters and is mostly filmed in the playground at the beginning of the school day. All the character shave small amounts of dialogues showing there sub cultures and social groups to the audience and introducing all the characters quite well.  The opening ends with one of the character saying 'come on Becky, lets go'. This is a nice end to the opening as it concludes it, and the story starts when the school day does. The opening includes several shots of different events, such as a ale student using a machine to make something- unknown to the audience. There is also students smoking, kissing and bullying each other.

Enigma Codes


One of the questions asked but the audience is relation to the boy working with the mechanics machine. The audience are deliberately un-able to see what he is making, and when he proceeds to hide the thing in a bin outside, the audience than wonder even more 'Why is he hiding it so thoroughly, and what is it?'. The audience will keep watching as they really want to know what he is hiding. Other questions that are asked are, why one of the girls is being so badly bullied, why a girl is hiding behind a tree cheating on her boyfriend and others. One of the students is walking around invent everyone to his party as his parents are away, the audience will keep watching here as they will really want to know what will happen to his house at the party if he is inviting so many people.

Characters


Many characters are introduced in the opening.

Two of the first are two girls who are obviously friends. They are standing together quite confidently, which shows that are not victims of bullying at the school. There dialogue is used to show that one of them is more dominant as she does most the talking. But they are both quite confident. Costume is used in all the characters to show about them, these two are wearing short skirts and one is wearing quite cheap looking earrings. But they are both quite pretty. This shows the audience straight away about there social class.  These two characters also finish the opening so it is clear to the audience that are important characters.

Other characters introduced are the more negative characters. There is a group of boys led by a male. And they are with some girls. There costumes show they are probably the roughest of all the characters and there dialogue joins this. Through dialogue and positioning it is obvious that one of the girls does not want to look weak in front of the boys so she agrees to beat up a girl. This group or portrayed throughout the opening as horrible people, so the audience already have an idea of what they will be like.

Two other characters introduced are too bullied girls. In just the opening they have an encounter with the boy i mentioned above, and this shows the audience that they are victims. Because of the way there are dressed the audience can see that they do not fit in, on of them is wearing a long skirt, and the other is not wearing very much make up. The casting here is very effective, one of them is tall and lanky, and the other is short and over weight, this makes them obvious to be outcasts from the beginning.

Other characters are introduced such as the bullies girlfriend, who is seen cheating on him with a boy who the audience can tell is also working class. Because of his shape and dialogue the audience can also tell that he is trying to look tougher than he really is. As well as these, many other characters are introduced and i really like this as it is as if the audience has had character profiles before the film, and this means the viewers have an idea of the dynamics of the school.


Locations

The only location the audience gets a real view of in the opening is the playground. Due to the mise-en-scene the audience can tell the class of the school and the types of students that would probably attend. The hole scene all looks quite grey and dull, and reflects the lives of the students attending it. Having an appropriate mise-en-scene is very important as otherwise the audience can be distracted and confused and the opening can be less effective.


Editing


The editing is very effective in this opening sequence. The editing is used a lot to blur certain bits together. The camera often pans across the playground blurring and than focuses on certain groups. The camera also often zooms in and out subtly. The camera also sometimes speeds up and slows down. These three effects together gave me the idea of CCTV as this is what the camera felt like when watching. This idea also links with a peace of dialogue spoken by one of the girls- 'they are watching us'. It creates a very tense atmosphere. I think this is very appropriate and effective, as due to the amount of crime going on in this area it really made the scene feel very realistic. At some points in the opening such as right at the end, there will be a conversation and than the camera will change focus and the audience will see a conversation behind the original people. This use of focusing rather than cutting i really effective.




Camera


The camera uses close ups a lot to contrast with the long shots of the play ground. There will be along shot, and than a close up of a particular group. This is effective and links in with my earlier point of CCTV and the idea of us watching everyone and being to listen to every one. There is a close up of the drill when the boy is making the mysterious object, this makes the action of the drill much more important and dramatic. There is also close ups on peoples faces a lot, this displays the idea that everyone is watching each other, and that everyone feels quite tense due to the rough nature of the school. When the two people are kissing the camera tilts up the bodies to reveal the identities of the people slowly.



Sound


The sound is both diegetic and non- diegetic all the shouts and laughs and dialogue can be heard from the playground as well as the music. The music- which was made for the film but an artist called The Angel is very effective and makes the scene more tense. It is used to show importance of certain peaces of dialogue as it gets more dramatic when somethings are being said. When certain things happen such as the people are kissing the music gets more electronic so show the importance of this event.

Genre Characteristics


One of the characteristics is the idea of working class people, which social realism focuses on a lot. Another is the color scheme, which is all quite grey and dull, it looks gritty, which follows the look of many social realism films such as this is england.  This opening very much differs from the this is England opening, as in this all the characters are reveled, whereas in This is England, the story is hardly divulged in too at all.