Themes of British Identity

Our film will be based on 'Britishness'. This gives us a wide range of themes and genres to aim for, and is something our group can definitely relate to, as we were all born and raised in Britain. The theme of a film is extremely important as it gives the film its identity, and helps it become distinguishable from other films. This is something we will definitely have to take in to account when producing our short film.

Potential Influences on the ideas for the theme of our Short Film: 

Crime: The theme of Crime is a big talking point in Britain nowadays, and is something we can relate to as a group. With crime rates constantly rising, creating a short film on the subject would help to educate people on the dangers of modern society, and help them to become more aware of what is going on in Britain in the underworld.

For inspiration, we can look to successful films such as 'Adulthood' and 'Cass'. Both of these films are clearly based around the theme of crime, and also show 'Britishness' in a unique way. Adulthood, or "Kidulthood', would be a very good film series to base our film around, if we were to go down the crime route. This is because-

• the characters casted are similar, in age, to our group
• Britishness is easily identifiable in the film- e.g. through accents, locations etc
• we could use the theme of crime for entertainment purposes and educational purposes

Celebrity and Fame: Britain is very much a celebrity obsessed society, making this another good potential theme for our film. Celebrities are always a talking point amongst the younger generations, making this an easy one to relate to the audience. However, our audience would most definitely be limited to the younger generations, as the elder generations don't have much interest in todays rich and famous. Despite this, our target audience is very likely to be adolescents anyway, as we feel they are easier for us to relate to than any other age group. 

For inspiration, we could look towards the film "Goal", which is about a young football star rising to fame for Newcastle United. The film is identifiably British, once again through accents, locations, and also sport. However, this theme would be a very tough one for our group to tackle as the 'celebrity' theme isn't used often by mainstream British producers, and inventing a plot using this theme would be a big challenge. 

National Identity: This would be an ideal theme for our short film, as it links directly in to 'Britishness', and is very easy for us to relate to. Racism, immigration, diversity and discrimination are all potential starting points for a film based on national identity. 

The most likely theme that we will use as a group will most likely be something to do with crime, linked in with national identity. We feel that this is something we can all relate to, and also something we can relate to our target audience. We intend to display the theme of 'Britishness; through locations and character appearance.