BOOK RESEARCH!

I found a number of books which will help me with my independent study.

1. Mel Thompson (2000), Ethics, Hodder Headline Plc. This book is all about the different range of ethnicities that exist in the world. As my text focuses on black people it will help me to identify thier ethics in more detail.
2. The British World Book Encyclopedia. This gave me general information about women and the Women's Movement and also about the film industry, and when it was first introduced.
3. Valerie Bryson (2001), Feminist Debates. This just gave me general information on feminism and the beliefs that this theorist holds.
4. Myra Macdonald, Representing Women
5. Mandy Ross, Changing role of Women
6. Nelson George, Post-Soul Nation. This will help me as it looks at the sterotypical values that people hold on certain ethnicities. It will help me to look at these values from other perspectives as well as one belief.

Recomended books ( that i need to look into)

7 . Paul Gilroy
8. Deborah King
9. Diana Evans

DELICIOUS LINKS!!

http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/library/publications/16+/auteur.html
This link is very useful for my study as there is a lotof information on historical context. This research would include information on black british cinema and tv, and also has alot on theorists and its auteaur theory. I think that my study needs to focus a lot more on theorists so that is why i have chosen this as one of my links.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/
The link to media guardian is always relevant, and i think that it holds a lot of information on any media related topic. This would include film reviews and criticisms.

http://www.studymedia.co.uk/
This link is very useful as well, as it has a lot to do with different target audiences and what certain audiences appeal to. As well as that this link also has research on institutions, representations and other media related texts.

http://www.theory.org.uk/directory.htm#
Another link on theorists which i think is relvant to my study.

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/
I think this is also relevant because it has all the required elements, such as the different areas to study which can help me as this one link has everything in it.

DICTIONARY CORNER!

Narrative:The story line and structure of a media text.Kidulthood follows a Tororovian narrative structure, other narrative theorists can also be applied to this text.

Predjudice:The pre- judging of an issue or social group, usually in a negative or stereotypical way.Youths are presented in the text may be pre- judged ina negative way due to stereotypes attatched to them.

Propp:Looked at familiar character roles which appear in texts.The characters of a hero and villian are present in this text.

Representation:The process whereby the media constructs versions of people, places and events in images, words or sound for transmission through media texts to an audience.My question relates to the representation of British youths in kidulthood, but also how accurate this representation is.

Sound effects:Enhanced sound added to a film or television programme during postproduction.The music used in this film is very significant as it represents the culture shown in this film.

Split screen:An editing technique which involves the cinema screen being split into two or more parts to allow the showing of events that are taking place at the same time.Split screen has been used in this text several times in order to show different things which are taking place at the same time, this is used to build up tension.

Trailer:A short teaser produced to advertise a new film.A trailer was produced in order to advertise 'Kidulthood.'

Low budget film:A film made with limited funds, without the backing of a major production company.Kidulthood was made with a low budget.

My Trailer! ENJOY!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKTp0JpuAAo

Black British Films!

The first British films to portray Black people were 'actuality' films and travelogues. Amateur filmmakers like diplomat Colonel R.E. Cheesman, (Abyssinia, 1929-30), explorers Rosita Forbes, (Red Sea To Blue Nile, 1926) and Angus Buchanan (Crossing The Great Sahara, 1924); and missionaries, (Salvation Army on Tour, 1905) collected footage about the people and landscapes of Africa. Savage South Africa - Savage Attack and Repulse (1899), described as a "vivid and realistic representation of life in the wilds of the Dark Continent", was actually a filmed reconstruction of a battle staged by a troupe of performers brought to England from South Africa for the Olympia Earls Court exhibition. This tradition of staging 'real events' for the camera or 'dramatic re-enactment' was typical of early filmmaking and is clearly demonstrated in fictional narratives such as the feature film Palaver (1926), in which the action habitually stops for set pieces of village life at work.
Africa was used from the early days of cinema as a location for adventure stories and melodramas. Love in the Wilderness (1920), White Cargo (1929) and The Lost Patrol (1929) presented an image of the continent created by the novels of Rider Haggard, Joyce Cary and Rudyard Kipling. These were very popular at the box office; however, there were also a few films set in Britain that featured Black actors. Earnest Trimmingham may have been the first Black screen-star, appearing in lead roles in Jack, Sam and Pete (1919) and Where The Rainbow Ends (1921). At the end of the 1920s, American actor Paul Robeson made his first British film, Borderline (1930), an extraordinary story about interracial and sexual jealousy.
With his magnificent bass voice and tremendous screen presence, Robeson was a natural for the age of musical cinema. He made six films for British production companies, three of which - Song Of Freedom (1936), Big Fella (1937) and The Proud Valley (1940) - portray a token representation of black communities in England. Like Earl Cameron, a star of the 1950s, black characters on screen were 'strange but familiar', often sailors stranded in the country. Robeson was the most successful of the African-American actors and musicians who came to Britain in the 1930s in search of better work. Two other films, Music Hall (1934) and Kentucky Minstrels (1934), featured African-American musical stars, respectively G. H. Elliott and the tap dancing minstrel duo Scott and Whaley. Scott's young son, Harry, later had an acting role in the Gainsborough melodrama Man In Grey (1943).
Besides the glamorous African-Americans, actors from Africa and the Caribbean also made an impression. Robert Adams, regularly cast as a film extra or a 'friendly native' on screen from the 1920s, was the lead actor in Men of Two Worlds (1946). The cross-cultural dilemma implied by the title was a recurring theme in films featuring Black people. The films of Earl Cameron, such as Pool of London (1951) and The Heart Within (1957), epitomised this struggle, with the significant difference that here the Black stranger is a heroic figure beset by the whimsical and dangerous forces of white prejudice, the law and an impossible dream of being accepted for who he is. By the end of the 1950s, a more explosive representation was emerging with Sapphire (1959). Here, an integrated Black community (in Shepherd's Bush) is taken for granted, but is nevertheless portrayed as unstable and dangerous.
In the 1960s, films like Flame In The Streets (1961), A Taste Of Honey (1962), The L-Shaped Room (1962) and To Sir With Love (1967) showed a London riven with social tensions around race and sex. This was also the decade when Black film pioneers Lionel Ngakane (Jemima + Johnny, 1966), Lloyd Reckord (Ten Bob In Winter, 1963) and Frankie Dymon (Death May Be Your Santa Claus, 1969) were making their first films about the experiences of Black people in the UK.
In the 1970s, Horace Ové directed Pressure (1975), the first Black British feature film. Written by Ové and Sam Selvon, author of the influential Lonely Londoners (1956), Pressure was less about the tribulations of surviving racism in the UK than the struggle between first- and second-generation Caribbean immigrants. It was a breakthrough film. Black Joy (1977) and Babylon (1980) continued the task of describing the realities of life for a British-born generation. Although these perspectives were significant, it was equally important to see large Black casts on the big screen, particularly against the backdrop of British television's obsessions with racial prejudice comedies, two of which, Love Thy Neighbour (ITV, 1972-76) and Till Death Us Do Part (BBC, 1965-75), made it to the cinemas.
The 1980s saw a surge in activity for black production, encouraged by the arrival of Channel 4 in 1982 with its explicit remit to serve minority interests. Playing Away (1986), about a West Indian cricket team from Brixton on tour to a Suffolk village, was one of the first films fully funded by Channel 4. Companies such as Sankofa, Ceddo, Retake Film and Video and Black Audio Collective, emerging from the workshop movement, produced their first feature films, Passion of Remembrance (1986), Majdhar (1985), Testament (1988). In these films Black actresses were given lead roles for the first time, as were Cassie McFarlane in Burning an Illusion (1981), Cathy Tyson in Mona Lisa (1985) and Angela Wynter in Elphida (1987). The female protagonists brought to the fore tensions around male-female relationships, politics, class and family. However, the controversial practice of importing African-American actors for lead roles in bigger budget films continued with Cry Freedom (1987) and For Queen and Country (1988), both starring Denzel Washington, and The Crying Game (1992), with Forest Whittaker.
The Kitchen Toto (1987) was notable for telling the story of the Mau Mau revolution in Kenya from the point of view of a young African caught in the middle, the same year that another film set in Kenya, White Mischief (1987) provided background roles for only two Masai warriors and one African policeman. Caribbean colonial history was explored in Water (1985), while Island Pictures, set up by music mogul Chris Blackwell, launched a UK production arm to foster Jamaican-UK collaborations with the film Countryman (1982).
Although some commentators have referred to a 'cycle of frustration' in maintaining and developing the Black British presence on the big screen, the 1990s built on some of the gains of the 1980s. Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels (1991), inspired by the success of My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), set an interracial gay romance against the political turbulence of 1980s Britain. Marianne Jean-Baptiste received an Oscar nomination for her role in Secrets and Lies (1992), the first Black British person to be nominated in the awards' history. Ngozi Onwurah became the first Black British female director of a feature film with Welcome II the Terordome (1995), and Julien Henrique's musical feature Babymother (1998) told a story entirely within a closed Black British environment. Black films including Ama (1991), and Dog Eat Dog (2002) revealed a breadth of imagination and determination in pursuit of financing, but struggled to find distribution and audiences. Rage (2000) identified a new group of urban, interracial, male and female disaffected teenagers. The lead character is mixed-race, an increasingly prevalent theme explored in films ranging from the period The Girl With Brains in Her Feet (1997) to the contemporary identity struggles of Respect (1998), Paradise Grove (2002), A Room For Romeo Brass (1999) and Southwest Nine (2001). Filmmakers were belatedly reflecting the changing patterns of society in the everyday conflicts of a third generation of Black British who cannot be defined simply in terms of a colour divide.
As the 2000s continue, there are promising signs that the Black British presence on the film screen will thrive and adapt. Two big budget films have starred Black British talent - Hotel Rwanda (2004) and Dirty Pretty Things (2002) - breaking another unwritten rule. There is a confidence among new Black British writers and directors, who are finding crossover audiences with gritty realistic teenage dramas such as Bullet Boy (2004) and A Way of Life (2004).