BFI - British Film Institution

Earlier this week, my A2 class and the AS class went to the BFI (British Film Institution) in London's Southbank for study day on Youth, Media and Collective Identity. Ran by Matthew Hall (Head of Film and Media Studies at Seven Kings High School). We started off with a presentation on Collective identity, we looked at a pyschoanalyst called Jacques Lacan who proposed the mirror stage in a young child. This is when a child begins to develop their identity; recognising self in the mirror. It is believed that this is done to find identification and aspiration. This is influenced by the media as we again use TV/film as a ‘mirror’ to back-up our identity. However, media portrayals can sometimes be inaccurate. Stuart Hall believed that we accept, negotiate or interpret influences. It depends on the audience interpretation. Hall continued to propose his ideas on 'encoding/decoding'. This theory is about how media messages are produces, circulated and consumed. Later on, We went on to look at Youth Culture in British cinema. We looked at and analysed a few different film clips for example The Wild One, Quadrophinia and Kidulthood. I have included the clip from Quadrophenia below.

This clip was used to show the Youth Culture in the 1960s and showed the huge gangs of mods and rockers at the time and the problems that they caused. This clip gives the impression that the youth of this time were extremely rebellious and very badly behaved.

During our time at the BFI we also watched a screening of the film My Brother The Devil. This is also a film about modern day youth culture but it has a very dramatic twist in it. I have also included the trailer from this film below.

This film has some very clever shots and editing that show enough for the audience to understand whats going on but not give away too much. This i feel is a very clever way to keep the audience interested in the film and keep the general edge of seat action flowing.

Looking back at our day at the BFI, i defiantly gained some new ideas about youth culture in Britain and how this was built up over the years. Considering our short film includes the theme of youth culture it was very helpful in giving us ideas about our own piece and helping us broadern our own production.