In terms of themes, short films will utilise contemporary issues within the UK and turn them into themes like, war, multiculturalism, community, Knife/Gun crime, surveillance, youth deviance and many more to create their own take on things. One short film that focuses on an important issue of youth and war is ‘Cherries’: Tom Harper. This short film is fifteen minutes long and has a linear narrative, telling a story of a class of young boys who have to under go compulsory training if they are needed for the army. The head teacher believes that this will give them discipline and the film shows the high levels of male aggression, which is evident in today’s young male society, though they turn into small vulnerable boys who are left upset when told the news. The short film uses a hearthrobing and emotional score when the boys are shown waiting in the line to be signed up, and low key lighting is used to create a dark atmosphere, adding to the element of social realism. The location is a school environment with large steel gates, many cameras and the boys have to wear tags: this all links in with the theme surveillance, which is increasing in contemporary Britain. The titles are simple and the end credits come up on the film clip while the audience is left with a running image of the boys’ teacher sitting down in their classroom, dwelling on the recent event. This type of end credits makes the audience think more about the short film into more depth, leaving them with the serious note of war.
Themes pertinent to British identity, society or culture can include:
Class and Status - Britain claims to have equal class footings but it is clear that the UK don't and there is a great class division, shown through recent events of the London riots where working-class youth protested in rage, looting and destroying the outlets of their street. Class and status can be incorporated into short films as it is a major issue in British society of today.
British Stereotypes - British stereotypes are very diverse and extreme, having the Posh British citizen who drinks tea all the time, the eccentric and lively British citizen or the violent British stereotype that is thuggish and always starting fights with different members of the public. British stereotypes tend not to be used in short films as short films are actually used to show a true depiction of Britain and convey a strong message, so the stereotypes may only be used if its part of showing a message or to create humor.
Multiculturalism, diversity, immigration, racism, discrimination – These are themes that are generally used in short films as they are major issues that have short films would want to convey a strong message about. There are many educational messages that can come from these topics and many current affairs that surround these issues. Multiculturalism is a theme that has grown to be more popular over the years due to the increase of things like diversity and immigration. After the 1990’s the British media saw signs of emerging Asian culture E.g. Bollywood films, making it easier for multicultural films to be successful within the UK. Examples of Multicultural films are East is East -1999, Bend it like Beckham – This film explores multiculturalism in a lighthearted manner, focusing on the Bhamra family who live in Contemporary Britain but try to keep traditional Indian culture in their family. The film highlighted issues of discrimination and racism as the main character Jess is has racist remarks. Multiculturalism could be used in our short film, to convey a strong message to out young audience about how discrimination and racism is detrimental to a society. The Big Society – This is the idea that the UK should be a whole big community, and the communities within our own area should be close and work together in order to create the perfect society. This topic could be used in our short film to create a lighthearted atmosphere and convey a great idea about working together as a whole country, regardless of origin, races, class and status etc.
Current News events in Britain: foreign policy, crime, protests, riots etc – Current news events could inspire our short films as recent news could help us send a strong message to our audience.
Celebrity and fame – Short films could include a sense of celebrity and fame as today’s British Society is celebrity obsessed with things such as X factor and Bigbrother.
To influence the genre that will be used for our short film, I have looked at the different major British film genre’s such as Rom-Coms, Social realism, a short film favourite – ‘British Gangster’, espionage and heritage.
Espionage – Espionage is a very popular British genre, mainly because of the James Bond collection which includes issues like multiculturalism and the British stereotype of the sleek, smart and daring British protagonist man who represents the great British empire. This particular genre is enjoyed by many because it depicts Britain in all its greatness. Though espionage wouldn’t really be feasible to do for our short film as espionage films normally has a great long time duration as there are a lot of enigmas, red herrings and suspense so the time constraints of a short film would not allow us to conform to the convention of having such a complex plot as an espionage film. 
In terms of style and genre, British short films use typical, well-known genres and adapt them, incorporating them into a clear narrative. One popular genre is Rom-Com, which is seen as an unrealistic portrayal of Britain. Famous examples are Notting Hill (1999), Love Actually (2003), and Hugh Grant who is both of these is a well-known actor for playing a role in these types of films. Although these films don’t give an accurate portrayal of the real Britain, stereotypes that other international audiences recognise is needed because its what they want to see and the film would not be successful in things like the US Box Office
because they would not be familiar with these unconventional genres. This genre glosses over the struggle of life in Britain, focusing on light-hearted dilemmas of love which surround love while having comical characters. The introduction of Urban Fairytales in the 1990’s helped set off Rom-Com’s with films such as ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’. These type of films have a great US funding because the genre appeals greatly to an American audience, as British stereotypes are utilised. Famous British Rom Com’s or Urban Fairy tales have a mono-cultural society and although it is important in depicting britishness, for our short film I would rather focus on multiculturalism so if I was to use elements of this genre it wouldn’t be the mono-cultural society.
Heritage – Heritage films promote national values based on famous, national figures or historical events. Heritage films will include content of the monarchy, British Identity, class & gender, national pride and comments on the British empire and foreign policy. The film will be based on historical figures or events of the past. As an historical film, the duration will be very long as it would go into a lot of detail of the events and characters involved at that time which is not possible when making a short film. With the time constraints it is just not possible to include such a vast amount of detail. The low budget that we have would not cover the making of locations to look like the past locations which have probably been demolished or to make/buy costumes that were of that era. An example of a film part of the Heritage genre is: Elizabeth (1998). 
‘British’ gangster is a popular theme for short films, as that focuses around recent issues of British society. We could incorporate this into our own short film as it is a theme that us as an age group would know and be familiar with, This is a hard issue in society and very serious, so we would have to be careful if we were to form our own short film based on this theme. Gravity is one short film that focuses on this theme very cleverly, and the interesting cinematography has influenced us to use this theme to create a unique media product. Another genre, which is the exact opposite and more contemporary is: Social Realism. They are films that present the ‘Real Britain’ by having depressing or hard themes, which many international audiences would not be familiar with, though short films would incorporate this to put across their message. Examples of this are ‘London to Brighton’ (2006), Dirty, Pretty, Things’, which deal with gritty issues or themes such as rape, drugs, immigration and prostitution.
London to Brighton (2006) – Directed by Paul Andrew Williams, this example of a Social Realist film has a gritty style tackling the themes of drug abuse and prostitution, depicting the hard life that working class people lead in terms of work options. The harsh themes such as rape present a strong message about the depressing life some working class people lead, which would appeal to an audience who are interested in major issues of today instead of mainstream audiences who just watch films for pure entertainment.
This is England (2006) – Directed by Shane Meadows, this social realist film similarly to ‘London to Brighton’ has a gritty nature, in terms of technical elements and especially content. The film shows the effects of Margaret Thatcher’s social and economic reforms in the 1980’s. In the post-industrial British society it shows social deprivation and dwells on themes such as racism, immigration and exploitation of the working class. It is set in an urban location, with unknown actors that are film in a grainy and dull coloured style to create a realistic picture. ‘This is England’ – this statement is explored throughout the whole film as the working class take our their anger of being exploited on the immigrant workers, for example the pakistani’s that own the corner shop who are attacked. This social realist film conveys a strong message of anti-racism, showing the detrimental effects of being racist and looking into the deeper meaning of things. Films in the social realism genre will have less distribution, most likely not do well in the US Box Office and have niche audiences instead of a mass number, because international audiences would not recognise this as the ‘Real Britain’, as there are no blissful stereotypes, therefore rejecting the film. Films of this genre will focus on minorities of British society such as the working class instead of the affluent, like in Romantic comedies. Social realist films will have a low budget, resulting in having unknown actors, which in some sense helps conform to the theme, enabling the gritty atmosphere to be shown successfully. Social Realism is probably the best and most feasible genre to use for our short film because of our low budget, untrained actors and equipment we have. We could incorporate social realism elements in our own short film as the location could be an urban and realistic one while using our DV camera’s to use produce kinetic movements which makes the film more realistic. The content of the film could tackle some challenging themes that are significant in contemporary Britain like drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism and many more.
Our group would like to use social realism as a genre, while also exploring issues such as multiculturalism, diversity, community and class divisions. Our group would like to explore social realism in our short film with possible themes of racism, multiculturalism and divisions in class. These themes would allow the content to contain British iconography and be relevant to today’s society. today as it is continuously becoming an increasingly more multicultural country, particularly in London where our film will be set, and hopefully our short film will show different British peoples attitude towards it.
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