Bullet Boy Deconstruction

Opening 2 minutes

The title is one of the first things shown in the opening of this film. Without showing any clips the film already makes an impact on the audience due to the sharp contrast between the colour of the text and the colour of the background. By having the title in black and a crisp and clear white background it almost represents death (the black) surrounded by innocence (the white) hinting to the audience that innocent people may die in the film.

At 1:06 dialogue is introduced into the film. It is introduced while this hot is shown. From the clothes the character is wearing we can see he is obviously in some kind of prison like environment. From his surrounding we see he is a tiny compact cell making the audience think he is obviously a bad person. The white walls subvert this assumption of the character as they show innocence. This relates back to the title page and the death of the innocent hinting to the audience something will happen to this character.

 This long shot shows the tension between the protagonist and the prison guards. The sense of power subverts the usual conventional stereotype that guards would have more power by having the guards sat down and forced to look up at the prisoner. The prisoners strong London accents shows the audience that the film is British film that will be set in the heart of London.

The next shots are shown a lot quicker and the pace of the film starts to speed up. Cros cutting is used in these shots to show the boy in the picture above and the boy in the boot.

Middle of the film

This shot is a close up of a gun. The black background the gun is in front of make the gun blend in. Linking this to the  title page you could again associate the darkness of this shot with the death the gun will cause. The gun is also placed in the middle of the shot making it the focus for the audience.

This is an over the shoulder shot of two characters having a conversation. As you can see the person who is knocking at the door is shot with a lot of light behind him showing the audience that out of the two he is the good one whereas the person who is in the house is shot as an almost silhouette showing the audience that he is bad and that the probably will never be able to run away from his dark past.

This establishing shot of the street shows the audience what kind of place it is. At the front of the shot we see a red car that has been bashed up showing the audience that the street is violent. We also can see that the street toward the front of the shot is quit grotty and dirty which is why it is shot in a darker lighting. Although if we focus towards the back of the shot we can see a row of house that look clean and a nice place live this shows the audience that it's not the street itself that is grotty it is the people that live there that make it a bad area to live.

End of the film

As you can see from this shot it is a close up of a father and daughter having a hug. They take up the whole shot meaning they are the focus of the shot. There is also a bright light coming through behind them as due to the fact this scenes is set in a church the light is mad to look like a light from god.

This is one of the last shots in the film it is a dark shot to show the grievance the protagonists brother is going through. The boy is made to look very small through a long shot to make the audience see how small and insignificnt he feels now his brother is dead. As a last shot I think this is very significant as it ends the film with a bed poignant message and view of the little brothers life without his role model