Drama / Realism Film Opening Research - Albatross

FACTFILE

Genre - Drama

UK Release Date - 14th October 2011

Director - Niall MacCormick

Writer (Screenplay) - Tamsin Rafn

Staring - Felicity Jones

              Jessica Brown-Findlay

              Sebastian Koch

Production Company/s - CinemaNX

                                      Isle of Man Films

Special Effects - Rushes Post Production

Camera Equipment - ARRI Media

Stationery Supplier - Media Services pre-production

Sound Post-production - Zound

STORYLINE 
The story follows Emelia, a rebellious, seductive and intelligent teenager played by Brown-Findlay. Taking a job as a cleaner at a guest house, Emelia befriends the teen daughter of the house, begins an affair with the husband and gets scowled at by the wife and mother of the family who live there.

Alternating between comedy and drama, the film has an awkward tone. The writer Tamzin Rafn claims it was written as a comedy but there are only occasional really funny moments. Instead, it is the drama that is more gripping with a range of characters who are trapped in miserable lives in a beautiful but dead-end location. Filmed with a great eye for scenery on the breathtaking coast of the Isle of Man by director of photography Jan Jonaeus, the narrative takes in the kids on the beaches, the family in the guest house and most notably Emelia and new friend Beth. But these disparate people all appear confined and resigned to unfulfilling and disappointing existences.

RELATION TO OUR FILM

This film is fairly similar to the film we wish to make the opening two minutes of, as it has that 'realism' tone and includes dilemmas revolving around family and friendship and one girls journey into finding herself, which is very similar to out protagonist. A major difference is that Emelia is an incredibly different character to our protagonist, in that she is an enormous tearaway and she is the main cause of the problems within the film, wears our protagonist is very shy and just happens to have been born into problems that are not any fault of her own. The fact that Emelia is a very colourful and outgoing character has a large impact on the audience as they grow fond of her and her tearaway ways. We would need to establish a different way of making the audience respond to our protagonist and relate to her as she doesn't have these traits.