Representation In The Media: Race

Representation In The Media: Gender

BFI London Film Festival- Testament Of Youth

Recently, I went with my AS Media class to the BFI London Film Festival to watch Testament of Youth. I really enjoyed the experience because at the end of the film, the director and producer did a ‘question and answer’ with the audience which gave me a deeper insight into the film and I gained more knowledge on how it was made. Testament of Youth is directed by James Kent and produced by David Heyman and Rosie Alison; it is a UK 2014 film with a running time of 129 minutes. It was filmed in London, Oxford and Yorkshire and the genre is a British drama because it is based on a true story. It is a film adaptation of the memoir ‘Testament of Youth’ written by Vera Brittain who was born in 1893 and it is about her tragic experiences during World War One. She began writing it in November 1929 and it was published in August 1933. It also covers the genres of romance and coming of age because the character of Vera in particular shows a development and change throughout the narrative and the powerful relationship between Vera and Roland is also emphasized. The main characters in the film are Vera Brittain, played by Alicia Vikander; her Brother, Edward Brittain played by Taron Egerton; her Brother’s friend who becomes Vera’s fiancé, Roland Leighton played by Kit Harington; her good friend Victor Richardson, played by Colin Morgan and Vera’s Mother and Father played by Emily Watson and Dominic West.

Testament of Youth is about a twenty year old Woman named Vera Brittain who defeats the parochial views of her parents by winning a scholarship to study at Oxford University after her brother Edward kindly persuaded their Father to let her sit the entrance exam. She falls in love with Edward’s close friend, Roland who got a place at Oxford along with Vera; however once Edward signs up to fight in the war, with the help of Vera informing Mr Brittain that it is the right move for him to make, Roland follows in his steps and also signs up, to which Vera then decides to postpone her studies at Oxford. She volunteers as a military nurse and experiences the devastating injuries and deaths of the brave British and German soldiers and from there on, her life changes completely as she gradually loses the most important Men in her life. Near the beginning of the film, it shows Vera swimming in a lake and she is soon joined by Edward and Roland, they are all laughing and having an enjoyable time together, creating memories of their friendship. At the end of the film, Vera is shown swimming in the same lake but she is alone. She is alone because both Edward and Roland passed away in the war, despite their struggle to stay safe and alive for Vera and their families. I believe this scene was used because that lake was the last memorable place that Vera had of spending time with Edward and Roland whilst they were all content and not involved in the war and she wanted to remember them in a positive way. She is shown to be swimming off into the distance, portraying her as hopeful for a brighter future, as if she is escaping and clearing her mind from all the disastrous events that have occurred in her life since World War One.

Testament of Youth follows a non-linear narrative because at the very beginning of the film, everyone is celebrating the end of WW1, shouting, cheering and proudly waving the British flag but this scene is also used towards the end of the film after the war has been shown and I think this was done for a reason. As the people are extremely enthusiastic that the war is over, Vera is struggling to make her way through the crowds and she seems to be upset and angry. At the beginning, the audience may wonder why this is and it is only nearer the end of the film that you realise she is so wistful due to the deaths of Edward, Roland and also Victor that she cannot feel happy about the end of the war and she feels that it would be wrong to celebrate.

There are many strong themes displayed in Testament of Youth, two important ones being hope and aspiration. Vera aspired to receive a place at Oxford University and to have a very successful career as a writer in the future. However, after Edward and Roland signed up, this changed because she became a nurse in the hope that she would save lives and be as close to the two men as possible. This was an extremely brave thing for Vera to do because she had to leave behind her dreams and what she had worked towards for such a long time. Her final hopes were that Edward, Roland and Victor would be safe, which is what made their deaths as heart-breaking as they were because the audience connected with the pain Vera experienced to lose her loved ones and her reactions to their deaths greatly emphasized the emotions that she was going through. Other major themes include passion and devotion because despite Vera only knowing Roland for a short amount of time; the love shown between the two of them is immensely powerful and they display a great amount of affection towards one another. Roland shows passion towards Vera when he proposes to her on the beach when he comes home on leave because they both wanted to take their relationship further and it highlights how much he cares for her. Roland also shows devotion towards the war because he wanted to represent Britain and make his country proud so he devoted himself to being a soldier rather than studying at Oxford University with Vera. Additionally, war and conflict are the more obvious themes displayed in the film as they are what the narrative is based upon. However, conflict is not just showed during the war, it is also shown between Vera and her Father at the beginning of the film when he buys her a piano rather than paying the fees for a place at Oxford because he believes it is pointless for a Woman like Vera who can easily get married.

I believe that the cinematography in Testament of Youth was very well thought out and it was to an extremely high quality. For example, when Vera is rushing through the crowds whilst the end of WW1 was being celebrated, handheld camera action was being used to emphasize how chaotic the atmosphere was and to make the audience feel as if they were there with her, making the scene more realistic. This method was used throughout the film such as when the nurses had to deal with a large mass of war victims all at the same time and the handheld, shaky camera showed the panic and urgency the nurses and soldiers must have been feeling. Many close ups were used to show the emotions of the characters. For example, when Vera receives the call informing her that Roland has passed away, a close up is used to show her immediate, shocked reaction and then the tears streaming down her face. Close ups are also used of the wounded soldiers so the audience can understand the immense pain they went through and the amount of courage they had. The contrast between life at university and life as a nurse in the war is shown through sound. Whilst Vera was at Oxford, there was little background noise and the environment she was in seemed very peaceful whereas when she was working as a nurse, there was often shouting or cries of pain in the background, highlighting the intensity of the job. I also noticed that there was a lot of dark lighting throughout Testament of Youth and this may have been because there were many traumatizing moments within the film therefore, the darkness helps the audience to understand the negativity that is surrounding the majority of the characters.

Overall, I really enjoyed Testament of Youth because I found the narrative easy to get into and I was able to connect strongly with a lot of the characters. I also found it very emotional due to the themes being extremely powerful and touching and every actor put on a realistic and believable performance. In the ending credits the message: ‘In loving memory of Edward Brittain, Roland Leighton and Victor Richardson’ was shown and this really helped the me to understand how all these events regarding the characters in the film have occurred in real life and how we should never forget all the courageous soldiers that served for their country in the war. 

1YA Magazine

Our task was to produce a magazine in groups and we were given a week to make it. The members of our group were Romilly, Fran, Caitlin, Jonnie, Kairo, Shafik and myself. These were our individual roles:

Editors: Romilly and I
Front cover: Romilly and Fran
Contents page: Fran
Advertisements: Fran
Film article: Caitlin
Sports article: Jonnie
Fashion article: Kairo
Technology/games article: Shafik
Health article: Myself

Before we designed our magazine, we looked through a variety of magazines such as Woman's Health to gain information on different layouts, article types and front covers. By doing this, we also felt more prepared and inspired.

The front cover was designed on Photoshop and I believe it was very successful due to the bright colours and unique style used which makes it eye-catching and visual. We decided to name the magazine '1YA' because that is part of the Coulsdon College postcode so it makes it more personal to us and it links in with our target audience which are people aged 16-19 and this is the age range of students studying at the College. All of the articles were made on  Microsoft Word and I feel that they were all very well written and we have covered a wide range of topics with our choice of articles.

My particular tasks were to write two articles based on the theme of health and to help with the editing of the magazine. I chose to write about sexual health for the first article and nutritious recipes for the second article because these are topics that interest our target audience and are what many 16-19 year old's look for in a health article. For the sexual health article, I used the NHS website as my source to insure that my facts were correct and to gain the numbers for different helplines that I could use. For the food article I mainly wrote the recipes from personal experience however I used some recipe books for information about ingredient amounts. I chose to use recipes that were very simple as well as healthy because it is aimed at students who are unlikely to have the time to make complex meals. Overall, I am very pleased with my health articles because they are informative, easy to read and relevant to our target audience. My role when it came to editing was to read over everyone's articles to make sure there were no spelling errors or general mistakes and also to insure they looked similar and did not have a completely different layout to one another.
                                                                                                   

Here, you can see that I have used colours that have connotations of 'sexual health' such as pink and red and I think this is important because it gives the audience a clearer idea on what the article is going to be about just by looking at the colours.

I have separated my article into columns to make it simple to read and each section is on a different topic. For example, the health and advice section is separate from the alcohol and sex section. By doing this, the reader can easily find what they are looking for within the article.

  

I believe that the header for this article is simple but effective because there is not too much writing and the image of the fruit adds vibrancy and lets the audience know that the topic is going to be food.

                                                                                                                     


I decided to do a recipe for breakfast, lunch and dinner because it provides more of a variety for the audience and it is quite unique because I had not seen this idea being used in any of the magazines I looked at. I insured that I included vegetarian options and also a picture of each meal so the reader gets a deeper insight into the recipe.                




The magazine evaluation:

What went well?
Each article fitted in well with one another and after editing them together, the layouts were similar which helped to create a theme within our magazine. Also, each article had images, making them appealing to look at and colourful which links in with our bright front page. The overall feel to our magazine was very professional and looking at other magazines before designing ours definitely helped us to achieve that. Everyone in my group worked well together as a team, meaning that everyone knew what tasks they had to do, resulting in us completing the magazine to a high quality.

What would I improve if we were to do it again?
If we were given longer than a week to make our magazine, I feel it could have been much better as there would be a greater amount of content and advertisements which in turn would make the magazine look more 'complete'. We would also have enough time to add more articles such as ones based on music or gossip which would make '1YA' appeal to a larger number of people within our target audience.