Sweet sixteen depicts an area of Scotland Greenock
The intro to the film starts with a hand held camera in low key lighting offering the audience an eyewitness account. By making the lighting low key the audience are only shown part of the protagonist Liam as half of his face is in shadow. This suggests and foreshadows the two sided nature to Liam’s character and offers the audience an insight in to the struggle that Liam is to face because of his conflicting emotions. The camera pan’s around the group showing the individuals of young children and teens also helps to show Liam’s innocence and youth and again helps to foreshadow how events will play out later in the film as we are made aware of his naivety. However, the use of the stars and planets helps to offer a metaphor or symbol to the audience showing his ambitions, escape and will to be free, showing how he wishes to leave his present environment and enter in to his own or create his own. The blurring of the focus helps to show how this is unclear and untrue at present, but how it is a prominent thought and idea at the beginning of the film.
When the scene then moves in to the pub we can see and feel a difference in the atmosphere, however our mood change is against normal conventions as the lighting goes against the connotations due to the characters actions in the scene. As the dark lighting makes the scene at the beginning intimate as we feel that the characters are enclosed and protected by the night. However, when we enter in to the pub scene we get an anxiety and worry at their new setting despite the more high key lighting, as the depressive attitude of the other characters and smoke creates a barrier between the audience and the characters as we are unable to see fully the actions of the other people in the pub. This combined with the lighting creates more unease as we are usually able to see everything in high key lighting but instead in this case there is still secrecy, creating anxiety in the audience. The camera movement also helps to add to this as we are moved from a long shot of Saturn to a close up of the exchange of cigarettes from Liam and Pinball to two older men. Creating a contrast between Liam’s ambition and reality. However, the close camera coverage and the high angle also helps show the secrecy of their work and so makes the audience feel more on edge as we become very aware of the characters illegal dealings, which combined with the angle helps us to establish how the cigarettes are bad for the boys not only for health reasons but for the world it is exposing them to when they have not got the maturity to deal with it. The setting also creates the unease for the audience as we can see how the adults are relaxing from the stresses of the deprived area, which also helps to establish Liam’s reality as we can empathise with his reasoning for entering in to illegitimate dealings as in the scene he is the only person who still has animation and hope.
The use of music through the two sections helps to add to the atmosphere and contrast of the two environments. In the first section we are introduced to the film with no music, helping to show the calm and tranquillity of where they are, as we then see the planet the music begins with a high pitched wood wind instrument, which helps to give the idea of a bird like quality as the high pitch replicates the idea of flight and height, and again gives the idea that the character wants to escape or fly away. However, the use of a low bass underneath offers a sinister tone and so foreshadows the problems that Liam will face and the hardship of the character. This then changes as we enter the pub scene as the drums and techno sounds begin to dominate and so offer more pace and disjointedness to the scene, helping to show how the boys are not meant to be in the surroundings that they are in as the music does nor fit a regular beat.
Sweet Sixteen represents teens in Scotland
I feel the intro for Sweet Sixteen offers a good insight for the rest of the film, I feel that they show a lot about the characters which helps us to understand the characters better later as a result. The almost juxtapositioning of the different settings helps to offer the two sides to Liam and so make it clearer to the audiences the dilemmas that he faces with himself and others.
