To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre?

     The chosen text I have studied is the film Fish Tank. Fish Tank is social realist film, which the majority of time show a realistic portrayal of British society. Fish Tank is very typical of it's genre with it's usage of technical codes, for example the hand held camera, a hand held camera is used in the majority of the scenes in the film to add to the realism, as if you're actually there with them. An example of this would be when Mia finds out Connor has left, and she runs out the house to try and find him, normally in a high budget mainstream film, running sequences are presented with lots of different camera angles, fast editing, etc. Where is in Fish Tank, a single hand held camera is used by a camera man running behind her to add to the effect that we are actually there with her, you see the camera bobbing up and down like you would in real life.
     Another technical convention used in Fish Tank to show that it's a social realist film is the use of diegetic sounds and the lack of non-diegetic sounds. In reality, there is no soundtrack to your life, so to add to the realism of the film, no non-diegetic music or sounds were used at all. In the scene where Mia, Mia's Mom & Sister and Connor are all in the car on the way to the lake to go fishing, diegetic music is used coming from the radio, this is more or less the only music you hear throughout the entire film, to once again add to the realism.