Film Studies – Sing Street
Key Moment – Cosmo moving to new school
Complete the grid below as you re-watch this key moment from the
film:
Characters: Theme:
Conor Music
Conor’s mother and father Family
Brendan (his brother) The recession
School
Setting / Culture: Film techniques:
Setting: In Conor’s family home and at the Costume:
Christian Brother’s School. Conor and his family are wrapped up in woolly
clothes and gloves, hinting that they cannot
Culture: Irish afford heating
At the beginning, Conor wears dark coloured
clothes, signifying his melancholy mood.
At school, he wears a tweed coat and black
leather satchel and looks more formal
compared to the other students in the school.
This shows that he has come from a more
affluent school and is used to wearing more
formal clothes. The other students in the school
have buzz cuts while he has long hair. The buzz
cuts show toughness as we see the antagonist,
Barry, with a buzz cut.
Sound:
Diegetic sound- Conor (Cosmo) playing guitar in his
room. He is only learning and is not very good. Conor
bangs his bedroom door to shut out the dialogue of his
parents arguing, but he uses their words in his song. The
arguing instanly creates a toxic atmosphere in Como's
house
Diegetic sound of news reporter on the TV. The news
report foreshadows when he says "Many move to
London because they don’t see hope in Ireland".
Family meeting- dialogue between all characters in
Cosmo's family (meeting about saving money). He listens
to his brother’s words more than his fathers. He looks up
to his brother.
Soundtrack - changes to crazy (non-diegetic) metal music
to reflect the chaos in Cosmo's new school. Chaotic
atmosphere. Screams of students blend in with the
soundtrack.
In the classroom - everyone goes silent when brother
Baxter walks in. Shows that students have much more
respect for brother Baxter than any of the other
teachers.
Climax of the scene:
Conor goes to his first day at school. Everyone is spitting
and bullying and fighting eachother. He gets in trouble
for wearing brown shoes.
Mise en Scene:
Medium shots/ Dolly shots (zooming out) from his body
to his face (vice versa) while playing guitar shows how he
uses music as an escape.
Medium camera shot in the start implies that he's the
main character
We see a close up of the news reporter and then
zooming out of the tv showing us what's going on in the
world at the time.
We see a long shot of the whole family at the table
introducing us to the family.
Close shot of the dad and brother implying tension
between them.
Close up shot of the new logo - the new school
Panning shot shows the setting - his new school
Slow motion panning shot as he walked past all the
boys.- showing how different it is to his new school and
how other students in the school staring at him.
Close up shot on Cosmo to show his reaction to the
situation.
Tracking shot of Cosmo as he walks by all the children
show him being insecure.
Panning shot low shot of the prince principal looking
down at them.
Tracking in the classroom showing all that is happening
shows that the classroom was messy and noisy when the
teacher was teaching the class.
Slow motion pan as he takes in what's happening.
Long shot as the principal walks in shows how the
students react when the principal walks in
Useful Quotations:
"Half the bloody country is out of work".
"We need to make some cuts in the budget, somewhere"
"We're not taking you out of school. We're transferring you from
one school to another school."
"Many take the boat to London with barely any money to
survive, because they see hope across the sea that they cannot
see in Ireland."
"We need to make some cuts in the budget, somewhere"
"We're not taking you out of school. We're transferring you from
one school to another school."
