Practice exam question - Age

" How is the construction of age shown through out the piece?"

During the first twenty seconds of the extract the piece represents teenagers as sneaky and liars. This is shown by the boys in piece trying to hide their mistakes and they look sheepish ans guilty when trying to think of excuses. When confronted by the teacher in the piece the medium long shot clearly shows the boys body language and them having their backs to the camera again reinforces their secretiveness.
In contrast, the teacher addressing the two young boys is represented as old and patronising, as well as rude and sarcastic. This is shown by the close ups on his face to show his snug facial expressions and the pans up his body when holding the camera brings the audiences eye to the way he holds things and carries himself ( leaning backwards onto his hips to suggest he is old). At forty five seconds into the piece Miss Chowdry joins the scene and a medium long shot and panning camera angle give a clear comparison between the ages on screen. Miss chowdry walks towards the boys in a brisk manor which shows she is young and energetic where as the teacher before simple strolls up behind the boys and stands there waiting for attention, which maybe suggests he has more authority then miss chowdry as she only seems to make an impact on the boys through telling them off instead of simply arriving behind them.

Through out this extract the relationship is shown to be stronger between teens and adults then between teens and "elderly" as the boys seem to have a more native relationship with them then with their younger teachers. This is shown again through the camera angles for example at 1 minute onwards with the scene between " mr stack" and his teacher. In this scene the camera angle is always the same medium long shot showing the clear similarities between the two actors and also how they are equal in relationship. The camera angle shows both of their relaxed body language and ease with each other and so suggests that the age difference is not so large. This being said the middle aged people in the piece often stand away and looking over their shoulder to show maybe how they are slightly uninterested in what the students are saying and also when using shot reverse shot in a conversation, mostly the reaction of the teachers faces are shown to suggest their opinion is more important and so they are more mature and knowledgeable then the children.