1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our short film was placed in the genre of 'drama' and 'mystery'. This commonly involves a journey, be it self or literal; conflict at the heart of the plot and realism, taking subjects which reflect reality and can invoke emotion and connect to an audience. Through my textual analysis I found that one convention of the drama genre is within the conflict aspect was a distinctive protagonist, who 'saves the day' and antagonist, the villain behind the conflict. However our film broke away from this convention with our protagonist acting as the antagonist as well. After looking back on these films I analysed, I looked at 'Vaculty'
Within this short film there was no set antagonist, similar to how we chose to make the antagonist hidden at the start, however it became apparent in Vaculty that the antagonist was the conflict that the protagonist experienced. We developed this idea by making Thomas slowly become the antagonist, his character being the driving force of the plot and the conflict within it.
Feedback given on our script by the acclaimed script writer Dudi Appleton in the form of a recorded Skype chat [shown below], told us that our idea was unusual and that our short film could be impressive if it was well executed. Because of this I think our film subverts the form of a drama film which usually have a very clear plot, whereas our film matches the form of a mystery film as the entire plot is based the audience being placed in a position where they are curious about what is being shown the them
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The camera work for our film uses the convention of match on action. In the first shot of the film we used an establishing shot of the bedroom with a close view of the phone on the hamper. This was done with the desire to set up the plot instantly and create mystery as to why there is focus on an object and whether the plot involves it. This shot was tested at different angles to get the focus onto the phone itself. We used medium close ups matched with over the shoulder shots to show emotion on our character's faces; we have also used extreme close ups for reaction shots, which is a convention of the mystery genre. In the editing, I developed this connotation of reaction with quick cuts between these shots. This adds to the drama genre.
The lighting we used in our film helped the development of our media product, not only because it reflected the sitting, but also the internal mood of the character. For example, the final scene ends in a dark tunnel with shots showing the outside road and the lighting effects this had on the tunnel. It was chosen to represent how isolated the character is at the end of the film whilst everything else passes by. The use of the tunnel at night meant that at the location we had poor lighting and thus had to use the reflector for the close up shots, this was also used to highlight the emotions on our actor's face. The location was chosen so that the lighting which was dim and not as bright as the rest of our film. This was used to connote the change in plot. Shadows were used to add the plot. For example the shadow of the tunnel itself with parts of character in shadow, fits with the convention of dramatic films, where there is an air of mystery surrounding a character.
Sound layering was done during my editing of the film to add sound effects and at times layer music to create a more dramatic tone to the film. I developed the concept of using a sound as a representation, shown in the short film UNWIND, where the surgical noises have no physical viewing and are a representation of the plot of the novel the short film is based off. We used this by having a high pitched noise occur throughout the film when memories were taken. The music was also chosen to match the tone of the scenes. This in feedback from our audience told us that this helped underpin their understanding of the emotional content and narrative of the film.
Props within the film where used to help drive the plot along, as is a convention of dramatic films. The wedding album was chosen because it had the word 'wedding' on it, which meant that it was clear to the audience what the memory the female character lost consisted of. The phone was chosen because of the unusual case, which meant that in the opening shot it was noticeable to push forward the plot from the beginning, it also mean that audiences recognised the phone later in the film.
The poster I created for our film fits into the conventions of drama film posters as I was influenced by posters of the same genre, such as the 'Lincoln' and 'Filth' posters. These conventions included: A short simple tag-line; a centralised or single image on a coloured background and a contrast in colours. The use of a single character alongside bold and clear fonts entices readers to look at the poster due to the clash between the dark image and the bright white font with an image which catches the eyes and is solitary. In my posters whilst there is background, the character of Thomas is the only figure and reflects the solidity that many drama posters employ. I deliberately chose white font because of how the Lincoln poster used black on white, my poster uses white on black/grey.
When deciding on the magazine spread layout for our film review, my group and I looked at art-house/independent film magazines and focused on the simple form of the products. This was taken into account in our product, as we matched the layout to an exert from the magazine 'Little White Lies', specifically a drama action film. The image below shows the article from the magazine which we based our review off of. This was because of the simple layout and how the image complimented the formate of the text and vis versa.
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