1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Film Narrative

Genre-Dark drama/social realism

Independent

 As my film is a drama I researched into the conventions of the genre:

·         “Dramas are serious, plot-driven presentations, portraying realistic characters, settings, life situations, and stories involving intense character development and interaction. Usually, they are not focused on special-effects, comedy, or action, Dramatic films are probably the largest film genre, with many subsets.”

                  -http://www.filmsite.org/genres.html

• “There is usually a struggle going on that is wrought with hardships, difficulty, and pain”-http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/3080/Film-Genres.html#ixzz1CFK8yROn

My film very much follows these conventions, I have an intense, realistic and serious character and narrative, and I depicted this by making my character the focus of each piece.  Furthermore, in order to prevent it being to similar to a horror/thriller the narrative focuses on the characters growing isolation and anger and the lead-up/planning of the attack rather than the attack itself. This is suggested in my trailer, with the only hint of the chaos and attack being the shots of people running and gunshot sound at the very end. The music also supports this as it doesn’t start until 0.25 seconds in and builds up slightly as the shots quicken.

My narrative deals with the relevant social issue of high school massacres as I took into consideration the socio-historical roots of the narrative in order to cause interest from the audience and the ability to relate and understand.
 Also, as my character is similar to the central protagonist in teen sci-fi drama ‘Donnie Darko’, with problems regarding mental health, isolation and taking part in violent acts, I chose to use similar shots to those used in the film when presenting my protagonist.

Trailer

The conventions of a teaser trailer include:

·        Fast pace – quick shots

·        Short duration time (generally no more 1.30)

·        Soundtrack/use of voice over rather than dialogue

·        Wide shots to establish setting

·        Release date

·        Intriguing/hides information

·        Title slates

·        Intro to character/setting, etc.

·        Institution info.

·        Tagline

I made sure that I used quick shots which built up towards the end in order to follow teaser trailer conventions and because I was influenced by the teasers for A Clockwork Orange and Requiem for a Dream as the tension created causes a lot of intrigue and curiosity. Both build up to very quick shots towards the end which I used in order to create the sense of urgency and imply the structure of the narrative. The Requiem for a Dream teaser uses repeated shots which forms a manic, crazy mood-similar to what I am attempting to create. I used title slates in order to add meaning to the shots and generate a sense of the narrative, again inspired by the A Clockwork Orange teaser. I used the necessary information for a trailer such as institution info, title, tagline, etc.

Film Poster

The conventions of a film poster include:

·        Image of main character(s)

·        Golden triangle/rule of thirds

·        Attention gained (through humor, shock or surprise, etc.)

·        Institution info.

·        Release date

·        Credits

·        Tagline

·        Rating

My film poster focuses on my character which follows the conventions of the Drama genre. I chose to use the rule of thirds rather than the golden triangle when creating my film poster in order to make the focus point the top image as well as the title and make it appear more independent as it less widely used but still incredibly effective.

I included all the conventional information about my film (date, title, credits, rating), despite it being independent as I wanted it to still appeal to as large an audience as possible.

Film Magazine Cover

The conventions of a magazine cover include:

·        Masthead

·        Puff

·        Date/Price

·        Barcode

·        Main cover line

When creating my magazine cover I had to take into consideration the fact that I chose to create an independent film. I found that generally, independent film magazines use a very different layout to the easily recognized layout of mainstream ones such as Empire and Total Film.  Simple, uncluttered covers for Vertigo and Little White Lies were closest to what I wanted to achieve. I liked the look of the Little White Lies cover but didn’t have the technology to be able to achieve the carton effect so I took a close-up image of my characters face, similar to the one from my poster, and made it the focus of the cover which created a similar look. The rest of my layout was similar to the Vertigo Cover, with most of the cover lines all together at the bottom of the page as I like the simplicity of it as it allows the image to become more effective.