Evaluation Question 1

Q. In what ways does your media product, USE, DEVELOP and CHALLENGE forms and conventions of real media products?

There are many ways in which our media product uses, develops and challenges the conventions of real media products. One way in which our product uses and develops typical forms of other short films is, if you look at other short films you can see that the basic codes and conventions are small budgets, short narratives, small time actors, and basic sets. This is similar to our media product as we looked into all of this when planning and producing our media product. As you can see, we have a small time actor ‘Nathan Hector’; we have a basic set of which we didn’t have to spend any money on (our main location is a house and a street.) We also have a short narrative with a strong moral and we did all of this on a small budget. The only thing we had to pay for was the props we chose to use, and a small payment toward the actors. This shows how our media product used and developed codes and conventions of other short films. As we kept it the same as other short films. We didn’t go for ‘Hollywood’ narratives and an unrealistic set that would cost us hundreds of pounds; we kept it simple and basic. The conventions we followed were those that we knew we would be successful with without taking too much of a risk and going against the odds.

Our media product also challenges other short films as the majority of short films start right from the beginning and go through the narrative from start to finish. With ours we had a non – linear narrative. We started showing the beginning by showing the audience flashbacks of what had happened previously. We didn’t show them step by step what had happened to the character, but they would have got the jist of it through the three flashbacks we showed in the beginning. This idea originated from when we were researching into other short films. We saw how other short films started the narrative right from the beginning and wanted to challenge this to make our narrative more interesting. For example in the short film ‘Blind’ the narrative started from the beginning and the main character was partially bling throughout the film. We weren’t told any explanation as to how his blindness occurred we were just introduced to him having a loss of sight. We also added non diegetic sound to make the audience glued to the screen; we thought this would be a lot more interesting than just showing images. This meant that the audience were putting together pieces of the film to try and interpret the narrative of the story and create meaning themselves without it being handed to them.

We had elements of sadness and despair which were shown through our setting. This was seen throughout the house. For example, in the bedroom and down the stairs. The location was plain, basic and empty. All that was around was the characters’ essential items. If you look at the colour of the stairway, you can see the walls are cream. This represents simplicity and innocence. It’s trying to tell the audience that he is a simple character, helpless to his situation and just getting on with his life because he had to.

Another way in which our media product used typical conventions of media products was through characters. In our product we mostly showed our main character. Although he wasn’t introduced to the audience straight away he was established through the non diegetic sounds of the past and the car accident. We chose to have only one main character as we thought it would make our film more effective. The narrative was then centred around him which made it more appealing to the audience as they were able to build sympathy for him and empathise with his situation.

Another way in which our media product used conventions of other media products was through the narrative. The narrative was short yet had a very strong moral throughout. Our film is a generic hybrid as we have included a genre of heartbreak and drama. We thought we would do this as it is developing conventions of other media products. Rather than just having our story based around one genre, we have included two which would draw the audience in more and make it a lot more appealing to wider audience.

Another way in which our product used conventions of other media products was due to sound. In the beginning we used non diagetic sound of seat belts and a car crash. We used the sound of a car crash against a black screen. This added an element of suspense as the audience where shocked when they heard the sound of the accident. Also, we have a soundtrack playing throughout the entire opening sequence. This is a parallel sound. We thought this would add effect as it would add even more sympathy to the film and again, the audience will feel sympathy for the character and want to help him in his situation. This challenged some other media products as they usually have diegetic sound which matches most characters or objects on the screen. That makes it easier for the audience to fully understand the narrative from the beginning without leaving them challenged.

An example of when our film challenged other short films was through the use of props. After researching other short films for example ‘Living in the Dark’ and ‘Blind’ I realised there has been no use of a walking stick or things to make blindness obvious. At the end of ‘Blind’ the character wears glasses but that is the only prop they use to show his blindness physically. From this idea we then thought we should make our characters blindness more obvious so we decided to give him a walking stick. We did this as we thought the audience would immediately be able to tell he does have blindness rather than him just walking around wearing tinted glasses.

Another way our film used conventions of other media products was due to costume. After watching other films such as ‘Blindness’ and ‘Ray’ we looked into the clothing they were wearing. We noticed that the majority of the clothes were just plain everyday clothes. For example a t shirt and trousers or jeans. So we thought we would build on this and put our character in jeans and a white t shirt. We chose to put him in a white t shirt because the colour represents straightforwardness and minimalism. This is good in getting across underlying connotations of our character as it portrays him as being simple, and getting on with his life regardless of his blindness. It also shows him as challenging himself, rather than staying at home and keeping to his un-confidence he goes out to try and gain more confidence on his own, which is a very brave thing to do.

A way in which our film used conventions of other films to do with blindness was due to use of camera. If you look at some of the shots used in films like ‘Blindness’ and ‘Ray’ there have been a lot of close up shots of the face to show the characters facial expressions. By using a close up of the character, the audience will be drawn to his eyes as they are most relevant thing in the context of blindness. Therefore, the audience can see if the characters eyes are open, closed, squinting, watering etc. This is very effective as the audience will be drawn to the screen wanting to know how this character is dealing with his disability, also through his facial expressions. Our main character always has a neutral face. He doesn’t look angry, or happy or even sad. He just looks as if he’s ‘OK’. This is very useful in drawing in the audience as they will feel sorry for him and almost want to help him in his situation. It shows his vulnerability and thus the audience will be able to relate to him in some way, or at least try and put themselves in his situation.