Evaluation Question 1

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

The genre that we chose for our opening sequence is drama, to gain more knowledge on the genre we studied Fish Tank, Trainspotting and American Beauty; by doing this we learned more about the different codes and conventions of the drama genre. We decided after discussing them that we wanted to challenge certain conventions of real media products, to do this we chose to begin our product with the death of the main character and afterwards we would flashback to his life before and explore how he ended up in that position. This technique is also used in the narration of American Beauty with Kevin Spacey, the protagonist, who tells the audience that he is going to die. We used a similar technique to this with our main character dying but in a video form.

The most typical codes and conventions of the drama genre for mise-en-scene are darker colours for the settings, costumes and props; these are also paired with bleak lighting which is realistic to the setting and the time of day when it is shot as well as a realistic if not dreary setting and location. 

During films that are of the drama genre some of the codes and conventions used are characters that the audience can relate to because of a emotional situation they are going through, a focus on a particular character (protagonist), narration, storyline climaxes and anticlimaxes, realistic settings, props, and characters.

The soundtrack, which is an royalty free piece that I edited, for the product creates an ambient atmosphere for the footage because it triggers the audience to become emotionally invested in the character; this technique is used in many films since it causes the viewer to carry on watching. The use of a soundtrack in the opening sequence is extremely common and makes the footage flow smoothly and allows me, the editor, to edit onto the beat. Sound effects used in the piece are also used for the same purpose and help the audience understand what is happening, for instance the lighter clicks are on time with the editing even though the footage hasn't begun yet this is called an ‘L Cut’.

In our media product, we decided that low key lighting, along with darker colours in the costumes and settings would be best for video because we wanted to create tension filled scenes with a lonely atmospheric feel to represent our protagonist’s life. The dark in our footage created many enigmas for the audience, for example in the beginning of our footage the ripples in the water cause the audience to become interested in the film and more likely to carry on watching because they are not sure what it means. 

We used realistic characters, settings and costumes in an emotive opening because that follows the conventions and codes of a drama media product; this is also used to cause the audience especially teenagers to feel a connection between the characters and themselves because they feel that the characters are like them since they can relate to similar issues and problems. In our footage we used many establishing shots of water and the river, these tie in with our title: Ripples, using establishing shots is in nearly every film so it is an essential part of conventions and codes. Using this footage also enforces the enigmas that have been placed earlier in our product. 

To challenge certain codes and conventions we made the main character a male who has suicidal thoughts, this challenges the stereotype of men being stoic and forever strong which is portrayed in the media with advertisements and other films. Most films do not concentrate on rural locations and settings or exaggerate them to have an idealistic atmosphere to them however our media product shows the location in a realistic light and if continued the film would show the countryside in a neutral or slightly negative light, making the setting extremely realistic. Teenage dramas tend to show young people negatively, them being loud, rude and uncontrollable, to counteract and challenge this we decided to have the protagonist’s costume as dark blue pyjamas, the dark colours conforming to the conventions but pyjamas shows that he is vulnerable. They also provide background to the character and the time of day showing that he has possibly just woken up, is confused and doesn't care for his image any more.