Evaluation - Question 1

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

As a whole, the conventions of film openings of any genre include; titles, credits, establishing shots, non-diegetic background music and an introduction to key characters. As a group we ensured that our opening had all of these things if only to guarantee that the finished product was distinctly a film opening as oppose to a film trailer.

The genre of our film opening is Crime/Drama, targeting particularly at an audience aged 15-25 belonging to social class DE. Other films from this genre include; Kidulthood, Adulthood, Green Street and Football factory. Here is the film opening for Green Street;

The conventions of these film openings include;

Quickly paced with lots of jump-cuts.

We decided that it was essential to meet this convention to emphasize the character’s panic and adrenaline in the opening, specifically in the fight scene. The quickly paced jump-cuts create the illusion that the characters’ eyes are constantly on the move – paranoid about where their next impact will be coming from.

Tension building, menacing soundtrack.

This convention was met but also challenged in our film opening; due to our film being based on the life of a girl with a split-personality we decided to put emphasis on this by using two very different types of background music – for the first scene of the opening the music is reflective and mellow and played on the piano and then for the second, the music begins to build tension and sounds alike that which you would stereotypically find in a Crime/Drama film. This firstly confuses the audience but then performs for its main purpose of highlighting the contrast in her two personalities.

Props which signify rebellion.

In the Kidulthood trailer there are infinite amounts of props which signify rebellion, these include; cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, knives and guns. Props which we used to add focus to the roguish aspect of the film were just cigarettes and alcohol. We did this because although the film is based on violence, we wanted to ensure that the culture of the country in which the film was set was accentuated – and stereotypically, British people tend not to fight with weapons like they do in for example in the USA.

Still from Kidulthood

A mid-shot of the group of main characters, generally male.

The gender of the main characters was one of the conventions of a Crime/Drama film which we wanted to challenge most. Typically, the main characters of films from our chosen genre are male – probably because of their association with being more tough and dominant than females – however, as a group we thought that in order to make our film more noticeable, we should use female actors instead.

Green Street

 Our Characters

Casual, sporty clothing.

In all of the Crime/Drama films we have studied for research for our opening, all key characters have worn casual, sports clothing or makes such as McKenzie, Fred Perry or Helly Hansen. We also noticed that the majority of females in these films wear heavy make-up, lots of tacky jewellery and have their hair scraped back into a pony-tail. Because of this, to show the culture of the characters in our opening we also had our actors wear similar costumes. The only time we challenged these conventions was in the first scene – when the main character is portraying her more aristocratic side of life. At this time we had her wear stylish horse riding attire and a lack of make-up to signify purity.

-          Urban setting.

The setting for films such as Kidulthood, Adulthood, Green Street and Football Factory, the setting tends to be urban or in grim, vandalised surroundings – often at night time. For the majority of our opening we met this convention, however, the first scene was set in a horse riding arena with the purpose of contrasting the main character’s split personality.

Kidulthood

 Football Factory

 Green Street

Close ups and emphasis on anything which may signify rebellion.

In the trailer for Green Street there are shots of many actions and props which signify rebellion such as violence and kicking litter. The props in the opening tend not to be focused on in each shot in order to make them appear more casual. In our opening, however, we use the cigarette as a physical representation of our main character’s more unruly lifestyle and is specifically focused on in moments of her transmission between both personalities. A time when this convention is met again is during the fight scene where there are close-ups of individual attacks in order to create an edgy atmosphere in this scene.

In conclusion, I am of the opinion that we included just the right amount of conventions to establish the genre of Crime/Drama yet challenged just enough to gain attention from our intended target audience of those aged 15-25 belonging to social class DE.