In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

Question 1

Studio ident

• My short film starts in a way that a conventional film would with the studio ident.

• I chose the name mainly because I decided to work alone and the name fitted appropriately, but also as the studio name fitted the character of Stephen.

Other studio logos• I have studied a variety of studio logos:

The MGM logo is the studio ident I drew my inspiration from to create mine.

My identThis is a picture of my ident

which I created. I have styled it on the MGM studio ident. However as my main image is completely different, from a lion to a wolf. I have created the ident using a black pen and then scanned the image into the computer. I then made the image clearer and turned it into an animation much like the idents of twisted pictures, DreamWorks and Pixar, thus keeping in line with conventional studio idents

Opening shot• The opening pan shot of my film is conventional as it instantly reveals the setting of the

film which is the school. The pan shot which shows a long ling of lockers which is a typical mis-en-scene for a school and is how the audience instantly know.

• Although the shot is conventional as it sets the scene of my film, having a pan start for an establishing shot isn't a conventional start to a short film. Before I began constructing my film I researched a number of films and noted that the majority started with either a long shot or an extreme long shot. However I wanted to challenge this convention because it would start my film in a fast and quick way which is how I wanted the pace of the shots to continue.

• Here are a number of examples of opening shots from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/

narrative• For my narrative I was influenced by a number of

short films and scenes from feature films, however the one that was instrumental was Gravity. I think this was because this short film was aimed at the same target audience as mine and also carried a strong message. From this film and mine you can draw a number of similarities however I believe mine challenges the conventions of this film as my message is about mental health issues also the story told is at a much slower pace than Gravity

Characters

• The skill of Stephen and jack was present when I first auditioned them. I have used them to follow conventions of short films that small, unknown actors are used a lot in short films. I believe the reason for this is due to the low budgets that short films have. I have followed this convention and I believe they have made the film. I am so glad that I held open auditions to find the perfect actors for the roles. Another convention is that 2 or 3 characters are used in the film, this is due to the time constraints of short film and not being able to fully develop the characters due to this. I have followed this convention mainly so my target audience can relate to my characters.

Camera shots/ angles

• In my film pressure I believe that I have followed and challenged conventions in this section of my media product. This is because it is a convention to have a variety of camera angles and shots in short films. However I believe I have gone above and beyond this convention as I have not only used a variety I have continually changed the camera angle when I was recording as I wanted to use quick cuts and fades from each action shot in my scenes. I also have challenged this convention as I wanted my film to have a faster speed and pace to it, I believed that by using the amount of shots and angles I could achieve this.

Edits

• I have followed conventions of short films in my film while I was editing as I have used a lot of quick cuts to build up the tension in my film. This is present in the scene where the victim is being mugged that the suspense and action are created through the fast cuts. However in my editing I have also challenged conventions by using a lot of really quick fading to white edits to switch from different camera angles. They are incredibly fast and are almost subliminal so you don't see them, this I feel as improved the quality of my film. Because it makes the film run smoother, I also think it gives my film something different, something special.

BBFC certificate• By adding the BBFC film certificate

I have followed conventions because certificate or sometimes a green screen is seen at the beginning of all films, short or feature length. It lets the audience know who can watch it, as the 12A certificate means its unsuitable for children under 12. As well as following conventions it gives my film a high level of verisimilitude, making the film more realistic and professional

Sound• One way in which I have challenged conventions of films is by not

having sound in my film. By sound I mean non-diagetic music that I have added over the top of my dialogue and film. There were a number of reasons why I didn't do this, one of them is because unlike major films we couldn’t use copyrighted music. This limited a lot of the music choices I would have originally made. However I did start to produce a song with my friends in the music studio, however I didn't like it and it didn't fit right in my film so I decided to make the decision to not have music in pressure. I could of course have had royalty free music but when I was trawling through royalty free music websites to find the right song none of them seemed right. None of them really fitted the look I was going for with my film

Movie posterWith my film poster to advertise my film I think I have followed conventions all throughout it. For example I have followed conventions when adding the actors names and the positioning of them. I have also followed conventions when you look at the image on the whole of my poster. This is because I have drawn the inspiration for it from a number of existing posters. It also instantly suggests the relationship of the two boys which is what I was aiming for. Another way I have followed conventions is by having the title is big letters so if you walked past it in the street you would easily be able to see it. Finally the text at the bottom of the poster is following conventions as all movie posters contain this information of the stars, directors and producers of the film. This is mainly because it could attract an audience member who saw the poster and has liked a lots of films already made by that director, or star and could increase her chances of going to watch the film