Evaluation Question One

In what ways does your media product develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In our opening we have followed the conventions normally used in an opening title sequence. These include the order of title’s, the length of each title, which we found, are between 3 to 4 seconds and the sense of enigma being created. As well as this we have considered the tone and the average length of the whole sequence (2 to 3 minutes long).

We have developed ideas from La Haine title sequence. Firstly the font with black/white titles. We developed this convention by making the titles appear to type and they appear from left/right/top/bottom of screen etc.

Genre Conventions Used

We have created the opening title sequence to a new British social drama film. They are usually low budgeted, set in a city/real-world locations. An example of this is Ill Manners, which is set in the centre of London in a real life council estate with natural lighting and is based about social issues including crime, relationships, politics etc. Ill Manors is largely based around drugs and crime, with ‘This is England’ focusing more on politics and race. They include a predominately male cast. However we have challenged this by using three main women actors in our opening

This is a scene from Ill Manors, which has used natural lighting, and we have chosen to also use this type of lighting.

We have tried to create a different identity of each of our characters. The girl below is wearing a costume not normally associated with a social realist films. She is a shown wearing rubber duck earrings and an indie jacket with chunky white shoes.

The girl in the middle is wearing bold, bright and vibrant red lipstick, which sets a sense of mystery. She is wearing a full tracksuit. This outfit can be seen in almost all social realist films.

This shot has been taken from the La Haine.

We have used different camera shots including an establishing shot, close-ups (to convey emotion) , reaction shots, 3-shotFraming etc. We have looked how the framing and composition has been used in other social realm films and have tried to do the same in our opening.

Extreme close up-

Our film Shot from Brick

Medium Shot from behind-

Ours Shot from Ill Manors

Low angle medium shot-

Ours Shot from kidulthood

Extreme long shot-

Ours Shot from Brick

Neo Noire

Finally our sub genre for the film is neo noire and we have used some of the classic conventions shown in these films too. For example some objects that the girls are wearing are shown before seeing the girls creating mystery for the audience, who are confused however wanting to watch on.

Challenging the Convection

We have used a predominately female cast, which is very rare in social realist films.

For example, in most British social films women are subordinate to men and are normally just girlfriends or wives in the background. In our opening women have been casted as the lead roles. The men’s role in our opening is much less significant. This is unusual for a social realist film.

These stills have been taken from British social realism films. This is the generic way in witch women are represented in this style of film. However in our opening the women have all the power and are shown on the own, being influential and important roles as seen below.

In conclusion, although we have challenged some of the conventions of actual media using the same genre as our film, overall we have tried to use the genre we have chosen to help us develop our film and make it appeal to a similar audience that films such as Ill Manors attract.