Use challenge develop

Kate Gourlay

Question 1) in what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1) Evaluate the codes and conventions of your how you executed your chosen genreEvaluate how you used, developed or challenged the genre convention by evaluating:construction of narrativeuse of settingconstruction of characteruse of costume/props

When researching the construction of narrative within the ‘Drama’ genre, we found that many films showed similar plots and structures within their narrative. The theme of illness is commonly explored within plots of this genre, for example; films such as ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ and ‘Beaches’ all present terminal disorders. We wanted our trailer to therefore use this theme within our narrative, in order for our trailer to have the same success of gaining an interested audience like other films within this specific genre. We believed that by using this theme within our narrative, would gain a wider audience, as illness is a theme many ages can relate to. However, we found that through researching real media products, illnesses displayed in films are very limited, mainly focusing on terminal cancer. Even though films such as ‘Stepmom’ which use this illness, are very successful, we decided to developthis specific theme when constructing our narrative, to a less publicized yet equally as serious illness; Huntington’s disease. Therefore, we used common themes presented in typical drama’s, yet developed this idea further by challenging the idea of using cancer, by replacing this illness with a less known one.

When watching real media products within the Dramatic genre, as a group we noticed that films including illness are commonly focused upon the disease itself, people to whom it may effect, and based within a domestic setting. Films such as ‘My Sisters Keeper’ and ‘Stepmom’ are both based in a domestic setting, minimizing the range of other plots which could be related to the film. Therefore, we wanted to challenge this, having our chosen illness in combination with other elements of plots, such as a love interest which develops into a relationship. Therefore collaborating the Dramatic genre with the Romantic. We challenged the idea of having our trailer based in a domestic setting, commonly used in the Dramatic genre, by having our entire trailer set outside, with the couple; Lillian and Oliver, sight-seeing and spending time with each other in the city of London. We thought that by having it outside could represent Lillian’s character as an outgoing, free-spirit in regards to the attitude she has towards her illness. Also, we did not want to our trailer to be set in a domestic setting, as unlike real media products within this genre, we did not want our characters to be set within a family environment. In order to pay specific focus on the relationship, and the central characters opposed to family members.

Within the Dramatic genre, the characters that are usually inflicted with pain and illness tend to be women. We discovered this when researching real media products such as ‘My life without me’. When constructing our characters in relation to our storyline, we wanted to conform to this ideology apparent in the Dramatic genre, by having our protagonist female. When evaluating our trailer, with audience feedback, the entirety of our audience was female. We believe that by constructing our character as female, allowed our female audience to align themselves with this character. However, we found through real media products within this genre that the age ranges of the character that is overcome with illness are limited. Films such as ‘Stepmom’ and ‘Beaches’ explore the older age range, being between 40-50. Opposed to films such as ‘My sister’s keeper’ whereby the protagonist is of a much younger age, being under 15 years of age. When researching trailers, the only age range which differed from these was the protagonist in ‘My life being without me’ being 30. To ensure our trailer was individual and unlike other real media products within this genre, we challenged this particular age conformity, by having our central character, Lillian, being 19. When evaluating the character, we found that she was easier to relate to for our younger audience due her age. By the end of the trailers we researched within this genre, each trailer allowed the audience to realize something negative shall occur, but left the audience with optimism. Yet, through our narrative not being from our protagonist’s point of view, but from Oliver’s, with final lines “then she just… disappeared’ allowed us to challenge this, communicating to the audience that this story shall not have a ‘happy ending’.

The use of costumes and props, are used to portray the character in hands personality, attitude and message throughout a film. Typically, the character that is overcome with an illness or is going through something negative within a Dramatic film is dressed in pale colours to resemble their innocence and vulnerability. We wanted to use this idea that the costumes and props would represent our character; however we wanted to develop this further by challenging the stereotypical colours and props related to this character. We did not want to represent our character as typically innocence and vulnerable, we wanted to represent Lillian as a young, normal teenage girl. Props including a pack of cigarettes and mobile phone, to symbolize her normality, with elements of her rebel-style, carefree attitude towards life. Unlike real media products, whereby the central characters are dressed in pale colours, we challenged this and dressed Lillian in a combination of dark colours at some points in the trailer, then contrasting to pink’s and purples. We believe that this represented her femininity, but also portrayed the idea that she is not vulnerable and she shall not let her illness override her life.

Kate Gourlay

Question 1) in what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2) Evaluate how you used, develop or challenged the conventions of trailers from this specific genreuse of titlesuse of institutional informationstructure of traileruse of font typesuse of sounduse of transitionsediting

When constructing our titles, we did not want the names of our actors to appear or be dedicated in a whole screen within our trailer. This is commonly done in real media products, in order to promote the film with famous actors to gain a wider audience. However, due to the actors in our film not being of this status, we thought that by doing this would be irrelevant and would be more effective if the titles were kept to a minimal, with more time spent on the action of the trailer itself. Therefore we challenged this convention and decided to not include Jessica and Josh’s names at all within the trailer. The titles we did include were the film title; “The Big ‘H’”, the ending of the film stating, ‘coming soon’ and date of release. We thought that by not overloading the trailer with titles like other trailers within this specific genre, such as ‘My life without me’ having a large range of titles, would make the narrative of our voice over more effective and allow the audience to pay further attention to the action instead of reading constantly throughout.

An important element we found in all of our researched film trailers within both dramatic and romantic genres was the inclusion of institutions and companies. We believe this allows the trailer look professional and reassure to the audience that the film they are witnessing or are possibly witnessing shall be good, as certain names are connected to it. Therefore, we used this idea from real media products and ensured we included institutions, dedicated separately on different screens, to have the same impact on our audience. However, when looking at the most popular trailers within our chosen narrative, such as Hollywood blockbusters ‘My Sisters Keeper’ we noticed that institutions were world-wide, acknowledged companies. When noticing this, we had to remember that our chosen audience was not to be aimed at a world-wide range of people. Contrastingly, we wanted our film to be based in Britain as a local yet successful piece of material, represented through the actors being both British and the scenes and locations being within Central London. Therefore, we decided to develop this idea of using institutions in relation to our trailer’s specific audience, by including companies such as ‘Film4’ to represent the film as a local, indie-type piece. By including these institutions worked particularly well when constructing our own independent magazine ‘WATCH’, a magazine we created being based in London for local films. The ‘Film4’ in particular worked in combination perfectly with other companies such as the ‘BFI’ when both were written on the front of our magazine.

As a group, we wanted to ensure that our final product was as professional as we could possibly make it. Therefore, we used many elements from real media products within our own trailer. One of which, was to ensure that the pace of the trailer was fast and according to the beat and pace of the music layered on top of our image. We found that through researching real media products within the Dramatic genre, the pivot in narrative is always slightly shown within the trailer; therefore music is used to demonstrate this. A trailer in particular within this genre that used sound editing to represent the mood of the trailer and the change in narrative, was ‘My life without me’. Thus, we wanted to use this idea and conform to the conventions shown within trailers of this genre in regards to sound editing and music. Such as during the opening of our trailer, we had an upbeat song to represent the happiness and carefree attitude of the couple on screen. Within this, we edited the images in accordance to this music, having a range of different shots of different scenes and locations. We thought that through this it could identify the happy atmosphere of the couple, with the fast pace editing to distinguish their youth yet also to build up a climax for a turn of events. We found that this build up was evident in many real media products, whereby the audience are led to believe one situation such as a happy condition, to merely be transformed into the exact opposite.

Due to this being effective in other trailers we saw, we decided to use this in our own and have this same shift in narrative. In order to do this, we used the idea from real media products, to change the atmosphere by transforming the pace in edit and the feel of the trailer by the music layered on top. Therefore, we layered a softer, slower song on top of the previous upbeat happy song which allowed the prior song to transfer into the next. This allowed our change in mood to be successful. Due to the lack of beats in our second song in comparison to the first, we were able to decrease the pace of the second half of our trailer, in order for the audience to distinguish the shift in narrative and reflect Lillian’s illness. Therefore, giving the audience an insight into the dilemmas our couple shall face, and the hardships their relationship shall entail due to this issue.

When it comes to typography within the Dramatic genre, we noticed through real media products use unusual fonts, in order to gain the fragmented storyline. An example of this is within the film trailer, ‘My life without me’; the titles are all displayed within the same typography, being in a handwritten style, uneven in sizing and lettering in a pale colour. We believe that this was due to the narrative being in combination of footage of her and the voice over being a dairy like style monologue, guiding the audience through her journey. Through the handwriting typography displays the immediate relationship the audience shall have with this particular character as it is from her perspective. Yet we wanted to challenge this idea, and have our narrative from another perspective in our trailer, shown through the voice over from her boyfriend; Oliver. Due to this, and the lack of immediate connection the audience will have with Lillian within the trailer, we did not want to use this personal typography. Instead we had a simple ‘Century Gothic’ font throughout, being an average size, to represent this isolation from the protagonist’s feelings in the trailer. The use of the colour white in the typography is common within the dramatic genre, to represent the innocence of people when it comes to illness’s to represent that it can affect anyone, and we very rarely have much control of the circumstances it shall end in. This is shown particularly in ‘My life without me’, and was successful in portraying this message; therefore we conformed to this code and convention in film trailers of this genre, and ensured our typography was also in pure white.