Question 1
Mary Kelly -- In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products..
Form- Trailer, Film Magazine Cover, Film Poster
Genre-Hybrid of Drama and Psychological Thriller
Our narrative is based around one characters journey, through his hardship of his uninteresting life as he feels his life is slipping into the urban sprawl around him... Then he suddenly wakes up to finds himself full of motivation to change his life and make a difference to the world around him. The films follows this journey as our hero strives and struggles to change.
After examining Adorno and Horkheimers' argument on standardization, we decided to organise our film around this concept. As we agreed that most films have disintegrated into this idea of standardization, so we wanted to create something that didn't fit into this category. So we tried not to be defined by any previous genres. This was made possible with our choice of creating a independent product package, as through this we weren't limited to mainstream conventions and therefore, the pressure of a purely profitable outcome. We did decide to use the main ideas from a western narrative, depicting a typica or generic problem being resolved but we tried to approach this in a different direction. We decided to only define a value idea of the reason for the problem being resolved, not specifically define why or how. We also resolved the problem near the beginning of the film, this alteration of the usual conclusion at the end gave us the means to experiment. A film that similarly plays with the idea of an conventional western narrative is ‘Memento (2000)', this film uses the traditional idea of resolution on a character but alters it, playing the scenes in a different order creating this confusing narrative where the audience begin the film with the last scene, click here for link to begging sequence to 'Memento'. And although Memento takes a very different approach to this idea, its still subverting natural conventions of narrative which is something that we were interested in. We also look at films that use the ‘Mumblecore’ genre which completely eradicate narrative conventions, for example ‘Slacker 1991’ an independent American film which follows an group of misfits. Through the Mumblecore genre, directors have cast the actors for the characters and left them to their own accords, which is an extreme way of rebelling against narrative conventions. And, although we wanted to challenge conventions of narrative like Slacker, we couldn't completely subvert them because for the exam we needed to show an understanding of narrative conventions.
Genre -
As I noted before we didn't want to be bound or restricted by many previously stated conventions. So in relation to genre we didn't create the film bound by an specific genre format. But if you were to categorise the film it would probably fit into the Drama/Physiological Thriller area, as the narrative/mise en scene and other areas share simliar aspects. Some conventions that are used in Drama's and Physiological Thrillers include the narrative following one character. We had already looked at successful films that had challenged this idea of genre conventions, for example ‘Limitless (2011)’a film where the narrative is so unique that it's hard to classify it to one genre. One article By Rebecca Murray (About.com Film Review Journalist) calls it an "an impressive, engaging, and entertaining genre-defying film".
Special Effects -
We were limited to the usage of Special Effects on our post production of the trailer, as we only had access to IMovie software. So this was an area of our production we felt could of improved, with access to more advanced editing applications. But we were able to alter visual effects using what we had available. Effects like saturation and contrast, and added some pre setting effects such as 'Heat Wave'. Two visual examples bello. We used these effects to separate two sections of the film, using the warm tone and high saturation/contrast effect Heat Wave to represent an positive change and a cooler tone and desaturation to represent more depressing atmosphere. This is again compares to the effects created in 'Limitless', click here to see my previous post about the relation between our trailer and 'Limitless'. Also to link our trailer to real media products we added text slides quoting from newspapers like 'The Guardian' which is well known for its independent film reviews, and it is usual for independent and mainstream films to promote their films through film reviews. An example of this is within the trailer for 'Let The Right One In' a successful Swedish independent film, Click Here to see trailer.
Camera Work –
We used a standard mix of conventional camera work for an independent film, for example handheld, panning shot, mid, long and close up shots. We also used a large mix of long landscape shots and close up/mid shots of our actor, this mix is to give a feel of the urban landscape/setting of our film as its an important factor. We didn't want to alter/challenge the conventional use of camera work, as we felt these traditional techniques do not impose a mainstream film effect these are simply used for effectiveness.
Sound –
For our trailer we only wanted non diegetic sounds, these included a base soundtrack and a narrative voice over. This being the general format of trailers, as we didn't want to challenge the traditional format of a trailer. This is because we wanted it to be recognizable as a trailer, also for this exam we needed to show an understanding of conventions so subverting them too much would possibly lose us marks. For the actual soundtrack, we needed to create an original piece without breaching any copyright laws. This creation of an original piece gave us the freedom to develop something that was totally unique and perfect suited to what we wanted, however learning complicated new software packages was a challenge so we made do with GarageBand, which was reasonably easy to use. For further information on our use of Garageband and the process of creating our soundtrack, Click Here for our previous post on Garageband. Our aim for the soundtrack was to only create an intense atmosphere, so that the music itself isn't particularly payed any attention to. For this we used the idea of repetition and long notes, this is an convention shared with other independent film trailers. For example the video bellow is the trailer of an independent film called 'Sleeping Beauty', through this there is an constant receptive flow of unnerving music with an non diegetic voice over carrying along it.
Mise En Scene -
As we created an independent film Mise En Scene was very important, and was one of the first things we wanted to look at in relation to creating the trailer. We wanted it to be representative of general urban life, and we created this with the setting and atmosphere. The setting of the film is quite conventional for an independent film, especially within the genre Drama and Phychological Thrillers which are two genres that closely link to ours. For example setting is hugely important for the film 'Lost In Translation', 2003 as the director, like us, wanted the feeling to be busy and to isolate the characters as individuals away from the urban landscape, Click Here to view one of the scenes from Lost In Translation that portrays this effect.
Form Type - Magazine Cover
As we decided to create an independent film, the natural step for creating a magazine was to make it an independent film magazine. Like our trailer we wanted to subvert many conventions of magazine covers, this gave us freedom to experiment with many different designs. Although we had to stick with the main traditional conventions, for example the size, shape, the main title, quotes and subheading, this was to still make it recognizable as an magazine. We looked at the independent film magazine 'Little White Lies' as inspiration, as its a really interesting layout challenging many conventions of traditional film magazines. The main idea from this magazines design was to be simplistic and non busy which it much the opposite to more mainstream film magazine covers for example Empire film magazine. Click here for link to previous post on Empire and Little White Lies product research. So from this we decided to alter some aspects of our design to develop traditional aspects of film magazines. For example we decided to place the main heading of the magazine at the bottom unlike most magazines, this alteration is simple but makes a big effect on the overall look of the design. We also did use the conventional use of one main character on the front, but unlike most designs we used an extreme close up where as most images on magazine covers are full and mid boy length shots. Most mainstream designs main aim is to make the design stand out, they achieve this by using bold colourful images and text. As we wanted to challenge these conventions we used a limited rance of pastel colour, and make the image black and white creating a much more calm feel to the design. Another interesting aspect to the magazine Little White Lies was that it is only sold online, we liked this idea and used it with our cover, emphasizing it with the lack of an bar code and the advertisement of ordering it online. With the idea of inclusively being ordered online, this meant we could place the heading at the bottom because if it was sold in shops the title would not be seen because of the display stacking. We also decided we would make the magazine an 'Existence Issue', as we saw in independent film magazines like 'Little White Lies' this was an regular occurrence this was a useful convention for us to link our main product with our ancillary texts. The name of the magazine 'Click' is conventional to mainstream magazines, in the sense that its short and related to the film industry, such as , 'TotalFilm' and 'Entertainment. We wanted to make it slightly conventional to make it recognisable as an film magazine, too see the previous post on the choice of our magazine name Click Here.
Form Type - Film Poster
Our film poster has a more conventional feel than the other two texts, as we felt to successfully promote our film we needed to reach out to a wider audience. So adding more Film Poster conventions we are appealing more to an mainstream audience. Some of the classic conventions include the black background creating an intense atmospheric effect, an example of this is the 'Secret Window' 2004 poster see bellow. Also the use of the the singluar character is classic for a Drama/Phycological Thriller poster because of the main focus of the film, for example the 'Precious' 2009 posterwhich features only the main character. To express the idea that its an independent film rather than mainstream, the only name we included in the design is the directors. This is unconventional of an mainstream poster as the attention is usual on the main actors, an example of an film that uses the directors name to promote the film is 'Kill Bill' 2003 directed by Quentin Taratino famously known for producing successful films. See poster bellow. Although we didn't want to clutter the design of the poster we had to add an age certificate to it, so we decided on an rating an 12 certificate. Click Here to see previous post on our on the age certificate. Although necessary this is an conventional aspect to the promotion of film, we needed to add it to show an understanding of conventions. Its conventional of a film to have an 'tagline' and as we wanted to subvert conventions we wanted to create an tagline which is very unique. We found this useful website that had the 'Great Film Tag Lines' this help us with ideas and to avoid cliche or over used lines, Click Herefor previous post on our Tag Line Selection .
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