Angel Bird

Evaluation Activity 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life

media products?

The task we had been set for our Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio was to produce a short film in its entirety, lasting approximately 5 minutes, which would be live action, together with two of the following three options:

- A poster- A radio trailer- A film magazine review page

(Highlighted above are the options I chose).

When brainstorming before our project began we considered a wide range of genres including: horror, comedy and animation, but we eventually settled on a fantasy with elements of drama and adventure. We decided against comedy as this may not appeal to a large target audience, whereas fantasy has a wide appeal to most age groups and both genders. Our fantasy-drama hybrid was about a girl called Alexa who hid in her wardrobe because she was being bullied. The wardrobe transports her back into the 1970s where she meets a girl called Clarissa who listens to her and shows that a true friendship is timeless.

Forms and Conventions of the Fantasy Genre:

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Setting / Location: The two main locations that we used was the area in and around Alexa’s house and the garden in the 1970’s. The strong contrast between the two allowed us to create a conventional juxtaposition which helps the audience to identify the genre as fantasy. We further emphasised this contrast as Alexa’s house was a built location whereas the garden was a natural location. This helped us highlight the atmosphere as the garden was the location in which Alexa was the safest. We conformed mostly to the convention of high key lighting, however to connotate specific emotions of fear and worry, we used low key lighting during the indoor scenes, when Alexa had run from her bullies. As director, it was my job to create a verisimilitude for the audience and in the fantasy genre, this involves a location in a different world or time period. We developed this convention by setting our production mainly in the 1970’s, but to make this more realistic for the audience I found props, such as tapes and coke bottles, and music suitable for the time period.

Costume / Props:This was very important for our production as it helped me create a believable verisimilitude for the audience within the garden scene especially. As we had tried to conform to the conventional fantasy film, we had set part of our production in the past and used the micro elements to help convey this realistically. The costumes for our production had to be custom made so that they were authentic to the time period, and contrasted hugely to the costumes that we had used in the present day scenes. The bullies conventionally wore dark coloured hoodies to signify to the audience that they played the part of our antagonists and carried bats which connotate violence. This is a convention used in most films, regardless of genre, to make the audience aware of certain character roles. Additionally, props were very important as they helped us realistically represent the time period and carry the narrative forwards. The main props used, such as the cassette tapes and radio, were used as part of mise-en-scene to set the time period. However, arguably the two most important props were the friendship bracelets worn by both Alexa and Clarissa. These were the props which revealed the twist in our narrative at the end of our sequence. By using props to reveal the hidden meaning behind our narrative, we challenged forms and conventions as this is usually left to a character to reveal, rather than the placing of a prop.

Editing:As director, I had to make sure that the editing clearly reflected our genre- fantasy. To do this, I tried to be as conventional as possible, however as the expensive CGI equipment wasn’t available to us, we had to find an alternative. Instead we used after effects in the form of the portal when Alexa travels back in time. This helped keep our narrative clear and easy to follow for the audience. Additionally, to highlight the contrast between time periods we used a dream filter on the garden scene. Not only did this help us connotate the dramatic change in mood from fear to happiness, but it highlighted the change in location. This helped point out the fact that we had conformed to the convention of setting our production partly in another time period. Also, at the beginning of the sequence, we used a quick succession of shots creating a fast pace and holding our audience’s attention. This also reflected Alexa’s panic and fear when she was being chased by the bullies. To create a contrast, we slowed the pace during the garden scene to represent the change of atmosphere. This often

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occurs in mainstream films- the change in time/location will alter the circumstances of the protagonist.

Characters:The representation of our characters at the beginning of the short film was quite stereotypical as Alexa - a young, innocent looking female, played the role of a victim. We deliberately used our actress, Amy’s appearance like this as we hoped that it would help our audience sympathise and feel sorry for her. Additionally, as she was the age of a student, our audience may relate to being bullied at this age and will therefore root for our protagonist. However, to counter this stereotype, we made the bullies targeting Alexa a countertype as they are female. We did this to challenge the convention in mainstream films that females are always the victim and generally don’t play violent roles. We didn’t want to conform to stereotypes for all of our characters as we thought that this would make our film boring and predictable for the audience. The character of Clarissa was typically caring towards Alexa, but at the end of the sequence showed herself to be a countertypical female character by standing up to the bullies.

Overall, I think we created a good balance within our production as in some ways we conformed to the stereotypes of mainstream films, mostly to help convey the genre to the audience. For example, by using high key lighting and after effects to represent the change in setting and atmosphere. However, in some ways we also challenged these conventions as we thought it would make the narrative more unpredictable for the audience and may engage them more. For example, by making Alexa’s bullies at the beginning of the sequence female, we subverted the audience’s expectations and made them question their expectations for the rest of our short film.