Question 1IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Genre Research - Conventions of Social Realism

Unknown actors should be used.

The topic of political and religious views should be expressed.

The lives of young people living in deprived areas should also be expressed.

The display of different classes, especially the working class, should be portrayed.

Genre Research - Conventions of Social Realism Which We Met and Challenged

The majority of actors used in our production have no experience of acting, and none of our actors have any experience of acting in a film sequence. Our actors tend to be British, who are featuring in their first feature film, or have entered films cross-media from other forms. For example, Olivia Coleman features in the Warp Films film ‘Tyrannosaur’ but also had a television and theatre career; Riz Ahmed was a hip-hop artist before featuring in ‘Four Lions’ and also Warp Films.

In our production we have not expressed the topic of religious views. However, we have questioned some stereotypes, which relate to the current political climate, particularly considering unemployment figures, which are quite high in areas of deprived living. We have asked our audience to question the representation of the young working class. As our product is a sophisticated product, it would not just confirm the stereotype. The sentencing to jail speaks more of the injustice of the law, than the reality of working class young people, such as people in the lower working class stereotypically cause trouble for the police. At the end of our narrative we also speak of the protagonist still being sentenced to jail due to the joint enterprise law. I think that if we mentioned some more current political issues we could have met this convention much better.

Other political representations that we highlighted and that are related to social problems are the use and misuse of drugs and alcohol, and the effects of cyber-bullying amongst teenagers.

This screenshot is an example of the stereotypical media representation of the working class causing trouble, when the policeman enters the scene. This shot connotes the policeman’s legal authority and dominance in the narrative.

Genre Research - Conventions of Social Realism Which We Met and Challenged

We have also met the convention where the lives of young people living in deprived areas should be displayed. The narrative of our production is around the life of a teenage girl who has just moved to a deprived area and in order to make friends she gets involved with a gang that get her into trouble. I think we have met this convention very well, as our narrative focuses on the life of a young person in a deprived area, and on the lives of the people around her, expressing their social issues. Moreover, the use of a school-aged girl also reflects the process our production company would undertake in real life, such as creating auditions for the role. This was the case when Shane Meadows made auditions for a young actor in Nottingham schools for his film ‘This is England’ (Warp Films) and found Thomas Turgoose.

I think that we have met the convention of displaying the struggles of people in different classes quite well. This is because our narrative focuses on people within the lower working class, and expresses a number of their social issues, such as poverty, violence and theft. Our use of mise-en-scene helped us as well to meet the conventions of youth in the working class. For example, our characters wore hooded clothing and natural make-up.

It could be argued that we were too stereotypical in representing the working class, as we sometimes fell into the trap of accepting the media representation we were trying to challenge. An example is when promoting the ideology that the gang culture is troublesome, we may have sometimes mixed up a group of friends just hanging out with a gang.

Form Research - Conventions of Social Realism

Film opening sequences most commonly take this order: Name of studios

Productions company

Producers/Distributers

Starring…

Film Title

Casting Director

Music

Production Designer

Film Editors

Director of photography

Producer

Director

Form Research - Conventions of Social Realism Which We Met and Challenged

The credits in our production did not feature in the same order as we researched them. However, when we were writing the credits, we based them in the order they where shown from the film ‘This Is England’, as its genre is very similar to ours.

I think that it did not matter that we used a different order for the credits to what we researched, as the pace of the opening sequence is matched by the order of the credits.

An opening sequence should introduce character, genre and narrative. We introduced nearly all our main characters in the opening sequence with various shots of them. For example, we introduced the gang members, who place the protagonist in trouble, Laura (the protagonist), and the policeman that interviews Laura. An influential character in the narrative, whom we left out of the opening sequence, is Jay, who is Laura’s best old friend. Jay tries to warn her that her new friends are dangerous and are trying to get her into trouble. We introduced the social realism genre by having the first few shots establishing the location of the film to be an inner city location and a police station, connoting the binary opposition between the gang culture and troublesome youths in the working class against the police. We introduced the narrative of the film, as we gave a small insight into who all the main characters are, and we also screened what Laura and the gang have been doing. We finished the opening sequence with the policeman about to interview Laura.

Other Main Social Realism Conventions We Met

We followed the convention of using establishing shots in order for our audience to know where the scene is taking place. I think this worked well, as each time we set the important part of the opening (the inner city location and the Police station) really well. We choose the inner city location followed by the police station to establish the binary opposition between the youths in the lower working class (the gang of criminals in our narrative) and the police.

We also kept to the convention of using modern music from this era. I think that worked really well, as the remix I created was rap/chill out music, which gave an insight to the rest of the narrative through the lyrics. The lyrics ‘I had high hopes but I‘m in the wrong crowd’ connotes that Laura moved to a new neighbourhood to start a new life, but as she was in the wrong crowd her hopes are being shattered. The following lyrics ‘I was down with it, but I regret it, cos I face all the consequences to do with it’ then connotes that Laura did not want to commit the crimes, but was peer-pressured into doing them. She now faced the consequences of her actions.

Other Main Social Realism Conventions We Challenged

A convention we chose to challenge was the use of minimal editing. This is because in our production we planned on having a few flashback sequences. In order to portray this we needed to carry out a certain level of editing.

Minimal editing is usually used, to create realism and a high level of verisimilitude within the production. The editing involved creating a flashback effect by using colour correction in order to reduce the warmth of the image. We then applied a vignette to make the edges of the shots fade to black.

Times When We Could Have Been More Adventurous at Meeting or Challenging Conventions

I think we should have met the convention of using a hand held camera more often, as in this way we would have been able to portray the protagonist’s feeing more effectively.

I have filmed an example of this, which will appear later on in the film, by using a shot of Jay reflecting about what he could have done to prevent Laura from getting into trouble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpTX4vYpJUw

Applying Theoretical Research to the Conventions We Met or Challenged

Auteur Theory: We can apply this theory to our production, as we have made our production unique, by having a female protagonist rather than a male protagonist, thus going against common conventions. As an auteur usually has a signature visual style, my style would include a large variety and the use of camera movement. An example of this is the long take of Laura stealing from the shop. Another possible style could be the wide use of a vignette in the opening sequence to create the flashback effect.

Hegemony Theory: We can apply this to our production, as it portrays a number of dominant ideologies about the lower working class, e.g. violence.

It could also be argued that our production enforces dominant ideologies about the working class, as the audience accepts them because the representation of the police is safe and reassuring. So, they think society is looking after them rather than enforcing divides. This may have been a mistake for targeting the sophisticated audience and following the conventions of a sophisticated product, as we needed to challenge further these dominant ideologies. We could have possibly challenged further these ideologies by making our policeman more abrupt and suspicious of Laura.