In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Imogen Millard

For our opening sequence we chose to make an opening for the drama genre.

We looked at media products such as: American Beauty, Trainspotting, Submarine and Fish Tank to find out different codes and conventions used.

We looked at the codes and conventions too see how we could use them in our opening or how we could challenge them to make it more interesting and unexpected for the audience.

Typical Codes and Conventions

Mise-En-Scene

Dull lighting

Bleak looking location and setting

Dark colours (costumes, props, setting, etc.)

Props such as: guns, alcohol, drugs, knives, mobile phones

Settings: Council estates, run down houses, flats, school / work place

Costumes: Dirty, worn out, old, hoodies, trainers, school uniform

Common Codes and Conventions

Narration of the main character over the top of footageMany emotional scenesTries attracting audience through emotionTeen culture (drugs, alcohol, etc.)A focus on one characterRealistic props, storyline, characters and settings to make it believableSympathy and empathy felt by the audience towards the characterPeaks and troths in the storyline – climax and anticlimaxes throughout to keep audience entertainedSome form or journey (usually emotionally)Easy to relate to characters

Using Conventions We chose to use quite bleak, dark lighting which is typical of the drama genre. This made our opening more atmospheric and the ambient lighting helped to create a bleak atmosphere to reflect the bleakness of our characters life. This is a convention often used in dramas such as in Submarine. The darkness helped to create an enigma as the audience is unsure of what's going on which makes it more interesting and engages the audience making them want to keep watching and builds the tension for the rest of the film if it was real.

The use of the dramatic piano music creates an eerie tension with the slow paced editing in time to the music making it flow smoothly which is a typical convention of an opening sequence. The use of sound effects was used to again build an enigma as well as creating tension with the lighter clicks as it makes it feel as though the opening is building up and therefore helps make it more interesting for the audience to watch.

As our opening is a drama we used a realistic character with a realistic narrative to help create an emotive opening which would engage the audience. Many teenagers may be able to relate to the issues brought up in our opening and this helps to make our drama more realistic.

Dramas often have the main character facing a problem which they face as through an emotional journey through the Film. In our opening sequence we used this convention as our character is facing the issue of suicidal thoughts similar to the opening of Submarine although we did not end up using the narration so that this creates more tension and an enigma for the audience.

A common convention used in opening sequences to dramas is using lots of establishing shots to set the show the audience the location of the film. This is a convention we used by using lots of river shots to make it clear that our opening is set in a rural area as well as reinforcing the theme of water and ‘Ripples’. Although usually in real media products such as Fish Tank the shots would be of a block of flats or a run down council house. This then helps the audience to engage with the character especially if they live in a rural setting.

Challenging Conventions

We found that often the females are portrayed as vulnerable and we decided to challenge this by using a vulnerable male. This would help interest an audience as its something that is not often seen and will help engage them and make them want to watch something unusual.

Often the setting of a drama is in an urban area but we chose to set it in a much more rural area as this is still a bleak setting but also challenges the usual conventions making it different to real media products such as Fish Tank which is set in a run down block of flats.

Costumes in a drama, especially in teenage dramas are often hoodies, trainers and track suits but in ours we decided to use dark blue pajamas. This was to make our character appear more venerable and confused. With the blue of his pajamas it symbolizes depression and sadness which helps the audience to understand his confusion as well as create an enigma as the audience are unaware of why he feels like this making them want to keep watching.