Evaluation 1

In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products?In this sl ide share presentat ion, I wi l l focusing on the conventions, developments and challenges that my

short f i lm may include.

My Media Product

From the start of this project, I have had a clear idea on the topic of my short f i lm, these ideas would make the basic elements of the fi lm. Some of these ideas have been generated from the fi lm ‘The Lovely Bones’, after watching the fi lm together with my partner, we were extremely glued to the content and thoroughly enjoyed and l iked the fi lm, even with the uncomfortable scenes of the kil ler and young girl . Following this, we made a final, joint decision to base our f i lm around the genre and theme of ‘The Lovely Bones’ so we felt having more conventions rather than challenging conventions would make our short f i lm much more successful.

The title ‘Abduct’

As a whole, I think using the word ‘Abduct’ for the ti t le of this type of genre fi lm, really stuck with conventions as it supported the content and gave the audience a type of guideline and clue to what wil l happen in the fi lm. It also supported conventions from previous fi lms l ike … that share the same genre of drama and thri l ler; this would ensure the success of my fi lm as the ones I have l isted are known and successful.

Conventions used

One of the main features that we picked up from ‘The lovely Bones, that we were certain on using was the talent. I wanted to make sure that there was a young, innocent, naïve gir l, just l ike the actress in ‘Lovely Bones’ which would make the audience feel sorry for her and empathy her soundness to loosing her father so young. On top of this, having the same idea of using an old, scary looking man which would represent the paedophile and kil ler, would hold conventions with ‘The Lovely Bones’We decided to call the young gir l Li l ly Lenson as it sounded very innocent and angelic, keeping conventions with the young gir l who acted Susie Salmon in Lovely Bones. Having this innocence, would in turn create a connection between her and the audience, making them feel l ike they want her to be safe and shout at the scene for her to see the kil ler.

Conventions usedAnother main feature that I think made the fi lm and stuck to conventions with the Lovely Bones was the voiceover throughout the fi lm. I really l iked this idea as we weren’t planning on having music as it would effect the noises from the actually f i lming. We also thought including a voice over would be a good idea to help build feelings, so it would tell the audience what was going on and without showing the explicit parts allows the audience to put two and two together about how she died, which is involving more of the audiences thoughts into the fi lm itself. However, I wanted to make it more dramatic, in comparison to Lovely Bones, as I want to give hints and clues about what is happening quicker than what Susie does Lovely Bones; this is mainly because I have to create and build up certain feelings quicker as my short f i lm is obviously shorter. I think doing this would challenge conventions in regards to comparing it to The Lovely Bones and could be more distressing for the audience, however could also build a better relationship between Lil ly and the audience and feel more engaged with the plot of the fi lm.

Conventions usedFollowing on, we also picked up in Lovely Bones that they didn’t actually show the kil l ing and raping from the kil ler, I wanted to make sure I did the same to stick with conventions and keep the content appropriate for the rating. The relationship between both the actors was diff icult to act explicit scenes as I am actually a student and the kil ler in the fi lm is an actor, so it would have been uncomfortable and inappropriate for explicit content and acting. So instead when the ki l ler was behind me in the fi lm, we created certain shots to allow the audience to guess that something is going to happen after this, however we faded it to black to keep the audiences minds open to what happened; this wasn’t done in Lovely Bones so I think we challenged conventions as may or may not l ike the fact the way Lily died wasn’t shown or included. I purposely used the colour black to use for the fade out, as it represents bad things without having any explicit content, which is then easy for the audience to realise that something bad is going to happen to Li ly and later on she is going to die.

Conventions Used…

In Lovely Bones there are a number of quick and sharp cuts to build tension and attachment to the fi lm, I think involving this effect when Li ly begins to panic after waking up in a strange, spooky scary room was really effective and worked well to build a lot of fear and panic. I then increased the movement more when the footsteps of the kil ler are loudly moving towards her, which worked really well to maintain and raise the level of suspense and fear for the audience upon Lil ly’s feelings. Altogether I think this kept conventions with Lovely Bones, and have developed conventions as well by taking the different camera shots, which are more towards her face as close ups and the different paces of movements are sl ightly faster than in Lovely Bones.

Conclusion

Altogether, I think I have focused more to kept conventions in comparisons to challenging them which I think has worked a lot better. I have tr ied to develop and challenge some conventions to dif fer my f i lm from others but I wanted to make sure that the short f i lm would be successful rather than disl iked.