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

The media product our group has produced is a five minute short film to reflect the issues of a GCSE student who has lost a loved one and is struggling to cope with it, baring in mind he has made a promise to that loved one to buckle down and concentrate on what is important. We were keen to start our project devolving our ideas, challenging ourselves to use as many conventions of social realism as we can. After watching social realism films produced by other artist such as Shane Meadowss 'Three tears for Jimmy Prophet' and Andrea Arnold's 'Fish tank our group realised that certain aspects of our short film need to use similar angles, shots/scenes and lighting to the ones in these films we have analysed.

Social Realism Films

As a group we have looked at a number of different social realism films, from short films of the BBC film network website to Andrea Arnolds Fish Tank to help us gain a better understanding of how to create and what type of scenario's happen in a social realism film before we started to come up with a basic story line for our short film. Shane Meadows: Three Tears For Jimmy Prophet

One actor used. One location used. Simple shots used Voice over is the voice of the character. The dialogue is him explaining his story. Acoustic music played throughout the film. Swearing used within the film to represent his frustration and his working class status.

Or how we have not followed the forms and conventions portrayed in this film:

How has this influenced our film?

As a group we decided not to use as much dialogue in our short film as we thought it would be more dramatic not to have as much talking from our character so when he does speak it should be a heart string pulling moment when he does speak. Although we do use him for the voiceover at the beginning of our short film the way Shane Meadows uses the characters voice for the voiceover in his film. We have decided to do this to inform the audience what may the story be about without giving too much away still leaving them on the edge thinking about what the story could be about. Another aspect of this film is the feature of it being in black and white, which our group has chosen not to use this effect on our film. Another influence we have got from this film is the fact that he is a working class man, so we have decided to use a working class teenager in our short film.

Bro
Here is a short film I have decided to watch and analysis it is not a well known short social realism film, although I feel it is a great representation of a social realism film as it shows all of the typical conventions in a social realism film. This is a film called Bro which is on the BBC film network page and has been created by a man called Chris Dundon. The short film is about a teenage boy coming to terms with his autistic brother, in again the two boys are living in a working class family. BBC film network, Chris Dundon: Bro Two main characters Shows the story of their typical lifestyle and how the teenage boy copes with his brothers disability. Shows a rang of different camera shots. Shows a typical working class family. Not much dialogue used, only a minimum part is used to help the story come across the audience.

Or how we have not followed the forms and conventions portrayed in this film: This film has influenced our film a great amount, although it has less dialogue then Shane Meadows Three Tears For Jimmy Prophet film we still felt that we should not use as much dialogue as this one uses. Unlike Shane Meadows film this film does not use a black and white effect and as a group we have decided to not use the black and white effect like this film as we feel it gives the audience a better understanding of the representation of the coloured clothes the characters are wearing in the film. The music in this film is played with a piano, unlike the music in Meadows film our group are keen to use a piece of music played by a piano in our short film, as a group we feel that it has a more gentle touch then the guitar in the film. Another scene in this short film that out group like is the scene of the boy sitting in his room looking out of the window, this is a representation of needing space of having a little break from what is happening, this is a good way to show that the character needs his space and time to himself. Another thing we like about this short film is the way that they have hand held the camera in parts of the film making it more realistic and representing that the boy is unsteady in that particular part of the film.

How has this influenced our film?

Fish Tank
Here is a Andrea Arnold film I have decided to watch, the film is about a young teenage girl living in an council estate with her younger sister and her single mum. This is not a typical social realism based film since the main character in the film is a girl, whereas in most typical social realism films the main character is a boy. The film won the outstanding British film BAFTA and was filmed in order in which the scenes show up in the film. The film is based in a typical working class family. Main character is a female (not a typical main character gender in social realism films) Represents a 15 year old girl in her everyday life. Mainly concentrates on the girl and how she sees the world around her, shows the girl jumping to conclusions in certain scenes of the film. Has a complicated story line. A lot of dialogue and bad language used.

Or how we have not followed the forms and conventions portrayed in this film: Although this film have not influenced our film as much as the other films we have analysed as it is more of an angry film whereas in the other films we tend to feel sorry for the main characters in the other films, in this film the audience does not. This film is very different to the other two films we have looked at as the main character is a female and is younger then the previous characters, there are many more characters in this film then the other two as well, but much like the other films I have viewed the teenage girl, again is from a working class family. In this film we have decided to look at the way the girl walks when she is in different moods for example, when the girl is angry she will stomp her feet more and walk faster throwing her body weight around a bit more then when she is in a calmer mood. As a group we have decided to use this technique to make our film look more like a real social realism film.

How has this influenced our film?

Comparing our film to real media products.

Extreme close-up; expression using the mouth From the Shane Meadows film we have analysed we liked the extreme close-up of the characters mouth, mainly concentrating on how his mouth looks, putting his hands on his mouth to represent his frustration and sorrow. As a group we decided to add this type of camera angle into our short film as well felt that it is a great way to represent how our character is feeling although you can not actually see all of his face there for not showing his facial expression but having our character smoking drugs in the scene of the extreme close-up I feel works really well in representing how he feels by having a straight face and not having him smile while he is smoking shows he is doing it for relief and for an escape from what is happening around him. The shot we have used is not as zoomed in as the shot Meadows has used although I think it is still as effective as the shot from Meadows film.

Comparing our film to real media products.

Mid shot; sitting on a bed, having time to himself. The scene where the boy is sitting on his bed in his room for some alone time and too escape from what is happening around him our group also thought that was a good shot to use, in our short film we decided to change the angle of the bed scene as we showed this just after our character has a break down and messes up his room, so we decided to angle the camera slightly above our character to make him look more vulnerable. The scene from the short film on the BBC film network is slightly more zoomed in on the character then we have zoomed in on the character in our film, the room around our character has a more lighter surrounding then the scene from bro. The character in bro also has his face showing put is looking at something whereas the character in our film is sitting on the bed with his head in his hands not looking at anything this represents his frustration in the scene.

Comparing our film to real media products.

Mid shot; sitting on a bed, having time to himself. The scene where the girl is walking out of her house in a strop with her younger sister following her has influenced our group in the scene where our character, Jordan is walking into the graveyard, instead of Jordan having the same posture as the girl we have decided to make him lower is head, making his posture down in the dumps and helpless unlike the girl in the film fish tank standing up straight with her head held high showing she is confident and she is not in the mood to care about anything. Although the lighting in Andrea Arnold's film is darker and more wary the lighting in our film is natural light, i feel that we could of shoot this scene at a different time when it was more darker to reflect how depressed the character is. In the scene when the main character, Mia is walking away she has someone following her, we felt this would be better if in this scene Jordan, our character, was alone.