BY: HASSAN TAHER

Question 1: In what ways does your

media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
 Brief Outline

 The tasks that we were set for our G324 Advanced Portfolio was to produce a 5 minute short film
and top of that each group had to do their own ancillary tasks which was:
 A film Poster
 Film Review

 So everyone had to create their own Film Posters and film review which shows a detailed
interpretation of our film which is for the film review, whereas the poster shows symbolism of
our film genre.
 When it came to brainstorming before the project began, we had to decide which genre we
would want our film to be based on like we had many options such as comedy, action, horror,
thriller and drama. But at the end we decided to make our film genre drama. This is because we
initially thought drama is such an when we looked back at our target audience most of them
responded that they preferred drama, hence why we decided to create a drama film. Drama films
are very common to us, as the story lines reflects back to our daily lives and we intended to do
that as our film conveys powerful messages regarding topics about anxieties teenagers face in
todays’ society.
 Codes and Conventions

 Codes- This term refers to the ideas of within a media text, these are signs that hints something to the
audience.
Types of codes:
Technical Codes: this is the way the equipment is used to create meaning and aid in telling the story. For example,
props, when a serial killer has a knife, through which the audience can depict that something dangerous is about to
happen.

Symbolic Codes: This is the director’s way in aiding the audience in figuring out the deeper and implicit meanings
within the narrative. For example, a characters actions and speech can evidently dictate how they are feeling
within.
Our film is classed as a drama film, which follows a girl, called Amirah Khan who is depicted as a normal person on
her day-to-day life. We go in a poignant journey discovering her life story and what tragedy she has come across in
her life, through the use of voice overs. This allows the audience to understand the story line as well as sympathise
with her by understanding her true feelings that she has got from her unfortunate experience.
The conventions of the genre, drama, involve displaying realistic and relatable characters, which correlate
with the sense of pragmatism within the settings and in the story line itself. A drama is meant to impact the
audience and make them feel some type of emotions through the build-up of tension, conflict, and
struggles ad even physical pain. This should allow the audience to be able to emphasize/ sympathize with
the character due to their pragmatic representation. Our film follows the codes and conventions of a
typical drama.
 Setting/Locations

 Setting and location plays an important part of a film-making and are not just ‘backgrounds’.
 The three main location we have used in our film is a Gants Hill under ground Station, Seven Kings Park and our
cinematographer’s house which is Tanika (Cinematographer).
 Settings can manipulate an audience by building certain expectations and then taking a different turn.
 The two main location for our film was in the underground train station and our cinematographer Tanika house

 Tanika’s House Gants Hill Underground Station

 Costume/Props
 Costume, Hair & Make Up act as an instant indicator to us of a character’s personality, status and
job.
 -It immediately tells us whether the film is set in the present and what society/culture it will
centre around.
 - In our film, both characters will be wearing normal casual clothes to set the present setting. As
time goes by, the characters will be switching up their clothes to symbolize how time has gone by
in their relationship.
 - Looking at Make up, our protagonist Amirah make up will change as the bit where she gets
brutally beaten up by Jesse, her scars will reflect on the domestic violence she has experienced in
her relationship. This will symbolize the idea how in society is patriarchal, as in this case women
are seen inferior to men.
 This is very important for our production as it helped me create a believable verisimilitude for the
audience within the film. As we had tried to conform to the codes and conventions of a drama
film. We used props that are very common in society, so the props we used was mobile phones
to show how time has gone by in Jesse and Amirah’s relationship, Knife which symbolises the
weapon Amirah used to kill Jesse.
 Editing

 We intend to use slower paced editing at the start of the film to help develop the tension as
Amirah walks closer and closer to the edge of the platform rail. However, as the film gradually
progresses with the use of flashback to explain why the character has ended up where she is in
the present, this will help the audience to understand the narrative of the film clearly. Since I was
the editor I organised a clear step by step guide on how I would make the best out of this
production. To successfully achieve this, I have the opportunity to use software’s such as Final Cut
Pro to assemble a great film. Furthermore, I have the ability to be more flexible using Final Cut
Pro due to having experiences in working alongside the editor for my previous group and some
extensive research on this specific skill for me to execute this attribute to my full potential.
 Titles and Credits

 At the beginning of our film we state who is our director and we move on to show the title of our
film and that is ‘Bad Faith’. We decided to start it off in this way, as when it came to researching
short films most of them introduced the film in this manner. We had our title in white with a
black background because white connotes the idea od innocence and vulnerability and our
protagonist lived up to that expectation s she is seen as a powerless young women. The font we
used was Vtks Madalena, and this font went very well with our film concept as the film shows
broken image of our protagonist Amirah as her life becomes worthless and helpless. We did not
encounter any problems, as we knew what fonts we were going to use from the beginning.
However, getting this font was very difficult as this was not available on the computer, that is why
we had to look for a font ad thankfully we managed to find one and download it onto our editing
software.
 Characters

In our film we have three characters and their names are Amirah Khan, Jesse Fraser and Soraya
Flood. This film focuses on a poignant journey of Amirah Khan and she narrates to us her emotional
life and how she cam face to face with her darkest moments in her life. Jesse Fraser is shown as a
humble and friendly character as we see how much affection he has for Amirah since they were in a
relationship, due to the fact that he is a black male character his attitude and persona is shown
clearly after when he is caught cheating on her for a another woman, he retaliates his view by
abusing Amirah is a vicious manner resulting her to fall into her demise. Soraya Flood had a minor
role to play as she is Jesse second love interest as she comes in the way of Jesse’s relationship with
Amirah as she wants Jesse all to herself. This story results in a negative way for Amirah as her life
comes crashing down with a broken relationship which results in to her committing suicide. This
story will seem relatable to the audience as our film conveys the issues of what teenagers face in
todays society, hence this could build a bond between the audience and the characters.
Amirah Khan Jesse Fraser Soraya Flood
 Music/Voiceover

 The main music we used was a soundtrack called despair and triumph as this was a
emotional soundtrack, we initially used this to correlate to Amirah sad story and go
with the narrative. The Voiceovers were mainly from Amirah as this he story and she is
narrates to us her story and what feelings and emotions she has gone through. We
had voiceovers throughout the film as this will ad the fluidity to our film and so that
the audience can understand and sympathise with her. We decided to use voiceovers
as it conforms to the codes and conventions of the genre of drama, We wanted to
highlight the key elements of drama for our target audience.