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

By Sophie Archer

TheConventions

Location Everyday Issues Actors And Dialogue

MyLocation
One of the conventions we found was the use of locations I began by watching a within the film. For example, Fish Tank and This Is England variety of short social both use the location of an estate. However as a group we realism films, after this I decided to go against this convention and base Maxs home compared and contrasted in a more suburban area to show he had the choice of a similar conventions that was better upbringing then what he chose. Also this helps shown amongst the films. represent middle class apathy. The locations used within the From this our group was able to discuss and choose short films we observed also use locations in which make the film very realistic, e.g. Last Train by David Scofield uses a which of these conventions we would also use within our train station. We adopted this idea and make our locations simple and fit the mis-en-scene of a traditional comprehensive film. school.

EverydayIssues
The social realist films Ive watched all include everyday issues such as underage drinking, paedophilia and violence. For our film we chose the issue of the pressures you gain within high school along with the pressures from home. In our film the first sequence, from 1:13 to 1:25, is the first section which shows how both home and high school are having an effect on Maxs life. We used a POV shot with a high angle to show the authority of the handsome teacher over Max; we then jump cut to a close up of young Maxs eye. Another jump cut then takes us to another POV shot of Maxs dad shouting at him in a car. This is a very important sequence as we utilise the social realist convention of highlighting everyday issues that real people face; it also serves to clarify the issue that lies at the core of our narrative.

Actors AndDialogue
Whilst researching social realist films, we realized another convention was the use non-professional actors along with the limited amount of dialogue. This was useful as our actors were nonprofessional so not having much dialogue not only made our film look less staged and more natural, it also covered up their lack of expertise. Our film includes a small amount of dialogue, the main speech involved was a sequence involving shouting, which complemented the idea of pressure being placed on Max. We used the idea of a semi-improvised script to make the speech seem natural as if it was something the actors would say in reality. For example, Mike Lee told his actors the personality of their character and the plot of the film but not the fine detail of the script ensuring that their dialogue was a natural reaction to the events of the narrative. One of the scenes in our film which includes semi-improvised dialogue occurs at 1:47-2:02.

InConclusion
In conclusion after looking at our film I think we both develop conventions of social realist films such as the non-professional actors but then challenged other conventions such as the locations we used within Abound.