Evaluation:

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We have represented and explored our genre in a variety of ways. Overall we have adhered to more conventions than we have challenged. Our chosen genre of Crime, sub genre Mafia, has been explored by adhering towards these classic conventions. In our opening sequence we used conventions such as a dangerous situation for our protagonist to be in. He is tied up, and petrol (water really), is poured over him. In almost all gangster films the protagonist is found in a sticky situation. Also, in films such as Casino, the film starts at the end. Our opening sequence is towards the end of Matchsticks but the audience does not know this. This adds to the dramatic effect as we are not certain as to weather this film will follow a linear plot, there is the possibility that the story could unfold in a narrative like in pulp fiction. Unstructured and un linear. Like all mafia films, there is a family. In a great deal of films of this genre they are sitting around a table. Whats conventional about our piece is like in the Godfather, the family members are sitting together as one, however there are sub textual sub plots and conflicts between them. This is exactly like Tony (fish) and Vinny. There is a conflict between those two that is sub textually shown through their dialogue as they speak about the poker game and their tones of voice towards each other. This is conventional, as we do not know what happened last night or how Vinny ends up in that sticky situation, all we know is that there is tension.

Traditional conventions of a Mafia consist of showing the brutality and violence of organized crime familes. The shot on the right from Goodfellas 1990, shows violence through the symbolic image of a gun. We used a close up of a gun in our opening sequence as the tiltes came up, representing the violence we have studied in films of our genre.

Donnie Brasco (right) our sequence (left).

Using a voice over was a convention we adhered to. Films such as Goodfellas and Casino use voiceovers and this allows for character exploration and further information. This adds to the authentic feel of our piece, and also establishes that the film will closely follow Vinny, so our target audience automatically establishes him as the protagonist.

What is somewhat very conventional to gangster films is a shot of the eyes. This is because the eyes theoretically give people away. We adhered to this visual convention by also using a freeze frame of our protagonists eyes, like in Donnie Brasco
Lighting in our piece is very conventional. For example in Goodfellas when they are playing poker around the table there is one light on top of the table that spotlights the scene. We used a spotlight and slotted in a red/sepia colour filter. This created a lighting similar to Goodfellas, and creates the feeling that they are in a Warehouse. Our target audience would expect lighting like this in a mafia film as it creates a more eerie and tense atmosphere.

A convention challenged by our group was having the torture scene in black and white. We only decided to desaturate this scene very late in editing. This challenges conventions of our genre because films we studied such as Goodfellas, Casino, The Godfather, Carlitos Way and The Untouchables rarely tend to use black and white. Some of these movies use flashbacks such as Goodfellas however they are not in black and white, it is something more conventional to dramas such as American History X. We wanted to do this for the purpose of slightly bewildering the audience. Black and white normally indicates past, however there are films that show flashing scenes of what is going to happen, such as Drive, what the characters are going to do. We didnt want to make it clear whether this event had unfolded already or is going to unfold, and that is the reason why black and white was used.
The torture scene itself is very conventional to our genre. Like in Resevoir dogs, a character is tied up and isolated. This represents how although he is part of a family, he is in fact alone and there is betrayal around him.

We believe in our opening sequence we have established the hero (Vinny) and the villain (Tony). This is an example of the narrative theory Props character roles. This is conventional to our genre because in films such as The Godfather and Casino, there are always acts of betrayal caused by those closest to the hero. For example in Casino Nicky having an affair with Sams wife and Sams fear towards Nicky being out to killing him.

We also used the theory of binary oppositions. Three quarters of our opening sequence is in sepia and the rest is in black and white. The reason for this was to create a contrast, this juxtaposition that reflects the characters mood. At the table Vinny is amongst others so he is less scared, however in the torture scene he is isolated, the background shows only blackness and this represents just how alone he is at that moment.
There is an enigma used also. There are in fact narrative device that teases the audience, the first being what happened last night, they mention cops and going to jail. The other is how Vinny ended or ends up in that torture scene. This is conventional to our genre as in lots of mafia films there is a puzzle to be solved.