Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
A short film is “an original motion picture which has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits”. This is a quote from the Academy of Motion picture arts and sciences. My short film ‘Take the next step’ follows the basic codes and conventions of a short film or a “short subject” as it was made by independent film makers, for no profit or very little profit and also had no real budget like most short films. As short films are very short in duration the amount of action and creativity in normally intensified and compacted into a small piece of time. This is similar to my film in how it is quick moving, and has various shots such as tracking, and close ups shots to portray the narrative. We also have a lot of content within my media text in a sense that the narrative is very emotional which follows the codes and conventions of a short film. In comparison to other short films we had a very small cast, this is one of the ways we followed the codes and conventions of a short film.My film ‘Take the next step’ is a short although because there are very few shorts with the same themes as my film I looked into various feature length which tackled my themes.
The main theme for my film was rising to manhood; this for me was a great theme because it was not too broad or too specific which gave us room to be creative. First we had to undertake some research to see how other directors portray manhood in there films. This theme is not very popular in the world of short films as most shorts are about love and general conflict, although the theme of love crosses over into ‘Take the next step’. In regards to our themes, they subvert the codes and conventions of a short film. The narrative of my film is very emotional, heart touching and this combined with the element of manhood and a brothers feud was very successful although this film theme has been touched on before. One example of this sort of film was Thomas carter’s ‘Coach Carter’ where a basketball coach benched his entire squad of underprivileged college kids, and was scrutinised for this. This was one of the films gathered some sense of direction from with the theme manhood especially with the use of male actors, instead of female, my narrative subverts this with the use of a sickness to create disruption, compared to an educational matters. Also in ‘Coach carter’ you get to the effects of the disruption in a few families and how they all react differently i.e. one of the players fathers spat on the coaches window and threatened him. In my narrative we see the effect in one family those gave a chance to give an in-depth analysis into the families feeling, emotions and how they have all changed after the disruption into a new equilibrium.
In ‘Take the next step’ we had three main characters John, Colin, and Linda Mc’Gininingham. They were interesting characters to work with and change to bring out some stereotypes of brothers, and a single mother. We kept the stereotype of the elder brother being stronger, cooler, and the more dominant figure, in this case it went with our narrative very well. We also kept the character of the mother Linda who was played by Joyce Anim very stereotypical as she was a single she was struggling with a sickness and was not very wealthy. I feel this helped show our narrative because if Linda was rich and very proud we would not have got the same emotional connections. In the sense of characters in the film ‘Take the next step’ we developed the codes and convention of roles in this sort of film. Ideally we wanted to a white family which would have challenged the codes and conventions of characters choice in this sort of film on manhood, but we couldn’t find the right actors in time to play the role of the family. In the film ‘Seven pounds’ by Gabriele Muccino starring Will Smith they is a strong emotional connection you build with character, the connection is so strong you tend to feel sorry for his character, you may even cry. This how I saw John and this is the sort of connection I wanted the audience to gain with his character. Perhaps not to that extent but as a film maker I wanted the audience to say “aww”. I also watched a short film called ‘Clocked out’ by F.C Rabbath where there was two excellent characters who were partners, and acted as good cop bad cop. This relationship reminded me very much of Colin and John. There was the dominant one being Frank and his side kick which acted like John, in the short everyone knew the bad cop Frank and was very popular. Although later one in the narrative the side kick became a dominate force as he turns a gun on his partner which reminds of how John dose the deed for his mother, and becomes more a ma than his older brother. I learnt a lot from this short film and I used it to develop my characters within my film, I also developed the codes and conventions within this genre and film.
The sounds in our piece really helped to portray our narrative is the film was suppose to be a silent one. We used whispers to create the illusion that people was talking about the main character John as he was leaving his house for school in the morning. This was complemented by the visuals of Colin’s friends pointing and making jest of John. These whispers related to the genre of drama, and reminded me of the soap ‘Eastenders’ and the sort of gossip you hear in the show. I thought this would be a great element we could add to create suspense and emotion from the audience. This is one of the ways I used sound to develop the codes and conventions of a drama. In regards to the music we used audio which would compliment the emotions of the character the music also changed as the narrative took a positive turn, this is like in almost all films short or feature length. An example of this ‘Lovefield’ by Mathieu Ratthe where you can really hear the use of music to build tension and supplement the images, then the change as you find out that a new baby was born at the end. Stereotypical we used rap music for a black family, as Colin went to meet his friends at his happiest moment of the film, and at the end as John proves he is man at his happiest stage. I did this on purpose because I wanted to show the change in power because when Colin was happy John wan not, and now John is happy Colin is not and now the music is used to represent power and strength which John ends with, this makes John the strongest character. This something I have not seen or heard, and is one of the ways I challenged the codes and conventions of a drama, and more specifically the theme of manhood.
For mise en scene we made sure we placed tablets and crutches in the shots to get across the fact that Linda was and is extremely ill. This with her costume of a nightgown displaying she may not be in work, or have any sort of motives. This is follows the convention of a sick person in a drama, as dramas tend to be realistic and have props. From the look of the house and the mise en scene you can see that the family is from the working class, this classing has a big link with the portrayal of the characters, it helps to build a picture of their backgrounds and leads the audience to stereotype things like their ethics, or even their educational backgrounds. This is common in most movies who are aiming to portray working class England, an example of this is in ‘One day’ a British film based in Birmingham where we see the types of houses people from the lower and working class live in, and there are many similarities between the two. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1268158/(IMDb page on the film)This shows how we developed the codes and conventions of a British home in a drama from the lower or working class.
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