Evaluation question
- 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- 2. My Sisters Keeper Life Fast Forward In drama films commonly their are scene showing illness generally in hospitals such as in My Sisters keeper. The effect of this I think is to make the audience very emotionally involved in the scene by showing not just telling them about what is happening but showing them. We then developed this convention by incorporating this in our film opening and not only showing the character in the hospital bed but showing the hospital itself. We filmed it so its shows a establishing shot of the hospital which cuts to a shot of the hallway and then a close up of a sign in the hospital where the character is supposed to be, by doing this it gives the effects of someone going closer to the room. When it cuts between these shot we used a heart monitor sound to help establish it is a hospital and she is ill. Although we could not film the bed scene in the hospital we tried to make it look as real as possible by doing ‘ill looking’ make-up, and hospital gown, white bed sheets and get well soon cards. We used a monologue which was parallel to the scene as it was the character April talking about herself; monologues are often used in drama films I think to help establish the genre and storyline such as in ‘Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘The Lovely Bones’, this is why we chose to include a monologue. We challenged this convention as typically their would not be a hospital scene at the start of the film but we felt it was important to include it so the audience could establish the storyline and the genre. Therefore our opening was not in chronological order.
- 3. We tried to keep out initial costume ideas as similar to our planning as possible by using colourful clothes. However it was quite a cold day when we were filming so we didn’t wear shorts but jeans and leggings instead. We then had to edit it in order to make the weather seem better than it actually was. The opening is not in chronological order so the audience could tell the genre more clear by having her ill at the beginning then cutting back to her before she is ill with her friends on a beach. Also by not doing it in chronological order it enabled us to show the audience more of the storyline that if it were in chronological order because we only had 2 minutes for the opening so we wanted to establish the story as much as possible. Other drama films that have had storylines that are not in chronological order are: Seven pound and the Notebook. In both of these films it cuts to places in the past the same as ours but we challenged the typical conventions by using a photo frame to cut to the past rather than cutting as the character is talking about the event in question, this technique was used in Seven Pounds and the Notebook and is quite common. Another drama film which is not in chronological order is the butterfly effect; the way in which they cut to the past would of been inappropriate to use in our film because it is done by him having flashbacks that he can control. If we would have done this it might have made our film look like a sci-fi film rather than a drama film which could have confused the audience.
- 4. The Last Song Seven Pounds Life Fast forward We used to make the one of the settings for our opening to be on a beach as it is usually used in drama films such as in the Last Song and Seven Pounds. Benefit of setting our scene on the beach was it then became parallel to the scene as it represented her when she was and happy with her friends. We challenged conventions of a drama film by our editing. We used the ghost effect so show what April was seeing before she collapsed on the beach. Although this effect challenges the conventions of a drama film it was appropriate and fitted our film opening well because it showed the audience April’s point of view, so because of this it made the character more relatable. Life Fast forward – showing ghost effect
- 5. We chose to make our production name incorporate nature by using a African sunrise, which could have connotation on something new. we thought this was fitting seeing's as we are a new company. Also we researched other companies that make drama films and they also incorporated nature such ass the mountain in Paramount Pictures so we though it would be appropriate for ours to include nature. With our main song choice I think we kept to our initial idea of what we wanted. We used a soft, sad, piano song which was what we wanted because they are typically used in drama films so by using it, it should help the audience establish the genre of the film. It was also parallel to the sad storyline of the film so it works well with the scene. It was difficult finding a appropriate song but after research we managed to find a song which we then used.