Media Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (Media Evaluation Question 1)

Before creating our two minute opening sequence, we conducted some research into existing films that we thought were similar to ours. One of the films that I looked at during this research was James Bond Casino Royale.

In this research we discovered that in action films there are a few things that occur in all films of this genre:

• Themes of death
• Strong and confident protagonists that the story follows
• Gunfighting
• Car Chases
• Fast paced editing
• Occasional Flashbacks (To show what has happened to a character and why they are doing what they are doing.)
• Plots of Death/Assassination/World Domination

The opening sequences in action films tend to be fairly slow and actionless. The opening being slow and steady helps the audience to understand the storyline quickly and prepare them for action to come.

By using forms and conventions in the way we do we want the audience to feel suspicious and intrigued as well as tension.

In our film ‘The Aggregator’ we have a non-linear narrative. This means that it doesn't follow the normal flow of time, it jumps forwards and backwards in time. We do this for the audiences benefit, the jumps in time help the audience to understand what is currently happening easier .In the two minutes of our film we introduce three character, two of which are important to the storyline (Jason Kable, Shepp Flanagan). However the audience will not be able to tell this as the storyline is not clear until later on in the film. Before the title flashes on the screen we see the less important character (Marcus Finn) get held at gunpoint. At which point the screen fades to black. This is an attempt to build tension, like many other action films do. An example of this is on James Bond Skyfall, Bond get shot and falls into a river at which point the starting titles come on to delay us from knowing what has happened.

Our film is an action/thriller film, although it is fairly hard to tell this from the footage that you see. An action film would be described as fast paced with combat , a thriller would be described as a film using tension and suspense. No action really takes place in our film other than a character being held at gunpoint at which point the screen fades to the title shot, which could be seen as an element of thriller and action. We planned to make the genre clearer as the film went on.

In an action film you would expect the editing to be fast paced which give the film a fast flow and keeps the audience guessing. We have purposely made the film fairly slow for an action film as it makes the start slow and steady helping the audience to understand the narrative and it prepares them for future action. This is a convention that most action films follow. Also from an action film you would expect combat meaning that more long shots/mid shots will be used to show punching etc. As our film doesn't contain much action (At the start) these shots aren't common, however in the part of the film with the only bit of recognisable ‘action’ a mid shot is used to show a gun being held to someone's head.

The sound of a film is important. It can help change the perspective of the audience. There are certain sounds you would expect from a action film. Firstly in terms of diegetic sound in an action film you would expect combat sound effects such as gun noises and punches.Secondly in terms of non-diegetic sound you would expect a slow, tense and serious soundtrack over conversation, to give the words an extra meaning but then a fast paced soundtrack over action to make the film appear to flow faster and make it rhythmic. We have followed this convention. When the characters are talking we have a slow violin soundtrack to make things tense but then a faster paced guitar and drums soundtrack when the action is taking place, this helps the audience to know what is going to happen before it actually does. While the title is on the screen, we hear a voice over from one of the characters and then a gunshot, which in this case is non-diegetic sound as you can't see the source of the sound. This makes the audience think that the character who owes the money is dead, but that could not necessarily be the case. This is done to keep the audience guessing and asking questions to make them want to watch on.

In our film, we focused on making sure the mise-en-scene was perfect. Mise-en-scene refers to the use of costumes, props and locations. These are the things that make your film look believable. We made sure our characters we dressed smart as you would expect from a loan shark and debtor, we surveyed many locations before picking the small room with a table and chairs to see which one was most suitable to be a loan sharks office. And we also brought in any props we needed like the cheque book and gun to ensure the story made sense. These are the things that you would expect from a typical action movie like James Bond.

                                                               

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For our titles we used the American Typewriter font. This font looks like it the font that you see from a old fashioned typewriter. This gives the film a vintage appearance. We were attempting to get this nostalgic feeling as our film could be likened to a gangster film, and this is something you would expect in a gangster film.

If you were to explain the iconography of the genre action you would say combat with guns and car chases. The two minutes of the film we produced there isn't much action, you could say it is unconventional. The only major convention we followed was the use of the gun. This was done to make the start fairly slow. We intended to return to the conventions of an action film later on once the audience has grasped the storyline, which would make the action more of a surprise and hard hitting.