In what ways does my products use or challenge conventions?

My film used the conventions of a drama, as I used binary opposites in the characteristics of
the protagonist and antagonist, which helped me to symbolise the overall theme of rich vs
poor. Levi Strauss stated that binary opposites help to anchor audience identification, and
stereotypical conflict between the characters, therefore I wanted to follow the conventions of
short films, whilst the focus on character development between rich or poor helps to identify
with the drama genre. I specific example that demonstrates binary opposites is during a wide
angle shot that separates the characters with dead space, and I further exaggerated this by
creating two different colour grades for each side of the shot, to create warmer tones around
Ryan the rich characters, and blue, cold tones around the protagonist to show his
depressing state. Furthermore, I used mise en scene to drive the class barrier, as Ryan
wears a long camel peacoat, which is stereotypical for an East end businessman, however
Oscar wears a cheap hoodie that is too big for him, suggesting he has no choice over what
he wears due to his economic state. For this, I was inspired by the short film Top Floor,
which I deconstructed as part of my research for the drama genre. In that film, the binary
opposites occur between his real life and his false life, where his economic appearance
divide each other from how he appears at home, to how he presents himself at work.
Below is a screenshot from my film to show binary opposites.

As it is a drama film, I had to create a strong audience relationship with the protagonist, even
if he could classed as an anti hero. To do this I chose an actor who is around the same age
as my target audience, so the audience can have an emotional connection with him, and
during his troubles, relate to his narrative. I also had to create sympathy for the character, in
order for his action to be justified in the final sequence, so I chose to do this in the
establishing sequence of the act 2, buy using a tight close up of the characters sad facial
expression, whilst making the scene feel claustrophobic (below). Also, the long take wide
angles show how alone the character is, due to the connotations of having the subject small
in comparison to the composition. A good example of sympathising with the anti hero is in
the 2014 film Nightcrawler, as the protagonist kills an innocent person at the end for tv
fame. Nightcrawler creates the anti hero with the polite dialogue that contrasts his violent
actions, in conjunction with the majority of the film being shot at night to show the character's
dark side. I mirrored this when my character supposedly kills Ryan, and we still sympathise
with him, as the audience has seen inside the character's mind during the fantasy sequence.

I broke the conventions of a drama film by avoiding the narrative structure of propp's
narrative function, where he suggests a series of characters are required for a story, such as
the dispatcher and the damsel. I chose to only use the anti hero and the antagonist as I
wanted the characters to act as a microcosm of society, and this would be highlighted by
focusing on the two characters. Additionally, the use of only two characters helps me to
explore their motives and emotions more, so I can apply to the drama genre with character
development. I studied a short film called Locke for media last year that only had one
character, and I was inspired by this when writing the script in the pre production stage. The
opening dialogue where Oscar says hey Ryan, is that you? suggests the characters have a
history, so the audience understands the character relationship. This however leads the
audience into a false sense of security, as I created the twist where the audience finds out
this relationship is a figment of Oscars fantasy world. Furthermore, I wrote an ambiguous
ending to the narrative, that uses the semantics of a blood stained letter, to hint to a murder
that the audience doesnt see. This is considered breaking conventions as audiences often
prefer to have a closed ending, however films like inception demonstrate an open ending
can make the audience think about the story, long after watching the film.
I followed the conventions of a Short film poster, as it needs to be eye catching to draw the
attention of the target audience. I did this by creating a focal image that covers the entirety of
the poster, that uses the audience pleasure of colours and visual stimuli to attract interest. I
used a silhouetted central composition
subject in the foreground, with an industrial
location and sunset in the background. The
reason for this was to show how the
protagonist is looking forward towards the
light, representing how he wants to develop
in life, and move past the darkness.

This provides intrigue, as the audience

wants to understand the backstory of this
character, however as he is silhouetted, the
poster creates ambiguity because the
subject isn't shown in detail. Not showing
the actor in full is considered
unconventional in film posters, however as
the short drama film genre often has low
budgets (like my film), the actors aren't
recognisable, providing no benefit to
enticing an audience. Furthermore, I used a
technique in photoshop to create a keyhole
effect that creates depth from the front
layer to the main image behind, which
forces the audience to look deeper into the
poster, creating an emotional connection
between the image and audience.
Structurally I followed the conventions by
featuring the names of the director and
actors, whilst keeping the title of the film as the main focus. This was achieved by creating a
mask gradient, that transitions from the image to a black colour, providing a clean
background for the text to make it easier to see. The main source of my conventions for my
film poster was the short film poster of Alibi. I was inspired by the colour scheme of gold
and black , whilst structurally using a black border to give the appearance of a frame.

The film review followed the conventions of a magazine film review, that I was inspired by
the Empire magazine style. The reviews have heavy use of images in order to show
cinematography from the film, whilst showing the audience the actors that feature in the film,
similar to the poster, so I chose to feature the two main characters in the image with the title,
whilst having the featured image demonstrate the cinematography from the film. Empire also
use the three columned structure that I mirrored in my review, which I added to by creating
thematic graphics that quote lines from the film, by using grey shape layers in photoshop to
act as neutral backgrounds for the title, and additional information. On the title card I
featured the title (in the same font as the film) and a stars graphic to show the overall opinion
before the review, which mirrors the conventions used by The Guardians Online film
reviews.

To Conclude, I think I have successfully incorporated professional conventions in my

products to make them more relatable to the audience, as I was creating products within the
drama genre, so I was required to use stereotypes I had seen in real media texts. For my
film however, I often didn't follow conventions, to add to the disorientation factor of the
psychological drama that will disorientate the audience, and this was shown to be a
successful choice when looking at the positive feedback from my target audience.