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

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In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For my short film, I chose a social realist inspired by films directors such as Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold. I watched a range of films, including many from the Short Of The Week website, to glean information for my own production.

In terms of camera work, I was inspired by shots in films such as ‘Fish Tank’, ‘I, Daniel Blake’, ‘ Augusta, Gone’ and also music videos such as Hozier’s ‘Take Me To Church’ and Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ as my film is about a dancer.

In the social realist genre, editing tends to focus very much on continuity and creating verisimilitude through long-held shots, often stabilized hand-held shots, sometimes similar to a documentary style. Therefore I emulated these techniques in my own work.

For social realism, it was vital that I established a credible mise-en-scene with costumes, props and setting exactly as they would be in ‘real life’. Therefore, on location, I identified some boys who were riding their bikes and doing tricks in their coordinated Adidas tracksuits and side satchels and persuaded them to appear in my film as they were perfect stereotypical archetypal ‘male chavs’. My protagonist’s outfit was inspired by the soap opera ‘EastEnders’, specifically the character of Whitney who wears big gold hoop earrings, denim jackets and hair scraped back in a ponytail, as well as rather dramatic, thick makeup with false lashes, eyeliner and lots of contouring.

For my sound, I removed the diegetic sounds from most of my clips and added a non-diegetic soundtrack instead. This really subverts the conventions of social realism, where you might expect to have a much more ‘naturalistic’ soundtrack. However, I did this to augment and add value to my story: the lyrics of the songs I use reflect what is going on in the character’s life. I also found when showing my rough cuts to focus groups that the audience really enjoyed the music and felt it made sense in telling a story within five minutes. For example the lines “reaching for something”, “had another chance” and “I’d make things right” emphasise my key themes of survival and seizing opportunities in tough socioeconomic circumstance, as my protagonist has suffered domestic abuse and poverty.

In terms of Propp’s narrative theory, my protagonist is initially shown as a hero through the way she has to overcome a series of obstacles to achieve her ultimate goal of becoming a dancer. Her parents and the rest of society are the ‘villains’ of this narrative, and in this way my story is representative of the social realist genre, which often represents characters who tend to be overlooked by society. In a way, the leaflet Phoenix finds serves as the ‘despatcher’, as well as being a symbol of freedom and redemption because it is the ‘key’ to her escape.

As Barthes enigma code tends to be essential to any conventional narrative, my story opens with several questions for the audience, which then continue throughout – why my protagonist is stealing from a shop? Is she going to be caught? Why are her parents abusing her? How is she going to get out of this situation? Is she going to succeed at the dance audition? Furthermore complying with Barthes semiotic code, when my protagonist begins her journey through the motorway underpass, the graffiti on the wall is symbolic of the challenge to authority that Phoenix also represents as she doesn’t fit in with accepted social codes of behaviour. Her costume is also symbolic of her position in society particularly her enormous hoop earrings, which immediately suggest to the viewer an archetypal chav.

Claude Levi-Strauss has a ‘structuralism’ theory based on binary oppositions being the fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language. I use this within my short film, as Phoenix is a binary opposite to her parents. What Levi – Strauss discovered was that myths were all made up from binary oppositions. You can’t see the good in person without the binary opposite of a bad person, and so on. Binaries are argued to bring balance to society, so Phoenix’s parents represent the villains, while my protagonist phoenix is the heroine.

Conventionally, a film needs to be targeted at a specific audience and so for my short film I considered the audience pleasures outline in Blumler & Katz Uses & Gratifications theory, based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The theory states that rather than the hypodermic needle idea where media are ‘injected’ into the audience, we select to watch films based on our needs and desires – for entertainment, information, identity or relationships. Typical of the social realist genre I think my audience might be looking for information on a lifestyle different from their own. Or indeed they might be young people questioning their own identity who can empathise or identify with my main character. Finally my short film provides entertainment because it tells an interesting story with an engaging character and arresting soundtrack.

Finally intertextuality is very important for narratives and I gained inspiration from other texts for my film, such as Lola Rose by Jacqueline Wilson. The narrative of this story is based a violent father figure, who drives the mother and her two children away. This figure is the inspiration behind my hot-headed father character. Therefore this is how I’ve created “The making of the new and the rearranging of the old” (Bentley, 1997).