1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

2.   I have created a film poster, magazine cover and trailer in order to promote a film concept that we originally came up with.  The reason for this promotional package is clear; to advertise the film. People tend to see films on the assumption they will like it due to word of mouth, director, actors starring and genre. It is massively important to portray our film in the correct way through advertising to capture our target audience. The way in which this is achieved is by sticking to and challenging certain conventions of genre and advertising. Purpose

3.   We expect to see the name of the film and release date at some point.  It is snippets of the film that give the audience an idea of what they can expect without giving away to much of the plot.  We expect to see actors names and rewards or quotes.  Music and backing tracks.  Voice over.  Names of actors. Trailer conventions

4.   ACT 1: Start off by gathering an understanding of her normal lifestyle. Her normality is along the lines of: she lives two separate lives- 1) family life: traditional Muslim (clothes, values, beliefs). 2) Normal teenage life: friends, school/college, boys, shopping etc. We see scenes from her personal and family life and can instantly make and see large contrasts and make our own comparisons. Already we have an introduction to a potential problem; a choice between two lifestyles. Can these two ways of life properly exist alongside each other?  ACT 2: PROBLEM- Parents find out that, out of home, their daughter is not the ‘good’ traditional Muslim girl they think she is. Her already oppressive home situation escalates hugely until it’s unbearable- she is now left with a choice; to conform to her parent’s way of life, or to run away. Factors contribute to her dilemma (she has suffered racial abuse when wearing her traditional clothing and can’t imagine having to suffer this every day because of the clothes she wears. After a lot of deliberation she decides to try and tear away from her religion- easier said than done.  ACT 3: After making the decision to break away from her religion she begins the journey, planning and problems with her decision. Lots of emotional events and arguments with her family. We want to portray it as a ‘dark time’ but with a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ She learns to hate her religion and blames it for the bad in her life. The end will be her (in some way) finally leaving to get away. Trailer

5.   The above slide shows a three part treatment made to relate to our film concept. Certain parts of this were picked to portray in the trailer for 2 reasons, one to depict conventions of our chosen genre and two because of certain practicalities.  We included scenes of our main character having a conflicting life, half consumed by religion and half by her private life. The reason we strayed from the family side of things is because it was impractical in terms of actors etc.  Our trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=7rfzAgOiF9g http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=7rfzAgOiF9g

6.   The main reason we used a voiceover is because it allowed us to properly explain the story. By doing it through the voice of our main character it means the audience immediately form a relationship with our character and it becomes more personal. This method has been used in other social realism trailers such as this is England.  Our voiceover was performed by our main character and the chart on the right shows some other functions that the voiceover has. Voiceover

7.   Nick Lacey thought that genre could be defined by the following:  Iconography- visual signs or sounds associated with film genre  Narrative- it could be defined by the path the story took. So the equilibrium, how it is interrupted and how normality is restored.  Mise en scene- typical locations, settings, lighting etc  Characters- costume, performance  Cinematography.  I think Nick Lacey is accurate but I think that you could further this by adding the fact that genre tries to make a film personal to an individual. It evokes emotion and feeling of a specific kind on people. For example, social realism want to make people feel the pain of someone else's experience.  Film genre is so that the audience can recognise the type of film. We develop expectations of narrative and structure and this is largely what people will base going to see a film on. It is useful in the way that it allows people to pick a film to compliment what mood they are in e.g. if they are in a bad mood they might want to watch a comedy to cheer them up. Film genre

8.  There are a number of films that I looked at to help in my initial genre research:  Fish tank – the relevance this had was that the main character is a young girl. Although her problems are very different she gives a feeling of loneliness and struggle relating directly to what we wanted to portray in our main character.  Kidulthood – this gave us an idea of how modern day youth culture is portrayed. We wanted our main character to have some/be interested in aspects of this youth culture stereotype.  This Is England – although set in the past, it gives us an idea of what sort of surroundings and living standards the working class are betrayed as having. We want our character to live in a working class family to give the feeling that her ethnicity and religious beliefs is restricting her in society. An example of how we followed conventions in production is how we portrayed scenes (for example drinking outside the shop) as quite gritty. Initial genre research Although we did research in post-apocalyptic film genre as well as social realism, as soon as it became apparent that we were going to be doing social realism that became our main focus.

9.  We introduced our character first through voiceover. In this she is describing what we are seeing on screen. We portrayed her as a young Muslim girl who is trapped in a normality she does not want to be in. This is developed as the trailer continues as we find out about her problem and how she wishes to solve/escape it. We tried to show her as an innocent character so the audience will instantly have sympathy for her. This way they will want to see how her story unfolds and concludes; whether she solves her problems and if she finds a normality that makes her happy. The equilibrium is one that she is not happy with: She lives in a strict religious home life while trying to maintain a ‘normal teenage’ lifestyle outside of the home. The problem is trying to escape from this lifestyle she leads. The solution is to run away, however this is not shown as a conclusive point in our trailer only a possibility that she starts to follow through with.

10.  Magazine cover I decided to use Little White Lies as a template. The reason being that I feel this would attract our target audience. Furthermore the graphics they tend to use have cartoon effects which would appeal to the younger audience. Other films that we are aspiring towards have also been on covers for Little White Lies, for example this is England. The covers are simple with a minimal amount of writing, this appeals to youth as they are attracted to simplicity. Life can be confusing as a young person so for that reason simple things are interesting. This is shown in our concept: Anita craves a simple life but is torn between two different ways of living. The image has a filter affect on it to make it appear slightly cartoon like relating to the usual magazine covers by Little White Lies. The image itself depicts a Muslim with bars over the eyes of her head scarf aiming to depict how one can be trapped by their religion: in this case the Islamic faith.

11.  Film poster This is similar to a conventional social realism movie poster. It displays awards and quotes as a main focus. The reason these awards and quotes are so important to a social realism film poster is because they tend to be independent films. These ‘Indy’ films don’t have the money for well recognised actors or directors to attract an audience. They have to base there advertisement on the quality of their film. This is done by having it seen, analysed and talked about. People feel they can rely on the opinions of authorative figures. The star rating furthers this security of trust in the film. The star lite movie festival logo shows that the film was good enough to be shown at a film festival and gained the support of experts in independent film.