IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Evaluation 1

genre• All films within the short film genre have narratives that have a conclusion, even if this conclusion is ambiguous. We conformed to

this convention as Paperweight has a conclusion consisting of the mother deciding to go back and be with her daughter. There is both a preferred meaning of this also with implicit suggestions that this situation is recurring and maybe one day she won’t be able to face going back inside. Even the short film Point Of View, one that we researched, which is also an impressionist short, has a concluding scene despite have a very limited narrative.

• Location is often an anchorage to a social realist short film using council estates and run-down areas to directly show the audience where the characters in the film are from. We conformed to conventions by using a location that was home-based and only using one main location. However we also developed these conventions by basing our short in a more middle-class setting which is rarely done.

• With sound we very much conformed to the conventions of the short film industry in the social realist genre. We used very naturalistic foley sounds mostly making use of the diagetic sound recorded on the microtrack throughout each scene. This was seen a lot in our research, short films such as An Ordinary Day or Bear very obviously only used diagetic sound to make the film as real and naturalistic as possible. In terms of non-diagetic sound we also conformed to conventions that can be seen in short films like The Barberless Barber. A simple piano track that helps exaggerate the different moods of the main character throughout the film, this is a short film convention for the social realist genre because this type of music on top of the film can work in both explicit and implicit ways to express mood and tone without seeming too big and ornate for the film itself.

• Lighting in social realist shorts is extremely naturalistic as shown in shorts such as Jump and Kafe, Kafe as an example is filmed using all interior shots using only the natural sunlight from through the windows as lighting. This natural style is an explicit anchor for this genre. Paperweight conforms to these conventions using mostly natural light or only lighting that is meant to look naturalistic anyway, however we developed the convention by more carefully considering colour than is normal. For example in shots such as Amelie sitting on the sofa surrounded by colourful cushions, or the very clinical and white kitchen where Amelie calms down, and the continuously pastel coloured shots that make up the initial breakfast scene.

• For the graphics we conformed to the conventions shown in short films, most use very modern, sans serif typefaces such as we used Avenir Next. We also had the title of our film at the beginning, main credits during the opening scene, and finally rolling credits at the end of the film. This sequence can be seen in almost all short and feature length films.

the barberless barber

narrative• The narrative of our short film followed conventions of several socially real shorts we watched, in

conventions the short film either has an open or closed ending dependant on the style and length. Our film has an open ending; it’s ambiguous as to what happens next where as in other shorts a cyclic beginning middle and end occur. Our film follows Todorov’s theory of Equilibrium, it follows a 3 step structure, that shows an initial normality, a moment where a problem occurs and then a changed solution, not the one you expect or are necessarily satisfied with but a conclusion all the same.

• Our narrative conforms to open ended conventions in that when focusing on an issue such as autism, the film allows the viewer to conclude the story or take their own opinion. Levi-Strauss argued that all meaning and structure comes from binary opposites, a theme we follow throughout our film, putting order against chaos and old against young, mother against daughter. Frank O’Connor also notes that all short stories are about outsiders that also conform to our film, many short films do also follow this technique, about someone outside the norm. The film Little Miss Sunshine, uses a theme and narrative about a dysfunctional family, stuck in a similar circumstance. We depict our lead character in the film through silence, the young girl is mute throughout and we do this to enhance her disability, the audience should feel something is not quite right about her. We have a hegemonic narrative in this regard as our preferred reading is that the audience feels the mother has to go back into the house and the audience will feel sorry for the child. This convention is used throughout drama’s, where the audience is made to feel a certain way about a character through the way they’re presented whether it be camera angles, editing or costume, as directors we had a clear symbol we wanted to put across. Tennessee Williams once said that ‘on the stage, more can be said by the silences’ and this is certainly true in the simplicity of our film, the drama comes from what’s implied rather than what’s literal.

Little miss sunshine

location• Like many of the short-films we studied such as Apricot, our films environment

needed to be symbolic of the characters around them. The painting behind the breakfast table for example is a large hand painted canvas that contrasts from the sterile and ordered surroundings that foreshadows the approaching chaos in the film. The choice to use only one location, the house came from a short convention that the simpler everything is, the more effective it will be.

• We chose a lovely, well-kept suburban house with some excellent design features to show wealth and symbolically, the simplistic design of the house and use of colour in the kitchen, the living room and office all aid the storytelling and representation of our characters, which is key to the social realism genre.

• In the short film Sight, a seven minute short, only two locations are used, both very similar and this is to show the control that the lead character has over the other character. His living room (the first location) has a similar colour palette and design as the restaurant he goes to for his date, showing his control over the situation. We adopt a similar technique in our film, which conforms to short film conventions, especially in the Social realist genre.

sound• Taking inspiration from films and TV that autistic children might

watch, then combining that with the classical influence of our musician Cameron Jacobs, we were able to create a ‘child-like’ soundtrack that was symbolically more complex and frantic during the stress scene and simpler in the calmer moments. Importantly however, the sound was similar throughout to draw on continuity, the same melancholic piano is used in the child’s scenes and a similar, heavier style is used in the mother’s scenes.

• In terms of diegetic sound we wanted mainly ambient noise with very little dialogue to show the ignorance of the mother and highlight the common fact that autistic children develop speech late and communicate more commonly through movement and expression. Therefore sounds like the Rubik’s cube we amplified to show this lack of speech and enhance the gravitas of the motif.  

character• Following the theme of binary opposites we chose a mother and daughter as our two

characters, we knew from watching lots of short films such as Apricot or Concrete. By having only two characters we were conforming to conventions because it meant we could spend more time really developing those characters and making them the best they could be. We really thought about their lives and who they were and then relayed this to the actors so that their performance would’ve been better.

• When deciding on actors and characters we looked at a number of films for inspiration, typically in shorts, opposites are presented that either clash or come together regardless of the topic. For example in Sight, a man and woman are shown on a date, they are two opposites; their contrast creates the storyline. Again in Side Effected, a worker and his boss are contrasted; you are given two archetypes, the no-nonsense boss and the petrified young employee, again it’s their contrast that creates the storyline. Similarly in our film we used archetype’s conflicted against each other to create dramatic tension and a narrative.

• Both actors are slightly abnormal looking; both have blonde hair and blue eyes and are both attractive. We dressed the young girl in pink to bring out her complexion. Conventionally, directors choose good-looking, slightly quirky looking cast that the audience will remember. We aimed to do the same in our casting. 

studio (ident)• We chose to make our ident look a bit budget

due to the fact that it was for a company that would be producing/distributing a short film. This would most likely mean that the company was a very small independent one that would produce and distribute the film by themselves.

• The film would be produced on a very low budget (as Paperweight was) and distributed online to sites such as Vimeo and Youtube. It may also be entered into some short film competitions or be seen at small festivals. For example the 2 studios that we researched were Brass moustache and Pico Pictures, both had very simple and low-budget styles.

• We also added effects on Final Cut Pro X to the ident, both ‘negative’ and ‘bad tv’. These gave a better aesthetic to the image that we used in our ident.

• The different camera movements used in motion were also very simple, this reflected the low-budget style and tone that we were aiming for.