Evaluation Question 1

How our Film uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products

By Emily Smith

 

The genre of our film has been one of the main focuses throughout the research, planning, production and editing stages of our project. The way we planned to follow the conventions of this genre was by presenting realistic and believable situations, as well as authentic and natural characters.

 

The locations we presented were also used to create a realistic portrayal. We applied places such as  park, streets, car park and a hospital to show that the placement of the film concerns everyday living situations.

 

 

 

 

 

How we portrayed our main character was influenced by our research into similar films of the same genre. My Sisters Keeper's protagonist generated the biggest impact on our own character. Portraying this character in a negative way, such as committing crimes or not agreeing to save a loved one's life, makes audience feel angry or unsupportive of the character. This will have a greater impact on the audiences emotions when the true reason for their actions are explained. This concept both challenges and develops the conventions of the dramatic genre.

 

 

Ways in which our film subverts conventions of this genre includes the ending. The death of Hope and devastation of our main character challenges our audiences expectations. In most drama's, the plot concludes happily, leaving characters in a good situation. However, after researching elements of alternate genres such as crime and adventure films, we decided to challenge this convention. We planned to create an immense impact on our audience and to achieve this, we let our eponymous character die. This was not all, with the death of Hope, Destiny has failed. She was unable to save her sisters life and thus had committed numerous crimes for no reason.

 

 

In my research, I have found that the use of a voice over is an effective technique employed in other films of the same genre. Again my sisters keeper has been extremely influential in relation to this. Kate's farewell in the voiceover form, whilst going through her memory book creates a heart wrenching, emotional scene that engages and touches the audience. A similar reaction was hoped for as an outcome for our film and adaption of this technique.  

 

The majority of our film is created to send the audience through an emotional experience. Throughout the film, emotions of characters, along with the audiences emotions are expected to change and develop as the plot progresses. This applies to Richard Dyer's Theory of pleasures. In this theory, the use of these emotional differences in our film would be relevant to the intensity pleasure. This is where the audience have an experience of emotions that are directed and authentic, which our film does.

Continuity is a big factor in the creation and production of a film. To maintain continuity certain factors should be monitored and maintained. For example, a character cannot wear a blue hat one second and then a red one the next, it would make the scene look strange and confuse the audience. A rule of continuity that is normally followed in the 180 degree rule. However, we chose to challenge this convention in one of our scenes. We chose to do this only because it created a sense of confusion and chaos to watch, which was a reflection of the characters emotions during the scene where she is told her sister had died.