Evaluation Q1

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

My film ‘String Along’ uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products through elements of form, characters, narrative, sound and Mise en scene. Firstly the form is an essential element that we observed in other movies and ours and manipulated it into our own. Camera techniques such as speed and pace in our film are sometimes medium to fast paced, the reason being for this is because the film is short, the mood and tension is vital in order to prepare the audience for the plot point, this effect is essential because the audience need to feel the tension of the atmosphere, they need to be aware that something is bound to go wrong with the characters and something big will happen. To perceive this kind of dramatic atmosphere in our audience, will, reflect on their reaction to the plot point, therefore ways in which we could achieve this atmosphere is through the use of camera pace, for example, towards the plot point more shots were cut and closely placed together, there are more shorter shots and no pans, to reduce the romantic atmosphere and prepare for the heart breaking plot point, this conforms to films of all types as it is typical to paces up shots prior to plot point. However there were pans that were medium to slow paced, such as the ‘day dream’ scene, this had shown that even though it has romance in it as a genre it still has a little speed in the shots which gradually pick up speed as we approach the plot point, other shots are medium to fast paced in terms of how long they are shown on screen and unlike most romantic films, such as ‘The notebook’ where shots are mostly slow and relaxed. Though, the reason films like The Notebook used this pace was because it is a film of constant romance whereas my film has a high show of dramatic plot points and dramas as that is one of the main genres of our film. So the next question may be.. ‘well, why is your film not mainly fast paced?’… Although my film is not primarily a romanticised film, it is also drama, so the combination of both means their needs to be a balance of both genres meaning elements of both genres such as speed of shots need to be combined well and suit each other, therefore the main use of medium paced shots suit as they are not too fast too fall into an action style or heavily dramatised film, or too slow to fall into a soft and heavily sensitively romantic film, but in the middle to create a balance between the romance and drama. Through Lighting, our film carry’s a lot of it’s own style. Unlike most films, romantic films, the lighting tends to be very natural or ambient, to create a sense of complete realism, such as ‘Monster-in-law’ where even though there is comedy in it the romantic scenes do have ambient or natural lighting, such as the beach settings where the sunlight glimmers. Our film however, contains heavy artificial lighting which shows the character as someone who lies and hides secrets and is not true to others, she has made herself the way she is and it is her herself that destroys fate with her own unnatural actions, this is shown through lighting in the bedroom, the main light is on at all times, the blinds are halfway closed, the dressing table lights she herself turns on and in the abstract scene the red lights artificially expose the abstract world with the strings of fate. The lighting also says a lot about the theme of ‘love, danger, and the strings’ that the red light symbolises, the lighting helps the audience to constantly link both worlds as Delilah wears a red dress and red props such as flowers and cushions that are shown in the real world so to link the abstract world, the red light is shown.
Characters are used to from films such as ‘Indecent proposal’ and even soap dramas such as ‘Eastenders’ where characters on cheated on. However, we have challenged the idea of who is the love triangle is focussed on. As we commonly find focus on the characters that are being cheated on us, we decided to make our main character the one who is cheating! This we imagined to be a more interesting approach to storyline and plot, as we begin to focus on the world and thoughts, desires and mentality of the trouble-maker and by doing so, adding an exciting thriller element to the whole film.
Narrative is an important structure which follows many forms and conventions of other media products, for example the tradition of the red string of fate follows the story of two people tied to their fate, they don’t know who this person is, but as they follow the string they will find there ‘love’, that is their fate. However, we subvert this idea and instead we added our on thriller like twist, where Delilah plays with the strings of fate and is attached to two men, so there are 3 characters in the red string of fate, traditionally there is just the one woman and man (in he Chinese fate), but Delilah continues in ignorance. This typical fate can be seen in many short red strings of fate clips but we are challenging tradition. Delilah herself destroys the strings of fate and in the end is completely unattached; the men leave her, the ties become untied, and the character breaks the tradition and chooses her own fate. Again, like most red string of fate clips we will find that the string is never broken, the string controls the two people bringing them together, however we then subvert it and we cause the strings break. Mise en scene is used to link to the red string of fate through costume, hair and make-up, where Delilah is seen in red mostly, a red stress symbolising her potential destructiveness, either the Red can be seen as positively as ‘love’ or negatively as ‘danger’, characters are usually associated with a colour/s to create a sense of identity to the character. Her hair is in curls/waves, we specifically done this style to give a hint of personality, her outgoing character, but also to show how the her hair (the string) can become twisted (knotted) which is shown through the style of her curls and waves and therefore events do not run smooth, her plans do not run smooth and like we see in the last scene of the film where her hair is messy we see the idea of the curls (string) falling out, untangling, symbolically showing the events exposed and revealed and inevitably causing destruction to the fate of love. The location is not a typical romantic setting, just a simple house will simple red carpet for the stairs and a simple living room with a few candles lit to ‘set the scene’ rather than a something like a restaurant or a beach even, such as monster in law which shows the beach setting in which the couple first meet. We use a simple setting to show how she attempts to conceal her cheating. Her body language is very confident and flirtatious when she takes James’s hand and leads him to the main room but also innocent at times (when she giggles), however when she leads him to the room we see that again she seems confident, she is in control over the relationship.