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1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop and
challenge conventions of real
media products?
Evaluation Question 1

2. British social realism films aim to add elements of real life scenarios that people
go through in order to create a raw and relatable effect to the viewer. The
whole point of British social realism films is to step away from the bright lights
of Hollywood and into the real world where clichés do not exist and a world
where the audience does not know what is going to happen next. Although the
topic of gang violence has been seen in films such as Legend with the Kray
brothers and Goodfellas there has not been many films that shows realistic
aspects of gang violence for the youth in this generation. We wanted to
challenge the typical stereotype that all gangs are dressed in a suit and tie and
ride around in fancy cars in order to show a more realistic approach of what the
struggles are for the kids on the streets today who have been led down the
wrong path.

3. One of the main characteristics that we added in our film that created BSR
effect was filming in real locations. The majority of our locations was in our
school as Emmanuel is a young student who was trying to escape his drug and
gang related past. We had also filmed outside in order to get the chase scene
done. This is because if we had filmed the chase scene in school it would not
make sense as many questions would float about as to why there are gangs in
school and who let them in. We had also managed to take the time to go and
film at my house in order to show the aspects that Emmanuel does what every
other teenager does after school which is go home, eat and play video games.
We wanted to show this because it shows that Emmanuel is trying to alter his
life into becoming a normal kid after his drug and gang related past haunts him.

4. We had tried to add an element of surprise into our film by showing that
Arianna was in actual fact the set up girl. There was moments in the film that
made the audience suspicious about Arianna such as when Slitz was trying to
warn Emmanuel of the girl explaining that he shouldn’t trust her. Despite the
warnings Emmanuel chooses to ignore his best friend which the audience finds
out later that it was a bad mistake. We wanted to add some sort of surprise in
our film without making it a cliché so having Arianna as a set up girl for
Emmanuel's arch nemesis Solomon was the perfect surprise that many people
would not expect.

5. Furthermore after we had used some characteristics in our short film from
British social realism we thought it would be a good idea to develop some of
them in order to make our film better. Usually in British social realism they try
to show an truthful aspect of the real world. In most of these films the main
protagonist always ends up in a bad situation which takes people away from the
happily ever after of Hollywood and into the real life struggles of the real world.
We developed some of our characteristics in our film to show this because we
wanted to add all elements of British social realism in our film. However we
tried to show how Emmanuel's life is beginning to change in the end so that the
audience have a sense of happiness for the character for escaping his past. This
adds a small element of Hollywood that shows that the character is going to
have a good life by the time the film ends. However we don’t fully portray that
in the end because we don’t give away too much that this is true.

6. We had shown aspects of ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ in our film by characters
mentioning in the film every know again about Emmanuel's past with selling
drugs and being involved in gangs. This is done because we did not want to
physically show the character dealing drugs due to the fact that he is trying to
escape from his past life. This is why we thought mentioning it in the film every
know and again would be much easier to portray to the audience that he used
to follow down the wrong path. There are important moments in the film that
give away that he used to be involved in gang related business such as when he
runs into his nemesis Solomon. We see in this scene that Solomon questions
him about where his money is and that he even chases him trying to punish
him for what he has done to him.

7. In our film we used a range of different camera shots in order for the audience
to see the shots from different perspectives. The shots we used are commonly
used in most British social realism films. The shots that we used consists of
close ups, over shoulder, tracking shots and long range shots. These shots are
all good for our film as we wanted the audience to feel as if they are in the
movie themselves but just watching from the side. For example when we show
the scene where Emmanuel pushes Solomon we tried to film it in many
different shots in order to find the best ones and put it in. One of the shots we
used for this scene is medium shot to show everyone's reaction to Emmanuel
pushing Solomon. It is always good to get everyone's reactions in the shot so
that the audience can get a visual representation of what their actual reaction
would be.

8. Ways in which we challenged conventions is by keeping on the same costumes
throughout the film. This is to show that regardless of whether it’s a new day or
not the characters still have the same costumes on at all times. This would
usually not be seen in British social realistic films due to the fact that whenever
there is a new day the characters are always in different clothes than the
previous day. However in our film we decided to keep the characters in the
same clothes to show that due to the poor conditions the kids live in by getting
caught up in the streets all the time their parents probably do not earn a
sustainable income to be able to buy their kids new clothes for going out or
even for school.

9.  In the end with a combination of filming in real life locations, using a range
of different camera shots, challenging other British social realism films and
taking a step away from the bright lights of Hollywood I am able to say that
we successfully made our short film.