1. Question 1
In what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP, or CHALLENGE
forms and conventions of real media products?
The media product that we created was a short film, my short film follows
many of the codes and conventions of other short films. There are many
things that I needed to consider these are like the length of a short film. A
short film is any film not but it is not as long as a feature film it is normally
about 3-10 minutes.Short films are usually made on a low budget and they
are therefore mainly independent films. The narratives in short films are more
compact than you would find in a long feature film. Short films normally start
with there being a situation that needs resolving. Short films nearly always
contain a ‘Twist’, the reason for twisting the storyline is to make the short film
more interesting as they are so short. Without a twist in a short film the
storyline would simply be uninteresting. In short films there isn’t normally a big
cast, there aren’t many characters within short films. Short films do not
generally have much dialogue the sounds used are natural sounds for
example sounds of birds and cars passing ect. However voiceovers seem to
be very popular in the films that I have seen. The mise en scene is important
in any film this includes lighting, props, setting and even costume. As budgets
are low in short films they tend to use natural lighting, everyday props and
settings as the narratives are usually everyday circumstances. Costumes
used are not fancy or extravagant unless the narrative demands this. There is
a lack of CGI (special effects) because of the low budget, also when editing
the cuts are fast moving. Short films in Britain are often shown or distributed
by British companies eg: Working Title. These films aren't very prominent in
the US. There are many websites that allow you to upload, view and comment
on short films these include: www.futureshorts.co.uk ,
www.thesmalls.com, www.pixar.com/shorts/ ,
www.independentshortfilms.org/,
http://www.coffeeshorts.co.uk/.Short films can also be documentaries
and music videos. Here is an example of a low budget documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeW4YOYabj8
I have used these forms and conventions of short film when creating our film
‘Light Through Darkness’ . The film is around 5 minutes long this
is matches many short films. Our film is low budget like many other short
films, the filming equipment that we used was from the school this meant that
we did not have to buy or rent any of the equipment. As we are sixth form
students we had no budget at all we would been able to afford of buy any
filming equipment.

2. The narrative of our short film is compacted, we created our short film to
happen over the course of two days unlike in feature films where the films can
take place over weeks, months and even years. For example the film in the
emotional drama ‘Ray’ the film is over the course of years and it also goes
back in time however years before. In our short film we included in the
narrative flashbacks however they are short and brief for example the
flashbacks to the car accident.
In the short film ‘Blind’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLXWsz_Xh0 in this film where a man
starts off with sight and you can see he is a talented painter, he then becomes
blind. We developed the idea of having unordinary events happening in a film
so we had a twist in our short film where you would not expect a blind teenage
to save a girl.
In the film ‘My Sister Keeper’ the character helps another character by
an older sister helping her younger sister who is suffering from an illness. In
our film we had the main character help another however we challenged the
idea by making the stereotypically weaker character help the other character.
We made sure that we had a lower number of characters in our film, this
because we wanted to follow the codes and conventions in short films that
had been researched previously.
An example of one these films is ‘Blind’ this short film have used the total
number of two characters. In our film ‘Light Through Darkness’ we
used total number of five characters.
Unlike in the short film ‘Blind’ we have challenged we have to total of two
main characters in the film this was the blind boy and the girl he saved they
are the two most important in the film. This is due to the fact that the blind boy
is important as the narrative is based around him and the girl is the second
most important as she is the change/event that happens, that affects the blind
boy. Other characters that make up the film is the mum and the boy’s friends
they may not be main characters but they still play importance in the film as
they help develop the narrative along without them there would be no flow.
In the short film ‘Living in the dark’ there is dialogue this is and also
around natural sounds for example the sound of the cars and buses. We
decided to develop and challenge this idea by using dialogue, natural ambient
sounds and also a soundtrack for the background music. We did use dialogue
however not as much as in feature films. The dialogue is very important within
the film as it shows how the character is feeling and what type of character
they are for example
From this section of the
script you can see that the
boy’s mother is very proud
of him and she is kind
caring and encouraging

3. Just like in the short film ‘Miracle Worker’ The soundtrack helps make
the film more effective. We have challenged and developed this idea by
adding two types of strong and emotive tracks depending on the events in the
film. We made the soundtrack parallel to visuals these conventions are
important to a drama as it adds the emotion just like in the short film
‘Miracle Worker’ where the sounds are diegetic and non- diegetic. We
decided not to challenge this convention as we thought it would help make our
short film seem more touching and it will allow the audience to sympathise.
There are many elements in short films that make up the mise en scene, this
includes things like the setting, we have used everyday settings we used a
house and the roadside, just like in the short film ‘Ray’ we developed the
idea of props we used everyday props for example the cereal and bowl.
However we used the idea of props by having props that are associated with
a blind person for example the dark glasses and the blind walking stick.
In conclusion I have made that my media product used, developed, or
challenged the forms and conventions of real media products. With relations
to the form of short films, the characters ,the narrative, sound and mise en
scene.