In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

2. CONVENTIONS WITHIN MY GENRE
• Avant-garde typically strays from conventions within film
• However, as my short film is more of an experimental documentary here are
some conventions of that:

3. CONVENTION/NORMALITIES OF
AVANT-GARDE
• Non-conformist
• No set rules
• Designed to challenge the making of conventional films (use of plot,
dialogue, content)
• Express more personal experiences
• Feature unusual, unthought of, or eccentric topics

4. AVANT-GARDE
• Avant-garde can feature footage in whatever way the director wants; this can
be to recontextualise existing footage or just change the order of how a film
normally plays out
• This can be done by removing vital parts of conventional films, such as
plots, essential characters, or meaning behind what the audience sees
• An example of an avant-garde film lacking dialogue is Bodysong, directed by
Simon Pummell. The entire film has no dialogue, just a Radiohead backing
track.

5. Bodysong (2003)
• Bodysong is set chronologically using existing footage from a wide range of
theatre and television.
• It uses its art form to depict interesting parts of human life, like religion and
conflict.
• In a way, these typical areas that have become a focus of films like Bodysong
are conventions of avant-garde, though they are all used in completely
different ways.

6. NEW
CONVENTIONS
OF AVANT-
GARDE
No dialogue
No plot
Focussed on important
aspects of life/people
Covers areas that
conventional films don’t,
e.g. conflict or art
Personal- often reflects
the director’s life, opinions,
or personal tastes
Exaggerated, often gruesomely
Not made for the audience-
Not everyone will enjoy it, but that’s
okay

7. Conventions: USED CHALLENGED DEVELOPED
No dialogue I had no speech in my short film I kept the original sounds in my
clips as well as the backing music.
Without speech, my film was
boring, so I used an instrumental
version of a song to play in the
background
No plot I had no set plot for my film,
but it was chronological
Focussed on people etc. The whole short film was centred
around one person and their
surrounding people
I only showed their most obscure
and interesting features
Not made for audience The film also showed my
preferences and interests
I made the film relate completely to
the audience themselves rather than
an ‘ideal’ version, typical to
conventional films
Exaggerated I romanticised the people featured
Personal The whole film was designed to
be personal to viewers and
show that the cast are human
too
Covers odd topics Films usually use an invented plot,
but this documented real life in a
film setting

8. GENRES MY FILM FITS INTO
• Experimental
• Documentary
• Avant-Garde
I am going to look into the conventions of a documentary short film, and see
how I have used, challenged, and developed the conventions of it.

9. DOCUMENTARY CONVENTIONS
• A documentary is typically non-fiction, intent to keep a record of events or
life in general. Conventions include:
• Camera- hand held, weather shots, bird’s eye view, close-up, long shot
• Extreme switching between cuts and topics
• Natural sound, spoken voice

10. MY FILM COMPARED TO “A PLACE LIKE THIS”
(DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM)
CAMERA – USING CONVENTIONS
WEATHER SHOT CLOSE UP OF FACE LONG SHOT

11. HAVE I DEVELOPED/CHALLENGED
THE DOCUMENTARY GENRE?
• Challenged the use of dialogue by not having any and using a backing track
instead
• Developed the camera shots by using canted angles and various distance
shots
• Had a slower progression between cuts and a few transitions when
introducing some characters