How I Live Now Film Research

1. Conventions from Real Media Texts
(How I Live Now 2013)
Rachael Sampson

2. How I Live Now
How I Live Now is a film with similar features
and morals to my media film. The Protagonist –
Daisy is very similar to Olive, as she doesn’t
know who she is herself and is presented as very
anti-friendly at first. However as the film
develops, her wall comes down.

3. Daisy

4. Character
The character of Daisy is something I am very
interested in. Her traits match those of Olive.
Elizabeth (aka Daisy) is a 15-year-old from New York.
She comes to Britain to live with Aunt Penn out of
spite toward her father and her stepmother. She falls
in love with Edmond and begins a relationship with
him. Daisy is described as spunky, steadfast, and
selfish at times. -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Live_Now

5. Applied Real Conventions
The inspiration gathered through this film and character has
allowed me to see what has an effect on the audience. I like
how this film shows a strong sense of identity, or more
specifically loss of identity. She doesn’t know who she is and
feels like a burden in the world. I think that this is a very
important theme for my short film as it is highly relatable to my
target audience of young adults. As the film progresses we see
her wall come down. This is over a period of 2 hours. For my
media film, I need to make the barrier dissolve over a shorter
period of time. This then sparked the idea of allowing her to
have an ‘epiphany’ of some sorts. An accident, knocking her
unconscious, where she is then in a dream world and sees
herself as a ghost, therefore she is able to see what the world
would look like if she wasn’t in it.

6. Genres
The key genres in this film are; romance, dystopia?
– debateable, war, loss, friendship, adventure,
thriller.
The adrenaline built up throughout this film makes
the audience feel like they are unable to take their
eyes off the screen, and that is something I am keen
to create with my short film. (A world where she is
dead. Unbeknownst to the audience, she has just
passed out and they are seeing her subconscious.

7. Mirror Scene
There is one scene in this film that I am very eager to take
inspiration from and include in my short film.
Daisy looks at herself in the mirror and we hear the voices in her
head saying things such as “drink water” “don’t eat chocolate”
“lose weight” “30 minutes of exercise every day” “fat” etc.
These voices are overlapping and whispering in different
volumes. I found this scene to be very powerful and it really
showed what the protagonist is struggling with in her daily life.
Thus, relatability for the audience, as it is common to have an
inner battle of turmoil and feel like they are worthless in a world
which is based and controlled around appearances.