The document discusses a 5-minute short film called "Our Media Product" that uses the genre of social realism. It follows the lives of two best friends, one of whom commits suicide after being continuously bullied for kissing the other's ex-boyfriend. While social realism films typically have expected, realistic narratives, this film challenges conventions by including an unexpected, dramatic ending where the character hangs herself. It also takes time in the beginning to introduce the characters, which is uncommon for a short film. Overall, the film draws from social realism techniques but adds elements of thriller/horror and surprise to challenge expectations of the genre.

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

2. Our Media Product
Our Media Product is a 5 minute short film. We decided to stick to the genre ‘Social
Realism’ as we believe it was the easiest for our actors, as the acting should be true
to their every day life. With inspiration from the film ‘Mud Boy’ we wanted our social
realism film to have a big twist. We began with lots of different ideas however none of
them seemed very realistic. Therefore we resulted in making our ending of our film
have a twist of thriller/horror.
Our film follows the lives of two best friends aged 12. The film follows constant
bullying to one of the friends for kissing the others ex, until this eventually results in
suicide.

3. Social Realism Plot
All Social Realism films stick to storylines that will happen on a daily basis. This could
include fighting, domestic violence, bullying, gang crime etc. Although often positive
life aspects typically occur more than negatives, these are not usually seen in a social
realism film. The main focus is usually a negative issue.
Examples of this include:
Soft
A Short film about the impact of
bullying on everyone's lives. Not just
the victim but friends and family too,
and consequences bullying can have if
you target the wrong person.
Kidulthood
A film about the impact of suicide on
family and friends lives. It shows gang
crime and murders due to getting
involved with the wrong type of people.

4. Our Social Realism Plot
Our Social Realism film followed the life of 2 best friends. It shows the impact of
children being insensitive and immature can have. As one of the girls is dared to kiss
the other girls ex boyfriend, she does it out of peer pressure. Jodie is the fuming and
continuously makes digs to Karla to ‘kill herself’. When Jodie realises she should not
of been that harsh, she is too late.
Our Film:
Similarly to soft our film shows the
impacts bullying can have on both the
victim and bully. We have shown this
by Jodie seeing Karla’s death was
caused by her, and Karla killing herself
as a result of being bullied.
Alike kidulthood our film also contains
suicide. However our suicide takes
place at the end showing why it has
happened. Whereas Kidulthood’s
suicide is at the beginning showing the
after effects of it.

5. Camera Shots
Social Realism Films typically
have a large variety of shots to
express different emotions.
Close Up
We used this shot to see the anger
and disappointment in our
protagonists face. It is clear she is
upset/angry from this picture. The
screen shot is from Kes, where the
shot has been used for a similar
purpose.
Mid Shot
Both our film, and the screen shot
from FishTank have used this mid
shot so we can see from the
characters body language their
emotions. They appear angry and
upset.
Point Of View
Our shot, and a shot from Soft has
been used to express the point of
view of another person. This can
help to emphasise their emotions.

6. Editing
We experimented with an editing type that we are not
familiar. In order to create the sense of a news report
we felt we needed to add effects and a background.
We used the green screen to do this. Although most
social realism films do not include this we felt our
news report was similar to a usual TV news.
We also edited the ending of Karla hanging with a
blurred effect. This is because our aim was to
change the theme to horror at the end of the film. We
found many horrors make an ending jumpy by quick
cutting from something that can not be seen to a
clear scary image. We also used this effect to make it
look more realistic that she is hanging in the tree as
this shot was difficult to film.
Most Social Realism films have very little editing. They are supposed to look true to
real life therefore minimize the editing. The cuts and transitions run smooth. We
decided to have most shots roughly 3 seconds before cutting it. This is typical in most
social realism films. We also used ‘fade to black’ throughout a lot of our film to show
a change in time in the day.

7. Length
Most short films can range between 1-20 minutes.
This includes from start to finish. In order to make
sure we stuck to this convention we made our film
5 minutes, including the opening titles and credits.
If we had of gone over this time limit our film
would not be seen as a ‘Short Film’.
SoundOur short film lacks non-diegetic sound. This is because most short films do not edit
non-diegetic sounds into them. Similarly to editing this is to make it look more realistic.
Instead we have lots of dialogue between our characters. There is diegetic sound at the
end of the film. This is when the film has a sense of horror. Therefore we added the
creepy noise over the top to emphasise the horror in the film. In the scary part at the
end we had noticed the sound of birds throughout a lot of our filming. This non-diegetic
sound adds to the sense of fear. Although it is a nice sound, it is typically used in a
forest at night creating fear. It highlights no-one else is around as the sound of birds are
so evident.

8. IdentOUR FILM
OTHER SHORT FILMS
When creating our Ident we wanted to ensure we kept it
simple. We wanted a correlation between the name ‘Shine’
and the way the ident looked. We found most short films
do not have a big and bold ident. This could be because it
is so short, and important to stick to the short timing that
I found it extremely difficult to find Short Films with idents.
Almost every short film I came across just began with a
film title on a black screen and no ident. The films I did
find idents for are just plain white writing on a black
background. They are very basic and typically have
present after the name. They are quite small on the
screen and only appear for a second or two. I feel that
these idents are similar to the one we have created for our
film. Ours is basic, white writing on a black screen for a
short duration.
they choose to go straight into the film. To ensure our film looked like the beginning of
a film we chose to add one, however kept it very simple.

9. How does it challenge other
media products?
The Plot
Most Social Realism Films have a clear storyline throughout. The ending does not
typically surprise you it is a very basic and expected narrative. This is because they
are supposed to reflect reality. An extremely common ending to a social realism film is
a girl falling pregnant, or turning to drug crime. We feel we went against the
conventions of this. Although suicide is a convention of a social realism film it is not
often used. We chose to have a dramatic and unexpected ending of Karla hanging
herself. We thought this would shock the audience and alert them of the dangers of
bullying.
Our film also has a slow approach of introducing the storyline. We take a large amount
of the time to introduce the characters, which would be more common in a longer
film, not a 5 minute short film. However, we decided this way would be the most
successful in showing the 2 best friends on their way to school, clearly introducing
them to the audience before the main problems happen.