1. In What Ways Does Your Media
Product Use, Develop or
Challenge Conventions of Real
Media Products?
By MOHAMED RADWAN

2. Emulation
Our film is a Psychological Drama with a Horror influence. In order to fully
understand the conventions of our chosen genre and influences we analysed a set of
relevant opening sequences. The first of these was from the Drama, Green Street.
From Green Street we learnt that Dramas often introduced characters, settings and
ideas visually i.e. through props or by actually showing you a character and/or place
for example the leader of the gang stands in the middle of the group, indicating his
superiority visually. This was eventually emulated and developed within our own
production. The use of ‘blood’ to introduce darker ideas and by visually showing our
main character in a state of distress we emulated the conventions of real media.

3. Emulation
From another of our analyses, the analysis of Psychological Thriller, we learnt a lot
about introducing or suggesting the inclusion of psychological and theoretical ideas .
The opening sequence of Black Swan doesn’t tell you anything about or directly relate
to the main plot. None the less, we are presented with a series of images (a dance)
that are symbolic and reflective of some of the films influences. For example the use
of the male dancer to speeds up the dance reflects the ideas the movie explores about
the corruption of the main character. In my opening sequence, the juxtaposition of
children's music and suggestive club images also highlight corruption and explore
psychological issues, the relationship between adult life and childhood, as well the
use of the spiked drink to suggest danger before it is even shown, once again
emulating conventions of real media.

4. Emulation
The other way in which our film follows conventions of real media is via the use of
music. Our analysis’ told us that music is often used in opening sequences to suggest
ideas. I also used music during to communicate with our audience by using a nursery
rhyme, Twinkle Star, and mixing it with suggestive images. This juxtaposition not
only makes the audience nervous about what they are about to experience but also
helps introduce the ideas about the effect of our childhood with our adult/adolescent
lives.

5. Emulation
The analysis of the Trailer of ‘Dressed to Kill’ was also important in allowing us to
employ conventions that allow to express our intended horror influences. In ‘Dressed
to Kill’ we learn how Horror films suggest violence. They do this visually through one
or two objects. In ‘Dressed to Kill’ a knife is used. In our film we suggest a violence via
the use of blood as well as the suggestion of negative circumstances for at least one
character through the images of isolated-alcohol as well as the mixture of that with
medication. Both drinking-alone and with medication have become synonymous with
psychological issues as well as violence, and therefore the use of these images help tell
the audience that all is not well in our movie, at least initially.

6. Emulation
Through our research we discovered that Drama films often avoid fantasy and stick to realistic
concepts therefore our film has avoided the use of fantasy and the concepts in our opening
sequence, whilst suggestive of wide reaching concepts like life, death and danger avoid presenting
these concepts in a way which seems unrealistic. Therefore we use familiar things like blood and
alcohol to express messages. This realism helps the audience relate the films issues to their own
lives increasing how seriously they perceive these issues.
We also learnt that, like in Black Swan, psychological films like to keep an element of vagueness to
the plot of the film. We have emulated this. We have communicated enough to our audience so
that they may have a good understanding of the plot and the issues surrounding it but attempt to
keep an element of vagueness, and avoid explaining too many details early on. This allows the
audiences to hold various concepts in mind and have as many areas of the brain open to the film
in order to fully explore psychological elements more effectively in the film.
In terms of our films horror-influences, we knew that horror films often present a plot-climax or
problem early on in the film, like in horror film ‘Saw.’ We emulated this by presenting our main
characters problem early on alongside the introduction of the character. This means our audience
should subconsciously connect the character with problems seeing as they are introduced to the
character and the difficulty at the same time. This link between the character dilemma offers a
more uncomfortable, horror influenced side to our film by successfully emulating the conventions
of real media.

7. Titles
In our film we followed the conventions of opening sequences by including some main titles/credits in the sequence.
These included Director and Editor Credits as well as a reference to the production company.

8. Shot Selection
Our production uses the conventions of real media shots and angles to convey
ideas within the production. For example in ‘Terminator Salvation’ an extreme
close up of the main character is used to suggest his importance.
Next are some examples of how we used shot angles to express ideas in our
production.

9. Shot Selection
In our production, an extreme close-up is
also used to show the importance of our
main character. The shot is also high
angled showing his vulnerability.

10. Shot Selection
Isolating the alcohol in its shot also shows its
importance. Also, alcohol consumed in isolation
is synonymous with mental health issues and
will help introduce the audience to the
psychological side
of our production.

11. Equipment
Another way in which we aimed to
emulate real media is through the use of
equipment. We used during our filming
and editing tools such as boom poles,
tripods and high level video recording
equipment. The use of this equipment
allowed us to present a final product as
close to the level of production as real
media in terms of its presentation as well
as visual and auditory standards.

12. Prep.
Our preparation and pre-production
process was also meant to emulate the way
real media productions are prepared for.
This allowed us to organise ourselves in a
way that allowed us to successfully
emulate the required conventions of real
media production, in our case Hollywood
film.

13. Development and Challenging of
Genre Conventions In Our Film
As previously stated, the genre of our film is a psychological-drama with
horror influences. Our film is also intended to be in the style of Hollywood
blockbusters. This combination of genres has never been done before as a
major Hollywood film. In this way we are challenging the conventions of
genre in terms of Hollywood/Hollywood style films. We are also developing
the relationship between different genres and therefore developing those
conventions. Our film aims to mix different conventions and therefore
present our audience with a more wide-ranging and sophisticated film going
experience. The more genres and there conventions incorporated, the more
diverse the psychological experience of watching our film will be, and
hopefully then more fulfilling. However we have to be careful not to give our
audience not too much too think about and take away from the enjoyment
and entertainment of film. We believe we have done this by choosing three
similar, yet different enough, genres of film.

14. By Mohamed Radwan