This document discusses how a media production used and challenged conventions of the social realism genre. It examines the conventions around actors, topics, settings, and credits. The production met conventions such as using unknown actors, portraying the lives of young people in deprived areas, and showing different social classes. It challenged conventions like minimal editing. The document reflects on how the production could have better met conventions and applied theoretical frameworks like auteur theory and hegemony theory.

1. Question 1
IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

2. Genre Research Conventions of
Social Realism
 Unknown actors should be used.
 The topic of political and religious views should be expressed.
 The lives of young people living in deprived areas should also be
expressed.
 The display of different classes, especially the working class should
be portrayed.

3. Genre Research Conventions of Social
Realism – Which We Met and Challenged
 The majority of actors used in our production have no experience
of acting, and none of our actors have any experience of acting in
a film sequence. This means that we have met the convention of
using unknown actors.
 In our production we have not expressed to topic of religious views,
however we have touched on some small political views, such as
people in the lower working class stereotypically cause trouble for
the police, and also that in the end of our narrative we also speak of
the protagonist still being sentenced to jail due to the joint enterprise
law. I think that if we mentioned some more current political issues
we could have met this convention much better.
This screenshot is an example of the
stereotypical media representation of the
working class causing trouble, when the
police man enters the scene.

4. Genre Research Conventions of Social
Realism – Which We Met and Challenged
 We have also met the convention where the lives of young people
living in deprived areas should be displayed. The narrative of our
production is around the life of a teenage girl who has just moved to
a deprived area and in order to make friends she gets involved with
a gang that get her in trouble. I think we have met this convention
very well, as our narrative focus on the life of a young person in a
deprived area, and on the lives of the people around her,
expressing their social issues.
 I think that we have met the convention of displaying people in
different classes quite well. This is because our narrative focuses on
people within the lower working class, and expresses a number of
their social issues, such as poverty, violence and theft.

5. Form Research Conventions of
Social Realism
 Film opening sequences most commonly take this order:
 Name of studios
 Productions company
 Producers/Distributers
 Starring…
 Film Title
 Casting director
 Music
 Production Designer
 Film Editors
 Director of photography
 Producer
 Director

6. Form Research Conventions of Social
Realism – Which We Met and Challenged
 The credits in our production did not feature in the same order as
how we researched them, however, when we where writing the
credits, we based them in the order they where shown from the film
‘This Is England’ as its genre is very similar to ours.
 I think that it did not matter that we used a different order for the
credits to what we researched, as it still seems to look natural.

7. Other Main Social Realism
Conventions We Met
 We followed the convention of using establishing shots in order for
our audience to know where the scene is taking place. I think this
worked well, as each time we set the important part of the opening
(the inner city location and the Police station) really well.
 We also kept to the convention of using modern music from this era.
I think that worked really well, as the remix I created was upbeat
and gave an insight to the rest of the narrative through the lyrics.

8. Other Main Social Realism
Conventions We Challenged
 A convention we chose to challenge was the use of minimal
editing. This is because in our production we planned on having a
few flashback sequences, and in order to portray this we needed to
do a certain level of editing.

9. Times When We Could Have Been More
Adventurous at Meeting or Challenging
Conventions
 I think we should have met the convention of using a hand held
camera more often, as we would have been able to portray the
protagonist’s feeing much better.

10. Applying Theoretical Research to the
Conventions We Met or Challenged
 Auteur Theory: We can apply this theory to our production, as we
have made our production unique, as we have a female
protagonist rather than a male protagonist, going against common
conventions.
 Hegemony Theory: We can apply this to our production, as it
portrays a number of dominant ideologies about the lower working
class, e.g. violence.