The document discusses how the film uses and challenges conventions of the romantic drama genre. It summarizes how different elements of film production, such as costume, lighting, props, setting, sound, and iconography, were employed in the film to either conform to or diverge from typical romantic drama conventions. In particular, costume was used to reflect the main character's emotions throughout the film, and flashbacks were incorporated to demonstrate the breakdown of the relationship. Within the constraints of a low budget, lighting and props still played a role in communicating the genre, while music strove to fit the theme of reflecting the relationship.

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

2. GENRE
The genre for our short film is hard to pin point
however, I would say the genre that best describes it
would be romantic drama. Romantic drama is a hybrid
genre and tends to use conventions from both genres.
Although the genre is applicable to both sexes,
females find this genre the most appealing. In our
short film, our target audience is females aged 16-25,
which I think is a typical target audience for romantic
dramas, however because our short isn’t only about
romance and about mental health issues too I feel it
opens us up to a wider target audience than a typical
romantic drama.

3. COSTUME
Costumes in a romantic drama do not normally tend to follow typical
conventions, they usually just reflect the characters personality, eg in
Dirty Dancing Patrick Swayza’s character mostly wears black
throughout the film to reflect his very hard tough guy attitude in film,
whereas Jenifer Greys character typically wears white to reflect her
innocence. In our short film we wanted to use costume to reflect
James’s emotions throughout the film, as you can see in the
beginning of the film he is wearing light colours such as white and
light blue to represent his calmness and happiness when he first
meets Lauren. However towards the end of the film he is mainly seen
in the colour black to reflect his broken heart. I do not feel this is a
typical convention of romance dramas however I do feels some
romance dramas do use this technique to subconsciously show the
audience how the character is feeling.

4. BEGINNING VS END OF
FILM

5. LIGHTING
Although lighting is a strong part of creating romance
in romantic dramas, because we was on a low budget
and could not afford lighting, we didn’t make a thing
of it. Typically, romantic dramas use high key lighting
which signifies romance and joy and to contrast to low
key lighting which signifies drama and tension.
However, most romantic dramas use natural lighting
as a backdrop to communicate normally. In our short
film we did intend to use lighting as a key concept,
and Megan did end up bringing a builder’s lamp
however after 20 minutes we managed to break it.

6. PROPS
There are usually no set props in romantic
dramas, usually objects associated with
romance such as Champaign, chocolates and
flowers. Although our short film isn’t a typical
romantic drama we did incorporate flowers
which played a significant role in showing the
breakdown of James and Laurens relationship.

7. SETTING
There is also no typical setting in regards to romantic
dramas; they can be set anywhere from the North
Atlantic Ocean (titanic) to 1940s South Carolina (the
notebook) therefore there was no typical convention
for this. On and Off was set in the suburbs of East
London in the modern day. However a typical
convention for romantic dramas are flashbacks and
flash-forwards which we used in On and Off use quite
heavily to help demonstrate the breakdown of the
relationship and also used as a tool to help the
audience reflect with James whist he is reminiscing his
relationship with Lauren.

8. SOUND
Sound in any film is used to create mood and atmosphere for
the audience. Therefore in romantic dramas the director wants
to create a romantic mood or vibes for the audience, therefore
typical music would be love songs if the character is going
through heart break, or upbeat songs if the two characters are
loved up and happy. For our short film production, we were
only allowed to use royalty free music, so therefore popular
music was off the cards. Instead Megan, Gina and I intensively
searched the internet for royalty free music which fitted the
theme of our short film- as the film is reflecting the
relationship of James and Lauren wanted a slow, slightly sad,
piano piece which got heavier and more heartfelt towards the
end- which luckily Megan found!

9. ICONOGRAPHY
Iconography is used heavily in romantic dramas to
subconsciously tell the audience what’s going on in
the film. We mainly did this through costume, as
stated before. When the relationship was going well we
mainly dressed James in light colours, however when
the relationship was going badly, we would dress him
in dark colours. In the scene where James gives Megan
flowers, this was where it was evident that the
relationship was coming to a quick holt, therefore we
dressed Lauren in a black dress to symbolise this.