The document discusses how the film uses and challenges conventions of the romantic drama genre. It summarizes how elements like costume, lighting, props, setting, sound, and iconography were employed in the film compared to typical conventions. For example, costume was used to reflect the main character's emotions, while lighting and props followed conventions to create romance and drama. The setting and music also incorporated genre conventions to immerse the audience.

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

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. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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!

8. 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.