The document discusses how the opening scene of the film "Grass Roots" develops and challenges conventions of real sports media. It establishes the conventions of football through its title and develops the main character's journey. It challenges conventions through its urban locations, casual costumes, and precise camerawork. The unique storyline and lack of clear genre in the opening scene also challenge conventions. The character introduction develops forms seen in many sports films.

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

2. Jason Warland
Starting with the title of the film, ‘Grass Root’s
develops the conventions of football as when
myself and the majority of the target audience see
the words grass they will think about a football pitch.
Also the ‘Roots’ has connotations with growing,
beginning and developing, this shows the stage
where the main character is in his football career
and how he want to play football but society and
his parents are slowing him down, however I feel
that we have failed to show this in the opening
scene but it is hinted at in the soundtrack, and some
of our audiences made this connection.
Furthermore the final shot in our opening scene
gave us the initial idea of the name of the film, as it
was our favourite shot because of David's amazing
focus pull that really symbolized the end and also
because the shot was quite literally taken from grass
roots.

3. Jason Warland
Location and costume
We set the opening scene in two locations one was an urban
location in Middleton Cheney next to garages with graffiti on, this
locations would stereotypically conform the stereotype of a
young/un-proffesional footballer because they often come from
undeveloped backgrounds because football is a relativity cheap
to do because all you need is a football and an area to
play, whereas the conventions of horse-riding and cricket is scene
as a sport that’s available for the rich so the locations would be in
the countryside or in a more developed, classier location. The other
location is a football ground and this is a convention of nearly
every real media product that has the idea of football in the heart
of the film and the main storyline for example there is a football
ground on ‘Bend in like Beckham’, ‘Goal 1,2,3 & 4’. It’s a symbol to
the audience as when they see a football stadium they will know
what the film is about.
The costume in the picture to the left is what the character was
wearing in the street scenes, I feel that it challenges the forms and
conventions because you would expect a football freestyler to be
wearing proper football trainers and wearing his favourite
footballers shirt, however I feel that when we where constructing
this scene we had made the right choice as it shows the characters
casualness when performing amazing skills and trick. This gives the
audience an idea about his ability with a football and get the
audience backing him up when he will be arguing with his parents
when they don’t let him play football later in the film.

4. Jason Warland
Camerawork and editing
In the other shots the main character appears in a football kit, that’s
looks very professional so the audience can tell he is playing for a
team. This develop the forms and conventions of real media
products such as ‘Goal’.
After filming we had so many hours of footage, we must have took
every shot at least twice to make sure we had got a good one, and
also we when back to both locations to retake our footage to make
sure it was as good as it I could be, this mean that all our shots where
perfectly still I feel that we challenging the conventions because if
you look at football films such as ‘The Dammed United’ and ‘Bend it
like Beckam’ where the camera work is made to look rougher and
not a cleanly taken and this fits in with the lower class/ street genre
that we see in both films and mine, however we all felt that
challenging it was a better idea as we want to show the precise side
of football and it will be nice for the target audience to watch as
during this task we don’t have the ability to be able to make moving
shots/urban style shots look professional.

5. Jason Warland
Title font and style
The font that we use in the opening scene is a basic, modern
font because this looks professional, this develops the forms
and conventions of real media products such as skyfall and
green street which s a football film. This is because audiences
want to be able to see the directors, actors and company's
clearly. Also ‘Arial’ the font we chose fits in with our opening
scene without taking the attention away from the actual
shots. Our title font is from a font website that we found, we
selected it as the broken brick pattern on it felt urban and
linked in with some of our scenes also it was clear and
matched with our final shot.

6. Jason Warland
STORYLINE
I feel that our storyline is unique to any football related film that I have ever
seen and this is simply because of the switching of scenes showing the same
character but at different times. We did this to show the contrast in his life or
playing football on the streets and playing for an actual team at a stadium.
However the storyline is very similar to Bend it like Beckham because the
character from the film because her parents wont let her play football
because of her religion and culture and in Grass Roots the characters parents
do not let him play football because they are not football fans themselves and
the family does not have enough money to buy the equipment and
membership he needs, they just want him to earn money and get good
grades at school when he wants to play football; because of his love for the
game but also his ability which his parents find out later in the film.

7. Jason Warland
GENRE
From just the opening scene it would be hard for the target audience to
establish a genre. There are no real clues in the opening scene. The only part
that would give a clue that it’s a social realism would be the garage scenes.
Normal in opening scenes it would establish the genre straightaway so ours
does not follow the forms and conventions of a real media product.
However the way the character is introduced develops the forms and
conventions of so many films, as it is just the character walking to a
location, with a selection of shots from different angles. This is common in
many films but especially sports films because it is a great way of introducing
the character as you can see the characters appearance and you have an
opportunity to learn something about the character.