The media product uses and develops several conventions of real films through the use of various camera shots, angles, edits, and film scoring techniques. It uses establishing shots, point-of-view shots, fades, and shots influenced by director Terrence Malick to develop characters and portray emotion. It challenges some conventions by not including a comical character, skipping the narrative's equilibrium stage, and using a single piano for scoring rather than an ensemble. Overall, it adheres to many standard film conventions but also challenges some expected conventions around narrative structure and comic relief.

1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?

2. • Camera shots, angles and edits: Having
learned and researched different shots, angles
and edits, I was made aware of when different
shots, angles and edits were going to be
appropriate.

3. • For example, an establishing shot will be used
at the start of a scene for the audience to
understand the setting. This is common film
convention which Joe and I used at the
beginning of our short film; an establishing
shot of the outdoor setting which the scene is
set in. Then, when the setting changes to the
protagonist’s home, an establishing shot is
used from the outside of the house.

4. • In terms of angles, we had learned that a point-of-view
shot can be very effective in portraying what the
character is seeing (the character will be the most
reliable medium for this) and with a point-of-view shot
being used to show the character looking at the knife
which he has pressed up against his skin, you can see
the unsteadiness of him as he trembles and the camera
jolts suddenly to show his heart beating. ‘Gladiator’
(2000) uses this shot at the end of the film when
Maximus is dying; a point-of-view shot shows his
happiness; and the way in which we used this shot to
portray the protagonists’ uneasiness and anguish.

5. • For edits, naturally, our short film is dominated by cuts
like any other film, but since ours is a drama, we felt
that fades could be used to great effect to accentuate
the emotional tone of the film. A clear example of this
being used to the same effect is in ‘Rocky II’ when
Adrian is in hospital due to the seriousness and
emotion of the scene. We have also used fades,
particularly at the end when the protagonist is at the
graveyard to achieve the same effect.

6. • Certain shots have been influenced by director
Terrence Malick. He takes shots of things such
as the sky and trees for emotive effect which
Joe and I have done to create emotion.

7. • In terms of film score, we somewhat
challenged media convention because we felt
it would be much more effective to have one
piano playing the music rather than an
ensemble, which is more common in films.

8. • Our piece of media challenges Todorov’s
Narrative Theory as our film doesn’t begin
with equilibrium, it has ‘skipped’ it, if you will,
and is already at the complication and the film
will be revolved around the protagonist
finding equilibrium.

9. • Films similar to ours such as ‘P.S. I Love You’
(2007) and ‘Ghost’ (1990) always have a
comical character in order to lighten the
emotional mood. This character is played by
Lisa Kudrow in ‘P.S. I Love You’ and Whoopi
Goldberg in ‘Ghost’, but we wanted our film to
be all out emotion and drama, so we
challenged this convention by leaving this
character out.

10. • Nearly every film will have a romance or love
interest involved – particularly dramas. Any
drama from ‘Titanic’ (1997) to ‘Atonement’
(2007) have this, so we have used this also.

11. • We have used conventions such as a
certificate screen, film ident and credits.

12. • For my film poster, I kept it conventional: the
main character(s) in the frame, the title being
made obvious, the release date, names of the
actors, a slogan and the film’s details.

13. • Moreover, the review was also kept conventional.
These conventions are that they always come
across as somewhat informal and lighthearted
with a touch of humor; so when writing it I tried
to achieve this as best as I could with the ending
summing everything up in a witty way.
Furthermore, it is set out conventionally with
common review elements such as a ‘did you
know’ and a picture from the film.

14. • It is a conventional short film as it simply
revolves around one key event like ‘Paper
Hearts’ which is a short film I studied at the
beginning of the year.