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

2. Our opening sequence uses a range of
conventions, inspired from several different genre’s
of film, containing different conventions. We then
combined them together, rather un-conventionally.
Our film includes a mixture of rom-com, drama and
realism film genre’s and their stylized ideas, which
I believe came across in our opening two minutes.

3. Mood board showing a few of our Genre influences

4. We found inspiration for our shots largely from High Fidelity (2000). The use of dark lighting
and drab colours throughout the internal scene help the audience get a sense of the
monotonous and deeply saddening life that our character leads. The use of a medium close-up
lets the audience engage with the character, but does not give away the emotion of the
character or any particularly important information. In High Fidelity’s shot Rob’s head is turned,
not revealing the identity of the character. In our shot we only see the silhouette of the
character due to the use of dark lighting, once again keeping the identity of the main character
a mystery until later in the film. Here we have used a convention from a comedy, music, drama
and romance film, High Fidelity.
Medium close-up from High Fidelity Medium close-up from Pavement

5. Here we used inspiration from this shot from High
Fidelity. An external shot presenting the setting
and giving a sense of the type of house/apartment
the character lives in. We did not use this
completely religiously as we included it at the very
start of our opening sequence, thus becoming an
establishing shot instead of a piece of context or
action.
For our shot of Craig’s apartment we wanted to
differentiate our film away from Hollywood clean-
cut blockbusters by creating a gritty, kitchen-sink,
British visual style. We hunted down this shabby
apartment block and felt it would be perfect to
present Craig's un-glamorous lifestyle and help
set the genre. Here we strayed far from any
typical film convention, but by doing so we
followed the style of a few inspirational films, as
shown, High Fidelity.

6. When addressing how to present our titles sequence we decided we
wanted to incorporate them into the set, placing our names onto items
that presented Craigs lifestyle and interests e.g. wine bottles, cigarette
packets, book spines and cassette covers. When we had decided on
the titles we focused on how we wanted the main title ‘Pavement’ to
look. We used inspiration from High Fidelity, once again, by recreating
their title frame. The use of a dark background suggests a down to earth
and disheartening theme to the film, whilst introducing the lifestyle of the
character featuring in it; smoking or record collecting.

7. We developed ideas from ‘Wristcutters: A Love Story’ (2006), a comedy, drama, fantasy.
The general feel of this film is one we tried to
replicate, it’s stillness, depressing manner and
simplicity mixed to create a comedic feel.
This shot especially is one we took influence from
and replicated in our opening. We positioned Alec,
our actor, lying on the bed with next to him a bed
side table holding a cigarette packet, half empty
bottles of wine and other random objects to clutter
up the room and give our shot a messy and care-
free atmosphere.

8. Napoleon Dynamite’s
(2004) title sequence was
our stimulus when it came
to deciding how we
wanted ours to look.
Napoleon Dynamite
obtains a playful, childish
and comedic overlying feel
to it, as is presented here
with the use of bright
colour and simple, neat
objects. We did not wish to
portray that with our
opening and so instead we
It is a convention to create your title sequence, presenting the names
of those involved, as a separate and non-diegetic piece of film. It
used books, cigarette
clearly disconnects the action of the characters from the creators of it, packets and wine bottles.
making it obvious to the audience what they are watching at that With the use of these
moment. But by combining the two we submerge the diegesis, the slightly more grown up
world of the film, and the real world to push the boundaries of film. As and taboo items we hope
you can see above Napoleon Dynamite is a film that broke that
boundary and our group has followed it’s lead. We wanted to rebel to convey a dismal tone to
against this convention and so we merged our title sequence in with our film.
objects in the film, creating a seamless and clever opening.

9. I believe our opening sequence challenges many conventions of a real film
opening, especially in terms of defining a genre. Our film challenges the
convention of conforming to one definite genre of film, we did this by combining
a range of Drama, Rom-Com and Realism aspects to our film.
Our decision to put our film in black & white also challenges the convention of
using colour which is the norm for 21st century films. By doing so, I feel our film
contrasts strongly from the majority of all films made nowadays.
If we were to produce our film in colour it would have altered
the tone of of the overall product. Possibly introducing a light
and positive manner to the film resulting in the loss of our most
important dismal tone. You can see by looking at the two stills, to
the right, the difference colour adds to a frame. By not allowing

10. Overall, I believe the opening two minutes of our film embraces
and adopts quite a few conventions of real films. These are
things like the use of dark lighting and dull tones to establish and
set the mood of a certain scene (usually a dismal tone when
creating a realism comedy). Another convention our film has
been influenced by is Napoleon Dynamite’s title sequence. We
incorporated our titles into the set to catch the attention of the
audience and separate ours from the ordinary way of presenting
the credits. As well as adopting conventions, I feel our film rebels
against many traditional concepts of real films by boldly placing
our film in black & white. Finally, we drastically question whether
a film has to stay within the boundaries of a certain genre, or
couple of genres. By combining a variety of specified and un-
specified genres we have created a multi-genre film that uses,
develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media
products.