The document discusses how the media product drew from conventions of the social realism genre in its film opening. It researched films like Kidulthood, Adulthood, and This Is England to understand conventions around plot, mise-en-scene, editing, camera shots, sound, color, lighting and more. Key influences included long camera shots to set mood, diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, and dull colors and lighting to match the gloomy atmosphere. The goal was to produce a film that fit within the social realism genre and attracted the target audience.

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

2. INTRODUCTION
• While making our film opening, we had researched many films
of the social realism genre so that we could have an idea of how
our film should be, and to also have an idea of a typical social
realism film and to could understand the conventions of this
genre. By doing this, we had a good idea of to produce our film
in terms of the plot, mise en scene, editing and filming, and so
that we could attract our target audience aswell.

3. PREVIOUS RESEARCH
• While planning our film, we researched many social realism
films such as ‘Kidulthood’, ‘Adulthood’ and ‘This Is England’ to
get a good idea of what the genre consists of, and also to get an
idea of how we should make our film. We were also able to
realise what kind of fonts, colours, images and language are
used in social realism films, and we applied this to our planning
so that our film could fit into the social realism genre as much as
possible.

4. CAMERA SHOTS
• We analysed the camera shots used in many different social
realism films to help us plan the camera shots we were going to
use. We used many different camera shots on specific moments
to try and help to create a ‘sad’ mood on our film, the shots were
occurring for a ‘long’ period of seconds to avoid jumping from
shot to shot quickly, as this creates a fast and lively atmosphere
and that is the opposite to what we wanted. We realised this
from watching the different social realism films, and this helped
us to create the correct ‘mood’ for our viewers while they
watched our opening.

5. SOUND
• We looked at the sound used in different social realism films to understand
how sound was used, we realised that sound was used to create a certain
mood or atmosphere in the film. We put this information towards our planning
and this helped us find suitable sound for our opening.
• We used both diegetic and non diegetic sound in our opening, this was
manipulated in a way to add effect such as when one of the characters in
throwing up, you could hear her coughing and spluttering, but then the
voiceover of her speaking was heard after and before. The music we used in
our film helped to create a sad atmosphere as the music was slow and sad,
which helped to create sympathy for the characters.

6. COLOUR AND LIGHTING
• Social realism films mostly have lighting to compliment the
mood of their film, such as bright colours for a positive film, or
dull colours for a negative film. When editing our film, we had to
decide on a filter for our opening. We considered the fact that it
was a sad film and decided to put a grey toned filter on the film
to enhance the gloomy, upsetting mood and to put the viewer in
more of a serious place instead of using a bright, vibrant filter
that was contrast with the mood of the film. We also used dull
lighting while filming our opening to compliment the gloomy
atmosphere.