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

Very early in the planning process, the group concluded on creating a media text in the 'British Indie Drama'' genre as it was a genre of films which we all consumed, so we knew how to include conventions but also were aware of constant themes and ideas which we could challenge. 

MAIN STORYLINE

We decided on Todorov's Narrative Theory ( Equilibrium - Disequilibrium - Resolution) when constructing the storyline of our film.

Equilibrium - The families of the protagonists are separate. They don't have to act upon their prejudices because they have nothing to do with each other.

Louis skating from a more middle class area

                                                 

Vivian and Friend walking through their working class council estate

Disequilibrium - The teenagers from the two families meet and eventually fall in love. The racist views of both their family surface, particularly from Melissa's older brothers. Melissa's brothers are then involved in a fight, which Clem steps in to help and unfortunately gets stabbed.

Resolution - Both families come together to support Clem in hospital. The families reflect on their views and realise they were wrong. Clem gets better and their relationship continues happily.

COSTUME CONVENTIONS:

Shaniqua:

Unable to embed multiple vokis,
watch here:
http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=9627320&height=267&width=200

<--- Costume as described in the Voki.

Character References:

• 'Naz' from British Drama Short 'Flea
• 'Alisha' from Misfits Series 1

Melissa:

Unable to embed multiple vokis,
watch here:
http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=9631760&height=267&width=200

<-- Costume as described in the Voki

Character References:

• 'Jane' from the film 'A Bronx Tale'
• 'Shakes' from British Film 'Sket'

Clem:

<--- Costume as described in Voke

Character References:

• 'Freddie' from skins

SETTING:

Since we aimed to create n urban drama, we thought it was only appropriate to have an urban setting.

We worked within the same conventions of having a stereotypically presented estate that looked dirty, dull and disused as presented in the 'Summerhouse' estate in the Channel 4 British Drama 'Top Boy.' 

We used the idea of two teenage girls talking with the estate as a backdrop that we see in the British Urban Crime Drama, 'Ill Manors.'

We developed the idea of having a predominately urban setting by juxtaposing shots of the estate with shots of Louis skating from a more affluent area. This contrast in settings also helped us further communicate the differences in the characters lifestyles.

TITLES:

In order to maintain the focus on the drama unfolding in the sequence, we placed static simplistic plain white text in the corners of our screen, this is seen in a lot of British Indie Films:

Titles in the Opening of 'Ill Manors'

Titles in the Opening of 'Sket'

We particularly like the use of titles in the British Indie Drama 'Somers Town' and therefore conformed to the convention of minimalist small titles, drawing heavy inspiration from Somers Town.

GRADING

We wanted to have e an urban gritty washed out colour to our film. We were therefore inspired by the TV Show 'Misfits' who colour grading is what we envisaged ours to look like.

The bright colours appear slightly dull and faded and therefore reflect the more sombre atmosphere we tried to create.

THEMES AND ICONOGRAPHY 

We developed the typical 'love' theme into 'forbidden love,' looking to Romeo and Juliet for inspiration. However we challenged Romeo and Juliette's stereotypical presentation of forbidden love by making the couple interracial as opposed to using a single race. This has a stronger appeal to our target audience and makes our film more unique.

In the film we plan to challenge the conflict and gang violence conventions by making the white indie male (Clem) get stabbed as opposed to the black 'chavy' older brother characters.

iPhone - convention of young people to always have technology
Cheap Juice - we used the convention of young people buying cheap snacks but by giving the snack particularly to Shaniqua it helps create the idea of someone from a working class background with minimal money.
Bus Stop - semiotic code for the journey (their relationship) Clem and Melissa are about to take. Also conforms to conventions of young people always going out.
Skateboard - typical of an 'indie boy'



We used Levi Straus' theory of Binary Opposites to make our film interesting:

• Female vs Male
• Working Class vs Middle class

We used Barthes' Theory of Semiotics in our opening

To summarise, our group used conventions where it was appropriate because certain pieces of information about the characters needed to be planted strongly in the mind of the audience and the clearest way to do this, in places, was to simply adhere to conventions. We used them to increase audience and appeal and not at all to create a conventional film. If we felt a convention was heavily repeated and there was room for us to build upon it, we developed it. Although, sometimes we found it necessary to challenge conventions completely as we either felt they weren't actually that correct, or to create unique selling points for our film.