Group 3B Film Blog: 1. In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop and Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Our film, 'Turning Pages', was a Coming of Age Drama, and we conformed to the majority of the conventions of the genre and of opening sequences so audiences would understand our film.

We watched notable coming of age films, as well as looking at other independent and British films. We used what we learnt from those films while planning our narrative, characters and style, for instance creating strong and believable friendships and a juxtaposition between old and young.

Genre Conventions	Example From Real Media Text	Correlation to Our Text
Teenage Protagonist/Hero	Ferris Bueller from ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’	Conformed: Lila fits the coming of age drama's protagonist's stereotype apart from her gender
Plot focused on Protagonist’s journey	Billy Elliot’s journey to become a ballet dancer and overcome prejudice in ‘Billy Elliot’	Conformed: Lila’s journey as she moves on after her brother’s death, and as she completes his bucket list
A quirky best friend who supports the protagonist through their journey	Michael Eckman the audiovisual geek in '10 Things I hate about you'	Confromed: Jess wears dark clothes, is very sarcastic/pessimistic and in general is a contrast to Lila
A friend who develops into a love interest	Sam becomes Charlie's love interest despite their age difference and other relationships in 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'	Conformed: Noah will become Lila's love interest, and we tried to hint at this using 2 shots and the actors body language
The protagonist goes through a major change/transitional period in their life	In 'Son Of Rambow' Will's mother is starting a new relationship with their vicar, he watches TV for the first time, makes his first friend and he starts to lose his faith	Conformed: Lila's brother has just died, she has just left school and she embarks on a life-altering journey
High/Secondary School setting	'Dead Poet's Society' is set in an extremely academic boarding school for boys	Challenged: In this respect we broke conventions as the film is set during Lila's gap year in order that she has enough time to complete the list
Parents who disagree with the protagonist choices	Both Jess and Jules's parents have doubts or outright forbid their daughters to play football in 'Bend It Like Beckham'	Challenged: While this is not in our opening sequence we planned to have Lila's parents have a minor role in the film, wanting to greive together and disapprove of her actions
Protagonists usually seek independence/self discovery	In '17 Again' Mike wants to find out who he is away from the constraints of family life	Conformed: In our film Lila learns more about herself and grows as a person as well as gaining independence as she goes on her quest without her parents or even their consent
Mutual friend of protagonist and love interest	Ted in 'Sixteen Candles' passes information between the two leads	Conformed: The character of Jess provides a constant link as well as a barrier between Lila and Atticus
Love Interest's current perfect/pretty/popular partner	Wet Lindsay in 'Angus, Thongs and Prefect Snogging'	Challenged
Protagonist has an unusual family	Napoleon Dynamite's older brother Kip spends all day trying to talk to 'babes' in chatrooms and training to be a cage fighter, while his grandmother rides quadbikes in the desert with multiple mysterious boyfriends. in 'Napoleon Dynamite'.	Challenged: We broke this convention as Lila is not around her family much in the film, and they instead are the antagonists in the film.

The Way we followed Opening Sequence Conventions:

Insiprational opening sequences:

Donnie Darko - Camera - A very long (in both duration and framing) shot to begin the film, indie guitar music, lots of MCUs and MSs of protagonist which focused on his actions and emotions, Lots of ELSs and LSs to establish setting
Pride and Prejudice - Similar style to us as it begins with dawn breaking over some trees, pale colour scheme to indicate the dawn's early light, and camera as in the shot with Lizzie reading shot reverse shot is used, as in our film
Juno - We were inspired by the quirky handwritten titles, indie guitar music soundtrack and the focus put on the protagonist through featuring her alone

Did our Sequence do the job of an opening sequence?
Job = Introduce Character's and their personalities

Yes - Introduces all our main characters through the dialogue, establishes Lila as protagonist, relationships between the main characters through the dialogue and friendly gestures between them, as young people, some elements of character - Lila as sad, Noah as charismatic, Jess as sarcastic
No - Audience unsure as to who the person in the photograph is - we should have expalined this using our dialogue

Job = Introduces Genre

Yes - It establishes the genre as a coming of age drama and the target audience as young people
No - Audiences are left unclear as to whether it is a Lesbian film or not, as if the list is Lila's she wants to 'Kiss as many girls as possible in an hour'

Job = Introduces Setting

Yes - Establishes the London setting through ELSs at the beginning and British location and feel through language, accents and mise-en-scene like lamposts

Job = Establish the Narrative

Yes - Sets up the bucket list and that they will be completing the list through out the film, as the list's title is easily readable in the CU of it and it sets up the romance to follow
No - Audiences are left feeling uncertain about whose bucket list it is and the audience is uncertain about who the boy in the photo is

Job = Establish the Mood

The mood satarts off relatively sombre, setting up he philosophical undertones of the film
The groups banter set up the humour and quirkiness that will develop further
By jumping for the photo, the film's mood is set as a celebration of life
Slow pace of editing indicates the reflective mood
Editing pace increases when Lila's friends arrive, signalling the arrival of hope and support to break Lila out of her depression

TITLES:

We chose to use a font called 'Brainflower' for our titles because it's handwriting look reflected the bucket list and connoted the themes of learning and growing. The white letters juxtaposed with the background and are typical of indie films. We made our titles fade in and out using the pen tool to make teir transitions seem smoother. However, the Turning Pages title is very bold, and I wish we had changed that.

STYLE:
We wanted 'Turning Pages' to feel and look like a British Independent film through our cinematography and mise en scene. This unused shot from our test shoot exemplifies the indie style and feel we aimed for:

It uses natural lighting - bright sunrise shots
It contains typically 'indie' iconography like birds, blue skies and travelling
Handheld/shaky cam feel (though we used a trippod when filming all our shots)
Gentle/Mellow guitar music

Narrative:

We wanted 'Turning Pages' to be realistic to allow our audience to suspend their disbelief, as well as making our film memorable and relevant, so we followed codes and conventions.

Equilibrium	Our film skips this section out as it is before Lila's brother's death
Disruption	Lila’s brother’s death, although this happens offscreen before the film has started, and Lila’s subsequent depression There are also a series of minor disruptions along the way: Lila finds new love interest, group arguments, setbacks while completing the list
Recognition of Disruption	When Noah and Jess meet Lila on the top of the hill, recognising her distress and pledging to help with the bucket list
Attempt to repair	The completion of the bucket list, such as when Lila ticks off ‘Watch the sunrise from the top of Primrose Hill’
New Equilibrium	Lila completes her bucket list, is in a relationship with Atticus, has overcome her grief, and sets out to live the rest of her life

Our Use Of Barthes' Theory of Semiotics:

Levi -Strauss Theory of Binary Opposites:

Young vs old
Female vs Male
Lila vs Parents
Adventure vs Normal Life
Fun vs Mundanity
Death vs Life

Semiotic Code: