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

During the research and planning stages of the production of Turning Pages, we considered various aspects, such as genre, narrative structure, form and style, and how we could use their conventions to appeal to our target audience of 16-24 year old females. In addition, we also thought about which conventions we could challenge in order to enhance the viewing experience and present an alternative to the norm through our low-budget, independent film.

Our initial research included watching films of several genres that we, as consumers of the media, enjoyed thoroughly. We really wanted to make an 'indie' film, and therefore explored sub-genres that are popular amongst independent film-makers, such as comedy-dramas (Juno) and quirky romance films (Amelie).

 Genre
Turning Pages is a coming-of-age drama- we researched a variety of coming-of-age films, both big budgets and small-scale, independent films. Our influences included The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Little Birds, Submarine, Donnie Darko, 17 Again and The Art of Getting By.

	Coming-of-age conventions	Example
Typical characters	-The protagonist (‘Hero’ in Propp’s character theory)- young, mid-teens, quite quirky/individual but still naive -Friends of the protagonists  (‘Helpers’)- “balance out” the thoughtfulness of the protagonist as they are lateral thinkers but also very caring and still unique.	Charlie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower - very deep thinker and emotional Alison, Little Birds -helps to get Lily back home after they run away to Los Angeles
Typical events	- The protagonist often wants to change something about their lives, which is the trigger of disruption. -They then ‘mature’ over the course of the film, learning about themselves and the world along the way	Mike, 17 Again - Mike made the immature decision of abandoning his basketball career to be with his pregnant girlfriend, which he later regrets and sets out to resolve.
Typical themes	- Love -Sexuality -Relationships -Growing Up -Education -Family and Friends	Submarine -focuses on two aspects of typical teenage life- a ‘first love’ and a turbulent family life
Typical mise-en-scene	- Props that are signifiers of youth (eg bicycles, books, backpacks) - Quirky, unique fashion sense	Donnie Darko - opening sequence features the protagonist riding a bike

Using these particular films as inspiration, we developed our idea for Turning Pages- 
- The protagonist, Lila, is a feisty impulsive 18-year-old who has just left school and has the desire to live life to the full after the unfortunate death of her brother.
- Her friends, Noah and Jess, who are both quite individual, help her complete the bucket list that her brother has left behind.
-The focus of the story is their journey as they set out to complete all the things on the list and learn about life along the way.
-Themes include love, family, maturity and adventure.
-Signifiers of youth were included in our film opening, such as a backpack, a notebook and a camera, to 'capture the memories' of their trip.

Narrative Structure
From our narrative structure research on A Walk to Remember and Juno, we found that coming-of-age dramas are conventionally structured in this way:

• The stories usually begin in the equilibrium  tage of Todorov's narrative theory (eg. Friends on a night out in A Walk to Remember)
•  The disruption usually comes very early on in the narrative and there are multiple disruptions throughout the storyline (eg. student injured, Landon held responsible and Jamie's leukaemia (top right) in A Walk to Remember)
• The resolution solves all these problems, and we thus return to the stage of equilibrium that was present at the beginning of the narrative (in Juno, she goes back to living her old, teenage life after giving birth to her son and giving him to Vanessa Loring (bottom right), with the slight change of having Paulie as a boyfriend). 

Turning Pages starts in a 'new' equilibrium stage after the death of Lila's brother, a disruption that has taken place before the film. Multiple disruptions will take place throughout the film, such as Lila being unable to complete something on the bucket list or falling out with one of her friends, but her friends will then become the resolution and help her complete the list, leading her to the new equilibrium in which she feels content in the knowledge that she has had the chance to live life to the full. Throughout these disruptions, the character of Lila matures, which is a conventional event in a coming-of-age narrative.

Form

During our audience feedback session, we found that there were some things that we had not clarified in our opening sequence-

• There was some confusion as to who originally wrote the bucket list. Although we tried to avoid this by including 'Kiss as many girls as possible....' to clarify that the list was Lila's brother's, this creates further confusion for some of our audience members
• While we did successfully communicate the relationships between the three characters, the names of the characters themselves were not clear. 

A still from Submarine, an indie coming-of-age film
that we used as inspiration

Style
Indie style- dull colouring to create realism (as shown in the Submarine still)
               - natural lighting
               - not as 'glossy' as Hollywood productions- reflects difference in budget

We implemented indie style through the use of a slow pace and rhythm of editing, as well as the use of a backing track that was more to set the mood of the film in general rather than 'direct' the audience's emotions (as music does in a horror film).

Through our research on titles, we also found that films of  the coming-of-age genre and those with an indie style tend to use capitalised, white fonts for the titles in their opening sequences, such as that of Brick (right).  We also used a font called Brain Flower that had a handwritten feel to it, thus linking to our theme of the handwritten bucket list. The screenshot below shows the final title in the opening sequence, featuring this white, capitalised and themed font that would be used as a logo in marketing campaigns.

Here is a short video of the style that we tried to replicate which was taken on our first test shoot. The sunrise, as well as the soft piano soundtrack and the shaky pan up all add to the 'indie' element of the film and reinforce the mellow mood.