In this evaluation i will be looking at the conventions we have used, developed and challenged in our own media products.
Below i have provided two key frame documents in order to show in what specific areas our short and other pieces of film and television media compare and contrast. The first of which shows existing products and the second giving examples of where this convention has used, developed or challenged in our own product.
Key Frame Image 1: Ident.
Looking at the idents of other media companies such as Revolution Studios (Pictured in the Keyframe), Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures or even in greater relation to Shorts, Future Shorts, the idents are often large, bold, centered in the screen and accompanied by a loud score all in the effort to make the company stand out.
In our ident on the other hand, we wanted to stand out through developing and challenging the current conventions in relation to idents.
First of all, majority of idents feature some relation to the name of the company in question, for example in the ident for Revolution Studios we see 2 full rings and a third outer half ring all rotating on different axis in order to show in a visually attractive and rememberable way, what the name of the company is.
In the Binary Productions ident, we attempted to follow this convention and make it appear, through the use of a black background and then white digital font, that the companys name was being typed out on an older computer in order to link to our company name "Binary".
The areas of this convention that we developed and challenged was in the remainder of the ident. We moved the object within the ident from the center of the screen to the top left corner and also only made use of a very subtle sound, ie someone tapping away on a key board in time with the characters appearing on screen. These two elements differed from the convention, as i mentioned above, because in majority of other idents the action is centered and accompanied by a loud and bold score.
Key Frame Image 2: Opening Titles.
The convention for almost all film and television media with regards to titles is that they must make reference to some aspect of the product such as narrative, character, location or themes. For example in the television drama Eastenders, the titles feature an aerial shot of London which, when combined with the simple bold text "Eastenders" provides the viewer with enough information to make a judgement about the show itself. For me, when first looking at the Eastenders ident i immediately made the assumptions that it would be based in the East end of London, set in a middle or working class environment and then judging from the music and editing shown that it would be a drama.
It is this effect that must be carried through every visual media product. If an audience member cannot make a judgement about the product in relation to the narrative, themes etc, then the company have not successfully told the audience member what the product will feature.
In our short, this was an interesting convention to work with as we did not want to reveal too much about the narrative, but we wanted to provide the viewer with enough to make a judgement. Because of this we included a bold red rose in the background with petals falling past. This was to hopefully symbolise a loving relationship but with the possibility of it becoming frail and falling apart. On top of the rose and petals we included a calligraphy styled red font to use for the shorts name. From this we hoped it would show the genre, a drama, and also link back to the theme presented by the rose background, this being a romantic/loving relationship.
Key Frame Image 3: Theme of Young Carers and Dependance.
In the current times when a character is shown in a situation where they are dependant on another character it is usually for sympathetic purposes. For example in documentarys based on young carers it is often portrayed in ways that the audience can sympathise with them. This is also the case in modern drama. An example of this can be seen in the romantic drama "A little bit of Heaven" in which the female lead in forced to become dependant on her doctor, again, showing her in a sympathetic light.
In our short however we wanted to blur this light and show the possibility that perhaps not everyone who has someone else dependant on them is a good person and instead could have deep desires to even rid themselves of the dependant character.
Key Frame Image 4: Loving Mother-Son Relationship.
It is often the case within modern drama that family relations, especially parent to child relations, are loving and caring as it is assumed that the mother being the stereotypical care giver, that her offspring will in turn love and care for her. In the first Key Frame Document however I have provided the example of "I Killed my Mother" in which the protagonist finds himself at odds with his mother when it is revealed that he is a homosexual. We tried to mimic this relationship in the initial scenes of our short, making it apparent that our mentally ill protagonist and antagonist hated his mother for a undiscussed reason regarding the missing "Billy" supposedly Chris' father.
Key Frame Image 5: Use of Props.
In films, specific characters can reveal their personality through the way they interact with the world around them. For example in the drama, comedy, romance epic Forrest Gump we learn about Forrest easily through his interaction with the feather in the opening scene of the film. The feather for me being a symbol for freedom, innocence, childhood experiences and hidden complexity behind a simple appearance. These traits can then be applied to Forrest when he eventually catches the feather and keeps it with him.
This convention was used in our short through the addition of the "Keep Calm and Carry On" tea cosy. The first time Chris interacts with the tea cosy he reads the saying present on it and then throws it to one side, to show his disregard for the belief and the context associated with it, instead, taking it upon himself to "fix" his current situation by drastic means.
Key Frame Image 6: Passage of Time.
Films use different methods in order to show the passage of time. Often producers use fades to black or various other editing techniques such as quick match on action shots and the like to show how time is passing. In the film Groundhog Day time is repeated over and over, which is exactly the effect we planned to use in order to draw our audience back from a false ending. What struck us most about Groundhog day was the close up slow motion shot of the clock falling to 6:00am and the connotations associated with it at the point it is seen in the film.
In A Passion of a Bleeding Rose we wanted to show the repetition of time through using this effect and thus show the audience that time has been altered somehow and now the story will begin again to a different end. Ultimately this was a development of the convention as we did not use the second appearance of the clock in the final cut, and instead adopted a quick cut from Chris lifting the rose from his dead mother to him making her a cup of tea again.
Key Frame Image 7: Costume.
Many dramas feature teenagers being dressed in what it highly fashionable amongst the demograph or, taking the stereotypical view, dressed in jeans and a hoody with the hood covering almost all of their facial features. An example of this is seen in the teen drama Skins in which each of the characters adopts a dress that suits their personality and the social group that they are a part of.
In our Short however we wanted to show the personality of Chris in contrast to what would be expected of an average teenager. Instead of adopting a dark hoody and jeans, we show him wearing smart casual office clothing and only on one occasion having him dressed in a hoody. This single point in the short was to simply prove to the audience that he is indeed an older teen but because of his situation at home he does not own high fashion clothing that would be associated with teenagers.
Key Frame Image 8: Shot Editing.
In most dramas it is the case that the shot styles are all very similar and simplistic in order for the viewer to focus more on the narrative of the product with little distraction from special effects. By keeping the shots simple and making use of basic techniques such as match-on-action shots the audience is left to watch the drama unfold as if they were simply onlookers. This convention is specific to the Drama genre and so when we labelled our product as an adult drama we felt that in order to bolster this and appeal to our target audience, we would benefit from keeping our shots simple. But in order to twist and develop this convention further, we made use of special effects such as duplicate shadows when Chris is changing. This was in order to appeal to the "younger" members of our target audience who would most likely find the use of special effects more appealing and useful when reading and deconstructing the narrative.
Key Frame 9: End Credits.
The convention of having the credits play whilst there is either a scene or a freeze frame still present on screen has become a lot more popular over time as it allows producers to keep the audience entertained when most would have disregarded the end credits. I have used the example of "Days of our Lives" which on a number of occasions used a freezeframe ending with a soundtrack playing over the top. But the convention does not only apply to television. In the feature film Rocky III we are left on a freeze frame when the two characters in the final shot are about to hit one another. The still image then becomes a painting with the credits appearing on screen with a soundtrack in the background.
We developed this convention in our short by taking the convention of ending on a freeze frame but then allowing the voices of the two characters to continue whilst the credits scrolled up. This was done for a number of reasons, namely for the practical reason that it allows us to reduce the time of our short without disrupting the narrative. On top of this however it also allowed to provide an interesting ending in which the audience is left to ponder the still image on screen with what the characters are saying and where this will take the narrative further.
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