Evaluation Part Two - 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?.'

Evaluation - Part Two

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

Performance/Narrative

The protagonist moves throughout film in a drunken or disturbed manner, mostly feeling anti-social within his area and society. He is also very secluded from everyone else due to him having very little dialogue. In addition, his addiction to alcohol is evidence for him trying to soak his frustration against his pregnant girlfriend, the use of the alcohol creates symbolism of the protagonist being at his all time low. This links into the main character of Fish Tank, both protagonist are very introverted from society and anyone else, having very little feelings of happiness and social interaction unlike most of the typical teenagers.

Our opening sequence reveals the tragedy thats happens to our protagonist, which makes it mirror a intense opening as he almost instantly finds out about his pregnant girlfriend. Thus, leading to him become an alcoholic to try escape. Similar to Fish Tank, the protagonist is also an alcoholic showing how depression and isolation leads to an empty shell life. Nevertheless, the lack of shots shows exclusion from the audience, making him much more isolation and symbolising how far away from society he is, the use of the long shots and medium shots illustrates more of a isolated tone, and showing more of the gritty area he lives in, linking in with the area of FishTank also having living in a working-class area.

Settings/Location

The places we used were well portrayed through the use of medium shots, the weather was always seem to be dull as well which, further portraying the dark-tone within the movie. Nevertheless, we first wanted to put him in a posh area causing trouble, showing the juxtaposition between him and the area ( Working and middle class ) however, we decided to put him a place where he is more suited to - a rundown working class area. The picture used here is the area we decided not to use, after it having more of a sophisticated feel which, does not suit the tone of the movie. We felt the streets of Vauxhall and Stockwell, created more of a dark tone than near the quiet RiverThames. As a result, this conformed more to the conventions of a BSR making it our media product have more realism in addition to the use of the Council Estates which is also used in BSR' such as Kidulthood to promote a gritty tone, this shows to the audience what social status Tate is.

Effects/Transitions.

We used quite a few transitions such as: Fade to black, cross dissolve and parallel editing. Firstly, the fade to black transition was used to build up suspense and show the chronological order of the events that happen in the opening sequence. For example,  when Tate is drinking alcohol randomly on the street, we used the fade to black to show he ends being in distress in the street after drinking too much.
Nevertheless, we used quite a few fast cuts to keep up with the suspense of the movie, thus keeping the audience more engaged. Although, this may not conform to the conventions of a BSR we did balance it out, by having quite a few slow cuts and movement of the camera to have a more realistic atmosphere, thus making our media product more of a BSR.

Moreover, we used quite a few effects on our credits which was the 'rain' effect. Right near the start of our opening sequence we introduce the main title - 'Devil May Care', on the main title we used the rain effect pouring on the letters to reflect the atmosphere and themes of our movie which is depression and isolation. As a result, the effect of the rain connoted this which gave it more of a dark tone, in addition the consistent use of it established this theme and tone well.

Lighting

The lighting used in the opening sequence was quite dull and dark, without any use of ambient lighting. The use of the dull lighting also reflected our conventionally BSR themes which is the depression and violence the protagonist faces, this was effective as if we used quite light lighting then it wouldn't be seen as a BSR and more like a Hollywood movie.  Nevertheless, we excluded any use of ambient lighting to make our movie more realistic and less artificial in order to conform to a BSR. For example, if you take a look at other BSR's such as kidulthood, Dead Man's shoes or Fishtank, they barely have any bright ambient lighting as they keep to the general natural lighting to reflect a realistic tough day life .

Was you're narrative original/conventional?

Our main storyline in my opinion was quite conventional due to the stereotypical problems faced within a BSR in a disrupted teenagers life, which is teen pregnancy and alcohol and other factors such as guns and violence. However, our characters are quite unique and subvert most of the stereotypes for example, the main protagonist is asian and subverts the stereotype of him being obedient and smart intact, he is the opposite and mostly rebels and is quite reckless in life. In addition, he has a muslim girlfriend which, expresses the inter-faith couples that is rarely seen in most british social realisms.