In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our teaser trailer conforms to Fowler's 1989 theory that "An individual text within a genre rarely if ever has all of the characteristic features of genre". To an extent, our teaser trailer conforms to the conventions of our genre (social realism), for example the way in which the social struggles of underprivileged collective groups are told to an audience via individual stories. This means of informing an audience of the harsh realities of contemporary society is integral to the social realism genre, and is utilised in films such as:
- "London to Brighton" - the danger of prostitution rings is told through the stories of the two main protagonists
- 'Trainspotting" - the dangerous effects of heroine use on society and friendships is told through the stories of the protagonists
- "The Selfish Giant" - the injustices and struggles of working class life are presented via the story of Swifty and Arbour
The social issue we wanted to depict was the issue and taboo surrounding masculinity in regards to mental health and expressing emotion. We chose this as we felt it was a zeitgeist issue popular in the media, for example Robert Webb's popular autobiography titled "How Not to Be a Boy" which discusses the conflict between the alpha male archetype and the ability to express and experience emotion.
We adhered to the convention of the protagonist being a young adult, and deliberately cast our character as a non-professional actor in order to reinforce the sense of realism. We were inspired by the casting of Thomas Turgoose in Shane Meadows "This is England" - the actor is unknown and unprofessional which adds a realistic tone. We casted an 18 year old male with little prior acting experience to ensure we achieved the gritty tone so integral to social realism.
Whilst researching existing real media texts, we noticed that emotion was crucial to the representation of the protagonist. For example, camera techniques are used to reinforce the protagonist's psyche. For example, in the Rocky films, the protagonist is shot using a backwards tracking shot running towards the camera with a blank expression. Although subtle, this shot reflects the protagonist's desire to escape while reflecting his struggle against society's expectations of him. We tried to replicate this within our own media text as we felt as though it was important to depict the inner conflict of our protagonist which is crucial to conforming to the conventions of social realism.
During the research and planning stages of our project we concluded that social realist texts utilise urban, gritty locations. There are no special effects or complexly designed sets. This was a convention we felt imperative to render our teaser trailer as one belonging to the social realism genre, so we chose to shoot our media text in various urban locations, including urban streets, a gritty run-down pier and a dilapidated sea-side town.
Although our media text adhered to many of the genre conventions of social realism, as Fowler recognised texts
"rarely if ever [have] all of the characteristic features". With this in mind, we decided to subvert some of the common codes and conventions of social realism. Often, films with a profound social commentary are created with a semi-improvised script to achieve the effect of realistic life-like dialogue. In our piece we subverted this by not including dialogue at all; we wanted to focus primarily on symbolism and aesthetic cinematography to convey our Preferred Reading. We felt that by experimenting creatively with our technique we could adequately convey our protagonist's emotions and feeling, while simultaneously serving as a step away from clear-cut realism. To show creative experimentation without dialogue we:
- used varied lighting - i.e. the pink lighting in the boxing scenes
- used various locations
- used various camera angles i.e. underwater shot, backwards tracking, vertical tilt
- used post-production editing techniques i.e. time-lapse
Adhering to the Conventions of a Teaser Trailer
During the research aspect of our project we listed a specification for a teaser trailer:
- Sheds a film in the most positive light to a potential audience
- Scenes are cut and edited into a short sequence
- The MPAA state that every trailer has to be less than 2 and a half minutes long
- Must portray the protagonist and any other key characters
- Must convey the time period in which the film is set
- Must convey essential aspects of the narrative without giving too much information away
We adhered to all of these points. We clearly displayed our protagonist while informing the viewer of the subject of the film without spoiling the narrative. We did this through the use of symbolism and carefully selected cinematography.
