Evaluation: Part 1: Forms and Conventions

Part 1: Forms and Conventions:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?:
When coming to decide on what genre we wanted our film opening to be, I initially studied a few films of various genres to see which one I/ we wanted to do as a group. Eventually, when looking at all of our individual research we came to the conclusion that we wanted to create a film opening of the hybrid romantic drama genre. This is due to it being the preferred genre that we generally watch as a group therefore we thought that it would be more interesting to study this than the others. When researching the conventions of this genre, I looked at both romantic and drama films as separate genres, and also as the same hybrid genre. To do this research I watched and analysed the film openings of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ and ‘Love Actually’ for the romantic genre, ‘Dallas Buyers Club’, for the drama genre and due to the fact that it covered the same main topic that our film does (HIV) and ‘The Notebook’ for the romantic and drama hybrid genre. Other members of my group also researched the same/ similar films and we then put our research together. We analysed these film openings in order to gain knowledge of what the audience is expecting to see and what conventions offer the desired gratifications. I also researched the mise en scene signifiers and the audience theory for a romantic film, as well as researching and analysing the semiotic and enigma/ Barthes codes relating to the romance/ drama hybrid genre and researching romance/ drama genre conventions and audience pleasures. Additionally, as a group we carried out a survey to help us determine what people stereotypically expect/ want to see when they watch a film of our genre, which we got from people who are a range of different ages and genders to answer, as well as asking a more specific audience focus group questions relating to our genre and film ideas to help identify what they expect/ want to see from our opening scene.

Here, for my research, I created Prezi's analysing the film openings of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ and ‘Love Actually’ for the romantic genre, ‘Dallas Buyers Club’, for the drama genre and due to the fact that it covered the same main topic that our film does (HIV) and ‘The Notebook’ for the romantic and drama hybrid genre. As well as creating Prezi's on Mise-en-scene, semiotic and enigma codes,  audience theory and genre conventions and audience pleasures all relating to our specified genre. 

Here, it shows how we carried out a survey to help us determine what people stereotypically expect/ want to see when they watch a film of our genres (romantic/drama), which we got from people who are a range of different ages and genders to answer. Here you can see some of the questions and answers.

Here, it shows how we asked a more specific audience focus group questions relating to our genre and film ideas to help identify what they expect/ want to see from our opening scene.

Here is the video of us asking our specific audience focus group questions relating to our genre and film ideas to help identify what they expect/ want to see from our opening scene.

Generally, from the research we were overall able to determine the main signifiers and conventions that our genre has. For the setting people generally expect to see and recognise it through seeing big urban cities (such as New York, Paris, etc), restaurants, a work place, at home, in a park and somewhere with beautiful scenery. Overall, our film opening doesn’t largely meet the expectations of our audience through use of the setting and therefore this is an area in which we will be challenging our audience. However, we have included a scene with the main couple of our film in a park and therefore we won’t completely not be meeting the expectations of our audience. When relating to the plot of romantic/ drama films, conventionally viewers expect to see two people meeting and falling in love, however eventually an obstacle obstructs their pathway which often results in them falling out, although they will eventually make up at the end of the film, resulting in a happy ending. Within our film, we are generally following the conventions that people expect to see. After the opening scene of our film, we would have made the it flashback to when the main couple first meet and show them falling love (with this only being a small section of the entire film). The opening scene alludes to how the film will include an obstacle (HIV) stopping them from having an entirely happy relationship and will consequently lead to them falling out and their families finding out/ falling out with them as well, which will be the main plot of the film. If we were creating the entire film, we also would have it ending with the couple eventually reuniting, although this won't be entirely happy as they die. We also collected research on the mise en scene that is stereotypically associated with romantic/ drama films. For props, these include chocolates, flowers, jewellery, presents, etc. However, our film opening won’t be including these as the love between the couple we are presenting will be shown as more realistic with a somewhat destructive nature rather than romanticised. When looking at the costumes commonly worn, the men tend to dress quite smart (in suits), especially if they are in a restaurant for a date, or they dress quite casually for the day time, wearing regular clothes so that they are relatable to their audience. For women, they tend to wear dresses and heels (for looking smarter and sometimes for looking casual as well), and will dress casually in the day, however will generally dress quite femininely to appeal to a majority of viewers. As there are little female characters in our opening, we wont be meeting these conventions, however we will be dressing our male characters in every day, casual clothing to appeal to the majority of our viewers. With the lighting that you would conventionally expect to see, it is usually very soft and natural to make the atmosphere appear as romantic, comfortable and realistic as possible. We have used only natural daylight to light our footage and are therefore again, conforming to this practice. This instantly introduces a romantic and soft feel to the scene. When thinking about the sound used, it is usually soft tender music in romantic films to represent the tenderness and sensitivity of the relationship and often to represent the characters personality or even the time period it is set in. The music is key as it helps to create the mood and suspense throughout the film and creates a key sense of the type of film and genre. For dramatic films however, the music can often be slightly more intense to build drama and increase the atmosphere in the scene. Our opening includes a mixture of the two stereotypes seen in each genre, with it being fairly soft piano music, however when the drama increases in the scene, the amplitude of the music tends to increase parallel to it. When relating to the camera shots/ angles used, lots of two people shots are often added to represent the nature of the relationship between the main couple, which is something we have included when they are in the same scene. However we also have many other types of shots (eg, close up, medium, wide shot, etc) to add in a variety. Other aspects of our film that came up when researching, include that the main couple is usually straight and the film is usually aimed at a female audience. Both of these factors we have very much challenged as our film is based around a gay couple. This somewhat challenges our research because from the results of our survey, people said they would prefer to watch a heterosexual couple however, the majority also said that they would watch a film with a gay/ lesbian couple in it as well. Therefore we concluded that having a gay couple as the main focus will allow people to be more open minded. This shows us breaking the usual plot that most films follow and challenging our audience. Also, as our film is not wholly based around the romance of their relationship and more around the problems that they face (HIV), this film is not only aimed at a female audience, but a male audience as well, especially with the main characters being male.

When looking at what media theorist's had said about how they feel genre's are presented in films, Steve Neale states that, "Genres are instances of repetition and difference, and difference is essential to the economy of the genre." From this, Steve Neale is saying that a film and its genre are defined by 2 things: how much it conforms to the general conventions of a specific genre or how much it subverts the genres stereotypes and conventions. To summarise, a film must encode various genre signifiers and conventions to allow the audience to recieve gratifications as a sense of recognicion and community whilst appealing to the target demographic. Having said this, it must not be excessively packed with stereotypes and predictable themes to the extent that it becomes a clone of other product of said genre. To link this theory to my media product, the opening scene of our film 'Retribution',  I would say that my film opening mostly conforms to the conventions of romantic drama through use of music, lighting, camera shots, the way in which an obstacle (HIV in this case) stands in the way of their relationship, etc, however, we have not conformed to the conventions completely, thus allowing individuality in our opening.

When coming to create our opening scene, we firstly created a story board to plan it out which was useful for helping us plan out what genre signifiers we would include in the opening. We created an initial one and then a more detailed one to help us plan in detail what we wanted to include. It is useful to include genre signifiers in our opening as it allows the audience to understand what genre the film is from the beginning of it which may be helpful for them to know whether it is a film they will be interested in watching. Within our opening we needed to include elements of drama and romance to allow the audience to know what our genre is. For the romance side of the genre we included two scenes of Henry and his boyfriend together, in which they are holding hands in both, to allow the audience to understand the context of their relationship. Holding hands is a subtle and simple romantic gesture therefore it allows the audience to understand their relationship in a subtle way. To include elements of drama in our opening we brought in the main dramatic element/ subject point that the film is based around: HIV. To add the subject of HIV into our opening, we included shots of Henry walking into the doctors surgery, Henry looking nervous whilst waiting for his appointment, him looking at a poster of HIV, him being called and led into a doctors room and finally him receiving his results and looking very upset and nervous after receiving them. Therefore, by including these scenes we have made the audience feel worried for Henry’s fate which allows empathy to be felt towards him, thus creating drama.

This screenshot and the one below show our detailed drawn storyboard which we created to present how we would encode our production with genre signifiers and to plan out what shots and scene we would film.

Here is a screenshot from our production of Henry and his boyfriend holding hands to introduce the romantic genre of the film.  Below is also a screenshot from our final production but instead it shows the doctor giving Henry his results to introduce our main subject point (HIV) into the film and to include drama genre signifiers into our opening.

This is our initial storyboard that we created to give a basic idea of the order of our opening scene.

We also needed to consider narrative elements when producing our opening. We have given the audience background information through using a flashback and voice over of a sermon being read to show how Henry is religious however in a happy relationship with another man, showing how he is rebelling against his religion, and therefore presenting our use of exposition. We have also used included an obstacle and referential code which we have done by introducing the HIV storyline in our opening. As this is an illness it includes scientific and medical elements which will be discussed in more detail later on in the film, consequently making it a referential code. Similarly, by the audience seeing Henry receiving his results, they are presented with a dialouge hook and a hermeneutic/ enigma code as we never find our whether Henry has or hasn't contracted HIV and this is something that will only be found out as you continue watching the film. This consequently draws the audience in to the story line and additionally the characters. The hermeneutic/ enigma code, and referential code are two of the Barthes 5 narrative elements that we also had to consider including in our opening scene. We have also included a symbolic code through the shot of them holding hands as it symbolises their close romantic relationship which will later cause tension and drama in each of the boys lives, particularly with their families. We have not overly used the proairetic/action or semantic codes in our opening scene however we do intend to use them more later on in our film to make our film more exciting and deeper.


We very much challenged audience gratifications in a number of ways, many of which I have previously mentioned.  However a main way in which we did this was by making the main couple of our film gay. We decided upon this choice as we believe that gay/ lesbian couples aren’t used enough as the main relationship in films/ TV and therefore wanted to try and break this. Also, we made the main subject/ topic of our opening on HIV. This goes against audience gratification as some viewers may find it uncomfortable to talk about or see it happening. Which is why it is quite a taboo subject and isn’t talked about openly enough, therefore we have decided to include it as the main point of our film. We feel as though more people need educating on the subject of HIV and that barriers of it not being talked about need to be broken down. However, we have also followed audience gratifications through having a young couple of a similar age in love, and showing their journey together. The plot of the film follows typical conventions, as well as the nature/ background of the couple and the way that they generally look and appear. Overall, although we have in some ways met audience expectations and fulfilled their gratifications, we have also largely challenged them and offered something new and unique for them to view, which makes our film stand out from others.