Question 2-How does your media product represent particular social groups (Hayden)

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

Examples of some of the conventions we’ve used can be seen in the film ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’. During the first minutes of the film there is a news report, within the dystopian genre this is used to make it clear to the audience what disaster occurred before the time in which the film is set. Also during the first minutes of the film Mad Max is seen alone on a desolate landscape which is another convention of Dystopia. We have also decided to challenge the famous convention of an anti-hero; an anti-hero is a protagonist who does not show conventional resemblance to typical conventional heroic characters. This couldn’t be seen through the typical aspects of an anti-hero as the film opening wasn’t long enough for us to explore the idealistic features of the character, his courage and his morality, though it can be seen through other conventions we have used. One of the conventions which supports the convention of an anti-hero is that he is an isolated character that is alone throughout the opening and is also being chased by scavengers, this connotes that the character is too fixed on his own objective and too stubborn to let anybody help him, which is all true. We have also effectively followed conventions of our sub-genre: Thriller. We have considered Thriller conventions carefully whilst editing our production, our use of quick changes in camera angles were a great way of showing disruption to the audience. The setting itself is also conventional of a Thriller as confined spaces make the character seem isolated trapped within this area (which is what we were aiming for and succeeded in our aims through our set of an abandoned toilet).

Production (Draft)

Establishing shot

In this establishing shot you can see: a rucksack, tin cans, newspapers and typical toilet facilities. The use of the rucksack connotes that he moves from location to location, representing the lawless society and the binary opposite of good vs evil. Secondly, the use of the tin cans connotes a food source but the fact that they are empty represents the lack of nutrients and the characters struggle to not face hunger (which follows a conventional theme within a Dystopia.) Thirdly, the newspapers connote an abandoned toilet because this subverts against a typical modern day toilet as you would expect to see most of the mirror. We were initially going to use blood but we did not have any in time. This would have been more effective in creating suspense and making the opening more gruesome.
This setting is connoted as grimy, which is positive because we want to connote a negative future. Also, it emphasises the lack of buildings because he wouldn't be sleeping in this location if there were better options. Furthermore, the colour of brown, white and green also helps to exaggerate the connotations of a disgusting location and I think they work well in producing a darker overall result, possibly resembling the Thriller genre more. I think that this shot was successful because it clearly established the setting, as the audience could get a real sense for the sub-genre. Additionally, we chose this high angle to create a sense that this was significant because it connoted that the setting was being watched. Also this angle was practically positive since it enabled more of the performance space to be seen by the audience, hopefully increasing their understanding.

Shots that we decided not to use...

Shooting Schedule

Audience feedback on production 1

I have completed this to show what our formal and informal target audience are appealed by and what they think could be improved or changed.