In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
by Aaron Bacon
1. The review in which i wrote for Lost & Found discusses the film as a drama film. The screenshot which I added in my review also helped to represent the genre of my film. This is seen in my facial expression and also the cold colours which I added separately to the photo.
2. Lost & Found is a drama film with many typical conventions of a dramatic film, some of these include slow paced editing, non diegetic soundtrack which is slow piano music and slow camera shots.
3. Lost & Found is based on a real story of a man in America who was in the same situation as my character Rico. This story came out in the news sometime in 2014 so our film is very relevant when it comes to modern society. Lost & Found was made to change peoples opinions on what is right and wrong in society. Our films helps to show that we are a society which looks out for each other no matter their social status or class. Rico is a homeless man who is given a ring, the audience initially think that Rico will keep the ring and sell it for food or somewhere to live. Lost & Found goes against typical stereotypes.
4. Lost & Found is a unpredictable film, At the start of the film you think you know which way it is going but it constantly changes. When making Lost & Found I thought that the best films are the ones where you can't predict what is happening. At the end of Lost & Found we show the audience that that nothing is what it seems and that the ring had been given to Rico on purpose.
5. One of my tasks was to develop my own movie poster for lost and found. The aim was to make a poster which resembled a film of the drama genre. I researched movie posters for films in the drama genre and tried to adopt a fairly minimalist poster as i thought this would be appropriate
6. One thing that I do think our film challenged was stereotypes in society. My character Rico is a homeless man who discovers a ring. The typical expectation of the public is that the homeless man with no money will keep the ring and sell it for money which he could spend on food. In Lost & found this is not the case Rico goes on an adventure to track down the woman and return the ring. We wanted to show that no matter your situation that greed is wrong and doing the right thing is always the best thing.
7. Lost & Found has some elements which go against the drama genre. an example of this is in Rico's fantasy scene. This scene adds a fantasy element to the short film. The effect of this scene was created to break the typical conventions of most drama films. I didn't want our film to be slow paced throughout, the dream sequence adds an interesting and faster pace to the film. I believe that this part of our film is quite unique and very different to the typical codes and conventions which you see in most drama films. The drama genre typically attracts quite an older audience. One of my aims when coming up with the idea was to attract a younger audience and change the typical view that drama films are slow and boring.
8. Our target audience for Lost & Found was for teens and adults. Although our film doesn't contain any adult scenes or explicit language we though that an older audience would be more appropriate. The reason for this is purely because we wanted to ask our audience questions within the film. The story involves a homeless man who is given an expensive ring by 'mistake'. the question which we wanted to ask the audience is simply what would you do in Rico's situation. We though that this may have been a little bit hard for a younger audience to understand.
9. I believe in many ways that Lost & Found is typical of the drama genre. This is what we wanted to achieve when making the film. We wanted a film which fit in the drama genre and we achieved this with the use of camerawork, sound, mise en scene and the editing. The soundtrack is gentle throughout our film however this changes when it come to the dream sequence as the element of drama becomes suppressed. and does not change showing that there is no real rapid change of pace throughout the film. The only thing which does not really stay true to the genre is dream sequence. The dream sequence helps to add elements of fantasy and also comedy to the film. I believe that this sequence helps to liven up the film just in case viewers thought the pace of the film was becoming too slow.
