The Genre of our film is a Drama. This means that our film will share, challenge and develop codes and conventions from this particular genre, and other media products with the same themes.
Through extensive research that I have done on films with the same themes and in the same genre we found basic codes and conventions that would feature in our film.
Some of which was; that there is always a villain, there is always something bad/dramatic that happens in the film, most of the time there is a victim or some sort of innocent person within the film, usually the issue or bad event gets resolved or is concluded and it always follows a normal logical order. There are many other things which I will discuss in this evaluation.
Our film uses a lot of codes and conventions form the other media products in the same genre as ours, one of which an innocent character. A.I is a film that shares this common code and convention or an innocent young character, this character is portrayed through a little robot boy who just wants to be loved by his mother, just like Lilly in our film who says “I Love him, he says he loves me too”, talking about the monster who is actually her father. The character in A.I is very lonely and goes through the whole film being around people who don’t really know him, which is similar to our character who have two friends who don’t know that her dad her abuses her at home, the boy only has one companion in the shape of a super toy but that super toy is separated from him leaving him again on his own. Which is just the same as out character Lilly who says “ even when my friends leave me I’m not scared there are many , long shots , mid shots , and close ups showing Lilly alone in the park representing her as and innocent lonely character and again she is shown in this light when she enters the class room and no on talks to her when she enters late or even says hello , and she sits at the front of the class on her own and she is the only student in the class who has no one to talk to . Also when the teacher says they will be doing a “fun writing task” a track shows her not joining in with the moaning in which every single one of her class mates partake in.
One of the codes and conventions of a Drama is that it consists of realistic characters and I do believe that our film has used real life characters similar to the film La Haine. The characters used in La Haine are not glamorous , extremely good looking , crazy rich but they are normal everyday characters that you probably pass by on the street, what makes them more real is that they are just a common every day , average Joe.
Eastnders is another real media product and is also a drama, which uses real life characters such as working class, middle class and lower class characters throughout each episode. Realistic characters can be seen through local business man Ian, or the Jackson family who is classed in the lower band of society because they are on benefits. All these mentioned can be seen as real life characters as they are like mirrors to the audience because it is showing them what they see everyday. Characters like this are used to appeal to about 90% of the audience who are just like the people they are watching on the screen and for that reason alone it makes it that much more appealing and that much more realistic. So like La Haine and Eastenders we have use realistic characters such as a school girl and seeing how the majority of people in the UK have gone through some sort of schooling, or see school children on their travels, they are able to identify this character as a real life person. Also our target audience is a young one, that of school age or not too far from just left some sort of education, so characters like this is really appealing to our own target audience. Also Lilly has 2 close friends who she hangs out with, which so many people can relate to, many adults only have 1 or 2 close friends, in schools kids may have many friends but only a select few they are close with like our character, so people are able to watch this film and put themselves in the place of our character which makes it that much real for them to experience and make the film more personal and dramatic for the individual.
Our film deals with real life issues which is also a code and convention of a drama and by using realistic characters it makes it that much easier to represent those issues. Many films have real life issues at their core but la Haine was a very controversial film because it was the 1st time in the history of French cinema that the police were to be shown in a bad light. La Haine dealt with police brutality and our film deals with child abuse. Just like Domestic Disturbance deals with the same issue. Domestic Disturbance is about a stepfather who abuses his new step son, but the mother is too blind to see, so the son tells his biological father who the later deals with the step father. Although this film takes a more of an action approach to represent this issue it still tackles it just in a different way to our film. This is another code and convention that our film has used of other films in the same genre to tackle or deal with real life issues.
Another code and convention our film also adopts from its genre is that our film consists of a villain/ bad character or a negative event. Just like the film Kidulthood which deals with many issues such as; teenage sex/pregnancy, violence, gun and knife crime, youth crime, bullying, drugs, gangs and school life. This film also has a defiant bad event caused by a constant villain throughout the film. Sam who is an older character to the other main characters in the film (just as Lilly’s father is to her in our film) bullies them consistently throughout the film, and even in a place where they should feel safe and secure, their school, just like Lilly who says “I don’t know why he treats me so”, because “there should be love and comfort at home”
Our film also develops certain codes and conventions of other film in the same genre. Drama films usually present the film through an audience or general view, making them feel like a spectator, and they do this through a series of event. We have too that idea a developed it into our own, we told the story from Lilly’s point of view and used a voice over to do so. Instead of just showing the audience the events we had Lilly narrate her story that she was writing and that lead to her describing what we saw on the screen. This technique is also used to connect the audience with the character and make them feel like they are in the story them self as the character is talking directly to them; it makes the story more personal to the audience. This technique has been used a few times in films such as; Sin City, Fight Club and Badlands, all 3 of these films are very successful in using a voice over and we believe our film is also. Even though it is not typical to do so in a drama we chose to take the dialogue and develop it into a voice over.
Flash backs are also not a typical codes and convention in a drama but instead of just showing a series of event running in order we chose to develop that idea and show flash backs instead this was also added to assist with the voice over. This is similar to the film Butterfly Effect, where the whole film is made up of a series of flash backs each time the main character reads an entry from his diary. This also worked very well in Slumdog Millionaire. And I believe it has worked very well for our film.
Our film doesn’t have a set middle beginning and end like most film. Unlike most of the dramas that have a set up, disruption and a resolution our film doesn’t follow that set pattern. This is similar to the film 16 years of Alcohol, which starts with the main character being beaten up , then the rest of the film is made up of flash backs leading up to that event. Like our film which has a beginning then a series of flashback and then it takes you back to the beginning and then there is a powerful and abrupt ending.
Along with developing and using codes and conventions of other media products within our Drama genre we also challenge them.
One way we do so is by leaving the story unresolved. This is not only going against the codes and convention of drama films but this is actually going against the codes and conventions of most films. This is a very similar style to Ken Loach who most of the time leaves his films unsolved or unresolved to enforce the issue of what he is trying to portray on his audience, just like in My Name Is Joe, where the two characters who had fallen in love do not get back together and another character hangs himself (Liam).
The reason we have done this is to reinforce our theme, the last thing they see is Lilly being abused, which stamps our theme in their mind because they are still emotional, and upset at the end of our film, raising awareness of our theme which will linger on in their thoughts.
Another way we disobey or challenge the codes and convention of our genre is by leaving the audience confused right up till the end when you see her father drag her away. This is different because of the way we have chosen to tell the story most dramas give you the full picture straight away and deal with it, we don’t give you the picture because they way we chose to tell the story , through Lilly, meaning we only let the audience know what we want them to know until the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment