Evaluation Question 1

Conventions of my product

In my media production, I had used several conventions to achieve various effects.

Audience: My target audience is going more towards those who enjoy genres such as sport, action and drama, but more specifically, appeals more to the youth. This is because my product contains many conventions that would be suited to those categories. For example, in my film trailer, I had included various scenes that were sympathy and wonder-arousing. These scenes include the ones with the black and white filter, where the character is employing the following conventions to reach out to the target audience. Throughout all of my productions, the character is using body language to convey seriousness and the severity of his mental state. For example, in one scene he is sitting his head down on a table, on his own, and in another, he is in school, headphones in, sitting lazily on the stairs. This is to convey his loneliness and sadness to the audience, and has an effect of moving the watcher emotionally because of his isolating solitude. Furthermore, this captures the target audience of those who like drama because it arouses suspense of how the individual will deal with such a miserable issue. Also, in context, as studies from bbc.co.uk show, children in England are “among unhappiest in the world”, for various reasons such as exam factories and being bullied. With my character seeming to be an embodiment of the testimony to this study, many youths will find this product relatable, and therefore will be drawn further to it. In addition, the black and white filter helps indefinitely define hardship and stress, and really shows the gloomy imagery to match the character’s emotion. This all adds the effect appealing to those who enjoy the genre of drama. It provides a certain relating and levelling to daily situations of their own.

My productions attract those who enjoy the sport genre because I was able to choose my locations wisely and correctly. Location is crucial in attracting this sort of audience because it drastically helps give a realistic edge towards the production – this meaning the scenes making sense and easy to understand and picture just what is happening. In my production, I did my best to ensure that the location was appropriate towards the ambition and the purpose of the plot.  During the second half of my film production, the character is training in order to achieve his goals. I had used locations that many athletes would in fact be familiar with, such as high terrain hills, the Peterborough Athletics Track, and two gyms, which does not only give a certain taste of intensity into the production, but also shows the character’s maniac determination to become a world champion. So I used the quantity of locations in order to really convey themes of ambition, hope, hard work and glory within the production. Typically, athletes in general are kept motivated by these themes themselves. Therefore, I draw a massive sporting audience as this production with an inspirational figure of an athlete, would serve as a motivational device for those enjoy both sport and the genre of sport.

I had used mise-en-scene in order to convey a heavy sense of action within the production. Within the training scenes, various props are used to give a ‘hard-core feel’ in the product that those who enjoy the action genre enjoy. For example, the explosive movements with heavy weights and jumping over mini hurdles. This is achieved through fast paced movements and aggressive performance. Using these props also allowed variety in actions that could be executed, and since they were ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ exercises, it has an extended effect of enticing the audience with shock and wonder, ultimately impressing those who like that genre. It conveys imagery that the story is about a superhuman who is about to go and challenge the world, which is very suitable for attracting an audience who enjoys action.

Finally, sound has come into massive play into the quality of my production. I used a musical piece called “The Perfect Battle” which starts off with the music very low, gloomy and sad, which was paired up with the scenes of the character seeming like a misfit, an outcast. Then, the music switches to an uplifting, ‘action-needs-to-be-taken’ kind of beat. The sound here is paired up with the intensive training scenes. The effect of this specific soundtrack being used is that it strongly differentiates the two situations within the production. One of idle, sad behaviour, then one of determination-possessed behaviour. This is done to show the characteristics of the main protagonist, as a boy who grows up into a man, and who has the mentality to take on the world and achieve all that he can. It also shows the sense of duty within the production and arouses suspense in the way that it gets the audience wondering how the protagonist will do in his plight.