Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does our short film use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?

 

The genre of our short film is called a docu-film. This is because we have made a documentary-style film, but it is not based on real life. Due to this, we tried to stick to all the clichés of documentaries, in order to make it look as close to reality as possible. For each sub-heading below, we have selected a picture to help illustrate the point (view left to right, top to bottom).

Narrative

In terms of narrative, we kept this traditional, matching the conventions of documentaries. Naturally, documentaries explain a story through facts and so they need to be chronological. This is what we did. Had we of strayed away from this, we would lose sight of the documentary, it would confuse viewers. The first picture is a screengrab from our opening narrative.

Plot

As a general rule, documentaries tend to follow an unconventional character with an unconventional story. This is what we tried to do. Of course, real documentaries would work with a real person and a real story. In this sense, it could be said that we stray away from this area of conventions. We also found that documentaries tend to create some sort of decision for the viewer to make e.g. is this person truly bad, or do they need help? (perhaps in the case of crime documentaries). Our question was somewhat similar, we could state it as, "is this person truly selfish and obsessed, or does he need help?" So again, we follow the clichés. Picture 2 was selected as we can see the two main characters in conversation, which we feel best sums up our film.

 

Settings/Locations

We didn't create a set. We did however add to the settings we planned to use e.g. by placing drawings on a wall in the main character's house. This would go against documentary conventions, as documentary-makers would never manipulate the surroundings of their subject; this would stop it being real-life and factual. Having said this, the settings and locations of our film is true to documentary clichés. This is because we've used real-life settings such as an average house, and a nearby city. It is true to life. Picture 3 was chosen as it shows just one of our locations in which we used a pan shot to illustrate.

Costume/Props

For costume, we went for nothing too crazy. Of course, we tried to stick to real life. This wasn't particularly difficult. We based our presenter's costume on Louis Theroux:

Louis Theroux goes for a smart-casual look which we attempted to match. I would say that we achieved this and so have used conventions of documentaries (as Louis Theroux is a leading figure in documentaries regarding controversial stories.)

We made sure that no one in our cast stood out, the costume was not the main focus for us. We chose picture 4 as it showed both our characters costumes which show how everyday they are.

In terms of props, we did not have many. This would follow the conventions of documentaries seeing as documentaries do not try to create an artificial environment. However, the one main prop we did have takes us away from the conventions of documentaries as we created it (the drawings of the person he is searching for) to enhance the character's backstory. It emphasised our character's obsession.

Camera Work

Our camera work was probably one of the main ways we made our film look like a documentary, we feel this is what made it fit into our desired genre. In particular, we used shots such as tracking shots. Often in documentaries there is time spent walking with the presenter and subject and we tried to include this. We also tried to experiment with focus e.g. pull focus, soft focus etc. This was to add more of an atmosphere to our film. It also puts emphasis on different things. This again is similar to real documentaries.

We tried to include lots of shots of miscellaneous objects in the surroundings of our character. Documentaries tend to do this to help build up a backstory of their character, they then include some sort of voiceover over the top. We utilised that technique a few times in our film. Picture 5 is a screengrab from a shot where we used pull focus. In picture 4 you can see a tracking shot also.

Editing

Our editing has been kept quite simple. Documentaries do not require fancy editing, it simply needs to tell the story somewhat chronologically and coherently. One technique we used, which is used often in documentaries, is overlapping clips with narration to link them. We used this several times. In picture 6 we have a miscellaneous shot in the car, what tied this in with the surrounding shots and film was the linking narration.

Special Effects

The only 'special effects' we used was to add titles/captions such as on the interviews where we captioned the clip with their name. Therefore we have followed conventions. In picture 7 you can see one of the captions we made.

Casting/Characters

In terms of the presenters, it would seem that many documentaries of this type try to cast someone confident and assured, someone willing to ask tough questions. While our documentary is vaguely scripted and isn't real, Jasper is quite a confident person and so we used him. This worked well. Documentaries also tend to include some people to back-up the severity of the story and/or people who are involved with the person to add emotional weight. In this sense, we have the factual side, and then the emotional side. We followed this convention with having the 'expert' and then the 'family'. We chose age appropriate people to make this more believable.

We had trouble casting our main character having originally envisioned him as middle aged. We eventually decided that using a younger person might work better as perhaps it could be said our character is naive. The actor we cast, Henry, is older than us; in his early 20s. This worked well and feel it looks believable - after all, mental health issues can affect anyone. This really sends that message home.

Picture 8 shows the youngest cast member. You can see in the other pictures in the grid that we have a range of ages.

Genre

As said briefly earlier, we really tried to play to documentary cliches in order for it to easily be recognised as one. We wanted no blurred lines as to what our short film is. It might be said that if documentaries are unclear, then they have completely missed their purpose (that being to inform). Some of the most commonly used components of documentaries are;

interviews

flashbacks

voice-overs

arbitrary clips of objects to do with the subject

dramatisation/reconstructions

following the main character in the daily life

There are of course many more. Out of those listed above, we have used 4/6. These being the interviews, voice-overs, arbitrary clips, and following the main character. We felt that for our subject matter, these techniques are what would work best to break up the facts and keep it interesting. We also based the documentary on a somewhat real-life issue, While we are not aware of anybody suffering from our main character's obsession, it could be believed to be real-life. In other words, it is not eccentric or obscure in that it is impossible e.g. the character has super-powers.

We have picked up that many documentaries will create a discussion point - almost attempting to divide the audience up by making them think and ask questions about the situation being presented to them e.g. in our case, is David (the focus of the documentary) deluded and selfish for what he is doing, or does he need help and guidance? Without a doubt, documentaries about the 'nitty-gritty' will pick stories that have more than one perspective. This is what captures the audience's attention. Take, for example, Channel 4 documentaries.

While it is hard to find a shot that demonstrates genre, we decided on using the title screen. However, it is the conventions we use that really make our film recognisable as a documentary.