Evaluation Question One Script

Evaluation question one-

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When creating our short film idea and making it the best it could possibly be, as a group we had to consider what is going to be a successful storyline and plot. As short films can range from a concise 5 minutes to a 30 minute film, we wanted to have an interesting plot idea to gain a large target audience. At the start of the project I and my group brainstormed a lot of different ideas in order to have a variety of opportunities. But due to our lack of location opportunities and our minimal amount of actors, we completely changed our plot ideas from the three initial ideas to a new and improved idea to suit our plot of one character and one location. Regarding the idea and narrative we wanted to focus one a wider issue within society today to enlighten certain audiences to a taboo subject within many communities and societies. As a group we knew that we wanted to portray a powerful and meaningful message to the audience that would be relatable to many audiences. Once we decided on our overall idea, being teenage suicide and bullying, after we were set back by the limitations of our three initial ideas, we decided to look at other examples in the media today that convey this theme well. One example that we examined was Netflix’s ‘’13 Reasons Why’’. We looked at this series that followed a teenage girl’s life of moving to a new school and being bullied, unfortunately leading to her taking her own life at the end of the series. Our group liked the narrative of this as it conveyed a powerful message to the audience, which was what we wanted to do initially. Therefore we gained inspiration from this series and created a narrative of a girl being bullied over social media by anonymous users, leading her to take her own life at the end of the short film.

Sound in drama films is a very important micro-element that plays a big part in creating mood and atmosphere for the audience. The soundtrack, non-diegetic and diegetic sounds that are used help create meaning and enhance the mood of the plot straight away. One example of a short film that has a very significant soundtrack which sets the mood straight away at the start of the short film is ‘’ONE BY ONE’’. Towards the start of the short film the soundtrack starts to play as the shot of the little boy fades in of him on the beach. The soundtrack consists of a piano based sound which automatically gives off a dramatic or sad feeling to the audience, which sets the mood from the outset of the short film. Another example of sound is the voice over of the female character within episodes of ‘’13 Reasons Why’’. Throughout each episode the female character expresses her feelings through a voice over. This example of sound gives a raw and depth representation of her emotions which adds to the drama genre. In contrast, our short film does not have any dialogue involved, which we thought was the best thing to do as it would have taken away the emotion from the soundtrack that we picked to be used throughout our short film, ‘’Anything But Social’’.

Focusing on our group plot of our short film, being bullying and suicide, for the micro-element Mise en Scene, I wanted to find a short film that focused on the problems within schools, regarding bullying. Therefore the short film ‘’ I’m Truly Sorry’’ is the best example of a short film that focuses on bullying. It follows a boy who is part of a group of boys that bully one particular girl from the start of the film. It follows how the boy becomes aware of his little sister being bullied over social media, and how he starts to realise how much bullying can actually affect someone seriously. Therefore he stops getting involved in bullying this one particular girl and apologises to her. The type of mise en scene that is used in this short film are things like mobile phones and  laptops, and locations include places such as schools and classrooms, which are key places that are prone to bullying and singling out people for differences. Therefore when creating our short film we wanted to mirror some of these ideas In order to portray the seriousness of the narrative, by including our main prop being a mobile phone, which emphasizes the online bullying being the main problem with our main character Lucy. We also wanted our Mise en scene to fit specific stereotypes of the drama genre, therefore by using only one location, it prevents the audience to become disoriented in the plot as well as successfully conveying the isolation of the character throughout the film.

The short film ‘’Bully’’ uses a range of camera and movement throughout the film in order to create a sense of emotion and a tense atmosphere. The angles of the camera really addresses the serious themes of the actor that is being bullied, by making him look weak and powerless. The short film uses shots such as extreme close up shots, tracking shots and high-angles shots. The extreme close up that is used in the ‘’Bully’’ is key to the audience in expressing the character raw emotions and feelings at that point in the film. Therefore when creating our own film, we wanted to portray to the audience the down fall of fragility of the character Lucy throughout the plot of the film. We wanted to use a range of shots such as; close ups, medium shots and high-angled shots to really portray the narrative of the film and express the character’s emotions clearly to the audience. This would also make it easy for the audience to understand where the character stands in the particular part of the film without them getting confused. We also wanted to include flashbacks in our narrative to create a sense of meaning for the character as the audience gets to know the character and have an insight of her past, and how she has got worse throughout the plot towards the end.

  

The micro-element Editing can affect the way in which a short film is portrayed to the audience watching, as it play a huge part in creating an interesting plot and narrative. Due to this, as a group we wanted to address a serious matter happening in the world today, therefore we needed our editing techniques to have a wide range. An example of a type of editing that can be used to create a flowing storyline is continuity editing. This is used in many drama short films, in order to make the plot appear more realistic to the audience and enables the audience to gain a connection with what is happening in the short film. It is important for the editing to be smooth and clear in order for the audience to connect with the characters and plot. In the short film ‘’I Miss You’’ there is huge amounts of continuity editing throughout, to help make the story flow and to prevent the audience watching to get disorientated within the plot. There is also frequent cuts to different memories of the character narrating the story, and includes a montage of all of the shots. This can be compared with our short film idea, Anything But Social, as we have included a montage of clips from the character Lucy’s past. The frequent jump cuts used in ‘’I Miss You’’ inspired us to include the past of Lucy, in order for the audience to be emotionally connected with her, leading to them be more engaged with her story.