As a group, we tried to reinforce the conventions of a drama and also those of a short film. The conventions of a drama are; real life situations that the target audience can relate to, dramatic relationships and obstacles that the protagonist has to overcome alongside intense social interaction. For our film, we used our school as the main setting. This was convenient for us while filming as it meant that we were able to film during our free periods in the school day, but it is also a recognisable environment that everybody can relate to. Another way that my film adheres to these conventions is through the characters that are used. These characters were school children, bullies, teachers and policemen. These are people that the audience would recognise from day to day scenarios and so would be able to relate to them. This will help draw them further into the story.
We used mise-en-scene to help add to the realism of the storyline. For example, the costumes that we used were everyday clothes that our actors would wear on an everyday basis around school. We also used a policeman’s hat in the scene where Josh is being told off by a policeman, this made the character more authentic and showed him to be in a position of power. We also used props, such as a knife. The knife connotes violence so helped show the gang to be antagonists. The lighting we used was mainly natural lighting as most of our scenes were set outside during the day. However, during the scenes that are inside, for example the school office and Josh’s bedroom, we bounced red beads at the ceiling top create an overall soft lighting effect often used in dramas.
During editing, we created montages. These helped show the relationships between Josh and the gang and Josh and Amy in a relatively fast way. Montages were fist used in the 1920’s and are a conventional way to build tension and show the passage of time. During editing we could have used transitions between shots but we felt this did not fit with the conventions of a drama as they can remove the audience. During filming, we tried to use a variety of camera shots and angles as well as applying continuity editing. We used high angle shots on Josh to make him appear inferior and low angle shots on the gang of boys to make them come across as stronger than Josh and controlling. We also tried to use close-ups of Josh to show his emotion and help the audience sympathise with him and make a connection. If we were too re-filmed then I think using more close-ups would make our film stronger as this would mean we could show more emotion form a variety of characters at different points within the film. We used a combination of non diagetic and diagetic sound within our film. The diagetic sound is mainly the dialogue between characters; this helps to show them building relationships and moves the storyline along. However, during editing we also added in non-diagetic sounds, such as music, over some of the shots. This helps to show what the character is feeling, such as the loud and aggressive music played whilst Josh storms out of his bedroom which helps show his anger.
Me and Fiona Aldwin also created a director's commentry on our film.
