Creative Critical Reflection 1
By Alex 11C
How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
Main Question
In this presentation, I will discuss
My Brief
Brief
Option 1: Film opening task (video)
Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film (to last a maximum of two minutes). Titles should follow the institutional conventions of commercial cinema. The task may be undertaken individually or as a group. There should be a maximum of four members to a group.
�All images and text used in the main task must be original, and produced by the candidate(s). Sound should be predominantly original (dialogue and atmospheric sound), though music taken from an acknowledged source may be used as part of the soundtrack.
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Film Opening Summary
Title of the film: Teenage Dirtbags
Genre: Crime/Drama
Premise: Our film opening introduce the ragtag group of youngsters who perform acts of petty crime and the sort as a group. The rest of the movie is about them reminiscing on past actions especially about their time as a “gang”.
Genre Conventions of Crime/Drama
Dark/Low key lighting
The lighting method this genre of film uses is gritty dark and atmospheric with a lot of low lighting to increase tension and to signal to the audience that the films tone is serious
Low/High angle shoots
Low and high angle shoots were used signal to the audience that the characters as powerful and threatening which a lot of movies from this genre uses. Low angles are used to show a low point in the characters as they are defeated or overthrown
Low angle shot
Dark lighting
Examples
Low angle shot
Dark lighting
Genre Conventions I conformed to
Music with dark undertones
I used the instrumental to Dance with the Devil by Immoral Technique songs such as these conveys an air of mystique that increases audience engagement and these type of songs are common in this genre
Dark/Low key lighting
I used dark and low key lighting to subtly show the audience the tone and character of my characters as dark backgrounds shows that the character is morally gray as with a lot of characters within this genre
Examples of movies I have researched
The Goodfellas (1990)
By Warner Bros. Pictures
I took the dark undertones from this film and the overall color scheme to increase the mystery of the opening scene of our film to increase audience retention and by the genre theory by Steve Neale to make it similar enough to an existing genre while also making it different enough to gain a larger audience
Conventions I subverted
I used Jackets and hoodies which are not commonly associated with crime/drama films
I did this because of budgetary and Logistical restraints
On the bright side it fits with the time period
Representation of Social Groups and Issues
Representation of Social Groups and Issues
Social Representation
With this I used and was inspired by a couple of movies
The Warriors
(a bunch of teenage delinquents)
Kill bill
(Black and white opening with the main character being beaten up)
Meaning
Leather Jacket
Nirvana (Come as you are)
The leather jacket that the main antagonist is wearing signifies that he’s the leader of this gang and has all the authority considering that the jacket has the most amount of detail compared to the rest of the guys within the gang, the hoodies and sweater are attire that youngsters wear also
The song Come as you are by Nirvana is a song that back in the day was a pillar of youthful rebelliousness and was synonymous with the song, which is why we used it to hermeneutic code our way to auditory storytelling
Representation of Teenagers and Issues
I represented teenagers as rebellious and confrontational, as shown in the video where Panji the main protagonist rides to the parking lot and fights the gang who were just hangin’ around. This is an issue with real teenagers as they constantly want to prove that they are “Big guys” and trying to do it through physical violence.
Thanks for reading ☺