Evaluation question 1: Real Media Products

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

I believe our film opening follows and challenges conventions of both Drama and Coming-Of-Age (teenage) film. 'Back At Ya' follows the conventions of our chosen genre because it has a dramatic storyline about bullying which is a modern interpretation of film, connecting with a teenage audience. Stereotypically our film features a teenage cast so it can be realistic and connect with our desired demographic.

First and foremost, the attire of our characters is related to the idea behind our target audience. We wanted to drift from the stereotype of bullying films and not include the 'chav' culture such as films like Kidulthood. The aim of our film was the show that bullying can happen in any group and any age no matter which social standard, challenging the convention of lower class characters in bullying films. We showed this through the costumes worn by our actors.

Our main character Rebecca was played by Jessica Carroll. Rebecca's outfit challenged the stereotype of teenagers seen in film because she is a victim. Also her clothing is a mixture of designer and high street fashion. We decided to create a character who is alternative from the mainstream fashion cultures to ensure we had subtle reasoning for her being a victim of bullying and to show how different she is from other characters. Rebecca's outfit is quite smart and the basic colours on her un-branded clothing are a first for this genre of film. Also we decided to leave Jess's hair how it is when originally we were thinking of her having it up. When we fully agreed upon the fact that we wanted to change the film stereotype of rough teenagers and create a new market and new product which has rarely been seen before, we decided to let Jess keep her hair down to give more sophistication to her character.


However we followed conventions when it came to setting. Most teenage films are set in school surroundings like The Breakfast Club and Mean Girls so we decided, for the benefit of the narrative, to set the beginning of our film in school. This helped us establish the age of our characters, location of the film and situations they were in. We took a risk because setting our film in our school could appear lazy and that we didn't bother finding more interesting locations but we did this for the benefit of our audiences understanding. There are some key signifiers in our film opening which portray that the location is a school in which the characters attend. Signs and classroom names throughout the first half of the opening are beneficial to our narrative.


The dramatic element of our film is designed to send out a moral message and I think the use of crying and signs of our protagonists despair shows how severe our film is. The dramatic elements we used are contrary to the Drama genre and use the thematic conventions which are applied in films of the same genre. During this part of the scene (the image) our character Rebecca is crying over seeing herself being bullied online. Crying and tears are a big part of the drama genre because they demonstrate emotion and drama's must be emotional. They deal with day-to-day occurrences and problems and bullying is a big problem in todays society. I think this highlights the fact that our film is true to its genre and we included the majority of expected conventions.
I also think the drama genre offers a great deal of mystery and 'turn of events'. The end of our film opening shows our protagonist decided to antagonise Rachel, the original bully and play her at her own game. This ensures that we have kept our film similar to other films similar to ours such as Mean Girls, which centres around a initially innocent character becoming an antagonist.



Again, going against the dramatic genre, we have incorporated a pop song to accompany our film opening. The pop song itself is intended for a teenage market so we thought it would be suited in our film and it goes really well. The upbeat song makes clear of the fact that our main character is having vengeful thoughts and creates a slick and sophisticated piece. However, a catchy song which can related to the film is popular in the film industry. Previously in our Group Blog I stated that songs can be a helpful marketing strategy for films and when associated with the film itself can bring in a wider audience. Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On is a good example of this because the majority of people connect the song itself with the film Titanic. I don't have a relevant screenshot to show the song but I think it challenges the Drama side of our genre, benefits the Coming-Of-Age side of our genre and overall, upholds conventions of popular film.


When compared to the biggest inspiration for our film, Cyberbully, the characters and feel of the film differ. Cyberbully is nearly the exact same genre as Back At Ya however Cyberbully is an American film so some of the cultural stereotypes are different. Just like Cyberbully our main character is a girl and our main bully character is also a girl. We chose to have a female-orientated film because girls are less likely to be violent and we didn't want to create a violent film. Females being the central characters in drama's could be both challenging and mimicking the conventions of our chosen genre. Submarine is another influence on Back At Ya and the central character in that Coming-Of-Age Drama is male. Our film goes against that idea and illustrates a serious topic about female online bullying. Kurtis Brampton, who plays Sam is male and is a bully as well. We incorporated his character into the plot of our film because we wanted some diversity and to ensure our film wasn't too feminine for a mixed gender audience, hoping it could attract and be appreciated by both genders.

 

How our film compares and contrasts other real media products

 

 

Both titles shown are quite similar, showing that our film is quite similar to the editing conventions of Kidulthood. Kidulthood is also a Coming-Of-Age Drama specialising in displaying a certain stereotype. We decided to go with a black background and white font because it is bolder than having a white background and black text. Our font however is bigger in our title giving the title more impact than the Kidulthood title. Our font is also specific to the concept of our film, being a computer-style font to highlight that our film is about cyberbullying. The titles themselves are both 'slang' based. We chose to use 'Ya' and not 'You' because it implies a sense of youth and develops the ideology of our film being about teenagers and the cultures in our generation. Kidulthood's title is also slang and a play on the word adulthood. Both titles are original and completely inventive. 

 

 

 

These screenshots show the similarity for the setting of our film. Again with Kidulthood the opening is set in a school environment. Our opening is mostly set inside the school and not in the playground but there are some outside scenes as well. Both films progress into a broader environment and take place in a more mature setting but both openings are set in school. Doing this shows the age of the characters and represents teenagers in their natural surroundings.

 

 

 



Compared with Cyberbully. Communication in Back At Ya is based between mobile phones. Cyberbully shows both the bullying online and the communication online, both on computers. However we wanted Back At Ya to show a variety of platforms of social media and technological devices, enhancing the message of how easy it is to cyberbully and how controls need to be put in place on all of these devices. I think Back At Ya shows more diversity with social medias and different gadgets whereas Cyberbully's main focus is computers and laptops.

 

 

 

 
 

Clothing and attire is very important in films because Mise-En-Scene is a way of displaying a character and what sort of person they are. People are judged on what they wear because in this day and age people can guess what type of a person someone is by the way they dress. The clothing our characters wore in Back At Ya juxtaposes the scruffy school uniforms of the characters in Adulthood. This is because they cover different social groups and categorises. Back At Ya is about bullying in a higher class environment and this is shown through the styles of the characters who wear a mixture of designer and high street fashions. Kidulthood's characters are from a chav orientated nature and this is shown through their costumes. 

 

 

Some similarities in the editing and camera work show close ups on characters features. Also both shots are seen in slightly slow motion and a blurry effect is used to create confusion and imply a change. The blurry effect on Rebecca in our film is to accentuate the change in her character and act as a transition from being a victim to a perpetrator. This comparison shows similarities between both media texts and how the techniques are similar. Our decisions were made based on the fact because our film portrays a message and the basis is to represents social situations, we still wanted it to be artistic.

 

 

 

Although the film's plots are different, I have found the revenge storyline runs similarly in both Kill Bill and Back At Ya. The story in Kill Bill is told by starting with the main character being a victim, rather than jumping straight into the action where the main character is antagonising the people who have bullied her. Much like this Back At Ya begins with our main character Rebecca both being bullied and watching herself being bullied online, implying the cyberbulling factor. This is to make clear to the audience that she has been through a lot and justifies her reasoning for becoming more cyberviolent. The same with Kill Bill, starting the film with the main character being a victim increases the changes of the audience remaining faithful to the character and being able to justify the change in character. Both story's are set up to demonstrate the change in character and Back At Ya's plot involves a turning point where Rebecca realises she has become the very thing she hates.


We decided to add a great deal of mystery to the character of Rebecca which is a common convention in films. Rebecca's face was not shown at all in our film opening, creating an enigma about her character. These screenshots demonstrate the diversity creating an enigma gave us. When filming we had to think which shots we could use which would not show Rebecca's face, making for a more professional looking film. This could also make Rebecca appear more vulnerable than other characters implying that she is 'invisible'.
Cyberbully's main character, who is the victim of bullying is introduced to the audience straight away, unlike Rebecca. The main character is seen straight away so the audience know who she is and what she looks like. I prefer the idea we had to hide Rebecca from thr audience until after the story has started and it is clear she is a victim of bullying.