Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We have made informed decisions on our use of conventions within genre, narrative structure  form and style, all of which I have explained below. 

Genre

Our film is a teen drama, with sub genres of black comedy and coming of age.

Below is a video on genre conventions. It explains any relevant conventions used in the Opening when we get to them. All three of us worked on all parts of the video. 

Other conventions that we would use throughout the film are:

1. The moral development of the protagonist from a teenager to a young adult (This can be seen in coming of age themes such as Mean Girls - in which Cady grows up and realises that popularity does not really hold much importance)
2. Disruption caused by the protagonist (In Heathers, Veronica decides to make a change and take down Heather, which results in Heather's death)
3. Themes of sexuality, popularity, moral values and self-worth. (Some of these themes can be seen in American Beauty, for instance when it is revealed that Angela lied about having sex, in order to fit in) 

From left to right: Mean Girls, Heathers, American Beauty

For conventions regarding character and representation, please click here. 

With regards to our protagonist, we both developed and conformed to conventions. Like many protagonists in teen dramas, Eve is quite absorbed in herself and in teenage life. The film ends as she matures and makes her way into adulthood. This conforms to conventions. However, Eve's moral journey is not to do with popularity, or other people at all, but about her growing up from her cold and calculating ways. There is also no aspect of her romantic life in the film. We did this because we felt that too often the new equilibrium was reached in relating to the protagonist entering or fixing a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Although this could alienate viewers who are fans of the romance genre, we wanted to update the teen drama genre in a more realistic way. 

These teen-drama protagonists were key influences for us. Clockwise from top left:

1. Effy - Skins. Effy is cold and cuts herself off people, never allowing herself to make true connections. She does however have a close relationship with brother Tony. This family relationship but cold exterior otherwise inspired us.
2. Kat - 10 Things I Hate About You. Kat is very independent and again very cold. She eventually has to allow herself to let go; these traits are all exhibited in our protagonist.
3. Kim - Chalet Girl. Kim is determined, intelligent and sarcastic; she often uses black humour in her speech. Our character will also be sarcastic but not for the purpose of humour. She will also be very intelligent.
4. Tracy - Thirteen. Tracy gets caught up in teen life and becomes very self-absorbed, similar to Eve. 
5. Annabel - St Trinians. Annabel thinks very highly of herself, and has to let go of this to find true happiness, as does Eve.
6. Cady - Mean Girls. Cady becomes self absorbed and caught up in a madness which she must let go of, as must Eve with her revenge. 
7. Veronica - Heathers. Veronica triggers a very serious fake-suicide pattern, which she must put an end to. Eve must put an end to the revenge trend she started. 
8. Susanna - Girl, Interrupted. Although the storyline has various interpretations, Susanna like Eve realises the trouble she is in and does what she can to amend this. 

Other conventional characters in teen dramas include:

• Jocks or sleazy males 
• Cheerleaders and unintelligent yet attractive females
• Geeks and nerds
• Outcasts or loners
• Parents

From left to right: Mean Girls -  Jocks, A Cinderella Story - Cheerleaders, St Trinians - Geek,
 Mean Girls - Outcasts, American Beauty - Parents

Teen drama characters also often fit Propp's character theory which I have discussed below. 

Narrative Structure

In general, film structure usually complies with Todorov's narrative theory. Teen dramas are no exception (neither are black comedies nor coming of age films). Below I have outlined Todorov's narrative structure and how we have followed it. 

1. Equilibrium - Pupils at are school are introduced at a party. Everyone seems sociable and gets on with each other, and there is use of drugs, alcohol and sex. *
2. Disruption - One girl collapses at the party and seemingly overdoses, there is lots of panic and people react in different ways. (Eve sold dodgy drugs to her "best friend" to exact revenge for sleeping with her brother behind her back)*
3. Recognition - The pupils at the school start to suspect Eve had taken revenge, and start settling their vendettas in cruel, unnecessary ways. One slightly unsociable boy takes this too far and plans a cold murder of an innocent girl who rejected him romantically. 
4. Attempts to repair - Eve prevents the boy from exacting his revenge and the whole school are shocked when his cruel intentions are revealed. 
5. New equilibrium - In a big emotional gathering, the whole school realise their wrong doings and promise to end the madness, and be nicer to each other and resolve their problems in other ways. As school breaks and they all walk out, the police arrive to take them to the station after catching wind of all of the events. 

* The first two stages(in blue) are the stages that are in our opening. This demonstrates how our opening has also conformed to narrative convention. 

This is a very conventional narrative structure. We chose to conform to it to make the film easy for the audience to follow. It also is successful with audiences because they feel as if they have been on a journey with the films' characters, and they are happy that the situation has been resolved. 

Narrative techniques or devices are used to keep the audience interested and entertained, but also to move the plot forward. We used the following narrative devices in our opening:

Narrative technique	Example of where we used it	Why we used it
Ellipsis	When Eve is walking up the stairs	Watching Eve climb all of the stairs would be boring, and it would slow the sequence down too much. The audience would not gain anything from it and are able to piece together the events themselves.
Linear sequence	During the overdose scene and Eve’s exit	This juxtaposes the POV shots in the beginning, as well as juxtaposing the effects of drugs against the potential consequences. It makes it clear that the viewer is back in the real world, and enforces the negativity of drug taking.
Real time	From when Hannah overdoses	This contrasts greatly with the POV shots at the beginning, and makes it clear that that episode of the scene has ended along with all its related themes and the mood. It also creates clarity so the audience can understand what has happened.
Cliff hanger	When Eve smiles	The audience do not know what will happen next, and so are more likely to watch the rest of the film to find out.
Enigma code	When Eve smiles	Following the confusion and chaos of the overdose scene, this raises many questions in the audiences’ minds. Why did she smile, why did she leave, is she somehow responsible? The audience want these questions answered and so are likely to watch on.
Cultural code	The beer cans	When seeing these, the audience immediately think of alcohol and being drunk. This makes them think of past experiences/films/awareness, and they therefore can understand the events and relate to the characters more.

We also used character roles (a theory suggested by Vladamir Propp) to help move the narrative along and so that the audience could identify and recognised characters further. However, the lines of good and bad are somewhat blurred in our opening due to the long running theme of revenge. 

Arguably the Heroin, Eve saves the day by preventing the murder of the innocent girl. Like conventional heroins, she is the protagonist. However, she is also arguably the villain, because she sparked of the revenge trend by exacting the first very cruel revenge. 

Hannah fits the character role of the victim, because she is drugged by Eve. However she has villainous aspects to her: Eve did not commit the revenge for no reason. 

Another arguable villain is the nerdy and unsociable boy. He plans a cruel revenge for no reason, and has to be stopped by the protagonist/heroin. 

Form

Most people can immediately recognise a film opening, even if they aren't told what media it is. Below I have identified the typical features of an opening sequence. We intentionally followed all of these to make the form obvious, so that the audience could concentrate on more important things such as the story-line. 

We intentionally followed most of the conventions for opening sequences. Those that we followed we had no reason to break, and they help audiences recognise the form of media this is. However, we did not use any institution idents. If I was to do this project again, I would make one for X productions, because it further helps audiences to identify that this is a film opening. Furthermore, if X Productions were to become a real production company, it would help audience recognise their films and associate them together. 

Style
To clearly demonstrate our points with regards to style, we have made annotations over the top of the film opening. The annotations appear in time with relevant shots/sound/titles to what we have done and the  style of the film opening.

Please watch this video in full screen because otherwise the annotations do not fully display themselves. 

In summary, we used conventions where we thought it was appropriate. We did not use them for the sake of creating a conventional film; we used them when we felt they would increase audience appeal. Where we felt a convention was outdated and unrealistic, we tried to develop it. Overall we have neither completely conformed to stereotypes nor created a ground breaking film opening; instead we have developed conventions according to current times.