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

For this project we decided to base it on social realism cinema. This is the most ‘real’ of British cinema as it focuses on working class culture and the problems they face everyday.

The first convention of this genre is use of realistic settings. For our film trailer the majority of shots are filmed in the park and outside a school. With our main character being a young child that attends school these locations are not unusual or unrealistic. We also followed the convention of realistic events and situations. We followed the theme of the effects of drugs on other people. We have focused on the effect it has on the child, being left alone and neglected (another theme). We wanted to make it as real as possible by using these hard hitting problems that Britain faces everyday. By adding in the news report this adds a sense of authenticity making it all seem more real. We have then included a section of night vision surveillance to the news report this goes under the realistic filming convention included in social realism. We have filmed the child alone; this connects with the gritty style convention. Watching the child walking on her own at a late hour makes the viewer uncomfortable, they would want to help the child, it asks you questions of why she is on her own and where are her parents?

One of the conventions we have not stuck to is the convention of social class. Most social realism films are filmed and set in areas of poverty and focus on the ‘working class hero’ in our film the parents are more middle class, they have a nice house and have money to be spent on leisure. The way they have got the money is through the father selling on drugs. One of the main differences is the lack of support for the child her mother and father are both too busy in there careers to care for the child, making the child the ‘working class hero’ as she is being subjected to neglect. The family unit is a very important theme in social realism films and this is missing from ours. We decided to do this so the audience will focus on the child’s struggles and be able to feel sympathy towards her. Billy Elliot is a good example of the story of the working class hero as his father works in the mines during the strike to raise money to send Billy to his audition for Ballet school.

In most social realism trailers there are moments of uplifting happiness where the viewer is shown that it will be alright in the end. We have done the opposite in ours there are no uplifting moments. We have kept it all very enigmatic by only showing the child’s face and leaving it on a cliff hanger. These elements are used to keep the mystery for the viewer making them want to watch the film and creating curiosity.

For the music we wanted it to compliment the shots that will be shown. It needed to be uplifting with some sort of climax, the lyrics needed to be meaningful and appropriate to the genre, play up to the vulnerability of the child and quite mellow so it didn’t overpower the news report section. Most social realism trailers have sad but uplifting music we by choosing Johnny Flynn: Lost and Found we have found something that compliments the actions in the trailer. The lyrics all include words like 'lonely' 'playing' and 'lost and found' these all reflect how the child feels throughout the film.