The genre of our film is Drama which is a very broad term so we decided to focus more on the social realism when it came to our film giving us the opportunity to be creative with the narrative content. As a group we decided to be conventional with our film so the audience would be able to tell what our genre was however due to certain twists in the protagonist’s journey in our film overall we weren’t as conventional as we could have been.
The genre Drama is described as putting ‘the characters at conflict with themselves’ which we kept conventional with our main character Sophie who is unhappy with her grades and is becoming stressed with her GCSE’s. She is at conflict with herself because she wants to do well to improve her life. Later on in the film Sophie will be at a bigger conflict with herself trying to decide if the relationship with her best friends father is right or wrong and as a result of her relationship with him her friend Paige, Alan’s daughter will become jealous that ‘Sophie’ is receiving the attention that she used to get. Another way we kept to the conventions of a Drama was making our storyline realistic which we managed to do through our research into the steps of sexual grooming producing the guideline for our plot.
The genre Drama is described as putting ‘the characters at conflict with themselves’ which we kept conventional with our main character Sophie who is unhappy with her grades and is becoming stressed with her GCSE’s. She is at conflict with herself because she wants to do well to improve her life. Later on in the film Sophie will be at a bigger conflict with herself trying to decide if the relationship with her best friends father is right or wrong and as a result of her relationship with him her friend Paige, Alan’s daughter will become jealous that ‘Sophie’ is receiving the attention that she used to get. Another way we kept to the conventions of a Drama was making our storyline realistic which we managed to do through our research into the steps of sexual grooming producing the guideline for our plot.
The music we use was called ‘December Rising’ which due to the lyrics – for example ‘I was your best friend when we were all alone’ fits in with the storyline and the message we want the audience to understand. There is a large intake of breath at the beginning of the song also which helped set the theme. The instruments such as the piano were played slowly, created an eerie feeling at the beginning of our opening sequence. Setting the atmosphere of the film was conventional of a Drama to engage the audience with the theme. The emotive feeling of the film anchored by the pace of the panning and static shots of the title designs - which fell more into the category of graphical then live action, meant that we fulfilled our genre of drama due to its emotional themes.
The introduction of our characters was somewhat unconventional when it came to narrative enigma due to our group’s choice of including a voiceover so that the audience knew that the film was from ‘Alan’s’ point of view and not ‘Sophie’s’. Our audience all realised that it was from ‘Alan’s’ point of view but they could also guess what was going to happen later on in our film suggesting some sort of rape or sexual abuse, this is unconventional of a Drama because the genre usually keeps the storyline a mystery only suggesting what will happen.
On the other hand the fact that we created an enigma of ‘Alan’ and showed that the two girls where obviously at risk was conventional because in drama’s you are aware of who is the protagonist is and we made it very clear in our film. We were also unconventional with the introducing of the girls however because both girls got the same amount of screen time, not giving a clear indication of who was who except from the close ups being of ‘Sophie’s’ body not ‘Paige’s’.
The structure of sequence was conventional keeping our film in chronological order and sticking to our plotline and research into the stages of grooming. The opening titles kept the suspense with the slow pace and the voiceover helped with keeping the eerie atmosphere which was conventional of a Drama to do. The title ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ was unconventional because it appeared half way through the titles when usually the title would have been after or before, we as a group decided putting the title at the end of the title design would introduce scene one which was shot in the class room better then putting the title at the very beginning before the titles or at the very end of our two minute opening sequence.
The style and colour of font in our opening titles was conventional as the colour white was bold enough to stand out against the black backgrounds and fade outs however we kept the style, font size and colour plain and consistent so that we didn’t move the audience’s attention from what was going on in the background. The style of the presentation was rather simple however when it came to finding where to put the titles it was sometimes difficult because the titles where in white and would only show up against a black background. We had to play around a bit to find out where was appropriate to put the titles and from our research what order the titles should go in.
When it came to our mise-en-scene we had to think about our location because there were two English school girls so that meant we had to keep with the British stereotype and have the two characters in school uniform however changing ‘Sophie’s’ to fit in with the voiceover making her ‘Her skirt was short, her tie loose’. For ‘Alan’ we had to make sure he was dressed smart to show his age because we used a young actor we had to make him appear more mature. Our location was Kings Langley Secondary School which meant that some of the props were already on location such as; the corridor containing lockers and the maths classroom where GCSE maths books were kept, we tried to keep the locations conventional making the film seem as realistic as possible including using a car that we drove instead of using a green screen in the background. We did use a variety of props especially in our title design; we borrowed maths equipment to emphasise the school theme in our opening credits which was conventional as it set the location of the film for the audience. They were aware that one of the main characters would be involved in something to do with school which was anchored by the panning shot across the maths exercise book which stopped slightly on the name ‘Sophie Freeman’ which introduced the character before the audience saw her.
The sound in the film was diegetic for the dialogue between ‘Paige’ and ‘Sophie’ which is conventional because the audience expect to see and hear the dialogue between the two characters. ‘Alan’s’ voiceover however was unconventional because the audience didn’t expect the voiceover to come from ‘Alan’ but from ‘Sophie’ this use of non-diegetic sound explains the point of view from which the plot is being told. Diegetic sound was also used for the car scene for the car’s engine and also in the corridor scene with the locker slamming which was conventional because it made the film seem more realistic and the audience expected it.
In our film when it came to editing and special effects we used a variety of special effects to set the pace for our film to correlate with the genre of drama as we used fade ins and outs which was conventional because we tried to keep the eerie atmosphere of the film. For the very beginning of the title design we controlled the speed of the clips to keep in time with the music fading in and out on the timed beats of the music to make the audience wonder what was going to happen. Our group when filming took numerous shots in various camera angles during each scene for when it came to using the editing suite we could view each clip and see what we would use and what we hated, we had to be careful when putting certain vital scenes in encase there was a continuity error or disruptions with the camera during filming. This is conventional to shoot more then one angle during each scene and to go through many takes because directors are sometimes unsure with what camera angle would look better during certain points in the film.
The introduction of our characters was somewhat unconventional when it came to narrative enigma due to our group’s choice of including a voiceover so that the audience knew that the film was from ‘Alan’s’ point of view and not ‘Sophie’s’. Our audience all realised that it was from ‘Alan’s’ point of view but they could also guess what was going to happen later on in our film suggesting some sort of rape or sexual abuse, this is unconventional of a Drama because the genre usually keeps the storyline a mystery only suggesting what will happen.
On the other hand the fact that we created an enigma of ‘Alan’ and showed that the two girls where obviously at risk was conventional because in drama’s you are aware of who is the protagonist is and we made it very clear in our film. We were also unconventional with the introducing of the girls however because both girls got the same amount of screen time, not giving a clear indication of who was who except from the close ups being of ‘Sophie’s’ body not ‘Paige’s’.
The structure of sequence was conventional keeping our film in chronological order and sticking to our plotline and research into the stages of grooming. The opening titles kept the suspense with the slow pace and the voiceover helped with keeping the eerie atmosphere which was conventional of a Drama to do. The title ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ was unconventional because it appeared half way through the titles when usually the title would have been after or before, we as a group decided putting the title at the end of the title design would introduce scene one which was shot in the class room better then putting the title at the very beginning before the titles or at the very end of our two minute opening sequence.
The style and colour of font in our opening titles was conventional as the colour white was bold enough to stand out against the black backgrounds and fade outs however we kept the style, font size and colour plain and consistent so that we didn’t move the audience’s attention from what was going on in the background. The style of the presentation was rather simple however when it came to finding where to put the titles it was sometimes difficult because the titles where in white and would only show up against a black background. We had to play around a bit to find out where was appropriate to put the titles and from our research what order the titles should go in.
When it came to our mise-en-scene we had to think about our location because there were two English school girls so that meant we had to keep with the British stereotype and have the two characters in school uniform however changing ‘Sophie’s’ to fit in with the voiceover making her ‘Her skirt was short, her tie loose’. For ‘Alan’ we had to make sure he was dressed smart to show his age because we used a young actor we had to make him appear more mature. Our location was Kings Langley Secondary School which meant that some of the props were already on location such as; the corridor containing lockers and the maths classroom where GCSE maths books were kept, we tried to keep the locations conventional making the film seem as realistic as possible including using a car that we drove instead of using a green screen in the background. We did use a variety of props especially in our title design; we borrowed maths equipment to emphasise the school theme in our opening credits which was conventional as it set the location of the film for the audience. They were aware that one of the main characters would be involved in something to do with school which was anchored by the panning shot across the maths exercise book which stopped slightly on the name ‘Sophie Freeman’ which introduced the character before the audience saw her.
The sound in the film was diegetic for the dialogue between ‘Paige’ and ‘Sophie’ which is conventional because the audience expect to see and hear the dialogue between the two characters. ‘Alan’s’ voiceover however was unconventional because the audience didn’t expect the voiceover to come from ‘Alan’ but from ‘Sophie’ this use of non-diegetic sound explains the point of view from which the plot is being told. Diegetic sound was also used for the car scene for the car’s engine and also in the corridor scene with the locker slamming which was conventional because it made the film seem more realistic and the audience expected it.
In our film when it came to editing and special effects we used a variety of special effects to set the pace for our film to correlate with the genre of drama as we used fade ins and outs which was conventional because we tried to keep the eerie atmosphere of the film. For the very beginning of the title design we controlled the speed of the clips to keep in time with the music fading in and out on the timed beats of the music to make the audience wonder what was going to happen. Our group when filming took numerous shots in various camera angles during each scene for when it came to using the editing suite we could view each clip and see what we would use and what we hated, we had to be careful when putting certain vital scenes in encase there was a continuity error or disruptions with the camera during filming. This is conventional to shoot more then one angle during each scene and to go through many takes because directors are sometimes unsure with what camera angle would look better during certain points in the film.
We used a variety of camera shots to show the emotions of the characters and to increase the atmosphere, the close up shots of the opening titles of the maths equipment with the backing music created the feeling of curiosity for the audience. The first shot of the two girls we see is a high angle shot in the classroom instantly showing them to be vulnerable even in the safe environment of school, their vulnerability suggest that they are having problems at school which links to the diegetic dialogue of the girls with ‘Sophie’ having a hard time in maths. In the classroom we had to make sure not to break the 180 degree rule as we tried to keep the conventions of a drama when it came to the camera shots. In the car we used point of view shots of the girls to link with the voiceover which was conventional as drama’s use point of view shots to get the audience to see through the characters eyes. We used extreme close up’s in the car mirror of ‘Alan’s’ eyes and mouth to create an eerie feeling, by not showing the audience his face they don’t know what his full profile looks like and is a mystery to them making him appear dangerous, this is conventional in a drama as camera shots are thought out to get a reaction from the audience.
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