Q1

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

There were many names for the production that we thought off but we ultimately came up with the title “Snitch”. This title shows a clear indication of the films genre which is crime/gangster. The opening sequences show the conventions of a gangster film in a very clearly from the way the music kicks in to the way the characters actions are portrayed. For example the small dialogues which were used within the scenes are said in a very aggressive tone, this gives the gangster “bad boy” image. Films such as “Kidulthood” and “Menace II Society” both portray these types of characters; they also use violence as the convention within the gangster genre. Furthermore, many gangster movies use dark lighting which links to my final production. This is because darkness implies hatred, evilness and violence and this is what gangster films generally include. The title “Snitch” shows the closeness to the genre used in these films as it contains much violence and actions scenes. Whilst planning, we took ideas from these films and developed on them making it our own. Me and my group were influenced by the techniques used in the sequences from both of the films and took some ideas we could possibly develop in our film.

The conventions of real media products helped me and my group hugely to achieve our targets. http://cheneymediabasilha.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-should-we-achieve-in-opening.html

The forms and elements of gangster movies we looked at http://cheneymediabasilha.blogspot.com/2010/11/elements-of-gangster-films.html

Existing media products which helped us in the process
1st link - List of gangster movies
2nd link - Menace II Society
3rd link - Training Day
http://cheneymediabasilha.blogspot.com/2010/11/list-of-gangstercrime-films.html http://cheneymediabasilha.blogspot.com/2010/10/rush-hour-3-opening-scene.htmlhttp://cheneymediabasilha.blogspot.com/2010/10/training-day-opening-scene.html

We've had a chance to look at many gangster films which influenced us in making our opening sequence. In the case of violence, the opening sequence from 'Good Fellas' was much inspired which also enabled us to wider thoughts in process of making our own opening sequence. Other factors such as lighting, costumes and locations were fairly easy to choose and forms were made easy by the existing products.

Throughout the process of making this production we looked at many films which have influenced us and helped us whilst making our movie. Whilst relating to violence, “goodfellas” helped us the largely as it contained the most violence in the opening sequence than the other films. When looking at lighting, costumes and the whole mis en scene in general “kidulthood was probably the most inspiring as it is the movie that relates most with the characters within our film, by this meaning the baggy clothing, the aggressive British tone, the slang accent and essentially the rude approach the youth give towards people.