Evaluation Question 1

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

 In my media product it as essential to me to achieve a really good quality product that interested the audience.  My media product challenges other films that use horror and drama as a genre, personally, I developed my media product through the genre research and learning about the features of the genres I was then using for my own work. My film challenges real media products, as I used music and certain shots that I knew would leave the audience with question and create major suspense. Leaving the location unknown was one of my biggest challenges, as I went for Horror as my main genre, the location of my film opening was vital to create a sense of fear, and then with drama as my sub-genre I incorporated music and dramatic mise-en-scene to create panic.
The setting and shooting location complimented the conventions of my media work, the typical dark atmosphere helped t build up the film opening as I developed my ideas and researched more about different media products during my production stage.
The stereotypical characterisation of the main character in my media product which it was me, challenged real media products because real media products usually contain a set of characters that are deliberately broken however I thought that by using a stereotype in my media product, I could reinforce the existing ways of thinking about certain person, to appeal to the prejudices of the audience and create self-reflection.
My film opening has changed throughout the process of research and then planning, different genres came across and different ideas.  My media product developed through the research and planning that helped me change my conventions and decide the appropriate changes to my work.
The research of different forms for my media product, helped the discovery of the main and sub genre which then lead to my discovery of the conventions that would be suitable. We could say, my media product has many similar conventions as other real media products, yet I tried to incorporate my own original ideas and context to it, to make it challenging. 
My media product has original features that I included so I could make the audience more interested in the context, for example a mysterious story like really worked well and it challenges real media products because my story line is very mysterious and strange, and it starts off with sinister music and images of the location and then the victim, normal real media products for example Hobbit, then have a shot of the present life and then go back to showing to the audience the past. I personally thought that just by showing the audience the present life and the events after that was significant to keep my intended audience focused and in order for them to understand the story line. 
Many real media products include many features for example, "Lord of the rings" uses symbolism such as water, the ring and mount doom. This helps the audience to capture important moments throughout the film, I decided to develop this idea and incorporate it in my own media product, I decided to use simple objects such as a phone, a shoe, even keys which each represent something important to the main character and this way the audience will understand the context of the media product even better.  A very important realism convention is low budgets, independents are more focused on the content rather than the profit driven so have a much lower budget than institutions. I spent very little money for everything as most of the equipment I used I borrowed from different sources. However, when thinking about distribution I decided upon film4 producing it whilst Warner Bros distributed. I chose this as I knew independent films weren't affluent enough to vertically integrated, it would also be useful by marketing things on Facebook and twitter. Due to the fact that I spent little money and thought about how to distribute in a low budget, I'd say I met this convention.  All of my filming was done in one location, which is conventional, it helped to convey the realism. Long shots are a technical convention used in realism to stablish Mis-en-scene and narrative, which I used in my media product to compliment the genre and to help the audience understand the context of my media product. Another technical convention are close-ups, they make things more personal enabling the audience to connect with characters, I chose close ups as I wanted to capture the key moments of the victim and create self thought within the intended audience.