In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film does match up to a few real media products, but the big one as everyone keeps saying is of course the film Twilight due to the genre of our film being a Supernatural Romance. The films story line to its basic point is very similar to ours, and some of the minor details as you will see in this key frame video:
Even if this is a very close comparison to our film, this is a feature film. So we had a look at some short films that fit similar to the story of The Illusion Of Existence. One film I found that conveys a similar plot line to ours, is Bertie Gilbert's Short Film 'Stray Dog'.
If you can't be bothered to sit and watch 13 minuets of indie film with pretty lighting here's a basic summary of the plotline:
A young man called Miles, is madly in love with his girlfriend finds her cheating on him at a party. Miles then becomes as he puts it 'depressed' when in-fact he's just 'really, really sad'. He wants to seek revenge on whoever took his love from him and so he dons a wolf mask, and then, goes back in time.
This film creates tension in the same way as we do, by having lots of close up camera work with long shots to show a characters emotion clearly to the audience. Sound wise, we had music play through the film and created tension by a change in music, in this music is only used in key moments of the film otherwise the sound would be digetic to the scene. The ending of the film is similar to ours in the way that it's open to an audience's interpretation. In this Milo can be seen to yet again, be using his 'Time Machine' even when he'd promised not to, and then cutting back to a reaction shot of him smirking over the situation. Depending on how the film is viewed as a whole, in my opinion he has used it again as he can't keep away from it and might actually attempt to change the past once more for the kick of it. It's really up to you how you interpret these types of endings, like in The Illusion, as Mallory and Alex walk off, it leaves you hanging on what this new person will be like.
Conventions We Challenge/Develop of The Genre
Conventions We Challenge/Develop of The Genre
- There is no obvious romantic link, you don't actually see any romantic connection with the characters. Where as in Twilight there is often romantic scenes between the two.
- When the female character finds out about the male's supernatural ability but ends up with someone else at the end of the film. In Twilight, Bella and Edward are still in a relationship unlike Mallory and Peter in our film.
- We develop the use of a second male more than other films, due to the nature of the equlibrium of the film. In a number of films like Twilight, P.S I Love You the second male character seen just remains a friend to the female lead where as we take it further and see a possible love interest in this respect.
What are some conventions of Short Films? I here you cry, well I made this one earlier:
Conventions We Challenge/Develop of Short Films
- Short films are known for having a low budget for their productions, we develop this by having no budget at all and having to rely on our own funds to create this (in which we had non too because were poor students) having the actors give up their time to do this for us and not really get anything out of it themselves.
- We develop the use of everyday situations with a plot twist in our film as you can clearly see Mallory going through her everyday life with no question about it and performing normal activities like going to work, relaxing and even falling in love like a normal 20 something year old, until she finds out Peter's secret.
