In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
Film noirs portray the mood, style and tone of
the film rather than sticking to a rigid structure. The narrative is normally
non-linear and based around a pessimistic, disheartened male who becomes
infatuated with a seductive female (femme fatale) who double crosses him. I
used the idea of females having a new-found independence as a tool for my media
product. The idea I visualised for my media product was that it would be based
around a female gang rather than male but still using the basic concept of a ‘femme
fatale’.
Film noir first evolved in the 1940s, post-world
war two and lasted successfully into the 1960s. Film noir consists of themes
such as, corruption, mystery, deceit and violence and portrays topics such as
murder, sex and criminal activity. The film ‘Double Indemnity’ is a classic
example of a film noir that displays all the known conventions, varying from
the anti-hero who gets lead astray by greed and lust. The film also uses a
common prop ‘Venetian Blinds’ to cast shadows and create mystery. My media
product conforms but also strays from the conventions of Film Noirs, I wanted
to stick to the characteristic of a film noir but also further develop it to
appeal and relate to a contemporary audience. I used a distinctive feature of a
film noir, the black and white filter which would make it easy for audiences to
identify the style of my trailer. However, my use of the black and white filter
was for revealing it as a flashback, further conforming to the non-linear and
twisting narrative that film noirs follow. The characters that are first
introduced are a murderer and victim, linking to the thematical portrayal of
the inhuman and destructive side to human nature, emphasising on the sadistic,
unhealthy and brutal acts the characters perform.
My media product goes against the conventions of
later gangster films like the ‘Godfather’ and ‘Scarface’ in respect of the
value and depiction of women. Within the Godfather women are viewed as sexual
ornaments that hold little value, contrasting against my portrayal of women, as
I have constructed them to fill the stereotypical role of the males within
gangster films. Gangster films much like Scarface can be compared to a certain
view that associates it with the ‘American Dream’, leading the impression that directors
try to glamorise and romanticise the concept of violence and immorality as it’s
a goal that everyone wants to be able to lead and dominate. Whereas throughout
my media product I show a montage of violent actions and glimpses of characters
that play a role in the murder and obliteration of a character. Rather than
glamorise the ‘gangster lifestyle’ I believe my media product depicts and harsh
and gritty reality, having been achieved through the choice of location,
council estates, rundown and urban areas.
My trailer goes against Tordov’s Narrative
Theory. Tordov believed that all films follow the same narrative pattern. The
state of equilibrium, disruption of the equilibrium (disequilibrium),
acknowledgment of the disorder that has occurred, attempt to repair the
damage of the disruption (solving) and lastly a restoration of the new
equilibrium. Whereas my media product starts off with a murder scene that
is a flashback and then moves to show a montage of various clips that have no
relevance to each other regarding that they are not chronologically in order.
Which conforms to most structures of gangster films, as it flip flops between
past and present.
The overall impression I tried to create for my
media product was to show that women within the gangster genre can be
represented in more than two lights, one being the loving, dutiful wife and the
other being a predatory, lustful, manipulative woman.
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