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

From experience of watching films and our media lessons, it is very important for the opening sequence of a film to firstly, convey the genre and give insight into a film's narrative, secondly introduce engaging characters, and thirdly appeal to the audience it is intended for, be it a wide or niche one.

26 - Action/Adventure -> Sub-genre: Girls with Guns

Genre

The Bride - Kill Bill

Conventions:

- Female action heroines e.g.

Charlie's Angels

- Gun- play/ fighting

The creation of the fight sequence was long and required choreographing multiple fight scenes between Delta and Guard, as well as Sierra and Guard until we finally decided on the simple choke hold by Sierra. This was to emphasise her character role as "The Muscle" but was not too gruesome or violent for those member  of audience who appreciated more implied violence than actual fights and blood.

"Incorporation of martial arts, gun play and stunts"

                                                 

Fight scene between Delta and Guard

Final fight sequence - Sierra choke hold

- Reform story - Trying to save people/ changing their ways.

Jason Bourne - The Bourne Franchise

Jason Bourne is a clear example of a character and a narrative about some changing themselves for the better, in other words a reform story. Jason puts his assassin past behind him to figure out a new life, uncovering the deeply buried secrets of the "evil" government along the way. Thus we can see that a previously "bad" character transforms for the better.

Breaking conventions

We also broke the convention of the action genre being heavy with special effects. "26" is a more dialogue-based and narrative film, intended to provoke thought in the audience rather than just be aesthetically pleasing. The storyline itself does not require CGI for example. This would also fit with the small budget as it is an independent British co-production, therefore has a smaller budget than a large scale Hollywood blockbuster, so the budget would not have to be spent on sfx.

The characters were also not typical of an action film, as explored further in Question 2.

Character inspirations:

As a group of 3 girls, our film genre was fairly obvious. We'd seen the likes to Charlie's Angels and all had obsessions for Charmed, so naturally we turned to Action/Adventure, more specifically Girls with Guns. 

Using our knowledge of female action heroines, we compiled a group of possible inspirations for Delta, Sierra and Echo. For their personality traits, we adapted ideas from other strong characters throughout film anf TV, not necessarily just in the action genre. This was to create characters that were not limited only to action, but also appealing for other aspects of their personalities.

Our character inspirations wear mainly practical clothing, easy to move around and fight in. Black and leather were popular with almost all the action heroines. We also noticed that each had a strong personality, with certain streaks or traits that stood out for example Hermione Granger's intellect, or Dylan Saunders' fighting skills.

Themes:

Once we had come up with characters we were happy with, the next important aspect was the theme or our sequence. 

-Friendship/loyalty (between the girls)
-Good vs. Evil - binary opposites
-Morality 



Music:

Usually with action films, there is a recognisable soundtrack, which immediately gives a sense into its genre and the pace of the movie. A good example is Mission Impossible:

- The music portrays the Spy genre, as well as creating a pacey feel.

For 26, Maneater was ideal as it started off slow, then picked up pace, with drumming for dramatic effect. This was what we needed to transition from the slow beginning to the fast choke scene, and interaction between the girls. Moreover the title was appropriate for the female empowerment element of 26.

Narrative

After coming up with characters and a basic plot to the movie, the opening sequebnce needed to give insight into the narrative of the rest of the movie. It was important to consider 2 main thing:

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Disruption in 26 - Beginning of disruption - Delta comes up the lift injured - different to the guard's usual routine, where nothing ever happen. End of disruption - Sierra taking down guard.

Equilibrium to Disruption

Barthe's Codes

Using the opening of Resident Evil: Afterlife, we can see examples of each code and how they work from the clip (Italics), then compare to our own use of them (Bold).

Enigma code:
- Why is everyone ignoring the girl?

- Slow drawn out shots of the guard, intersected with Delta up list

Action code:
- The 'pounce' - what will happen after she kills him?

- The tackle - Who is this new character? Are thy good or bad?

Semiotic code:
- Crowded area - we know it's a busy city setting.

- CCTV footage, guard looking at it - sense of high security area.

Cultural code:
-Recognise the urban surroundings.

- Instantly recognise a guard/ understand his role as a night guard. Everyone knows what CCTV looks like. 

Symbolic code:
- Rain seems ominous 

- Guard coming down stairs - confined spaces getting smaller and smaller - symbolic of his imminent demise.

Style

Having come up with a narrative, the look and feel of 26 still had to be decided. Addressing some serious themes, 26 had to have a rough, and action feel to it.

Look:

 - Dull colours, black and pale cream - to set a secretive, spy sort of mood, too many colours would look to happy.
- Harsh lighting, so strong shadows - gives a sense of unease.

Sound:

-Dialogue - story told through conversation between the girls, without giving too much away - we learn that they have to save "Victor" - Teases the audience.
- Soundtrack remains underneath all the action - gives motion and pace, as well as cohesion.

Titles:

Mission Impossible 2 opening sequence title

Skyfall opening sequence title

- A convention of film openings generally - During research we found that some titles recurred in every film opening we watched e.g. Director, Producer etc. Therefore, we would have to incorporate these into our own.

So considering all these factors, we finally came up with the opening for 26. We wanted to portray a serious film, but not without its comic moments, for example the girls joking with each other. The strong female characters adhere to the genre, as well as the fight scene, while also establishing them as the protagonists.