"conventions"

"Once could... argue that no set of necessary and sufficient conditions can mark off genres from other sorts of groupings in ways that all experts or ordinary film-goers would find acceptable" (Bordwell 1989, 147.)
Not possible for someone to write conventions that everyone agrees with

1. Do you think it is hard to agree on a set of 'rules' to follow when making a product?
2. How far have you followed any set of 'rules'?
3. To what extent did you break 'rules'?
4. Did you make any rules of your own?

1. I think having a set of rules will help establish framework and a basis to as how a production can be made can be seen as hard in the sense that to would contradict brining something new into existence
2. For my AS thriller I incorporated as many rules as I could to help my own ideas form. In my A2 work I came up with my own ideas and picked up rules that would fit well with what I wanted to create. I was also able to take rules and include them in a subtle way so I was able to fit in as many conventions as possible such as the notion of looking via the use of a close up shot of my character using a phone, without contradicting and impairing my preliminary ideas.
3. I believed that a lot of rules had links with each others so I incorporated a lot of linking conventions with each other such as the use of dark lighting as well as the masking of identity within my thriller opening production.

"Sometimes, working within constraints produces the most interesting work" (Branston and Strafford)

1. Do you think you produced better work because you stuck to the conventions of the genre?
2. Would you have produced more creative work if you had not known what the guidelines were?

1. To a certain extent I believe that sticking to the conventions hindered the quality of my work. With my AS thriller production I stuck to a lot of the conventions that helped me such as the use of the flashback and the abnormal situation placed within a plausible mise-en-scene. I think by adding conventions that have been used by real media products it takes away the credibility of a persons own work as it could be compared to a product that's used the technique better.
2. I think having the guidelines were good for me to have an idea as to how to alert my audience to the type of production I was making. An audience would understand features a thriller film entails such as a twist in narrative and a character that provokes a sense of enigma, so I attempted to include as many conventions as possible so that I could make my audience as aware as possible. With my A2 production I took a number of conventions to make my audience aware of the type of media I wanted to produce, but added my own techniques to emphasise my own creativity and attempt to bring something new into existence.

"Conventions give the producers a framework to work with a set of guidelines" (McQuail)

1. Was it helpful to work within a set of guidelines?
2. Did you feel more secure knowing what the guidelines were?
3. were you happier breaking the conventions once you knew what they were?

1. For my AS production the guidelines helped as I knew exactly what a majority audience would expect a thriller opening to feature therefore my production was created so that my work could be easily identified within that genre. I used conventions such as a twist within the narrative, the use of the flashback and the sustained build up of tension within my thriller opening in the attempt of making my production fit the label of 'thriller'.
2. By understanding what the conventions of the thriller genre were I was able to reference them through my creation stage. I enjoyed knowing that if I included these conventions within my production, the overall piece would be easily identified as a thriller opening in oppose to a different genre that would carry different conventions.
3. Subverting conventions I had found about about during my A2 production were done in the act of wanting to create a more 'original' production. I think understanding the conventions around the music video such as the type of base video's available, helped me to go about creating something new as I could pick certain rules I intended to amplify such as the creation of relationship between audio and visuals, which would help the audience understand what type of media they're consuming but however by contradicting some conventions such as a constant feature to the notion of looking. By doing this I was able to bring something new into existence as the techniques I used were straight from me.

"The conventions of eachh genre shift, new genres and sub-genres emerge and others are 'discontinued'" (Chandler)

1. Have you stuck to genre conventions in your production work?
2. Have you created a hybrid piece?
3. Have you used intertextual references?

1. During my AS production I stuck very closely to the conventions of the thriller genre as I feared the audience would not understand what they were being presented if the rules weren't met. I made ideas that worked well within the conventions such as creating a character who brought up a sense of enigma, I emphasised this rule via using a lot of dark images and obscuring his facial features. With my A2 production I picked conventions that would work well with my pre existing ideas and subverted rules that I thought would ruin them. I used characteristics such as matching audio to visuals via precision editing and using a variety of close up shots to notify my audience of the image motif. However I contradicted the rule of featuring constant notion of looking or creating a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
2. Creating a hybrid piece involved the cross over of music video characteristics which I completed. For my A2 production I initially had a concept of distributing sweets and 'sharing the love' which then crossed over into a narrative that involved my character provoking questions such as why is she lonely, and why is she searching for love.
3. For my A2 production I was able to fit in a small frame of intertextuality via my character using her phone as a GPS therefore presenting intertexuality with technology. I wanted to have a lot of my own ideas within my music video production however I thought that if I was able to add conventions in subtly it would increase the amount of ways my audience could identify the genre production.