In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre of the film, ‘The Dream’, is sports drama and this is clearly represented at the beginning of the film where the protagonist is playing basketball and some of the drama is portrayed after the basketball scene. The fast pace shots especially in the basketball scene interest our audience because fast tempo is usually entertaining and it is used in other sports movies, we as a group has researched such as 'Rocky' and 'Coach Carter'. Also, during our research of the sports films, we noticed that generally there is an upbeat tempo music flowing with the fast pace shots but in some case, the film ‘17 again’ uses a violin for the background sound whilst the main character plays basketball. Also, in ’17 again’ during the opening scene the protagonist is shown to be taking lots of shots at a basketball hoop. We decided to do the same thing in our film opening. We also showed the ball going into the hoop a lot, which was also taken from ’17 again’. It denotes a calmer atmosphere to the movie. Furthermore, we took the idea of the ball going through the hoop at different angles from ‘Space Jam’. However we decided to apply the same instrument to our movie but increase the tempo because of the narrative, where something tragic happens. Once the music was applied we feel that it went well with not only the fast pace camera shots but also the narrative. The flashback scene is slower paced, for example there is a long take where the protagonist is driving and during that time, we felt as a team that it was the right moment to add the credit because the short flashback is a miserable scene. There would be a slow sad music during the flashback to build up tension. The flashback is in black and white/grey like most films, this mise en scene is applied to not confuse the audience and clearly demonstrate that the scene is from the past. The flashback scene conveys drama from the camera, sound and mise en scene but there is no dialogue, which makes the particular scene unique and again builds tension. The mise en scene of the protagonist running at the beginning showing his determination to become a professional basketball player is vital because it represents that it is based in a working class city but as soon as the basketball scene appears, it feels more upper class which is done deliberately because it symbolizes that the main character is not far away from achieving his dreams and is close to become wealthy. All of these are key points to recognize the genre of the film (sports drama).
