1. Detainee 238critical evaluation http://cfgsshahnaz.blogspot.com Shahnaz Khatun – 4906 Centre No - 10508

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media products?

3. THE FILM CHALLENGING CONVENTIONS OF DRAMA

4. Features of drama film Most drama films depends mostly on in-depth character development, the way in which they interact and emotional themes. When this has been done the audience are able to understand what the character in the film is feeling, handling certain problems. They are then able to sympathise with them by bringing it down to a personal level. Our film does both these things. Our film looks into the life of Ahmed (main character), how he is dealing with being prisoned without being proven guilty. We used his children to start kick start the emotions flowing. It shows how they’re life living and coping without their father. Having such scenes allow the audience are able to experience what they are feeling, hence being able to come down to their level.

5. Our film being from a drama uses conventions such as using innocent Muslims who have been accused of acts of terrorism without being proven guilty similar to that used in ‘Road to Guantanamo’. Also similar to most drama films the use of suspense has been used throughout the film, this allows the audience to understand the hardship of which the family in the film are going through and to anticipate the finale of our story.

6. The film which we had initially compared it to,’ Road to Guantanamo’, ends happily when the accused terrorist are cleared of their charges. However the way in which our film has challenged conventions is by not having a happy ending which most dramas do. Our film was based on a true event, how every we challenged the conventions of drama by creating make-believe fictional characters with a similar yet fictional storyline.

7. Most drama builds up to a climax, or involves a problem or conflict which ends up being resolved and ends happily However, this does not happen in our film. The conflict is not resolved this then makes it an open narrative film.

8. Film companies Most film companies help the releases of films through funding, our film was is a no budget film, therefore we created a film company of our own. Silverline Productions - as a group we discussed upon the possible names and came to the conclusion of calling it Silverline Productions, relating to our story line, ‘A hopeful or comforting prospect in the midst of difficulty’ We treated it as a real film company where location and actor agreements had to be signed.

9. Props and costumes Props and costumes are one the essential parts of filming which add to the realism trying to be portrayed. The character which we had created is a detainee at a community service detention centre. As our film is based around the true life events of a Guantanamo Bay detainee we needed the orange suits which the detainee’s don. The need of these Orange suits are for symbolism, to conjure ideas of Guantanamo bay and to allow the audience to associate them and to make sense and identify them. To get hold of these suits, we had to contact Amnesty international. We had previous knowledge of the work which they do, as they have contact with our college. Therefore we knew they had these suits We emailed them to see if we were allowed to borrow them for our film. They loaned us the suits for 2 months.

10. editing Film editing exists in all films, our film has challenged conventions of typical film editing by adding transitions which we when changing scenes. One of these transitions is called 'Fade in Fade out Dissolve‘, these created a mood with suspense.

11. Camerawork Throughout the film we have used many different angles, both high, low and neutral. We mainly used long and conventional camera shots for example the letter scene. In the interview room and president scene we used over the shoulder shot, this allows the audience see from the police mans view. We used panning shots in the community centre scene In one if the scenes we mounted the tripod on to a table with wheels and used it as you would for a tracking shot however we did not follow anything.

12. The poster Initially we wanted our poster we wanted main actor Junaid (Ahmed) with his head looking down, with his hands cuffed against a cage. Behind him will be his two sons on the swings, however they will be slightly blurred out. When it came to actually taking the pictures we saw there were a lot more divers shots which we could take We took a few pictures to have a large selection to chose from We got the idea of the cage from the ‘Road to Guantanamo’ which also has the detainee’s in orange suits. We then took this concept and added to it by having his children in the poster. '.

13. The poster We have decided to use 3 posters as it was difficult for us to use just one as believed that all 3 are effective and have different strengths.

14. The poster

15. Challenging the conventions of physical posters Most film are have bright titles, which catch the eye of the audience however we have a blank and bold title. Like most posters we have sued persuasive language. - ‘He was just an ordinary man, a husband, a father AND a Muslim’

16. RADIO TRAILER

17. Most people prefer video trailers where the audience can have a taste of the film visually however we have challenged these convention by created a radio trailer through which our audience can experience a bit of our film through auditory effects.

18. Typical Features in our radio trailer Our film title We used the same phrase from our poster A voiceover

19. Challenging conventions of radio trailer It is evidently more easier to attract the audience through visual means, therefore creating a radio trailer would be more challenging. Therefore to ensure that we have the attention of out viewers we had to select effective audio clips and used the best parts of the film. We used slow and gloomy music of a violin which added to the sorrowful idea we tried to create which would link with the story line. we also used voices, such as the laughter of the children and the father speaking. The use of both audio and voice clips work well together to make a great radio trailer.