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

Our film product uses the forms and conventions of real media products because we use the same idea as a lot of film noir detective films, where the detective is more of a lone detective, who is smart and knows a lot about being a detective, but somewhere has their own problems.  For example, Detective Sam Spade in 'The Maltese Falcon' would be considered as a lone detective after his partner Miles Archer is shot dead; Sam Spade would be considered to be a smart and well dressed detective, the same as our detective, but also he has his own problems, Sam's being with his love life with Bridget O'Shaunessy. We develop the idea of real media products by changing the idea of male dominance in Film Noir, detective films especially, where woman are dominated by men in the work place; in our film, the main detective is a female and her partner is male. We also develop the idea that the main detective saves the day, when in fact, in our film her partner saves the day. Finally we challenge the idea of a female being a detective and the main character in the film.

Issues

Our main issues with filming so far is locations, actors and times.

Locations- We have had a few issues when filming outside because of traffic, and as our film is set in the 50's, it wouldn't look right to see a brand new car in the background. We are resolving them by choosing different times to film and different streets, so its not too busy to film in.

Actors- At the start of our filming, we had big acting issues, as the actors couldn't film for us when we needed them to, due to their plans. We have resolved this by changing one actor for the film, who is more flexible with their time.

Times- Our film is set in both day and night, and because we are almost in winter, it gets darker a lot earlier now, so therefore we would have an issue with filming day time scenes after college, but there wouldn't be a problem with filming night scenes. We are resolving this problem by making a schedual more flexible for everyone to film, so we can get it done.

2nd day of filming

Yesterday we started our second day of filming. We only had one problem, which got resolved straight away, we had an actor issue of which someone couldn't act when we needed them, so we had to get a new actor. On the 2nd day we decided to film the detective interrogating Marylin about her husbands murder, we did this in our theatre of which we also got props for. E.g. chairs, sofas, costumes, walls and telephones. We made a massive improvement and progression on the film making, and we achieved everything we possibly could do, so overall a good filming session.

Filming Pictures

First Day Of Filming

On our first day of filming, we decided to film the very first bit of the film which is the murder of Marylins husband. We encounted a few problems with the filming because the street we were filming on was busy, so we had to sort of rush into the getting the filming done, also the battery life on the camera was very low, this also created problems. All together we was out filming for about an hour, but we aren't going to be using that much of the footage, so it is a slow start to the filming.

Filming timetable

We have put together a timetable so that we can plan when we are able to film, create our poster and blog. This will help orgainise the making of our film efficiently so that we dont fall behind when it comes down to editing.

Cast and Costumes

Tom (me) -

I will be the Camera man and Director, therefore I will not be needing any costume to wear, just casual clothing to make it easier to film with. I have already made mistake with I was wearing by wearing slim jeans, this made it harder to film as I couldn't freely move around.

Marilyn; Kirsty

Dressed in a black 1950's style dress, to match with the genre and era of the film. Also dressed in a fur coat, black heels and white pearls to show she is elegant and extremely wealthy. To symbolise she is a woman of passion we have added red lipstick to the costume, it is also symbolises the blood of her husband, whom she murders. Putting her in a black costume shows she is mounring for her husband after his death but also hides the fact she killed him herself, as the style of the dress emphasises elegance.

Policewoman; Sophie

Dressed in the stereotypical police uniform colours of black and white, to show she is a part of the profession. Casually dressed as they would have been in the 1950's, still need to create a badge and hat to make the costume more realistic to the audience. Hair is tyed back as she would have needed to blend in with the male workers.