Coursework photography - Folk Band Tour Poster

Lost!

Who is the intended target audience? 

JJ Abram's "Lost" has a wide, mainstream, target audience. This has been done using a variety of different conventions. One of these being the use of an ensemble cast; a range of characters with varying age, race, gender and personality, such as Walt, a 10 year old African-American boy stranded with his father, called Michael. Or Hurley, an overweight man in his early 20's who adds a sense of comedy with his witty remarks and "nerd" personality, or Boon, a man in his early 20's of athletic build with a very feminine, emotional sister called Shannon who he constantly argues with. This is so the audience can relate to this wide range of characters and their relationships between each other.

Lost is also a text with conventions from multiple genres, which is known as a hybrid. This attracts fans of certain genres as well as the generic, mainstream audience. For example, the inclusion of Sci-Fi conventions, such as how the narrative of the show explores rationally alternative possibilities, such as time travel, or for fans of the action genre, there are frenetic chase scenes, use of special effects during the plane crash flashbacks and fast editing shots with a shaky, handheld camera, all conventions of the action genre. 

Analysis of scene 2 of Fish Tank

Mia, after entering her home, goes straight to her pet dog. Along with other scenes such as the one where she tries to steal the horse, this shows that she only gives affection only to animals and prioritises them over humans, possibly because she sees the other humans in her neighbourhood as hostiles, showing her aspirations for a better life away from where she is living now.

After receiving a telling off from her mother, she shouts "you're what's wrong with me", this suggests that she wants to be the authority figure of the household due to the lack of a father figure (which is typically an authority figure in the Social Realism genre) and her mother is trying to prevent this by governing her.

As she lies on her bed after storming upstairs away from her mother, there are shots of old school pictures of Mia with a female friend which suggest that her attitude and personality have become more aggressive over time as she is no longer in school and seems to be hostile to any female shown in the film.

She may not just wear sportswear because it's cheap, it may be to give the impression that she is an athletic, physically tough person or to show her aspirations of becoming a dancer.

A typical convention of the Social Realism genre is the use of hand held cameras, these capture the protagonist's point of view so that the audience understands their intentions and the narrative. This is shown in Fish Tank as Mia enters the flat to an over-shoulder shot of her point of view of her home. This effectively views the flat from her perspective of what she calls home.

Most texts today mix genres. How true is this of your three main texts? (just District 9)

District 9 is a prime example of how most texts today mix genres. This film features conventions of two varying types of genres, which is known as a "hybrid".

District 9 consists of a hybrid of documentary style and Sci-Fi film conventions, some of which more subtle than others. For example, the vast use of stock footage and edited news headlines on screen at the film's opening and ending scene show obvious conventions of a documentary style text, whereas the blood splatters on the camera lens shown in the fight scene towards the end of the film give subtle connotations of how this film is being presented as realistic as possible; typical of an informative, documentary style text.

District 9 - Characters and Genre

Wikus van de Merwe is the protagonist in District 9, he is represented immediately in the opening scene of the film as a pen pushing office worker. His transformation in this film with how people treat him as soon as he reaches the body horror phase relates to the Apartheid in Johannesburg, people immediately avoid and alienate him from the rest of humanity due to his differences. This links to the discrimination and conflict between the black and white people during the Apartheid.

Genre Conventions

District 9 contains conventions of both Sci-Fi and documentary style genres, this is known as a hybrid.

The genre conventions of Sci-Fi are:

- Polysemic narrative: there is more than just one meaning than the obvious aliens vs humans plot, there is a deeper meaning to the film, which is how people discriminate against differences, namely the Apartheid between black and white people in the region where this film is set.

- Body Horror: As the film progresses, Wikus, the protagonist, transforms from a human into an alien "Prawn". This transformation involves scenes of gore as his teeth and finger nails fall out and this alien arm is produced. These scenes partly pay homage to another film called "The Fly" of the same genre, where a human transforms into a Fly due to a scientific experiment gone wrong.

Genre conventions that are of a documentary style are:

- Characters acknowledge the camera