A2 Media Studies Coursework - Evaluation

Through my research investigation analysing the two ‘Lovers on the Lam’ texts, Badlands and In Time, I concluded that with the genre’s evolution, conventions often remain to be encoded. These include recurring narrative themes such as disillusionment and patriarchy, flawed, isolated anti-heroic archetypes, and a dehumanised representation of women. However, contemporary texts typically utilise hybridity and social commentaries to prevent audience dissatisfaction. These findings drove me to create a conventional film billboard and poster, and an alternative film poster reflective of the genre’s Post-modern examples.

For my first piece, I shot the central image in an empty and natural location, as both studied texts portray a reel of barren mise-en-scene to act as analogies for the moral disconnection of the anti-heroic protagonists. Active audience types can decode that the lack of civilization within the semiotics’ background illustrates the characters’ detachment from humanity, supported by how the title font is worn and decaying.  I edited the colouring of the duo to darker silhouettes to not only connote how they are faceless and desolate, but also their inner blackness as archetypal flawed anti-heroic outlaws. This isolation is emphasised by how I used a long shot from behind the protagonists, also signifying the genre’s recurring narrative theme of escapism from the contrastingly unnatural “monotonous daily grind,” as the eye can focus upon their journey ahead through my use of the rule of thirds.

I edited the lighting to have a dusky pink overlay, as this pathetic fallacy creates an illusory effect to symbolise the narrative theme of protagonists being disillusioned by The American Dream. The binary opposition between the colourless silhouettes and the vivid and idyllic mise-en-scene mirrors how Kit, in Badlands, “strives to fit into this world of perfection with futility.” However, although I constructed pull quotes and logos from highbrow sources, such as ‘BBFC’ and ‘Sight and Sound’ to attract a more cineliterate audience, I feel as though I could have incorporated my investigation’s findings of the narrative theme of patriarchy more. The female figure could perhaps lean reliantly against the male’s stronger body language for these active audiences to decode.

The stylistic approach to my second piece could also attract a more active audience due to the enigma codes within the multiple exposure imagery. For example, the iconography of the American flag is representative of the genre’s narrative theme of The American Dream, yet this icon becomes warped by the foreboding film title meaning ‘fear of home,’ to symbolise how “this ideology is a man-made and fabricated construction,” forming the Anti-capitalist underbellies of these polysemic texts. The mise-en-scene of the two extreme long shots is wide, free of civilization, and all inside the protagonist’s mind to mirror Kit and several archetypes of the genre, and how “his flaw is his dehumanisation from society.” Furthermore, his hard and forlorn facial expression emphasises his disillusionment as a killer, the black blood-like texture of his fragmented body portraying him as an anti-hero, whereby his blend into an inhuman and impure object reinforces this theme of being disconnected from humanity.

I constructed a chauvinistic mode of address as the overpowering central image of the male contrasts against the female’s less significant and subservient portrayal. The body language demonstrates her hand rested upon the male’s chest, illustrating the dominant representation of women that is channelled throughout early examples of the genre, whereby their reliance upon men depersonalises them as a “one-dimensional identity of domestication.” Supporting this patriarchal representation, the director and the majority of the crew within the credit block are male, as within my research I discovered that “Women comprise only 16% of all writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and editors.” On reflection, I would improve my work by encoding Laura Mulvey’s theory of ‘The Male Gaze’ into one of the images, as scopophilia and the objectification of women would have highlighted this chauvinism, a code of the genre, prominent in Niccol’s work.

            My final production is based upon my predominant finding that evolved texts of the genre are often Post-modern, thus I created a hybrid text, alike to In Time, which blends the conventions of ‘Lovers on the Lam’ with ‘Social realism.’ To gratify a broader and more mainstream audience due to a wider appeal, both genres typically “mock contemporary social formations and myths” and create social commentaries. For instance, the industrial and geometric mise-en-scene of stairs in a gritty urban environment is analogous of the social hierarchy, in which the protagonists represent the so-called ‘Under class’ by loitering at the bottom of the stairs and below the Hegemonic society. The tagline chosen is an intertextual reference to Orwell’s Animal Farm, which more active and culturally competent audiences can take the preferred reading of and decode the subtle stabbing at totalitarianism. By constructing a pull quote from the Tribune, a left wing newspaper, audiences who share similar political values can become engaged by the text. The iconography of a blood splatter highlights the text’s title, which places the characters in an animalistic, violent and isolated light to represent their demonization within society. The edited worn texture of the poster’s background and title font highlights the deprivation of the protagonists, connoting graffiti-work to symbolise the anarchy of youth culture, a narrative theme of both genres. To improve my piece’s aesthetics, I would alter the mise-en-scene of the protagonists and their clothing, perhaps with the male figure concealed in a hooded jacket as opposed to an in trend jumper to illustrate his lack of identity and to conform to the fierce and masculine stereotype of the so-called ‘Under class’ within ‘Social realist’ texts.

Word count: 877