During research my team and i looked at all of the generic conventions for the social realism genre, and carefully handpicked which ones we would use in the pre-production stage. The FInal shortlist consisted of: Real life location shooting, Wide angle shots, young actors, non-professional actors and real life social issues. We looked at semi-improvised scripts but that was inevitble as not being professional screenwriters we would have to improvise on set. The conventions we missed out include Regional Identities.

When looking for a social issue to play with, we were torn between three at the end; Teenage Pregnancy, Sexting (Leaking Naked images) and the one we have used, Stalking. When beginning the ideas of a Stalking story, we noticed an increase in online stalking and the idea of an online footprint. The online footprint being the profiles and posts people leave behind every time they log onto one of their profiles. So we have developed with the ideas of stalking by making the story more up to date and modern ways. Also using a media product that was only released a month before production began, the ‘find my friends’ app for iPhone. So by using this we have developed our storyline and allowing us to make it modern.

Wide angle shots are one of conventions that allow it to look better using the camera, with myself having a wide angle lens it allowed the wide angle shot look even better than we had planned, one of the final shots where he is holding the gun to his head, this is used with a wide angle lens. It develops the convention to maximise the potential. It allow for the audience to see a big part of the scene, and with it being set next to a river it give a reel feel it could be a local place for the suburban/countryside audiences. It allows our film to show off how real life the plot could be and make the audience think.

Some of the other camerawork we used as well was very much inspired by the ‘this is England’ camerawork. Some of the shots used were direct remake shots from within that film like the final shot of Steven holding the gun to his head, the gun wasn’t used in this is England but the shakiness of the camera with the stability of the face while he looks into the camera works really well. We managed to use the stabilising technique on the editing software Final Cut Pro, it came out exactly as we wanted it to. Also challenging the idea of the wide angle shots at the same time with this shot being a close up.

The Props and costumes were very much chosen on the bases of us wanting to draw in an audience of the young ages and the costumes were very much chosen to clothes that any teenager/young adult would wear, the converse shoes and relaxed comfortable clothes. These were chosen to use the generic conventions of the young actors and real life stories. The car we used, although being easy with it being my car, we had a choice of a few vehicles, but with one of them being too old we wanted a more modern (first car) for a teenager. The other was too new for it to be believable, so we developed an idea in ourselves in the team to find a compromise.