Research CCR Question #1

 Hi blog, our teacher introduced us to the CCR part of our project this week. I started the research on the first question:

Q. How does your product use or challenge conventions, and how does it represent social groups or issues?

A. The psychological drama genre usually uses conventions like mentally unstable characters, identity crisis, and conflicts with one character or between characters.

For example, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was one of our biggest inspirations since it adapts the genre perfectly by developing the idea that sometimes these issues are hidden within a story, the main character thinks what he’s doing is normal, but it really is not okay.

 It is like Tunnels (insert picture of Ana) since Ana thinks she is fine when the therapist is implying that she is overworking herself.

Tunnels also focus on recent conventions of high school students. Nowadays, most schools are very competitive academically; that involves class rank, GPA, SAT scores, and much more. Stereotypically, teenagers tend to overwork themselves and feel the need to have perfect grades, extracurriculars, and scores to get into a good university.

 Tunnels represent this issue by illustrating a character who, by doing this, is facing the consequences of mental health issues and isolating herself from her loved ones. This is represented by hints like the phone calls/texts from her loved ones and Ana being alone at lunch. Eventually, later in the film, Ana will get to a point where she is all alone.

Another common convention is what I like to call: “The dramatic death of a loved one”. Most drama movies have someone close to the main character die; in Tunnels, we establish this by giving hints about Amelia, her sister who died in a car accident. Again, car accidents are super chicle. But in the film's opening, we don’t establish that that is Ana’s sister, creating mystery and leaving the audience wondering who Amelia is and why Ana is so triggered when Mrs. Larsson asks her about her. (insert picture of conversation)

So, we decided to use conventions that you would normally see in a psychological drama film because the cinematography and visuals of this genre highlight emotions with extreme close-ups, color theory (in many cases), and settings like locations (insert Ana in the library and bedroom alone)  that reflect the character's isolation from the world.

Sources: What defines psychological drama

https://www.imdb.com/interest/in0000086/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0111-y

I will adjust this answer depending on the type of media product I'm making, and will, of course, add more images and do some more in-depth analysis when the film opening is completely done.