2. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Product conforms to conventions of real media products through the way we express the genre of the trailer. Trailer is a rom-com style film - shown through the main storyline being about a girl who likes a boy. Conforming with typical aspects of rom-com: a complication in their friendship, makes it not possible for the boy and the girl to be together, so the storyline is that she starts to follow him and stalk him in a comical way. Beginning of the trailer is light hearted showing the fun that the two main characters used to have together. It then moves on to show the conflict, the two main characters fall out and this conforms with usual conventions of rom-com trailers. There is a complicating action in that they can’t be friends anymore due to another girl. Then show some scenes of Holly (main character) rushing around to see Tom. Trailer also includes sad montage sequence which is typical of romantic comedies; there tends to be a serious element to this genre of film. So as not to end on a sad note we decided to include a humorous scene which would hopefully leave the audience amused and wishing to see the film.
3. Continued... Left not knowing the outcome of what happens between two main characters -what romantic comedy trailers usually do in to intrigue audience and make them want to watch the film. It fits with the usual narrative : it begins by introducing the main characters, who are then faced with a conflict, and as it is a trailer, it ends with a cliff-hanger to the resolution. The soundtrack uses conventions of real romantic comedies, as the bands used are popular with a younger audience and some of the songs have actually been used in films of this genre previously. The clothing, behaviour and settings used in the trailer are typical of the romantic comedy genre, because they are dressed casually which fits with the trailer being set in a college, and the way they interact is typical teenage behaviour seen in romantic comedies. The trailer challenges conventions of typical rom-coms as it is dramatic in parts, therefore could be seen as a hybrid of the two genres It again challenges typical rom-coms through the use of the comic book style, which would more commonly be seen in music videos, or film comic book adaptations.
4. Continued... Our media product uses many of the conventions of real media products, firstly through the use of typical characters, often seen in films of the ‘romantic comedy' genre. Our main character, Holly, is intended to be relatable to the target audience, as an exaggerated version of a typical middle-class, white, teenage girl. She deals with issues that are frequently seen in this genre. She has a quirky personality, and is quite clumsy and awkward. We took inspiration for her character from other films such as 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging', We saw some similarities between the actions of the two characters.
5. How does your media product represent particular social groups? Trailer represents middle-class, white teenagers - done through use of main characters. As the trailer is set in a college this reinforces the idea that it is based around middle class teenagers. Heterosexual relationships reinforce ideologies often seen in media. Indie-pop music used is popular with the target audience; young teenage girls. Holly runs around after Tom - represents women as confident and outgoing. – Girl heroine – challenges conventions. The main character, Holly, challenges conventions as she represents women as confident and outgoing, and she is the heroine of the film. However the trailer conforms as boy is the one who’s got girls chasing him. The girl could be seen as his inferior, whose sole purpose is to get the boy’s attention.
6. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Media institution such as Working Title films might distribute our trailer - when we did our research we found Working Title distribute British romantic comedies films such as Wild Child, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Love Actually and Notting Hill. Universal is the parent company of working title so we used a Universal titles scene in our trailer and put the logo on the poster.
7. Who would be the audience for your media product? Our media product is aimed at a specific audience, that being teenage girls aged 13 to 17. With this niche market in mind we tailored our piece to suit the needs of a young audience. We feel that our film is suitable for this age as it deals with typical, everyday problems that could be faced but in a light hearted manner. The characters within our product appear quite typical which helps the audience to relate to their problems. Within the research stage of our production we took inspiration from films such as ‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging’ and believed that our own film would appeal to a similar audience. If our trailer was in the cinema we decided it would have 12A certificate as it deals with issues appropriate to this audience.
8. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Very successful as they all linked well into a theme Especially poster & film which were both based around comic book theme – This is good as when the audience see the poster they can make the connection between the poster and the film. Poster is based around a comic effect theme we use in the trailer – makes trailer and poster more eye-catching and easy to link in the audience’s mind. Poster Stills from Trailer
9. How did you attract/address your audience? Used a storyline, characters and setting the audience could empathise with and relate to - audience feel like this will be more likely to want to watch the film. On magazine cover, the girl has a camera which symbolises her character and gives clues towards plot of the film. On magazine cover we have used features such as interviews with current popular actors and films like Megan Fox and New Moon to attract our audience.
10. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Started project with little knowledge of filming and editing. When we started the process we planned and worked out how to do everything to help us in our project. To research we used the internet and sites such as youtube.com to watch trailers. We also did a recce for locations in and around our college and used a SLR camera to record out findings. Have learnt a lot about using the cameras and various issues that can occur when filming. Met a few obstacles in or filming. E.g, one day when we were filming it was very sunny so we had to position the camera to avoid shadows in the picture. Also, we filmed one part of our trailer and when we watched it back we found that the background noise was a problem so we edited that part to make it clearer what the characters were saying. During editing we have learnt how to add various effects such as under-cranking to make scene more dramatic, a dissolve to show a passing of time and transitions such as a fade to black to make the transitions smooth. Have also learnt how to do a split screen which is quite a large part of our trailer and it shows the two characters coinciding well. We used Photoshop to create an effect on some stills from the film to make them look like comics - used a Photoshop tutorial and this was successful and looks effective in the trailer. Used the same effect in the poster to link it to the theme of the trailer. Recce Trailer Screenshot Recce Trailer Screenshot
11. Looking back at your AS coursework, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from that to your A2 production? Have learnt a lot getting though this project as two members of group did print for coursework last year and one did radio. Found it quite a challenge to do something so different. Found the organisational aspect of the project more important - only one of us had worked in a group to do coursework last year - had to organise our time to fit around each other’s timetables. Had done preliminary tasks last year in film and this gave us some background knowledge of how we needed to work. We got the chance to build on these basic skills and by the end of the project we felt comfortable using the recording equipment and also the editing programme Adobe Premier. Looking back at each of our AS print work we feel that our skills using Photoshop have progressed and this year we have moved on to experimenting with more adventurous and complex techniques.
12. What have we learnt from our audience feedback? After gaining Audience Feedback we changed some things in trailer to make them stand out more. Some criticism was that the actors names weren’t big or colourful enough so we altered them to be more eye-catching. Also, some criticism was that the trailer ended too sadly so we rearranged scenes for it to end in a more light-hearted manner; we thought that this would be more appealing to the audience. Other feedback proved that our production was successful and suitable for the target audience.
