Final Product

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Evaluation Q1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1

· Title – The title of the film is shown in the centre screen shot above. We kept all our titles within the mise-en-scene rather than text on top of footage. We chose to put our title on the mirror which is what a lot of the action in the first sequence of the film centres around while Maya our main character is getting ready for school in the morning. We wanted to create the effect of lipstick on the mirror firstly because it is red and this is typically a colour which many associate with romantic comedies (we found this from our audience research) and secondly because as the main character falls for the boy she starts to try and turn herself into something that she is not – by putting on lipstick, for example, which is something that she wouldn’t usually do- this shows a link to later on in the film. We also animated this title in stop-motion and once it was complete subtly intensified the saturation causing it to seem a much brighter red and helping to emphasize this title in particular as our main title.
· Setting – We set the film in a bedroom which resembled how we imagined the teenage character’s room would look with hints on her hobbies and personality, for example, the room had artwork, books and photos around it and carried quite a quirky feel in itself. However we also had to consider lighting in the room and selected a room which had large windows allowing a good amount of daylight in. At the end of this two minute clip the setting changes as the title sequence has come to an end. You see the girl leaving her house down a garden path. This setting was selected out of convenience and a limited choice.
· Costume – The costume used hints at the genre High School RomCom as the girl gets dressed in her school uniform. However it is not a particularly smart uniform as we did not believe that the character would go to a particularly smart school. We also used this costume to demonstrate the girl’s clumsy behaviour as she is seen walking away with her skirt partly tucked into her tights as you can see in the bottom right shot.
· Camera Work and Editing – We did the majority of our camera work hand held as we wanted to pan and track around the room in a way that shows close ups of the different titles allowing us to have control over what the audience focuses on.
· Font and Style – The fonts used throughout the title sequence vary in order to fit in around the bedroom. If you look at the bottom left screen shot for example, the text is stitched into her sock label and this was used to display the title ‘costume by’ as we tried to create a link between the title and where it appears. Other examples are when the title  ‘Music by’ appears on her iTunes and when cast names appear on the photos.
· Story and Narrative – Throughout the title sequence there are some links to incidents that occur later in the plot of our film. For example, the artwork links to the parallel subplot of the girls entry into an art competition. The title ‘Roses Are Red’ links to the theme of flowers as the girl’s best friend (which is to later develop into more) works in a flower shop and the big give away that the boy is a cheat is because he buys two bunches of flowers rather than one on valentine’s day. 
· Genre – We tried to make the genre evident through the use of colour. In the main title, for example, we use the colour red which we found through our audience research was typically what they would expect in a romantic comedy. We tried to keep our film quite stereotypical of Romantic Comedies as the focus of the opening sequence is on the main character of the film giving us an insight into her room and life. We have also begun to use a voice-over which we found was also typical for romantic comedies.
· Characters – You are able to see our main character in the shot of her in the mirror. You get to know a bit about the character in the title sequence through what can be seen in her room: quite creative and arty; doesn’t spend too much time on hair and make-up but tries a bit (this morning routine would significantly change and be done with much more effort when she later gets a boyfriend and therefore tries much harder but to be someone that she is not); can be silly and playful which can be seen in the photos around her mirror. We want the audience to warm to this character and I believe this would mainly be through her clumsy nature and as you can see in the bottom right screen shot she leaves the house with her skirt tucked into her tights which creates the line-up for a funny ‘meet cute’ when this character bumps into the boy she likes with her skirt like this.
· Special FX – We have used stop-motion in two cases firstly in the shot which shows the Rubia Productions title which we made to look like it was being drawn. We then used a layering and blending technique to make this title appear on the sketchbook. The second stop-motion was to make the main title appear on the mirror as can be seen in the middle shot.








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