Evaluation question 1

Evaluation Question 1:

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions

of Real Media Products?

Concept: Teenage Love Story

Similar Films Include: (500) Days of Summer, A Cinderella Story, and Juno, although films such as Waiting for Forever and One Day also fit the genre.500 Days of Summer: This film is the most similar to ours in its concept of a young couple that fall in love and break up; none of the other films that I mentioned involved a break-up in the storyline. 500 Days of Summer also has the more artistic 'indie' edge that we wanted our film to have.We felt that we used the concept of a Teenage Love Story well because although there are films similar to it, ours is has a unique quality- but not to the extent that it does not fit into the target market.

The Story Of Us

Waiting on Forever

One Day

A Cinderella Story

(500) Days of Summer (Left)

I-DentThe Story Of Us

Juno

We chose to use the text effects found in the opening sequence to Juno as inspiration for our I-Dent, as we are aware that Juno is a very popular film among our target audience as well as being of a similar concept to our film opening, not to mention the personal like Jessie and I both have towards the sequence and the fact that the artistic and home-made connotations that the I-Dent has is extremely similar to the one that we wanted to portray.Having seen the use of the moving

letters in the actual title of Juno rather than a company title, we decided that, to guarantee maximum attraction from our target audience, making the title ‘The Story Of Us’ move in a similar way to the way that ‘Juno’ does. I think that over all our use of our I-Dent uses modern conventions well.

TypographyThe Story of Us

Bonnie & Clyde

Jessie and I decided on a typewriter font for the main body of our credits. We chose this because we feel that it depicts a vintage and hand-made essence; something very popular with modern teenagers. The closest font Jessie and I could find was for the credits in Bonnie & Clyde. The credits for Bonnie & Clyde are against a plain black background, which we felt would not sit well with our target audience, as it may be seen as boring. We therefore decided to use a key piece, for example a scrapbook to make the frames more exciting and attention-grabbing. We also felt that it was a more modern choice and our credits flow nicely with the ‘cross-dissolve’ effect, as opposed to the potentially disjointed order of the Bonnie & Clyde credits. In this sense, we have developed the conventions of a real media example by bringing a classical font into a 21st century setting.

Use of Flashbacks

Films with a Flashback Include:- Lord of the Rings, Saw 2, Fight Club and Blade.

It appears that most films beginning with a flashback are action and horror films, which are not the part of the demographic we were aiming for. Therefore, in this sense, we challenge the conventions of a flashback, as the examples I have included feature flashbacks to build tension, not tell a background story.

Blade Saw 2

Use of Flashbacks: Continued

The Story of Us

(500) Days of Summer

Although it appears that Flashbacks are more commonly a convention of action or thriller films, we have found an example within our chosen genre.

Both our opening and the opening of (500) Days of Summer use flashbacks to portray happy memories. The (500) Days of Summer flashback does, however, have a voiceover to explain the scenes, as they would not be very clear as clips by themselves. Our opening was going to use a voiceover to explain the flashback scenes, but after conferring with a focus group, we decided to remove it as it was not necessary. Also, we have used a different transitional device to the editors of (500) Days of Sumer: while their film uses a basic ‘cross-dissolve’ ours uses a (stumbled-upon) effect called ‘additive dissolve’ which we believe makes the photographs come to life in a charmingly disjointed way. Although our film is heavily influenced by (500) Days of Summer, we have made sure to add our own flare and challenge the conventions of the use of Flashbacks, and, in my opinion, we have achieved this well.

Compilation of

Photographs

Our inspiration for the use of photographs in our film opening sprouted from seeing

the title sequence to Blue Valentine, which overlays footage of fireworks on to

photographs that show the couple’s love for each other. We also found that photographs of the couple before they met are used in Bonnie & Clyde, however we felt that the sequence did not flow well enough to suit

our target audience. This led to a compromise of the two styles to show

photographs of the couple before they met as well as together, making it flow well with the use of the scrapbook which also gives the sequence a sense of chronology and enabling the audience to feel part of the

story.

Th

e S

tory o

f U

s

Bon

nie

&

Cly

de

Blu

e

Vale

ntin

e

ShotsThe Story of

Us Restless

As you can see, the two-shot of Katy and Luke upon their first meeting is very similar to the two-shot of the couple in the film Restless: the mise en scenes of both of the shots match in that they both feature the prop of a bench in a park-like location with autumnal trees in the background, a well as the couple’s costumes being similar (both male characters are wearing black jumpers and both female characters are wearing wax jackets). However, we have used our bench scene two-shot at the beginning of our opening to highlight the awkward nature of two teens meeting, and it is apparent that in Restless the shot is at a point in which the couple are close and intimate. Two shots are very common in romantic films, and a basic mid-shot is usually used. We wanted to bring the concept of a traditional love story and adapt it to 21st Century teen culture, as we want it to appeal to teenagers the most, so we have used more unusual two-shots for example of the couple from behind and a high-angle two-shot. In this area I believe we have developed the conventions of the shots used in typical romantic films.

Soundtrack Our film's soundtrack is both conventional and

unconventional compared to those of its type that include a soundtrack. It uses the convention of 'happy' and 'relaxed' style of music, and the electric guitar adds the 'indie' edge that we aimed for and is similar to that in 'Skins'- the popular teen-orientated drama series. However, most of the music on shows such as 'Skins' is that of bands which, although similar to ours in the combination of instruments used including electric guitar, does not include a singer, which is a major convention of the music produced by bands that 'Skins' and other teen-related shows/films use for their soundtrack.

Thank YouFor Watching!