Saturday 7 May 2011

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


The opening titles
Before starting our product we researched our genre and looked at different opening sequences and the titles. While researching we looked at what fonts and colours were typically used. So when it came to putting in the titles we knew what types of font would fit in with out category. We decided to use pinks and very feminine colours, for the title of the film we used a pink font which slowly graduated into blue. We wanted it to be fun, quirky and most of all girly, the title has a light up effect and i feel fits in with the genre. Titles like our own can be found in many chick flicks such as 13 going on 30, mean girls and confessions of a shopaholic.

Setting and Location
We wanted to start our story in a girls bedroom which was very girly so that the audience would be able to see what type of girl our main character, chandler, is before we get to know her character. In many chick flicks such as The Lizzy Mcguire Movie start in the bedroom where we usually see the girl/ character getting ready. We decided that we wanted the girl to be in a very pink room which looked like it was for a younger girl. We thought Camillas house would be perfect as it has country lanes which we could use for chandler riding to school.

Costumes and props
we wanted to make sure the audience could tell what character chandler is before she even spoke, I thought the best way to do this was with the use of props in the room and what she was wearing. I chose to be wearing matching long pj's and to have half my outfit on underneath to show the audience she likes things organised, I also wanted it to show she doesnt really care about her appearance as nobody would go to school in what they went to sleep in. We made sure the room only had childish things and I only had minimal make up which wasn't nice or done nicely using brushes. This type of thing can be seen in every single movie, many directors make sure the setting reflects on the character for example in confessions of a shopaholic she lives in new york which is the fashion capital of the world. We also see her appartment is full of clothes and pretty, fashionable things.

Editing and camera work
We deciding that in editing to make our opening flow better and look more professional to add in transitions such as the as the scene blacking out from one to another.
We could see that many films would do this if there were a drastic change in scenery or characters.

Fonts
When introducing the characters we wanted to use the same font but change the colour so that it was obvious that they were different jobs and different roles. We decided to use a simple font that was easy to read and colours which fitted in with the genre but was also easy for the audience to read.

How the opening suggests what genre we have chosen
We followed typical conventions of chick flicks to show what genre we had picked and to make it obvious to the audience. We decided that to do this we really had to make sure the audience could relate to the story and make it funny and enjoyable to watch. To make sure we hit topics that people expected to see I made a questionnaire and handed it out to ten females and males to see what story they would expect hear, what charcters there should be and what age group it should be aimed at this really helped us see what we needed to do to make the opening sequence more successful. The scenes in the room are very important as they show the audience what Chandler is like and what personality she has, as the audience we can see that she is girly and maybe a bit childish just by looking at her room as it is specifically tailored to her taste.

How are the characters introduced
We wanted the opening to reveal the three main characters and show the relationship between the three of them. We looked at everything they needed to know how they would be dressed. We also wanted there to be a very obvious contrast bewteen the two popular girls, bailey and brooke, and Chandler the loser. As chandler is the key character we wanted to introduce her first, we wanted her seem fun and bubbly and a geek who thinks shes cool. We did this by introducing her energetically for example the shot above shows her dancing around to a song and not taking getting ready seriously whereas as Brooke and Bailey would take hours getting ready doing their make up. Both bailey and brooke are introduced together locking a expensive car and walking/ strutting into school with chandler running up behind her.



Special effects
Our film didn't need to use special effects, we found that many chick flicks didn't use any special effects as the stories were usually close to real life and relatable whereas something like an action film uses lots of special effects as things happen in it that don't usually happen in real life.

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