1. 1. Evaluation Question 1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
2. 2. Music Choice A lot of teen movies and high school dramas have upbeat songs in their opening sequences, often of the pop punk genre. This sets the tone of the film and lets you know that it is based around young people. An example of this is the introduction to the film 10 things I hate about you, which has a song typical of most teen films, it features Bad Reputation by Joan Jett. You can see this here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_UUofTKag This is the type of music that we chose so the audience knows what to expect from our film and can identify the genre from the opening sequence.
3. 3. Costume Costume is also important because it is typically the same, but varies slightly to suggest different identities of characters. We used costume to suggest our characters stereotypes. However, with Tee's character we also challenged the forms and conventions of real life media products. The cheerleader trope usually is a perfect looking female, with long hair and a short skirt, an example shown here from John Tucker Must Die. In a lot of ways we conformed to this, but Tee also has braces, showing she isnt quite what the audience would perceive as perfect. Also, her hair is blonde but it is a very white blonde, and she has what you could call a more masculine hair cut, very short and choppy on one side, and this challenges the forms and conventions of typical high school movies, for example the characters in Mean Girls shown here.
4. 4. Cultural Topics Another typical convention of teen dramas are the cultural topics of the film. These often include: Proms (Example in A Cinderella Story) Parties Alcohol and Drugs (Example in American Pie) Relationships Social Groups and Cliques ( Example in St. Trinians) Coming of age We focused mainly on the different cliques, with the contrasting characters, and we also touched on drugs, with the implied drug use of Jennis bathroom shots.
5. 5. Setting Most of the characters in high school dramas are teenagers. For this reason they are usually set in schools. We used corridors to conform to these codes and conventions, so you could tell what our films narrative is going to be about. Also in teen movies you tend to get the girls hanging out in the bathroom. We conformed to this and showed the cheerleader character doing her makeup in a bathroom. Also, we showed the alternative girl in the bathroom, but we decided to challenge the codes and conventions by implying that she is an outcast, and to emphasize this we suggested use of drugs. Shown are some examples of corridors in Mean Girls and John Tucker Must Die, and a bathroom in Easy A.
6. 6. Setting Most of the characters in high school dramas are teenagers. For this reason they are usually set in schools. We used corridors to conform to these codes and conventions, so you could tell what our films narrative is going to be about. Also in teen movies you tend to get the girls hanging out in the bathroom. We conformed to this and showed the cheerleader character doing her makeup in a bathroom. Also, we showed the alternative girl in the bathroom, but we decided to challenge the codes and conventions by implying that she is an outcast, and to emphasize this we suggested use of drugs. Shown are some examples of corridors in Mean Girls and John Tucker Must Die, and a bathroom in Easy A.