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

Conventions of Film Openings: Enigma Set the story Opening credits Narration Introduction of main characters Lighting and music reflects the tone Set the scene, time and date

Establishing shot

Conventions of your Genre: Enigma on our title

The title was white and curvy but simple

It was set at the park where the couples normally date

Narration of the female protagonist

Introduction of main characters right at the start of our film

Natural key lighting and melancholic and slow paced music reflects the tone of our romance genre

Establishing shot to show the location

The rhythm of the music goes with timing of the opening credits

The female protagonist is portrayed as weak whereas the male protagonist is portrayed as strong

White background to show pureness and neutrality

Films I had in mind:

Editing:In our film we used dissolve in between of the clips

so the first clip flows with the second one. In our photo memories, we use fades in transition and focuses at the female protagonist because we want the audience to focus on her life. In memories clips, we wanted to have some grains or a montage transition on the clip like the one on ‘My Sister’s Keepers’ so it recalls back to their memories.

So we have used the same technique on ‘My Sister’s Keepers’ as we want it to look it’s part of her past.

Examples of film editing:Most of the romance films use fades in

editing because they want it to look simple. However, other romance films like ‘Remember Me’ and ‘My Sister’s Keepers’ use different types of edits as they want it to reflect with the romance theme or they want it to look different.

At the end of ‘Remember Me’ it focuses in one diary and the rest are just blurry. At the beginning of ‘My Sister’s Keepers’ it uses like a montage edit with grains because it was about the girl’s past memories.

Costumes: We used casual clothes because their roles

are just living in a simple life like most of the couples are so we wanted to reflect on it and so the audience could maybe identify what social class they came from. We also have some meaning behind the clothes they’re wearing e.g. Scarlett wearing bright clothes as to show that she is innocent.

Examples of Costumes in Films:Most romance films use casual clothing like

‘Love Actually’, ‘Twilight’ and ‘My Sister’s Keeper’. But in some films they have a different type of clothing depends on the characters role and their characteristics. For example, in ‘Legally Blonde’ her clothes were top designers and she only wears pink. And in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, they both wore expensive material as they come from a rich family.

Locations/ Settings:Ours was set at the park because it was the

easiest way we could go to and the park is in a good condition. Also its used in some romance films because it makes it look more romantic and this is where the couple dates in reality.

We used the same conventions of romance genre for locations because we didn’t want to challenged it as it would look completely different to our film and wouldn’t fit in with our genre.

Examples of Locations in Film:Different locations can be set in different

romantic films but it is mostly set where the lovers are dating. For example, in ‘What Happens In Vegas’ was set at the park. In ‘Titanic’, it was set on the boat. In ‘Life As We Know It’ was set at the restaurant. In ‘Remember Me’ was set on a fare. In ‘Dear John’ was set by the beach.

Sound:The sound that we used in the background was

melancholic, slow paced and low key because we wanted it to reflect to the female’s protagonist narration. We had the female’s protagonist narrating all the way through our film opening because we wanted her to tell the audience some details about her life. And for the diagetic sound, we just have Tom says something to Scarlett because the lines that he said were important. We did it like that so the audience could feel the same way to what the protagonist felt.

Examples of Sounds in Romance Films:Non-DiageticMostly in romance films they use high key, relaxing,

soft sensual, cheerful music when things are good and when things are depressing they uses slow rhythm, low key and melancholic music. For example, at the beginning of ‘Letters To Juliet’ it was slow paced and then it builds up which makes the audience feel happy. In ‘Titanic’ it was slow paced and uses low key which makes you feel depressed.

Diagetic Normally in romance films, there are sounds of water

flowing, sound of the cars, people talking in the background and birds singing.

Camera Shots:In our film we used establishing shot at the

beginning so that the audience can see the location. But we mostly used mid shots in our clips because we wanted to capture their faces but also some parts of the background so the audience can still see where it was set in. But in some cases where Tom was sat at the bench, we used close-up shot as we wanted the audience to focus at his emotional face. By doing this, it could make the audience sympathize on him.

Examples of Camera Shots in Films:Close-up shots are mostly used in romance

films to focus on the lovers faces. In ‘Titanic’, they uses mid shot when they were talking so it captures there faces and also some parts of the background.

Narration: We used a narration all the way through our

two minute film opening as we were inspired by ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ where the female protagonist was narrating about her life. So we decided to use narration about Scarlett’s life as we wanted the audience to know about her a little bit.

Examples of Narrations in a Film:There are romance films that uses narration like ‘My

Sister’s Keeper’, ‘Twilight Saga’ and ‘Remember Me’. It is usually narrated by the protagonist talking about their life or someone else’s life.

At the beginning of ‘My Sister’s Keeper’, the protagonist was narrating about her sister’s life. At the beginning of ‘Twilight Saga’ and most parts of the film, Bella talks about her life and her love for Edward. At the beginning and at the end of ‘Remember Me’, the protagonist repeats the same script about “how anything you do in life would be insignificant, but it’s very important you do it.”

http://youtu.be/HP4NxUFgFrs?hd=1

Characters/ ActorsWe have two main protagonists which are Scarlett and Tom.

Scarlett is innocent and sweet but also weak like most of the female characters you would see in a romance film. And Tom is caring and strong like other male characters in romance films. At the start of the plot, the two couples are happy until Scarlett was acting strangely.

We used the same conventions of characters in a romance genre as we would want the audience to focus on the two people.

Examples of Characters/ Actors in a Film:In romance films they normally have a boy

and a girl dating Sometimes there’s a love triangle, fighting

for the same person

LightingWe just used natural lighting as it was set

during day time so there’s no need to add more lighting. The sky was bright which reflects the mood of the two happy couples playing about at the park. This also reflect the innocence of the female’s protagonist characteristic.

Make-UpIn our film, the female protagonist wears

natural make-up as it portrayed her as being fragile. We got the idea of ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ where the female’s protagonist sister was ill and she hasn’t put on any make-up. We used it on ours as well as we want her to

PropsWe were going to use bottles of water for the two

lovers to have a water fight so that it looks passionate. But then the weather was too cold so we decided not to have it. However, we use the swings and bench which makes it looks idealistic.

Used, Developed and Challenge:We have mostly used the same conventions in romance

film to ours as we have a narration on our film opening which is the same as My Sister’s Keepers talking about their life. We used mostly close-up shot and mid shots just to show their happy faces together at the beginning then at the end of Tom’s sad face when Scarlett walked out. We have the location set in a park where the lovers are normally dating.

We developed one of the conventions which was the enigma where we used ours as the title of our film when it’s normally the character’s actions. We did it like that because we wanted the audience to think what would happen to their relationship or what would happen to the female protagonist at the end of the film.