Evaluation Question 1

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

The traditional film conventions to film openings include the titles, enigma, diagetic and non diagetic music, introduction to characters, establishing the genre, studio and production logo's and shots.These add together to create the conventions of the Romantic Comedy genre which also include the Mise En Scene of Rom - Com's, the iconography, the narrative, the reocurring themes and the sound used in Rom - Com's. To all of these aspects in our film opening we have followed these conventions, using editing, sound, mise - en - scene, props, characters, costumes, locations, camera shots.
For the coventions to Rom - Com genres to our own Romantic Comedy film opening we have used very similar traditional aspects to our film to appeal to the target audience we are aiming at.

In terms of the enigma that appears in our film opening, similarly to main other film openings it ask several questions about the particular couple that most Rom Com films revolve around. Our particular couple create enigma for themselves, as well as the parents involved in our film opening, question such as...why is the Dad so unhappy to meet the new boyfriend? How did Lucy and Jay meet/fall in love? Enigma is essential to a film opening to encourage an audience to carry on watching, most Rom Com film openings include enigma similarly to how we have by creating questions such as in Valentine's Day...

Similar questions can be asked about this couple who appear first in the film opening, how did they meet/fall in love? etc.
The target audience will appeal more to a happy a couple being together at the beginning and creating enigma about the couple so an audience will carry on watching, so we took this technique and used it in our film opening.





So the enigma in our first shot with this couple could be:
How did they meet?
Are they happy/in love?
Where are they going and why?
Why are they dressed up?
Where are they?


The sound in a film opening is essential to making an audience appealed to the film depending on the kind of themes the film takes on, so in terms of Romantic Comedies the music at the beginning of the film is usually upbeat and exciting/intruging...some songs used in previous Rom Com film openings which we took notice of to help us choose our Film opening music which is non - diagetic includes..

This song appears at the beginning of the film 'Friends with Benefits' it is upbeat and relates well to the beginning story as the two couples are breaking up with their partners hense 'Runaway Baby' is a good title song to use. This however is a purposeful song overiding the scenes it was at the time a modern youthful song in the charts, however several Rom Com films use orchestral or backing track music to join the occurring scenes....

This non - diagetic piece of music used in the opening of 'The Vow' is a simple backing track , its a heart warming and fitting piece for the film which is a similar taking of what we used on our film opening, we used a simple backing track which has a slightly upbeat tone similar to the 'Friends With Benefits' opening, but the same type of music as what 'The Vow' uses in its film opening. Here we have developed the conventions of our Rom Com and taken inspiration from two film openings and to help create our own feel to our film opening.





As to the conventions of introducing the characters in our film opening we have slightly challenged this, unlike most traditonal Rom Com's the majority of our main characters appear at the same time especially our key main characters, Lucy and Jay they both appear at the same scene and together producing an equal balance of importance to them both, Lucy's father is introduced to the film before Lucy's mother Bridget showing slightly less importance than Jonathan Lucy's dad. This possibly challenges more traditional trates of the introduction to characters.

In the film opening of 'The Ugly Truth' one of the main key characters is introduced first individually showing what she looks like, what she is like and what job etc. Showing the first problem she is having, the next key character is then introduced creating enigma, and introducing characters in turn of their importance and to show more of their personality and involvement in the film. This challenges our introduction to characters, as we have taken a different approach in introducing them.




In terms of shots, we used a wide variety of shots which commonly appear in Romantic Comedies such as long shot, mid shot, close up etc. We did not use many if any over the shoulder shots which appear often in Rom Com film openings...

This is a close up shot of lucy similar to the one above and similar to the beginning shots seen in 'Friends With Benefits'. This shows us developing shots we have previously seen in Rom Com films and following similar patterns.






Similarly with Jay we have done a close up showing his expression of awkwardness after a question Lucy has just asked him. This is also similar to the Rom Com film 'Friends With Benefits' as similar shots to this are shown for the same reasons, which we are developing in our film opening.





In our film opening we have slightly developed our shots, opposing the inspiration we took from this film 'Love Actually', through out the film opening to this the shots used are all very similar and do not vary very much, in our film opening we have tried to vary our film shots as much as possible, for instance the close up of the footsteps from Jonathan to a mid shot of Bridget. We used plenty of shot reverse shot to show the fast pace of the film.

We developed this shot from the comedy film 'Meet the Parents' for our own film opening as it entaled a similar type of theme and story line to the film we were producing, this shot appears in our film opening similarly to this but with a difference in appearance and facial expressions.







A very similar shot to the film (comedy) 'Meet The Parents' when Greg meets Jack his girlfriends Dad they have a similar approach to how Jay and Jonathan introduce themselves, except we have challenged this shot with a different angle and adding more comical humour with the 'BJ' written on his hand which Jonathan then sees.


The MES to our film opening was challenged and developed and met in various ways, in comparison to media products which influenced us to make our decisions for our own film opening. To begin with the costumes which our characters are wearing was hugely developed and used from other similar Rom Com films.

Lucy wore a white dress for its connotations and as well as this we had seen it in many other Rom Com films such as 'The Ugly Truth'. She also had her hair curly similarly to some female leads in Rom Com films, this is a typical girly type of look and it carried off well, so we developed this from some female leads who have this look in Rom Com films such as 'John Tucker Must Die'.

Similarly to many leading female roles in Rom Com films Lucy dresses and looks similar to your typical film star female. We purposely did this to try and attract males as well as our primary target audience towards the film. Similar to Kate in the Rom Com 'John Tucker Must Die' the curly hair and nice flattering make up is a girly, female look.

The male lead in our film opening also followed the traditions with a typical male appearance in Romantic Comedies, in films such as 'Made of Honour' and 'Friends With Benefits' the male leads always dress in shirts and ties in some scenes, with trousers and smart shoes. We took on board this look, as being part of the Rom Com target audience I feel the male lead has to be attractive and dress attractively to give the film the effect it needs, so we added this to our film. Jay in our film as seen to the right is wearing a shirt at the beginning and hair gelled and slightly quiffed to show his sense of style in the film, a similar look to the male leading roles in popular Rom Com films we have taken inspiration from.

We based the parent characters on these two characters from the film 'Meet The Parents' we wanted a similar appearance to these, the mum looking loving and caring and the dad looking stern and smartly dressed but with a casual relaxed side to them both, we developed the appearance of the these two characters to create our own, in a sense this was our starting point to help with the costume in characters to add to the effect to the MES conventions in our film opening.

The mothering and nurturing look which we have given our mother role to Bridget, she is wearing an apron and wollen jacket similar to the picture above from the parents in 'Meet The Parents', this portrays the type of character she is and uses gender stereotypes to challenge this.







Jonathan is wearing quite casual but smart clothes similar to the character Jack in 'Meet The Parents', this also gives way to his character showing a nurturing but stern look.

As another part of the MES which we developed and used from other Rom Com films we had previously seen and been inpsired from were the props we involved. The main and most obvious prop was used by the female lead Lucy, she is walking and talking on the phone in the first scene of the film this is common in Rom Com films including in the opening scenes, we mainly took reference from 'Friends With Benefits' as they begin with talking on the phone, they appear to be talking to one another however it later reveals they are talking to different people. We used this and developed it into our own, with Lucy just talking and showing expression on the phone.

The iconography that appears in the traditional conventions of Rom Com films, this inludes - embarrassment between one or both characters', difficulty often caused by the male lead, kissing scene with a big climax and meeting one or both of the parents. We have used all these conventions towards iconography in our film opening - Jay causes embarrassment when he doesn't know the names of Lucy's parents, difficulty is caused when Jay writes 'BJ' on his hand, the climax to the kissing scene happens when Lucy's dad opens the door before there lips have chance to touch and obviously the main type of iconography in Rom Com films, is meeting one or both of the parents. Here we have used and developed this convention to appeal best to our target audience. These types of iconography appear in most Rom Com films....



Kissing scene, similar to the romantic film 'The Notebook' this has a big climax.

The climax moment in the beginning film opening is when Jay and Lucy are just about to kiss but Jonathan Lucy's dad interupts them presenting awkwardness.



Meeting the Parents















The locations in our film opening were challenging towards Rom Com film conventions, we have set our film in the more countryside location, in a light setting with houses and greenery surrounding the characters. The more usual Rom Com location appears in cities at night or in the day....




With the small lights, or street lights representing and connoting romance like candles etc.

In our film opening we are located in a countryside location completely challenging normal Rom Com location conventions and connotations.




This is the beginning of the road where we started filming, which challenges the conventions of a typical Rom Com location.

To conclude, in our film opening we meet, challenge and develop several conventions of which adds up to create an appealing Rom Com. I think we have used all the conventions well to appeal to our target audience and keeping some traditional traits from Rom Com's as well as opposing them to take our own original twist on our film opening.