Question 1: In what ways does your

media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Film openings that I have analysed during research and planning:

I have analysed all four of them as they are the type of genre that we are doing as a group. By doing this, I could get some ideas what romantic films uses and might use in our media product. These are the film opening conventions that I have found on each of the films:

In “Letters to Juliet” – they uses romantic and cheerful music which reflects the mood of the character and romantic genre. An enigma that was left to the audience thinking about what will happen to the couple. Show credits at the start so the audience know who are the actors. Establishing shot at the beginning to show the location and introducing the female protagonist.

In “Honey” – they introduces the female protagonist. An establishing shot of the city to set the scene and location. The up beat music which reflects the mood and the genre. And an enigma about the main character and someone else.

In “My Sister’s Keeper” – they use enigma as to what will happen to her family. A narration by female protagonist which introduces the other characters in the film. The high key lighting sets the happy and bright life mood. Melancholic music sets genre of the film.

In “Twilight” – they have credits, production logos, narration by female protagonist, music reflects the genre and the mood, introducing the protagonist, sets the scene and location, establishing shot and blank scene at the start to create suspense at the audience

Overall, I have found out that most of the romantic films use establishing shot to set their location so the audience has a clue where it is set. Throughout the start of the film, they introduce their protagonist and sometimes narrating about their life like in “My Sister’s Keeper” and “Twilight”. They uses cheerful and high key music when they are happy or in love then low key and melancholic music when something bad is about to happen or when the characters are depressed. I have found out that most of the romantic films are set where the couples normally date. The font type they use are also simple but sometimes curvy and uses black or white as their colours. This is done to make it readable for the audience.

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

Production Logos

Title and credits

Conventions of our Genre:

o Enigma on our title o The title was white and curvy but simple o It was set at the park where the couples normally

date o Narration of the female protagonist about her lifeo Introduction of main characters right at the start of

our filmo Natural key lighting reflects the mood

o Melancholic and slow paced music reflects the tone of our romance genre

o Establishing shot to show the location

o The slow rhythm of the music flows with the opening credits and the pace of editing.

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

o White background to show pureness and neutrality

This is the enigma that we have developed

Films I had in mind:

I had these films in my mind when we was making our media product because it gave us some concepts on what themes we would use as, the props, type of characters, type of music, lighting, locations, costumes or make-up.

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.

Editing: In our film we use a dissolve in between 2 of the clips so the

first clip flows with the second one. In our photo memories, we used fades as transition and then 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 Keeper’ so it connotes that we are looking back to their memories.

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

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.

Romeo and JulietLove Actually

Costumes: We used casual clothes because their roles are just of

normal people 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 and a happy person.

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.

Dear JohnWhat Happens in Vegas

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

location we could go to and the park is in a good condition. Also its used in some romance films such as “What Happens in Vegas” 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. This will then confuse our audience and we don’t want that to happen.

Examples of Sounds in Romance Films:

Non-Diagetic

Mostly 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.

Sound:

The non diagetic 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.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJKy_JMBY-I This is the link for the backing music that is has similarity to ours.

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.

This is mid shot which shows the 2 main protagonists’ emotions and also some parts of the sky that are seen in the background. This also reflects it to the female protagonist mood being happy and free.

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 and therefore their emotions but we also want 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.

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. This is to make the audience know a little bit of information about their life and it will give them some concepts on what might happen or going to happen.

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.”

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

Dear John Twilight Saga: New Moon

Characters/ Actors

We 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 such as “Love Actually” as we would want the audience to focus on the couple’s lives.

Love Actually Is This It?

Lighting We 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.

By looking at these two different stills shows the high key lighting reflects the intimacy mood of the different characters.

Letters to Juliet Is This It?

Make-Up

In 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 have used it on ours as well because Scarlett’s role has got a cancer and getting worst.

Props

We 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.

My Sister’s Keeper

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. Also the props, make-up, costumes, music and lighting because wanted it be plain and simple of our romance genre.

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.

We haven’t really challenged in any of the conventions in romance genre as we don’t want the audience to get confused.