In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Throughout our media product there is a wide use of various forms and conventions of real media products known in the present day. To start with our media product uses captions. Captions are used to help the audience understand whats going on or what the film is about. They also give the film a general narration and to be used in a film trailer would be one of the techniques to draw the target audience in.
As a group we researched typical Romantic Comedy trailers and noted what made a typical Romantic Comedy so we could then incorperate these aspects into our final production piece. This then meant we were using and developing conventions of real media products. For example, in the opening sequence to Ella Enchanted, a fairytale book is used to indicate that this is a typical fairytale and help to explain the beggining of the story along with a voiceover reading out the storyline throughout the book.
To keep our original ideas and complete our goal of a modern fairytale story, instead of using classic fairytale images we used our own pictures and developed them, keeping them within the fairytale theme but with a modern edge, challenging these conventions even making our piece postmodern. Even though we only used a few specific locations mainly based around school, this could be seen as a disadvantage, however we felt this kept out story simple and understandable, again drawing in our target audience who can relate to a school environment. Again, after researching common Romantic Comedies we felt that within these the locations used were, schools, the characters homes and places such as cafes, parks and parties.
Having the trailer begin with 'Once upon a time' not only shows the stereotypical conventions of a fairytale but also states the genre of the trailer we are trying to establish. This connects with the fairytale book in which we also mounted the captions upon the storybook. With this and the use of our own pictures we created a defiante contrast between a fairytale and modern theme.
We also followed a typical Romantic Comedy genre of film with our plot. Together we analysed different Romantic Comedy films such a 'A Cinderella Story' and 'Mean Girls' to find out the common elements of this genre. This elements linked with Propp's Theory as well as the typical types of charcters we have used such as the 'popular' or 'geeky' girls and the 'popular, desirable' boy.
How effective is the combination of your media product and ancillary text?
Our final products all have obvious links with eachother. All of our final productions pieces embody the title of our product and include images of the main characters involved. By keeping a coherent theme thoughout our three pieces our piece would then the recognized to out target audience. All three pieces contain the title 'He's Mine' in the same text font and colour. Also our pieces show images of the main characters which also targets our particular audience who will find certain simularities between them and the characters. Having the characters relate to the audience will gain the viewing. To again link all three of our pieces, as a group we came up with a logo. This logo was a heart shape and was used in all three of our final pieces. I believe we were successful in creating alot of consistancy between our three products.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
As a group, we posted our final production pieces on Youtube in the understanding that we would recieve some critical and benificial feedback. Our audience felt we had a very interesting storyline and were compelled to find out the ending. Even though there were some crtitcs that felt that some of the narrative didn't make sense it was easier to understand due to the captions making this piece succesful. Narrative appears to attract the consumers to want to go and see this film. Other critics commented on the modern twist to a fairytale and the wide variety of footage and quick changing shots. This then made the final outcome more interesting. Even though the main purpose of all our shot was the location of the school some people felt a wider range of locations were needed and that it may have been useful to have carried out different surveys for this, asking our target audience which locations we could have incorperated in our trailer.
In order to research various aspects for our trailer we used a number of media technologies. For example by using Youtube this allowed me to analyse, understand and look at the different conventions used within different videos. By doing this we could then take ideas that we liked, take certain aspects from them and make them our own. Then taking particular videos that have the same genre as to what we are doing, we could then post them on our blogs and show and in depth analysis, showing our understanding of the different conventions within them.
To help concentrate on costume, setting, narrative and Mis En Scene and to help analyse different trailers, i posted all my research ideas and theories on my blog, work that related to our own piece, so i then had a clear list of these things.
To create our pieces and experiment with different ideas we used the macs variety of programmes and used the ones which suited each of our products. These programmes consisted of Photoshop and Premier Pro. To edit our captions and edit and complete the majority of out poster and magazine cover we used Photoshop. With the photographs we had taken, Photoshop allowed us to experiment with the photos with things such as colour and backgrounds. With the use of layers on Photoshop we were able to edit our products much easier and experimenting with different effects to get our final products. Photoshop enabled us to find the consistant logo in all our three pieces via the 'Shapes tool'.
For the actual editing towards our teaser trailer, we used Premier Pro. With Premier Pro we edited all our footage. Firstly we filmed alot of different shots which would be useful for our trailer, then with the use of Premier Pro we were able to load the footage onto it , allowing us to edit, cut and take out any of the footage we had. With Premier Pro we were also able to add in different effects. For example, with the storybook, we could then have the effects of the pages turning in coherent to the shots changing. Premier Pro also lets us have a choice as to weather the transactions of shots were fast or slow.
With the use of these technologies, we were able to plan, research, evaluate, edit and carry out in depth analysisof our products to our full potential.
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