AS Media Blog

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

Our media product obeys the classical conventions of the romance genre as it uses the stereotypical attributes of a romantic film. We knew that because we were doing a romantic genre we needed to hint at romance genre through either the mise-en-scene or the actual performance. We decided to show this through both because we had their photo's of their life in stages, the mise-en-scene would either be wedding, homely or romantic. We also hinted on the sad moments as faint sirens are heard. We did this because we knew it would add suspicion or tension.

Before planning our film opening we looked to specific films for inspiration, films such as Ps I Love You, The Notebook and Up. Although Up is a Pixar animation we used it an as inspiration for our opening, this was once we knew we wanted to do a picture/video montage. The picture/video montage was something that we wanted to do after we had changed our mind due to the plot changing, after watching the Up opening we had a clearer idea on how we wanted to portray our film opening. We looked at Ps I Love You for inspiration of the couple we wanted and how we could portray their love. We also looked at The Notebook for inspiration of the medical condition as it was like his wife was already dead... this then lead up to their actual deaths.
We killed off one of the main characters before the opening titles were over, this showed a sad and tearful moment. (when the sirens were used to portray the accident).

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I believe our film hits two main stereotypes, the first is the stereotype is the usual conventions of marriage. You fall in love and then get married no in between no problems or actual difficulties just love. Then they move on to go on holiday and carry on having an amazing time in love with each other... Then they have their first child and we see through a photo/video montage of this child growing up and shaping into a beautiful child. Then breaking out of the stereotype we dramatically killed the mother and her second unborn child. This doesn't just break the stereotype, it makes our audience realise how precious life is and how easy it can be taken away. It reinforces how vulnerable we are. The second stereotype is of growing up, little milestones in the child’s life that we see. We see a happy child with a loving family, yet we know nothing of his personality. However we already know that when children grow up they stereo-typically want to become heroes such as; an action man, a soldier, a racing driver and for girls a princess or a mermaid. But our character was maybe forced to grow up quicker than his peers due to facing such a tough loss at a young age. He has had time to think which inspires him as a character to become a fireman to save a mommy like he couldn't save his own.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As a group we began research into different romantic films and the companies who distributed them. We found a pattern of successful romance films being distributed by Momentum Pictures. With big romance films out, such as: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; P.S. I Love You; Safe Haven; and How I Live now. We decoded Momentum Pictures would be the most suitable distributor for our media product. Momentum Pictures is one of the leading motion picture distributors in the UK and Ireland and releases approximately 20 films a year. Momentum was founded in London, England in 1996. We also decided we would like our film to be distributed to the big cinemas Such as Cineworld and Showcase.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

For our film opening we decided to aim towards love struck teenagers because they want a fairy-tale life of love and happiness where this gives off the impression but then also strikes with the reality of truly loving and losing someone. We also aimed for adults as they are aware of the reality of life, they understand what true love is and some can relate to losing someone they love. We decided to make the certificate 12+ giving us a wider range of audience. We also found that we would aim this more towards women than men because of it being a soppy love story with a slight twist. Men would watch this but we think that women would be more intrigued.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We think that the name of the film being posed as a statement as well as question is intriguing to the audience, it also shows an sad irony to portray that the main character won’t actually be able to grow old at all due to her life being cut short by a tragic fire. With the audience being mixed we picked a very young cast, filled with the best looking people that we could find, we went on finding people with the perfect connection to our characters. Not only did we use casting to draw in the attention of the audience, we have made the opening very fast paced and has all of the elements of a romance genre. With the whole idea of the film being very much so like the ones that are already in the markets we think that would help towards the audiences being interested already.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

As the majority of our film has included using a green scene it was extremely important for us to understand exactly how it worked. This meant learning a completely new skill for us all, both in the production and post-production aspects of our film making. Although putting together the screen was fairly self-explanatory, there was still something to learn. Within the post-production it was important for us, particularly the editor, to understand exactly how the green scene was going to be incorporated into our final edit. Alongside the green screen, IMovie was our most important tool. This was the application we used and make everything we added or took away from our footage, easier and more professional. Although as with any technology, we had a few glitches along the way. Along with the new IMovie program came new problems and so it took us a while to adjust to the changes. Another problem that came up during our editing process was that all our footage was saved to only one Mac and was therefore near impossible to retrieve from another Mac; however we had some technological help and were therefore able to find a way of getting all our footage somewhere we could work with after hours of transferring it. From this we learnt that before starting our editing process we should be thinking ahead throughout the whole process to get rid of any glitches in our time plans.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When I completed my preliminary task I worked with a group of my peers, this meant that I never got to fully explore all of the roles as we all had a separate role each. I was in charge of the camera/filming/taking photos, although I already had a little bit of experience in editing and filming since doing the preliminary task I feel that I have learnt a lot more about them in which ways to edit correctly and the correct camera shots to use. When we began our main piece I was again in charge of the camera because I felt comfortable after having guidance from members of staff and other peers. Working in a 4 piece group benefited me well because I had more confidence and we all got on well, watching my preliminary task back I can see that I have benefited and improved a lot since then.