Main Task 12.1: Question 1

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

We tried to make sure we used normal conventions of a romantic comedy. For example for the style and colour of all the text we used bright colours and we had a girly style. We used this because from previous romantic comedies we had looked at in our research we had found that the majority of them used bright colours that stand out and the style was always quite girly. 

This shows one of our titles which we included into the action. We used the white pillow case so that the bright colours of the text would stand out more, which conveys the conventions of the romantic comedy genre.



We decided that only one of our main characters would be shown in the opening sequence so we introduced her as getting up and ready for work. We tried to portray her character through her actions rather than dialogue. For example we showed her rushing around and falling over, showing that she is quite clumsy and she's running late. We used our research again here to help decide this, from other films we had looked at most of them only showed one character, mainly the woman. We also thought that it would be best to not have a script for our opening sequence as we thought we would be able to show the characters personality a lot more through her actions and the way she lives rather than her speech.

This screenshot shows our character falling over on her magazines. This shows her clumsy characteristics and shows that she's quite messy as she has left all her magazines on the floor.





We decided on having some upbeat music playing all the way through the opening sequence, which also links to the normal conventions of a romantic comedy as upbeat music gives a feel for the film and portrays the genre through its sound.

From watching other romantic comedies we had found that usually the characters have every day looking clothes on with natural hair and make-up. We decided to try and keep to this in our opening sequence. Our main character started off wearing pyjamas as she had just woken up, she then got changed into her work clothes which was a plain black skirt, a patterned top, blazer and tights. We also put her in some heeled shoes as we thought this would help to portray her job as a magazine editor a little more.




This shows our character in
her pyjamas.



 



This screenshot shows our character
wearing her work clothes.You can also
see her natural hair and make up.



We tried to keep the editing quite natural and we didnt use any special effects. This keeps with the conventions of a romantic comedy as special effects usually give a feel for adventure or action, and thats not what we was aiming for in our opening sequence. We used a couple of jump cuts to show the time moving on, however we think they worked quite well and fitted in with the sequence. We also used a range of camera angles and shot sizes. For example one of our shots is from under the bed and another is from in the mirror. We used some close ups to show the characters emotion for example when she looks at the clock and realises she is going to be late, we used a close up on her face to show that she is shocked.

This screenshot shows one of the low angle shots that we used in our opening sequence. We filmed this from underneath the bed. We used this because from looking at other romantic comedies some of them use shots quite similar to this one.

This screenshot shows one of our shots from the mirror. We had to try different camera positions so that you couldnt see the camera, but we found a good spot and we were pleased with the result.

The two pictures above show one of the jump cuts that we used. the first picture shows her standing at the mirror and then it cuts to the second picture which shows her doing her make up. We felt this jumpcut worked quite well as it still flowed in the sequence and it didnt seem as if she'd move too far.

Main Task 12a: Evaluation- Audience Feedback

This is the clip of our focus group, we showed them our rough cut of our opening sequence and then asked them for feedback on what they thought about it and how we could improve.

This is the clip from our feedback from showing our final and finished opening sequence.

Main Task 11: Final Opening Sequence

This is our rough cut.

We edited our sequence using the feedback from our focus group and what we thought would work also. This was our first final opening sequence.

We then recieved a message to say that the music we had chosen to use was actually copyrighted, so we had to choose some different music which wasnt copyrighted. We chose to use the original piece of music we was going to use in the first place. This clip is our final opening sequence.  

Main Task 10: Post- Production

We started by capturing our footage and creating the logging rushes table. However instead of just capturing the shots in which we wanted to keep, we made the mistake of capturing all the footage we had. Once the logging rushes table was complete we then started the rest of the editing process. The first thing we did was we used the logging rushes table to help us pick the clips we wanted to keep and then we went through and put them in order. This then led to us creating our rough cut. We had a few problems when creating our rough cut as some of the shots we wanted to use were a bit shaky. Also the shot of JENNY choosing an outfit from the wardrobe to wear to work was a lot longer than we had thought.

 We added in the titles that we needed and cross dissolved them in and out. Also some of the shots we had were slightly darker than others as during the filming day, it got dark outside quite early. We chose the shots that we wanted and put them all together. A problem which we encountered was that in some of the shots it was clear that we was laughing behind the camera as you could hear it over the shot. We then added in some music. It was quite hard to find suitable music as we was looking for an upbeat, bubbly track to use, however some of the ones we came across were quite slow and not really suitale for a romantic comedy. We did then find two tracks which we thought may work well. We put the one track that we thought worked better onto our opening sequence. Another problem we had was that our rough cut was roughly 4 minutes long when it needed to be a lot shorter. Once the rough cut was complete we gathered a focus group together and played them the rough cut. We then asked them for some feedback on whether they enjoyed it, what parts they liked and disliked and why and how they thought it could be improved. We filmed their feedback so we could use it when creating the final sequence.


After listening to the focus groups feedback we went back through our rough cut. Some parts which we originally weren't too sure worked very well, the focus group picked up on. For example the shot of JENNY choosing her outfit we felt was too long, and this was one of the points that the focus group made, they said they felt it was a bit boring. So we took this shot out and it made the sequence flow a lot better. We also paused the text message and email, as in the rough cut they were quite hard to read as they weren't on the screen long enough. We also changed the colours and font styles of the titles so that they stood out longer and were a lot clearer to read. Another problem which was found was the shot of the fridge magnets spelling out one of the crew members name. We only had one shot of this so we decided it would be bext if we re-shot it. The re-shoot worked a lot better and it was a lot easier to read. We also changed the music. Firstly we decided to use two tracks instead of one, but then we felt it didnt really work as well so we changed the music and only used one track throughout the whole sequence. All the changes we made meant we had cut down on a lot time, our rough cut was around 4 minutes and our final sequence was just over 2 minutes. After making the appropriate changes, this then became our final opening sequence. We then gathered our focus group together again, showed them the final opening sequence and then filmed their response again.

Another problem we had was after uploading our final opening sequence onto YouTube, we found out that the music we had finally decided on was actually copyrighted. We had got the piece of music from an old uncopyrighted CD so the music may have been copyrighted during that time. We then decided that we would use the original piece of music that we used at the beginning of our rough cut.  

Main Task 9: Production

We decided that filming on one day would be easier and give us more time to edit it all together and give us more chance to re-shoot any footage we may need. We chose one day of the half term and we decided to do it in the late morning so that the parents in the house we were filming in were out, and when the traffic wouldnt be too bad outside the house. We chose to film the last part of our sequence first as it was quiet outside and as it was about midday, the light was quite good. We had a small amount of problems with pedestrians walking where we filming, we had to wait for them to walk by before continuing to film. Also in one part of our sequence there is noise from a nearby van parking up, however we didnt feel this was such a big problem as we wanted to put music over the sequence so we hoped it wouldnt be a big problem.

While filming our opening sequence we did encounter some problems. For example we had to change a few of our shot sizes as the rooms we used didnt allow us as much room as we first originally thought. Also towards the end of our filming the light outside began to get quite dull and so we did have to use the artificial lighting which was available however it didnt make much of a difference and so some our footage is slightly darker. Some of our shot caused us quite a lot of problems which we didnt actually think of when creating our shot list. For example the shot of jenny throwing her tights at the tampon box actually took us about 10 attempts as we couldnt get the tights to knock the box over. We had to put a brush in the tights to make the tights heavier and then we had to do some different shot sizes and angles and put them together to make it look like she had thrown the tights and knocked the box over. Another shot which was quite difficult to do was the shot of jenny rolling over and taking the pillow with her to display Kings Langley Productions. We had to do this shot a number of times also as it was quite difficult to read and it was quite dark.

In the end i think our shooting was quite good. I think we could have possibly planned our shots and the problems which they may cause a bit more in depth so that we would have missed the problems before filming. However as a group we are pleased with our footage and the fact that we only took 4 hours to film over one day gave us more time to edit, which was beneficial for us.