In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?
Poster - After researching into posters for romantic comedy films, we found that they generically used white backgrounds and were fairly simple. We carried this element on into our own poster. We mainly used the colours blue and pink. The colours pink and red have romantic connotations, so to stop our poster just looking like it is a romantic genre, we used the colour blue to level it out. The film He's Just Not That Into You also did a similar thing, using the colours reds/pinks and greens/blues. We used hearts in the background to prevent it from looking too plain, and also to hint at the romantic side of our film. Our poster challenged the convention of a typical romantic comedy poster by having the title in the middle of the page layout rather than the bottom. The change of this convention worked well for use because it helped us to separate the two times of the photographs more clearly. By using the generic colours of a romantic comedy poster I feel that it portrays the genre clearly, and also attracts the audience which it is aimed at.
Magazine - We found it a challenge to find any film orientated magazines which featured articles relating to the romantic comedy genre. Because we could not find any exampled, we tired our hardest to follow the stereotypes that we had used when creating our teaser poster. We firstly used a white background because we had found that this was a generic element of the media surrounding romantic comedy type films. Then we began to research into magazine names, and fonts, and chose 'SPOTLIGHT'. We created a poll to research which font we should use. We then found a photo of the couple in our film together (they're a couple in real life) which we were able to use. We chose one where they were dressed smartly and looked natural. We loaded this photograph into Photoshop and then cut around the couple and pasted this onto the white background. Then we made up some captions to surround the image in the centre of the page, and varied them in size and colour to make them more eye catching, as this is what magazines generically do. We continued the same colour scheme which was used on the poster, and used different shades of pink and blues, which again linked back to the romantic comedy genre. Once we had completed the magazine cover, we showed it to the class in order to gain feedback. They felt that our cover worked well in general, but there were some things which needed changing, such as the colour of ‘Faith’, the sizes of some of the captions and the positioning of some of the captions. I feel that our magazine title is very effective, I think that the style of the font works well with the name itself and is eyecatching, and also shows what type of magazine we have creates. I think that our picture works very well because the couple look natural together and look glamourous enough to be on the front of a magazine. The continuous colours link all of our products together, and would increase awareness of our film.
Teaser Trailer - The title of our film is ‘Keeping Faith’. When we first started planning our teaser trailer, we had decided on the title ‘Losing Faith’. The plot for this idea was that the clumsy boyfriend would lose his girlfriend called ‘Faith’ and the film would be based around his mishaps trying to win her back. We then changed our storyline to a boy having a crush on a girl whilst at school, but he’s a typical clumsy boy and she’s the generic popular girl, so she can never have open feelings towards him because of what her friends would think. Years later, she is an actress and he is a journalist, he is arranged to interview her, but doesn’t realise it’s the girl from his childhood. Now the tables have turned and she is trying to win his affections whereas he’s moved on. This lead us to changing the title to ‘Keeping Faith’, relating to the girl keeping her faith that he’ll have feelings towards her again. Regarding our title I feel that we have kept within the conventions of a romantic comedy. The title is short and catchy, and something we feel would stick in our audience’s minds. Our film is aimed at both sexes aged 14-26, and we felt that the title would work with this group because of its simplicity. We created a survey of different fonts that we had chosen for our title, and we chose the two which had the most votes. We liked the one which we used because we felt that the scruffiness of it was similar to a teenage boy’s writing, and the pink heart dotting the ‘I’ on ‘Faith’ was a generic teenage girl thing to do. The ‘f’ in ‘Faith’ doesn’t have a capital letter, here we feel that this is in keeping with the conventions of a romantic comedy film, for example, ‘Love Actually’ and ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ don’t use capital letters for their titles. The heart behind the 'k' on keeping also carries on the theme of our poster.
For the release date of our film we only said ‘coming soon…’ at the end of our teaser trailer. We found that this is a generic thing to do when creating a teaser trailer, and was used for the teaser trailer of ‘Love Actually’. I think that by only saying 'coming soon' we leave some sense of mystery and suspense to our trailer, making the audience want to find out more.
For the captions throughout our teaser trailer other than the title, we used a simple font that was easily read. Again, this follows the conventions of a typical romantic comedy film. Firstly both ‘Love Actually’ and ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ both use very simple fonts for their main title. But ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ also uses captions throughout their trailer, which again continues to use this simple font, with one line in a typically female colour like pink, and the next line in a typically male colour, on a black background. To carry on the colour scheme which was used throughout our magazine and poster, we used a white background and had one line of writing in blue, with the next in pink. We feel that this fits the conventions of the romantic comedy genre because of the colours and font used. I think that the actual words of 'what goes around comes around' are effective, they leave the audience in suspense and don't give away the plot of the film.
In the opening scenes we first shot the female character entering the ‘café’. When filming her enter, we started at a close up of her feet, and panned out and tracked up as she began walking closer. I feel that this shot in particular is one which is typically used in romantic comedy films, and is often associated with romance. The way which the shot begins at the feet at the character instead of the face helps to build intrigue and suspense within the audience. The costume which the female is wearing is a mix of smart and casual. Because our film features the two main characters when they are younger and then when they are younger, and again when they are older, we had to create a difference in costume so that they looked different ages in each scene. So for this scene we dressed the female character in a white shirt and black cardigan, so that she looked smart, but also casual. We felt that this would make her look older, because when people are older they dress smartly because of work. We also put her hair up because we felt that this made her look professional, as she would need to look if she were really having an interview with a journalist. The setting we chose for this scene was the school diner. We felt that we could make it appear to be a café because of the sofa’s and decorations. We chose a café because we thought that this would be an appropriate place for an interview, and most romantic comedy’s feature a type of informal meeting place, for example, in He’s Just Not That Into You, they use a bar. I feel that we have developed this convention to fit our own storyline. I think that although we broke the conventions of a typical costume, it still works to our advantage by fitting with the plot of our film. The setting fits the conventions of a romantic comedy, and I feel that this aspect again works to our advantage by making our trailer seem more realistic and that the audience are able to relate to it.
This is the scene which shows the audience the relationship between the male and female characters when they are younger. Here we use a midshot, in order to be able to see all of the characters involved in this scene. In this scene we use a classroom, with a whiteboard visible behind the characters, and desks. The setting of a classroom is generic for a romantic comedy film, for example, the film She’s The Man is based in the location of a school because of the character’s ages. We felt that this aspect also made our teaser trailer seem more realistic, and that our target audience would also be able to relate to this. The costume which the characters are wearing are designed to look like school uniform. But we felt that because they are the ‘popular’ group, that they should wear the incorrect uniform, as this is realistic within schools. They wore cardigans with shirts and trousers. They are using props of make up and mobile phones, so that they fit the stereotype of teenage girls. The main character, who we see in the ‘older’ scenes has her hair in pigtails, in order to make her look younger and so that there appears to be an age difference between the scenes. While editing this scene we decided that it should be short, but long enough so that the audience was able to gain an idea of what the female character was like when she was younger. Looking back we now think that it would have been better to have the main character sitting on the table between the girls with them sitting on chairs, as this would keep the focus on her.
This is the following scene, where we create a short montage of the boy doing generic clumsy things. This again is a midshot, and we chose to use this type of shot so we were able to fit the character and his actions in the frame. Like the previous scene, the character is sitting at a desk, but is sat in a chair and is doing his work, which creates a contrast with the characters we saw in the previous scene. This opens up the stereotype for his character to be the typical ‘geeky kid’ found in comedy films. He is dressed in a shirt and tie, which is a typical school uniform. Again, we tried to make the character look younger in these scenes so that they contrasted well with the older ones. In the older ones he is wearing a dark blue shirt and looks more casual, so we feel that we have showed this time difference well in relation to this character. He knocks over a cup of water onto the floor, and as a group we felt that this is typical ‘slapstick’ comedy which viewers will find amusing and which would also show the audience how he is clumsy. While editing this scene we had to ensure that it was short, so that it flowed well into the next scene, kept the viewers attention, and slightly resembled a montage. I feel that this attempt of a montage scene works well and achieves the comedy element to the film that we were aiming for.
The next scene is the second which shows the male character doing something generically clumsy. Here we use a midshot, in order to show all of the action in the scene. As before, this scene is set in a school, and the character is again wearing his school uniform. The action of our character catching his bag on the door handle, and other ‘slapstick’ comedy such as this go against the typical comedy found in romantic comedy films. Here we have gone against the usual conventions of a rom-com, and instead of using the generic comedy found in rom-coms such as puns and stupidity like in ‘Knocked Up’ and ‘You, Me and Dupree’. We felt that this type of comedy was easier for us to create without making our teaser trailer too complicated, and we hoped that our target audience would find it funny enough to stay interested and that they would also be able to relate to it.
Here we see the two main characters together. We added this scene because we felt we needed one which showed directly the relationship between them both. Here we see how the male character acts clumsy around the girl, and the audience is implied his feelings towards her through the way which he looks at her as she walks past him and walks into the door because he is distracted by her. The characters are wearing their school uniform and this scene is again set in a school hallway, as we felt this would be an easy place for them to pass eachother naturally. While filming, we also had people walking around school, and although we found it difficult to film, we then felt that it made the scene look more realistic and true to life and it ended up working in our favour. When editing this scene we had to make sure that we cut it just right, so that you could not see the characters waiting for filming to start. Looking back I feel that we should have shot this scene looking at the doors straight on instead of at an angle, so the characters were walking towards us and away from us. I feel that this would have made it slightly more interesting for the audience and would have increased the comedy.
This is the last scene of our teaser trailer. It shows a close up of the couple when they are older and at the interview together. The way which the couple look at eachother, and then the scene finishes helps to build a scene of intrigue within the audience and to build suspense, the audience doesn’t know where this interview will lead the couple. The comedy of this scene is where the female character is shown to a seat by the male character, and she ignores this and chooses to sit next to him. From this the audience is shown how they feel about eachother but in a funny way. We felt that this type of comedy would be found in a show like ‘Friends’. When editing this scene we wanted it to cut sharply when it finished, in order to build the suspense, but we also wanted it to flow well into the title screen. We used a transition between the two scenes to achieve this. I feel that the way which the characters look at eachother and then the trailer finishes is effective in increasing the suspense. The angle which it is shot at works well and makes us feel although we are sitting next to the couple watching them.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
For our romantic comedy teaser trailer, we tried to stick to the traditional conventions of this genre as much as possible. As the romantic comedy genre is one of the most popular genres within the modern day film industry, we felt that it would be fitting to market our products in a mainstream way. Romantic comedy films appeal to a very wide audience, and are thus mainstream, and we had to create our promotional products in a way which addressed this aspect. I believe that our three elements work together - our film, magazine cover and poster – firstly because we have a recurring theme throughout. We continually use a white background (film captions and title, magazine cover and poster) with simple fonts and the colours blue and pink. By continually using the same colour scheme throughout our products, I feel that they are linked together well, and also link to the romantic comedy genre effectively.
In our teaser trailer I feel that the most successful elements are the editing and the soundtrack. I think that in relation to the editing of our teaser trailer, that the scenes are of the right length for the audience to be intrigued by, and that they flow well and are put together in an order which makes sense. The captions used make the plot understandable but do not give too much away. I find the soundtrack the most successful element of this product. At first we had difficulty finding a product which we could gain permission to use due to copyright issues. We then looked up a local musician I was in contact with and asked to use his track ‘Cheer Up’. I feel that this really works well with our teaser trailer because the lyrics fit so well. ‘and you know that she’s never guna come back, and you know that you shouldn’t ever look back’. This relates to the boy moving on from the girl in his younger years. The track has a really upbeat tune, which prevents the genre of our teaser trailer from looking like a romantic film. I feel that a weakness of this product would be the range of shots used. I believe we could have used a wider range of shots when filming our product and that this aspect should have been planned out better. Throughout our film we stick to the basic shots of midshot and close ups, and I think that if we had used a different variety of shots then we would have been able to add to the comedy element of our teaser trailer as well as how interesting it is.
In relation to our poster, the element which I feel is most effective is the layout. I think that the way which there is a picture of the couple when they are younger, with the boy chasing the girl on the top, and then a picture of the girl chasing the boy when they are older under the title works well. I believe that the age difference is shown effectively here, and also that the relationship change between both images stands out well. The difficulty we had with our poster was the actual editing of the images. We cut out the background and placed it onto a white background. We were worried that having the figures on a plain white background would look unnatural and too edited. But after we received some feedback we felt more confident about this aspect. I feel that the main weakness of our poster is that the lighting of both of the photographs are different, one has a slightly yellow tint to it which I feel should have been edited out.
For our magazine I feel that the most successful aspect is the picture that we’ve used. Because of what the couple are wearing, they look glamorous and they look natural together, which I feel makes our front cover look very realistic. One problem that we had with our magazine cover was the placement, size and colour of the captions. We knew that we had to vary the sizes of the captions, but before we gained feedback, we hadn’t varied the sizes enough. Some of the colours we had chosen for certain words were also hard for some people to see, so we changed this to make them more visible. I feel that a weakness of our magazine cover is the captions theirselves, I feel that they could be more interesting and aimed at our target audience specifically.
