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

I have chosen to work in the Rom/Com genre so for my teaser trailer I have used conventions of a romantic comedy. Some of the main conventions are a narrative which includes a 'typical geeky girl' resisting the 'good looking' handsome, popular guy. I haven’t challenged typical stereotypes because my audience research indicated that they weren't particularly concerned with the subversion of conventions, in fact they indicated that they relyd on them to make sense of the narrative. This decision is a commercially sensible one. Commercial pressure is the reason why stereotypes are generally adhered to in Romantic comedies in order to ensure that the target audiences are not alienated. The stereotypes are also really important for creating comedy. For example in "Never Been Kissed" , all of the comedy is centered on the stereotypical nerd's reluctant attempts to get accepted by the 'cool' crowd. Stereotypes in productions such as romantic comedies work well because the oppositional nature of the protagonists invariably creates clashes that inevitably result in 'comic' situations.

 
In other romantic comedies the female protagonists are portrayed similarly, in terms of sartorial codes and their personality. My character is similar to the character in ‘Never Been Kissed’ their sartorial code is dull; they both have bland colors and made seemingly 'unattractive', and seem to adopt a carefree attitude towards fashion. Also, their presentation, in terms of their image and its associations, is simplistic in style. These characteristics are common in romantic comedies. The  'pulled back' hairstyle portrays a practical woman; it adds to the cold and indifferent personalities shared by the women in features like, ‘She’s All That’ and ‘The Ugly Truth’ . This is a convention I wanted to subvert. I was aiming to portray my character as someone who wanted to blend in: who was shy and reserved, not intimidating. This is so as to create a certain depth to my character by breaking the conventions normally associated with this type of character.

I used visual gags  as opposed to jokes in dialogue to create comedy . Because it is a teaser trailer, I didn't have the amount of time needed to include jokes, which is why I chose to have visual gags, as it is quick easy to portray and has immediate impact.  

The first visual gag I used is where the protagonists' books are thrown away by another student. Another is the male protagonist stopping the female from eating the unhealthy burger and chips. I was playing on the concept of diet: although it’s a serious issue I portrayed it in a comedic style, as serious issues are often the source of the best humour. I have learned that topics that are serious can be portrayed through comedy in a way that audience won’t take offence. 



 I created a compilation using the imovie video editing and a youtube downloader called 'Keepvid' of other media products that had visual gags . It consist of other romantic comedy trailers, that show the diffrent camera shots and the different types of comedy they use. An exmaple of that is slapstick humour which is evident in "Fun With Dick and Jane" the first humour is immensely exagerated but still funny. The romantic comedies I used are "Two Weeks Notice" , "50 First Dates" and "Just Married", although "Fun With Dick and Jane" isn't a romantic comedy it is comedy, the romantic comedy genre is a hybrid of comedy and romance so its practially similar.

The teaser trailer had to be very short but I have made a script that  was too long long to be in a teaser trailer therefore I used different editing techniques to replace the long dialogues making the trailer quick not slow paced which isn't what most maintstream contemporary films . The editing techniques I used to increase the pace are a push transition between the scenes, fades and pan shot.

Fades

Pan Shot

Still Frame Shot

The introduction of characters allows the audience to get their first perception of the character, how the character is presented says a lot about their personality and place in the narrative. I have also created another compilation of different romantic comedy openings. For my teaser trailer intro of the characters the audience recognize the male character as the cool popular 'kid' that is admired by people, this is conveyed through the girls greeting him and smiling also his body language and sartorial code indicates all those characteristics. the female character is percieved as a loner and not fashionable classifying her as the outsider through the fact she is alone and seemingly unhappy indicates to the audience she is the 'geeky' loser. This concept is similar in the video above, the introduction to those characters as in the first film 'The Proposal' the female is authoritive, makes people rush and nervous at her arrival which conveys the personality of this character. Also the last film which is 2010 'Valentines Day' movie the opening has such a famous well known cast that the had quick zooms into the character and their names next to them, for my trailer I have zoomed for one of my character and for both used a still frame shot with the voice over introducing them.

The issues in the narrative reflects the issues my target audience face in their perosnal lives. The film deals with social status, changing peer groups and finding love when its new. My narrative includes school orientated issues such as failing class and dealing with entrance exams in order to attract my target audience.

I chose this narrative to not completely stray from the conventions of a romantic comedy, which could alienate my audience. The fact that most romantic comedies have similarities come to show that the audience like to have a common foundation in the films they watch.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

My main product and the ancillary texts are very effective, especially the magazine as it helps promote the movie trailer. This is due to the star actress who is well known for other mainstream films and has a strong fanbase who will follow her to her latest project through sites like Twitter, Facebook and personal fan sites created by the fans themselves. In this way the producers know that they are starting from a strong position, in terms of marketing. The fans of this actress are likely to watch the movie because of her; this is often seen in other universally known romantic comedies that cast actors that have become an ‘Icon' amongst the audiences.  Considering my film is a mainstream film the advertising should be seen in capital cities and urban conurbations. Generally mainstream film productions would have a strong campaign because of the budget being so huge which subsequently enables the film to be advertised intensively and in a wide range of places. The poster, in particular, adheres to the conventions of the form, hinting strongly at the narrative of the film.

 My ancillary text, the poster, depicts the storyline clearly through the sartorial codes used and the mise-en-scene. The mise-en-scene of the poster is the same for the trailer as the setting of the movie is in a schools science lab which also conveys the coming together of these opposite characters. The sartorial code is casual and sports wear for the male this is because his character is a jock, the type that wears sports wear like‘hoodies’. I used the same clothes in certain scenes for the trailer which is evident in this image. I used the same colour red and font (stencil) for the title for both the poster and teaser trailer so as to create a strong relationship between all aspects of the production, from the final product to the advertising mediums used to sell it. My poster is constructed on the principles of a typical romantic comedy poster.  The two main characters are standing against eachother to show opposition and conflict yet the colour red indicating their love in the narrative as the colour red represents code of love amongst other interpetations such as passion, danger and romance. Love is a universal concept and the signs and symbols associated with it can be read across many cultures.


The magazine main cover line tells the reader that the actress has her own 'chemical romance' in her life away from films, which links the coverline of the magazine to the narrative of the film.The title of the movie is 'Chemical Reaction' which has a double meaning as the words refer to the plot of the story as well as referencing the thematic and narrative aspects of the film.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I intended for my teaser trailer to be perceived as a professional and believable real media product. Using convention of romantic comedy I intended the content to be funny and enjoyable for my audience. The target audience which are pre-adults, early twenties have a lot in common with the narrative, like being students and the narrative revolving around school life/college/ Uni. I used both open ans closed questions to provide my audience with different ways of expressing their opinions.

1.)What is the genre of the teaser trailer?

 

From my audience research I learned that the overall majority definitely recieved the trailer as a romantic comedy which was a relieve as I was aiming to portray both genres equally I have steered slightly in the romantic direction, this did worry me but the audience feedback has revealed to me that both genres are recognisable in my trailer.

The most important apsect of my teaser trailer would have been the characters, they would have to be likeable by the audience, since a film can have an astounding narrative, the chemistry between the characters and emotions portrayed are just as important. Therefore having some level of authenticity to create a sense of realism. The characters are the backbone of the film the audience , and form my audience research i have found out that the characters where most favourited in the teaser trailer .

4.) What did you think of the stereotypes conveyed in the taser trailer?

The representation of particular social groups was typically stereotyped however my aim was to use these exhausted stereotypes and create humour and not generalise actual social groups. This was by not conforming to audiences out dated ideologies and simply providing what is ideally socially expected from people such as the 'Cool Kid; and the 'GEEKs'.

I have subverted these stereotypes by embedding more complex characteristics that draw the stereotpyed characters away from simply being taken as two dimensional characters in terms of stereotypes with no depth to three dimensional characters that have realistic attributes and who are credible people the audience know in reality. The feedback was relatively the same as my intentions which taught me that just becuase a movie is supposed to be mainstream it doesn't limit your creativity and message.

6.)Did you notice anything about the sound on the trailer? 

Some audiences noticed that the sound wasn't at certain times working simultaneously on both headphones. This has shown me that it was noticeable but not a major factor to
be overly concerned. 

YouTube

I have also used YouTube as a form of audience feedback, social networking sites is popular amongst my target audience. Because of web 2.0 audiences have become more critical of media product's as the introductuion to web 2.0 gave the consumers of media a voice, and opinion this opts for the directors and writers to provide something their audience will appreciate as the negative feedback can scare away other potential future audiences. The audiences become self made critics of what is done by professionals, and now media students and general contributors to sites such as YouTube, Megavideo, and Tudou (one of the largest video sharing sites in Peoples Republic of China). There were positive and negative aspects of using this form of feedback. the postive is that the audience can have more freedom with expressing how they feel as they don't feel preasured by the creator for positive reaction. This provided me with honest commment's that were not fabricated to be kind.

However since the people that replyed were not professionals or media thinkers I recieved informal comments that were vague and not particularly specific to what could have been improved or what they admired related to media conventions and techniques.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evlauation stages?

iMovie














The iMovie version 6.0.4 was the editing program I used for creating my teaser trailer, despite the program having limited option compared to other more advanced editing programs it still was a very useful and standard quality software for making my trailer. There wasn't a immense disadvantage to the point that made the quality of my editing seem inadequate. I used editing features such as fades and slow motion to create a melancholic atmosphere to reflect the characters emotions, and pushes which emits a faster pace and conveying convention of a teaser trailer which are relatively fast and quick cuts. However since this version of iMovie was an older version the newer versions of iMovie Version 8.0 (released 2009) such as more options and features to alter videos and aim for a more professional and creative films. Some of those new features they have introduced was more movie titles which was one of the issues I had with the current iMovie with the limited and uncreative standard titles. Also having more bars for clips and sound and many new transitions.

iTunes


















I used itunes to put my soundtrack on the iTunes library so that I can access the songs from the imovie which only gave me itunes as an option to import songs from to use it for my trailer.


Photoshop 

Photoshop was the software I used for my ancillary project the magazine and poster, at first I had found it difficult using phtotshop as it was new and complicating however I have used other resources to help me take advantage of photoshop such as youtube as tutorials were proivded giuding me through what the symbols and icons mean and how I can create different types of effect. I also learned things in photoshop just by experimenting and seeing what i can create just playing with the types of effects, cutting and colouring techniques.

Microphone

I had a few complications with audio, for my teaser trailer I had used the camera’s microphone to record the voiceovers which was on stereo. The stereo meant that the sound came out from two independent audio signal channels. For the dialogue, I used the boom microphone to get a clearer sound. I had to use that although it was mono which meant all the audio signals are mixed together and routed through a single audio channel, this affected my trailer as the audio channels were switching between the dialogue and voice over. I did however have an alternative which was to use the radio microphone however can only record one person at a time, which would have been time consuming, given the limited time the actors were available I had to just use the boom microphone. 

Digital Camera

I used a Digital Camera for my poster and Magazine photos which was Sony Cyber-shot model DSC-H9, it was really good quality as I am satisfied with how the poster image has turned out. The poster obviously with the work of photoshop looks professional and clear, this was also due to the lighting which was natural daylight 

Microsoft Office 

To construct my questionnaires, tables and graphs I used Microsoft office software, I used excel publisher and word.

Poster and Magazine Frontcover

I have decided to turn my magazine genre into tabloid rather than lifestyle because I have forgotten about my target audience, as I was thinking about making a lifetyle magazine which included healthy living fashion and prizes. But I have realised that that isn't some of my audiences preferences since they are teenagers and early twenties. The psychographics isnt really healthy living and high end fashion clothes. That generartion is celebrity obsessed the magazine therefore to add celebrity news and gossip the genre of the magazine became tabloid.

Editing Poster On Photoshop

During the making of my poster I made many changes to the original picture. I blurred the background (by going to filter then blur and the blur I chose to use is Gaussian blur) to emphasize the two figures. To make the two figures stand out I created another layer and created glow which made the figures brighter.

More Analysis On magazine Front covers

While creating my magazine front cover I couldn’t decide on whether I wanted to have a mid-shot or a close-up of the image, therefore I did some research as to which shot I should use.


I have added more content to my magazine frontcover and still cant decide on which shot would work with the front cover.