Question 1 conventions evaluation (1)

Question 1 conventions evaluation (1)

• 2.
  Plot:  Our plotis very typical of the rom-com’s as conventionally this genre uses a meet-cue; which is when the two characters who will eventually fall in love meet. This is shown in our film opening at the end of the production.  Openings to romantic-comedies also give the audience an initial insight into the personalities and life’s of the main characters; to get them to decide whether they like the characters and get them engaged in the rest of the film. I think our product conformed to this convention when it shows the characters lying about themselves, juxtaposed with shots of their reality. This also added humour to the opening.  However, our production challenged this convention too as we didn’t set it in the characters own homes. We did this as it meant the audience didn’t learn too much about the characters through the mise-en-scene and more from the acting and plot.  The production also challenges forms and conventions as the plot revolves around social-networking and meeting through the internet. We did this is as it provides a modern take on an old genre. However, this plot is also similar to ‘A Cinderella Story’.
• 3.
  Mise-en-scene:  Setting: thisproduction subverts the conventionally setting used in this genre as usually openings are set in the characters personal home, workplace or urban cities. Our production challenges this convention as it uses the characters school as the setting, we did this to try and attract the school-aged audience more, as well as the older demographic.  Costume/makeup: we wanted to break the stereotypical representation of women when it came to costume, therefore our female character is dressed in jeans and not a dress which would perhaps be expected in this genre. This presents her as less girlie than would be expected and may make her seem less vulnerable. She also has natural makeup as it presents her as innocent and sweet, this is a conventional representation of women in this genre film. Our lead male character is dressed in jeans, with a white top, as well as a black coat. The male is in a fairly typical costume for this genre and we tried to present him as a stereotypical character.  Props: both characters used a laptop in our production as our plot was around online dating. This broke away from the conventions of romantic-comedies as usually characters in this genre meet in more of a traditional way, for example in a restaurant.
• 4.
  Characters:  We decidedto cast our actor for our lead female character ‘Rachel’ because her appearance is similar to other characters in existing romantic-comedies such as Anne Hathaway. She has a natural/pretty looking face and this can make her easily relatable to by our target audience, this is because she is a realistic representation of a student.  If we had used actors who were an un-realistic representation of the general population this would have subverted from the conventions of romantic comedies, as films in this genre are usually very easily relatable to from the audience’s perspective.
• 5.
   Our malecharacter was chosen because he is also a realistic representation of a male student and we wanted our characters to be realistic. This character could be compared to a younger version of Adam Sandler because he usually plays roles of males who have misfortune in their life's and is usually where the comedy in films he stars in comes from. This is similar to our male character, Oliver, because he is also shown to be unlucky.
• 6.
  Camerawork:  our establishingshot was a long shot used to set the scene and introduce the first characters apperance.  an over the shoulder, high angle shot was used when the female character was on her laptop, this gave the opportunity to see what she was doing.  A cut in shot was juxtaposed with this to show her typing again.  a close up was used when the characters began talking to somebody online. This gives the audience more of a personal view and insight of the characters.
• 7.
   we useda long shot to show the male’s bottom half of his body walking out the building to show the audience that he was leaving and build suspense that he was meeting Rachel.  as the characters were approaching each other we used point of view shots from both characters perspective to make it appear that they were meeting each other and allow the audience to finally get a full view of the characters.  our production ended with a panning shot up to the sky to have our film title appear on the screen, we did this because we though it had romantic connotations and could suggest that the characters may feel like giving up.
• 8.
  Editing:  We usediMovie to edit our shots together.  The editing of our opening is fairly slowly paced to relate to the conventions of this film genre, this also doesn’t create a sense of suspense for the audience when they are watching the movie and creates a relaxed atmosphere.  We cross cut between each characters whilst they were talking online and as they were walking out of the building to meet someone. This gave the impression that they were talking to one another and built a romantic tension between them both.  ellipsis's were also used to show time moving forward as the characters were meeting and make it more excitiing.
• 9.
  Soundtrack:  When theopening first starts a slow, acoustic song begins to play, this sets the mood and creates a romantic atmosphere from the very beginning. We chose to use this music as it is conventional to romantic-comedies.  The music then stops and a voiceover begins, from the perspective of both characters. Voiceovers are a convention in this genre and I found it in a few existing products when I was doing my initial research. The voiceover in this production helps to add a sense of humour to the opening as well as gaining information about the characters trough the things they tell the other about themselves.  Another acoustic song then plays as the characters leave the building, this helps add suspense and a romantic build up, whilst the audience think that the characters will meet. It stops when the camera pans up to show the film title.
• 10.
  Titles:  The titlesin our production follow the conventional order for film titles with the Directors name appearing last and main characters appearing first.  Each title stays on the screen for approximately 3 seconds which further complies with film conventions.  The font and colour of our titles is very soft and not too harsh which is what I found when analysing other film opening titles in this genre. If we had used a harsh font and colour for our titles this would have made our production steer away from the rom-com genre and may have presented the idea that it was in the horror genre.