1. Amy Longworth
A2 Media Evaluation Question 1
Question 1:In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
I worked within a group of 3 people to
plan and produce a short film named
‘Finding Mrs Simon’. The film was based
on a young boy trying to find a
girlfriend with added elements of
comedy to ensure it followed our
chosen genre of a rom-com. The title of
the film is an insight straight away into
the genre of the film and what it will be
about. The title itself is quite comical
and while it gives the audience an idea
of what the film is going to be about, it
doesn’t give too much away so that they are still anticipating the film. The main character
being a young, geeky boy followed conventions of a stereotypical, teenage ‘chick flick’ with
the boy trying to find love and after a series of unsuccessful dates, falling in love with the
‘perfect’ unexpected girl. This storyline is similar to the storyline of Bridget Jones’ Diary and
it will be clear for the audience to see the similarities.
Finding Mrs Simon was set in a normal, everyday suburban home which is common for a
film of this genre. This is because the majority of the time they are based on young
people/teenagers as that is the target audience. Therefore, locating the film in an everyday
setting makes it realistic and allows the audience to relate. By recognising the setting of the
film it will allow the audience to recognise the genre because of the similarities to other
rom-com films
they have seen
before. An
example of a
similar rom-com
location is Friends
with Benefits or No Strings Attached. These are both modern day rom-coms set in suburban
locations allowing the audience to relate to the story and creating a sense of realism.
Costume was also kept basic with the characters wearing clothes reflecting their
personalities. The main character, Simon, wore clothes such as a vest and a headband
pushing back his hair to portray that he is seen as a ‘geek’ with not much fashion sense.
Leah, the girl who Simon falls in love with was made to look more dressed up than any of
2. Amy Longworth
A2 Media Evaluation Question 1
the other girls in the film. This is to show the audience that she is the stereotypical teenage
girl that predictably, Simon ends up with. In other films of this genre it is clear to the
audience who that girl is because she is the one most likely to have perfect hair, makeup
etc. and have a very feminine dress sense e.g. vest tops, dresses; which are also included in
my production. This is a clear convention of a stereotypical teenage rom-com with the main
girl being noticeably more feminine than the others.
Camera and editing techniques were kept as close to real life as possible. For example,
where possible with the equipment and space that we had we avoided using artificial zoom
on the characters to film reaction shots and close up shots of facial expressions. This is
because artificial zoom is more commonly used in sci-fi/action films as it is not seen as being
realistic. However, due to the facilities we were working with, artificial zoom was necessary
more than we had hoped therefore this could be seen as a challenge to conventions and
could test whether or not the rest of the films content would still satisfy the audience. We
used close up/reaction shots in scenes where the main character was reflecting on events
that the audience had already seen. When carrying out market/product research, using
flashbacks to show characters opinions of previous events was something that hadn’t been
used before therefore by doing this in our short film we were challenging conventions.
Going back in time to portray characters opinions’ means that this short film follows a
non-linear narrative, meaning the events of the film are not shown in the order in which
they happened. This is also something that challenges the
stereotypical conventions of other films similar to this one
because most rom-com films tell the story in
chronological order. This is similar to the 2011 rom-com
‘The Vow’ where the film cuts back in time to show
memories.
All of the above conventions encode the genre into the
film for the audience to watch and work out. This follows
Stuart Hall’s theory of encoding and decoding, where the
producer of the film includes recognisable conventions
into the media text for the audience to pick up on and
interpret in their own way. Using the geeky boy and the
pretty girl that he falls in love with as the main characters
in Finding Mrs Simon, this is showing the audience
something they will have seen before and something they would expect to see from a film
of this genre. It allows them to recognise what the producer has done and gives them an
insight into what the film will be about, hopefully attracting them to watch the film and take
it in.