1. Question 1:
In what ways does your
media product use, develop
or challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?

2. Film openings that I have analysed
during research and planning:
I have analysed all four of them as they are the type of genre that
we are doing as a group. By doing this, I could get some ideas what
romantic films uses and might use in our media product. These are
the film opening conventions that I have found on each of the films:
 In “Letters to Juliet” – they uses romantic and cheerful music
which reflects the mood of the character and romantic genre. An
enigma that was left to the audience thinking about what will
happen to the couple. Show credits at the start so the audience
know who are the actors. Establishing shot at the beginning to
show the location and introducing the female protagonist.
 In “Honey” – they introduces the female protagonist. An
establishing shot of the city to set the scene and location. The
up beat music which reflects the mood and the genre. And an
enigma about the main character and someone else.

3.  In “My Sister‟s Keeper” – they use enigma as to what will
happen to her family. A narration by female protagonist
which introduces the other characters in the film. The high
key lighting sets the happy and bright life mood.
Melancholic music sets genre of the film.
 In “Twilight” – they have credits, production logos,
narration by female protagonist, music reflects the genre
and the mood, introducing the protagonist, sets the scene
and location, establishing shot and blank scene at the start
to create suspense at the audience
Overall, I have found out that most of the romantic films use
establishing shot to set their location so the audience has a
clue where it is set. Throughout the start of the film, they
introduce their protagonist and sometimes narrating about
their life like in “My Sister‟s Keeper” and “Twilight”. They uses
cheerful and high key music when they are happy or in love
then low key and melancholic music when something bad is
about to happen or when the characters are depressed. I have
found out that most of the romantic films are set where the
couples normally date. The font type they use are also simple
but sometimes curvy and uses black or white as their colours.
This is done to make it readable for the audience.

4. Conventions of Film Openings:
Enigma
Set the story
Opening credits
Narration
Introduction of main characters
Lighting and music reflects the tone
Set the scene, time and date
Establishing shot
Production Logos
Title and credits

5. Conventions of our Genre:
o Enigma on our title
o The title was white and curvy but simple This is the
o It was set at the park where the couples normally enigma that we
date have developed
o Narration of the female protagonist about her life
o Introduction of main characters right at the start of
our film
o Natural key lighting reflects the mood
o Melancholic and slow paced music reflects the tone
of our romance genre
o Establishing shot to show the location
o The slow rhythm of the music flows with the opening
credits and the pace of editing.
o The female protagonist is portrayed as weak
whereas the male protagonist is portrayed as strong
o White background to show pureness and neutrality

6. Films I had in mind:
I had these films in my mind when we
was making our media product because it
gave us some concepts on what themes
we would use as, the props, type of
characters, type of music, lighting,
locations, costumes or make-up.

7. Examples of film editing:
 Most of the romance films use fades in editing because
they want it to look simple. However, other romance
films like „Remember Me‟ and „My Sister‟s Keepers‟ use
different types of edits as they want it to reflect with the
romance theme or they want it to look different.
 At the end of „Remember Me‟ it focuses in one diary and
the rest are just blurry. At the beginning of „My Sister‟s
Keepers‟ it uses like a montage edit with grains because
it was about the girl‟s past memories.

8. Editing:
 In our film we use a dissolve in between 2 of the clips so the
first clip flows with the second one. In our photo memories,
we used fades as transition and then focuses at the female
protagonist because we want the audience to focus on her life.
In memories clips, we wanted to have some grains or a
montage transition on the clip like the one on „My Sister‟s
Keeper‟ so it connotes that we are looking back to their
memories.
 We have used the same editing technique on „My Sister‟s
Keeper‟ as we want it to look it‟s part of her past.

9. Examples of Costumes in Films:
 Most romance films use casual clothing like „Love
Actually‟, „Twilight‟ and „My Sister‟s Keeper‟. But in some
films they have a different type of clothing depends on
the characters role and their characteristics. For
example, in „Legally Blonde‟ her clothes were top
designers and she only wears pink. And in „Romeo and
Juliet‟, they both wore expensive material as they come
from a rich family.
Love Actually Romeo and Juliet

10. Costumes:
We used casual clothes because their roles are just of
normal people living in a simple life like most of the couples
are so we wanted to reflect on it and so the audience could
maybe identify what social class they came from. We also
have some meaning behind the clothes they‟re wearing e.g.
Scarlett wearing bright clothes as to show that she is
innocent and a happy person.

11. Examples of Locations in Film:
 Different locations can be set in different romantic films but it is
mostly set where the lovers are dating. For example, in „What
Happens In Vegas‟ was set at the park. In „Titanic‟, it was set on
the boat. In „Life As We Know It‟ was set at the restaurant. In
„Remember Me‟ was set on a fare. In „Dear John‟ was set by the
beach.
What Happens in Vegas Dear John

12. Locations/ Settings:
 Ours was set at the park because it was the easiest suitable
location we could go to and the park is in a good condition.
Also its used in some romance films such as “What Happens in
Vegas” because it makes it look more romantic and this is
where the couple dates in reality.
 We used the same conventions of romance genre for locations
because we didn‟t want to challenged it as it would look
completely different to our film and wouldn‟t fit in with our
genre. This will then confuse our audience and we don‟t want
that to happen.

13. Examples of Sounds in Romance
Films:
Non-Diagetic
 Mostly in romance films they use high key, relaxing, soft
sensual, cheerful music when things are good and when
things are depressing they uses slow rhythm, low key and
melancholic music. For example, at the beginning of „Letters
To Juliet‟ it was slow paced and then it builds up which
makes the audience feel happy. In „Titanic‟ it was slow
paced and uses low key which makes you feel depressed.
Diagetic
 Normally in romance films, there are sounds of water
flowing, sound of the cars, people talking in the background
and birds singing.

14. Sound:
The non diagetic sound that we used in the background was
melancholic, slow paced and low key because we wanted it to
reflect to the female‟s protagonist narration. We had the
female‟s protagonist narrating all the way through our film
opening because we wanted her to tell the audience some
details about her life. And for the diagetic sound, we just have
Tom says something to Scarlett because the lines that he said
were important. We did it like that so the audience could feel
the same way to what the protagonist felt.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJKy_JMBY-I  This is the link for
the backing music that is has similarity to ours.

15. Examples of Camera Shots in Films:
 Close-up shots are mostly used in romance films to
focus on the lovers faces. In „Titanic‟, they uses mid shot
when they were talking so it captures there faces and
also some parts of the background.
This is mid shot
which shows the 2
main protagonists‟
emotions and also
some parts of the
sky that are seen in
the background.
This also reflects it
to the female
protagonist mood
being happy and
free.

16. Camera Shots:
 In our film we used establishing shot at the beginning so that the
audience can see the location. But we mostly used mid shots in
our clips because we wanted to capture their faces and therefore
their emotions but we also want some parts of the background so
the audience can still see where it was set in. But in some cases
where Tom was sat at the bench, we used close-up shot as we
wanted the audience to focus at his emotional face. By doing this,
it could make the audience sympathize on him.

17. Narration:
 We used a narration all the way through our two minute
film opening as we were inspired by „My Sister‟s Keeper‟
where the female protagonist was narrating about her
life. So we decided to use narration about Scarlett‟s life
as we wanted the audience to know about her a little bit.

18. Examples of Narrations in a Film:
 There are romance films that uses narration like „My
Sister‟s Keeper‟, „Twilight Saga‟ and „Remember Me‟. It is
usually narrated by the protagonist talking about their life
or someone else‟s life. This is to make the audience know
a little bit of information about their life and it will give
them some concepts on what might happen or going to
happen.
 At the beginning of „My Sister‟s Keeper‟, the protagonist
was narrating about her sister‟s life. At the beginning of
„Twilight Saga‟ and most parts of the film, Bella talks about
her life and her love for Edward. At the beginning and at
the end of „Remember Me‟, the protagonist repeats the
same script about “how anything you do in life would be
insignificant, but it‟s very important you do it.”

19. Examples of Characters/ Actors in
a Film:
 In romance films they normally have a boy and a girl dating
 Sometimes there‟s a love triangle, fighting for the same
person
Dear John Twilight Saga: New Moon

20. Characters/ Actors
 We have two main protagonists which are Scarlett and Tom.
Scarlett is innocent and sweet but also weak like most of the
female characters you would see in a romance film. And Tom is
caring and strong like other male characters in romance films.
At the start of the plot, the two couples are happy until Scarlett
was acting strangely.
 We used the same conventions of characters in a romance
genre such as “Love Actually” as we would want the audience
to focus on the couple‟s lives.
Love Actually Is This It?

21. Lighting
 We just used natural lighting as it was set during day time so
there‟s no need to add more lighting. The sky was bright
which reflects the mood of the two happy couples playing
about at the park. This also reflect the innocence of the
female‟s protagonist characteristic.
 By looking at these two different stills shows the high key
lighting reflects the intimacy mood of the different
characters.
Letters to Juliet Is This It?

22. Make-Up Props
In our film, the female protagonist We were going to use
wears natural make-up as it bottles of water for the two
portrayed her as being fragile. We lovers to have a water fight
got the idea of „My Sister‟s Keeper‟ so that it looks passionate.
where the female‟s protagonist But then the weather was
sister was ill and she hasn‟t put on too cold so we decided not
any make-up. We have used it on to have it. However, we use
ours as well because Scarlett‟s the swings and bench
role has got a cancer and getting which makes it looks
worst. idealistic.
My Sister‟s Keeper

23. Used, Developed and Challenge:
 We have mostly used the same conventions in romance film to
ours as we have a narration on our film opening which is the
same as My Sister‟s Keepers talking about their life. We used
mostly close-up shot and mid shots just to show their happy
faces together at the beginning then at the end of Tom‟s sad
face when Scarlett walked out. We have the location set in a
park where the lovers are normally dating. Also the props,
make-up, costumes, music and lighting because wanted it be
plain and simple of our romance genre.
 We developed one of the conventions which was the enigma
where we used ours as the title of our film when it‟s normally
the character‟s actions. We did it like that because we wanted
the audience to think what would happen to their relationship or
what would happen to the female protagonist at the end of the
film.
 We haven‟t really challenged in any of the conventions in
romance genre as we don‟t want the audience to get confused.