Evaluation Question 1

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products in various ways. Forms and conventions are the typical features that make a film belong to a certain genre. For example, in our film "Lets Dance" the genre of it is a "Teenage High School Drama". The typical things that an audience would expect of this genre, is:

• A child who has a dream they wish to pursue in the future – This is shown in our film by the girl practicing her ballet moves.
  
• This gets interrupted by something – The girl is not allowed to do ballet as her grades are slipping at school.

• The child tries to resolve the problem – She does this by practising ballet in secret behind her family's back.

• The problem is resolved – Her family realise how much it means to her, and she becomes successful from it later on in life.

Forms and conventions also have typical themes that follow this type of genre too and "Lets Dance" has:

• Obsession – The girl cuts herself out of her personal and social life to focus on ballet and will find any way of doing it even if it means lying, which is shown in the opening sequence when she hears her sister coming up the stairs and so jumps into bed, hiding the shoes and pretending to read a magazine.

• Fame – The girl wishes to become famous, and this is shown through the wig prop, as she wishes to be someone else, someone famous and the wig represents her hidden identity.

• Determination - She makes sure that she does not get caught doing ballet, and this is shown through her shoes hidden under her mattress and her wig hidden behind her mirror.

• Passion – She loves famous celebrities, which is shown by her magazines and posters.

Forms and conventions also give you typical props, settings, character, narrative and sound for that certain genre. The typical props used in our film were the stereotypical things that you would see in a girls bedroom for example, posters, magazines and make up, which gives a clear idea to the audience of what genre it is going to be. The setting in which was used was a bedroom which is also like what you would see in this specific genre, and this is what was used in the opening of the children's Disney film “Camp Rock”, so this helped inspire us of a type of room that we could use. The typical narrative, is a child who has a passion for something they love to do, and this gets disrupted by something or someone, but they resolve this and so have a happy ending. Our story follows this typical narrative in order for it to fit into the planned genre. The sound of our film is a cheerful soundtrack, and a classical song too, to go with the flow of her practicing her ballet moves, and also as cheerful songs are used in these forms and conventions.

 The form of our opening sequence is shown through camera, lighting and editing. Our film follows the conventions of the form of real media products of films like “High School Musical”. Similar to this, both of the films have the same type of lighting for the beginning, as both have a natural lighting, which is to show the audience what type of genre the film is. If the film was a horror, it would have most probably had a dimmed lighting, but as it was not this genre a natural lighting is best to set the mood for the film in a sense that it is quite happy and uplifting at times. However, our film challenged the opening of this by the camera shots which were used. This was done as our opening was more focused on the room and the girl as a whole, rather than just the girl. We did this by showing a more detailed description of the room by leaving the shots of her make up etc. on for longer, which was to make the audience understand what type of girl she is through her personal belongings before introducing her. We also, used dissolving in the editing part of our opening to give an uplifting and happy effect to it.

The character in our film is similar to that of Rita Louise Watson from “Sister Act 2”. Our film follows the same conventions of this as they are similar in the sense that Rita is not allowed to sing because her mother Florence thinks that it will not get her anywhere. But, she has a singing competition and forges her mothers signature in order to go. Whereas our character wants to do ballet but is not allowed as she is educationally slacking, so sneaks to practice now and again behind her parents back. Both of these characters have a passion for what they love and are ready to go to any means, even if denying their parents in order to continue with what they love doing, which is interesting, and also typical of this genre. However, our film challenged the conventions of this film by instead of doing singing, which is quite common in films of this genre, we did ballet instead which is not a completely unique idea as it has been used before, but it is not common either.

The narrative of our story was similar to that of the film “Billy Elliot”. This is as the young boy “Billy Elliot” has dreams of doing ballet/tap dancing, and he cannot do it as his father thinks it is “not for lads.” And our character has dreams of becoming a ballet dancer but she cannot do it due to her parents not letting her, because she is not doing too well at school. Both of these characters love tap dancing, which is obvious to the audience, as they sneak out to do it. But we did challenge the idea of the parents disagreeing with the idea of their child doing ballet because of what gender they were, as this is somehow common. So instead we changed it to the parents disagreeing with their child doing ballet because they think that education is more important for the child instead. We decided to do this, as this idea is not really common for this genre and we thought this would be original and unique, even though been used before.

The sound of our film is similar to that of “High School Musical”. It is similar in the sense that in “High School Musical” they both have cheerful music in them. They both also do not use sound effects, as it they were used the form and convention of these films would be more of a “Children's Comedy”, rather than a “Teenage High School Drama”. However, although we did use cheerful songs in our opening sequence, we decided to challenge the typical “cheerful pop music” of the form and convention and put in a classical song that matched with her actions and the mood of the film at the time.

The mise en scene of our film follows the conventions of a “Teenage High School Drama”, as it is similar to the film “Camp Rock” in some aspects. It is similar with the body language as the actress who plays Mitchie Torres has a very happy and cheerful type of body language at the beginning, and so does our character at the very beginning before she hears her sister coming. We challenged this by instead of her body language being completely cheerful the whole way through the opening sequence, which usually happens in this type of convention, we changed it up a bit and made her nervous too when her sister was coming to so something different. The facial expression followed the convention too as she looked happy which is fairly typical, and our character had a similar expression to that of Mitchie's but we did challenge the convention by making her panic in the opening sequence, making her face nervous. The lighting in “Camp Rock” is also the same as our lighting, as they both have a similar natural lighting, which is how both films follow the conventions of a “Teenage High School Drama”. We did not challenge this in any way as if we did it may not look alright on film. The colour in both of these opening sequences follow the conventions of this genre too as in “Camp Rock” bright colours are used to show that this is a “Teenage High School Drama”, and our film “Lets Dance” shows this too by using similar bright colours. With this too, we did not challenge it. The hair and make up in “Camp Rock” is natural, which shows the audience what genre the film is, as the natural look lets the audience know she is a cheerful teenager, however although our film was similar with the make up being natural, we did decide to make the girl wear a wig, this was as we wanted to challenge the “typical” opening with the girls hair being natural, and give the audience more information about the girl wanting to change, which was shown through the wig. And last of all, in “Camp Rock”, the girl changes her costume a number of times to show that she is trying to pick an outfit to wear, which is usual of this genre, as in stereotypical terms girls find it hard to pick an outfit when they have somewhere special to go, and this is what makes it fit into this convention. Our film did a similar thing to the “changing costume” idea but we toned it down and instead made her wear ballet shoes a wig and casual things that a girl would wear when trying to do ballet, and also wear just around the house. We decided to do this as whereas the aim for the beginning of “Camp Rock” was to show a girl waking up and getting ready, we wanted to show a girl practising her ballet moves, making the opening scene different in some respect. Our film challenged this convention of the genre however, by giving a little bit more detail into the girls life with the ballet shoes, which makes the audience ask questions.

Overall, our media product used similar forms and conventions to that of other films that we researched and this helped us develop fresh ideas from them which contributed to helping us challenge the forms and conventions of other real media products similar to our own.