2. In what ways does your
media product use, develop
or challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?
3. The title of the film “Finding Mrs Simon” develops on the idea
of stereotypical rom-com films, it has a comical effect which
automatically tells the audience that it is going to have a
humorous side to the film whilst also a possible
4. I have used conventions of a romance comedy in my film through the use of the
characters. Both females and males are used as potential male characters that are
typical of a romance-comedy such as the film „Love Actually‟ as throughout this film
male and female characters are used as the main characters showing different stories
throughout the film. Also the narrative style challenges the stereotype of a romance -
comedy as in a typical romance comedy such as Love Actually again the story is told
in order so in a linear narrative. Whereas in my film it uses jump cuts and goes back
in time and forward in time from him talking to himself to him on a date.
5. The setting and location challenges forms of conventions of other real
media products following the same genre because a huge number of
Romance Comedy films are based around a female character as the film is
seen from her point of view, whereas in this film the main character is a
male character looking for love. This challenges the stereotype also of the
male character because a male character is stereotypically seen as
masculine and superior to the female characters, in „Finding Mrs Simon‟
Simon is represented as a „joke‟ to the audience. This challenges the
conventions because a typical film audience would expect the male
character to be masculine. I think this makes the film different to the
audience and would persuade them to watch the film because it is a „new
genre‟.
6. The costumes and props used within the film also represent
the genre throughout the film. The opening scene starts off
with Simon in his kitchen using gym equipment, because this
isn‟t a realistic place to be using gym equipment it makes the
audience will find it funny, this uses the Hypodermic Needle
Effect, me as the producer has meant for the audience to feel
an intended way after watching that scene, and the audience
will automatically feel that way without fully taking in the
situation or what is going on.
7. The narrative of our film is a fragmented and also a stream of
consciousness narrative, this is because throughout the film,
the thoughts and feelings of Simon are shown throughout with
him speaking directly to the camera as if it was his best
friend, or a person he can trust to tell his feelings too. I think
this challenges the conventions of romance comedy films
because they don‟t normally include the feelings and attitudes
of the audience from a personal point of view; this seems to
be a new era of romance comedy. Unlike other popular rom-
com films such as „Hitch‟ and „Love Actually‟ our media
production of „Finding Mrs Simon‟ uses different stereotypes
of characters and a different narrative.
8. The genre of the film is a Romance-comedy which is a hybrid
genre within the film the storyline uses Steve Neale‟s theory
of repetition and difference, it uses repetition in the thought
that there is elements of comedy throughout the film it uses
both a male and female as the main characters. Although the
difference with this film is that the stereotypes of the
characters are different than what they would be in a typical
Romance comedy film, the main character is a geeky male
character who likes to see himself as masculine and superior
but in fact he isn‟t and is made to be the joke of the film,
whereas in a stereotypical rom-com the female character is
usually portrayed as the main character so this is where Steve
Neale‟s theory is applied to my film.
9. The genre of the film is based on what a stereotypical
audience of a romance-comedy film would enjoy, our film
Hall‟s encoding and decoding theory. Hall‟s theory is basically
that the producer of a media text (me) will look at previous
work or other media texts and get inspiration for their own
media piece purposely adding details and conventions of a
media text into their product, this is the text being encoded. It
is then decoded by the mainstream audience because they
will automatically like the film if it has similar conventions to
other media products they have watched. I encoded
stereotypical conventions of a romance-comedy into my film,
the use of the humour within between the male and female
characters, the happy ending. These are stereotypical in a
romance comedy so the text is encoded positively by the
audience.
10. The main character in the film, Simon is introduced in the film
in a conventional way of a romance-comedy film. He is
introduced in a comical way so the audience will see the
opening scene and be able to laugh straight away, making it
obvious to the audience that it is a rom-com film. He is seen to
be wearing a tight vest with a headband around his head,
although he thinks he is a masculine character he is made to
be almost laughed at by the audience and not taken too
seriously.
11. Our film also uses Neale‟s Mental Machinery theory. He
describes genre as part of a process of mental machinery
between industry, text and subject. This is where the media
text will be successful in its genre if it follows certain
conventions which meet the expectations of the audience. In
my film I see that my film uses both conventional and
unconventional aspects of a romance comedy to keep the
audience interested. It uses recognizable characters so it
meets the audience‟s expectations of a romance comedy film.
The unconventional aspect of the film is that it uses
characters in a different way than other romance comedy
films, by putting them in unusual circumstances to what they
would be in stereotypical rom-coms.
