2. Q: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge
form and conventions of real media products?
A trailer is a plays a vital role in the promotion of the film therefore I made
sure that it was interesting enough to grab the interest of the audience.
After doing a lot of research on the Romantic-Comedy genre I learnt the
codes and conventions of this genre and realized that such movie rely
heavily on stereotypes and conventions. Therefore I decided to produce a
pure conventional romantic comedy that would seize the attention of all
the romcom lovers.
Romantic comedies are usually based on the “boy meets girl” story. The
male characters are usually the ones who take the lead and propose the
female characters and this is exactly what is shown in my film trailer as
well. The nerd boy in the very start shows his love for the girl he likes by
presenting a teddy bear. Women are emotionally weak and tend to believe
anybody when it coms to love. This is a stereotypical image of women and
I used this convention in my trailer when the young girl is ready to run
away with a boy she met on Facebook. These are some of the
stereotypical images of the both the genders I used and decided to stick to
the conventions otherwise the media text would have lost its romcom feel.
3. The mise en scene, camera shots and editing techniques in my
media text were also mostly convectional. Bright lighting,
colorful clothing and atmosphere, lively music and “love-dovey”
props like the teddy bear, roses and heart-shaped gifts, all added
to the feel of the romcom genre. Without these props and
brightness all around it would not have looked like a romcom
and would have disappointed the audience.
Similarly the camera shots were also simple and conventional as
such movie do not require complexity of camera angles and
shots. The editing techniques were mostly 180 rule and shot-
reverse shot. I used some transitional effects while editing as it
was a trailer and I had to show four different stories
to the audience.
Romantic Comedies rely more the humor,
romance and plot rather than complex shots
and editing therefore
here also I followed the conventions.
4. However there were some instances where I experimented with
being unconventional. In the Love triangle story where the boy
cheats his girlfriend, the girl when finds out instead of feeling bad
and crying she has a fierce reaction and dominates the boy. With
the progress of women in the global I wanted to show a more
confident and courageous look of women therefore this
character's reaction was so aggressive and I was proud of breaking
the stereotypes here.
Similarly where majority of the popular
romantic comedies were based on the
lives of mature adults I choose to focus
on the teenagers and made a film
regarding their love issues.
5. The poster and magazine cover were also made after a lot of
research. Most of the romcoms have a collage of the pictures of
the actors and I also did that. Similar was the case with the
magazine cover. The colors I used were pinks and maroons.
Teenage Love is a movie related to the romance of the
youngsters therefore instead of a mature color I used pink and
maroon and followed the conventions. However I did not add
the releasing date the poster which I should have added but I
saw a lot of posters without the releasing date. It does have
tag-line which is
conventional.
6. Q: How effective is the combination of your main products and
ancillary texts?
The combination of my main product and ancillary texts turned out to
be very successful. I worked very hard to make sure that there was a
uniformity being followed when it comes to the theme since the brand
of a successful trailer is established through a consistent and
attention-grabbing theme of its promotional package.
I made sure that my poster and magazine cover were bright and
colorful like my trailer. The trailer could had a lot of lively colors such
purple, orange, pink etc. Considering the plot and the audience in
mind I decided to have the color pink as the background color of the
both the poster and the magazine cover. The poster had a combination
of the pictures of the characters of my film and therefore I decided to
do a similar thing for the magazine, it was made up by cropping the
characters out of their single picture and arranged in a heart shape
indicating the sign of love which is the backbone of my film.
The font used is also cheerful and bubbly. It addresses to the teenaged
audience and matches their tastes.
7. Q: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
I was looking forward to get some feedback from the audience
after finishing my media product. Audience feedback is the
foremost important thing as they are the one to will eventually
show a red or green signal to the media product we produce
and it is important to know their views in order to improve.
Even before making the trailer I carried out a questionnaire and
confirmed whether they would like to watch a pure Romantic
Comedy and majority showed a thumbs up to it only then did I
carry forward the idea of making “Teenage Love”.
After producing the trailer, its poster and magazine cover I took
the audience feedback on Facebook and it was overwhelming to
see such positive response. Majority was pleased with my work
and said that the trailer was good enough to convince them to
watch “Teenage Love”.
8. A few of the comments of the audience on Facebook about
Teenage Love:
9. Before production, when asked about what types of films they
like the second highest votes were for romantic comedies (age
15-30). 52% of the audience said that they like the plot and
star-cast in a film. These were some of the main questions that
made me decide what type of a trailer I will produce. Similarly
after completing my work when I took the audience feedback on
Facebook 78% (age 13-35) of the audience showed “Teenage
Love” a green signal and the rest who were not very pleased
with the trailer were males who were action movie lovers. My
target audience were mainly the female audience therefore it
did not attract some male audience. However I learnt that one
should also produce movies that targets both the genders.
10. Q: How did you use new media technology in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
The completion of the advanced portfolio would have been
impossible without the use of technology. Various pieces of
technology played a vital role in production stages (pre-production,
production and post production) for my film trailer “Teenage Love”
and in the design and execution of its poster and magazine cover.
Pre-production:
Before the production had to do some research on the romantic
comedy genre to know its codes and conventions. Google has been
of great help in achieving that. Similarly since YouTube is banned in
my country websites like “DailyMotion” and “Trailer Addict” made
a easier for me to view a few trailers before producing my own.
Microsoft word allowed me to form a questionnaire for the
audience and know about their tastes in films.
11. Production:
My Nikon D5100 has been my partner during the production. I
shoot all the scenes of my trailer on this camera and also did the
photo-shoot of the actors for the poster and magazine cover on
this tremendous DSLR.
It provided me with HD
quality videos and photos.
It also helped me record the
music of the video when the software audacity did not work well.
My Dell laptop contained all the footages and the pictures and
helped me in all the production stages. Hard drives and usbs are
some small device that are of great help in media production.
Transferring videos, music files and pictures in the school
computer.
12. Post-production:
Post production relies heavily on technology. Windows Movie
Maker was used to edit the footages and formulate a trailer.
Similarly I used Adobe Photoshop CS to edit the photos and make
a poster and magazine cover. I also used a convertor to convert
the music I recorded on my DSLR into an mp3 file.
Blogger and Vimeo have helped me in uploading my work and
making its accessible for the audience.
13. As a whole I enjoyed each and every production stage. I believe
that my media skills have improved over the time and it has
enhanced my interest in media. I believe that I have done my
work with hard work and sincerity. Technologies play a major role
in the production of media texts. I had a few reservations about
my movie trailer and the ancillary texts however the
overwhelming positive response from the audience made me
confident and once again I thanked technology for making it so
handy to gain audience feedback over the internet.
