Our film opening adheres to conventions of independent and romantic comedy genres in the following ways: 1) It has a low budget, as is typical of independent films. 2) The storyline involves a young male protagonist falling for a princess, mirroring common romantic comedy plots. 3) Humorous dubbing is added to a bedroom scene, similar to devices used in romantic comedies. 4) The target audience of young females ages 13-30 is usual for the romantic comedy genre.

1. EVALUATION 1 IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

2. WHAT IS AN INDEPENDENT FILM? An independent or Indie film is a film which is not made by a major film producer, they are normally low budget and to be considered an indie film, only half the budget should be funded by a major film company. An example of an independent film similar to ours is: American Pie (the first one) made by zide-perry productions who also made the final destination trilogy.

3. HOW DOES OUR FILM OPENING CHALLENGE OR DEVELOP THE INDEPENDENT GENRE? Our film opening was filmed with a very low budget and this is very similar to that of a normal independent film. There was no funding from any other film company and this makes our film very independent!

4. HOW DOES OUR FILM OPENING CHALLENGE OR DEVELOP THE ROMANTIC COMEDY GENRE? Our film opening has a young male protagonist that falls in love with the princess. This is what normally happens in romantic comedies. The dubbing we put in over the bedroom scene is supposed to create humour and this is also found in romantic comedies. Our target audience is also young females between 13-30.

5. Our film opening does not challenge the normal conventions of similar real life media products. It sticks to the independent theme as it is important that we do that as part of our brief and it is also quite similar to the romantic comedy genre.

6. The forms and conventions of a teenage rom-com show the stereotypical image of teenage life, e.g. romance, sex, and a busy social life. Within these sections, are the different stereotypes, we have the popular attractive characters who are often idolized by their sidekicks, then there’s the typical bully and their followers. Below these are the ‘nerds’, these are often intelligent students, that don’t worry about their appearance, and are usually socially inept unlike the rest of the characters. Our media product uses the conventions of a teenage rom-com by incorporating these stereotypes into it. However we also challenge these conventions as the protagonist tricks the girl into believing he is ‘the one’ on an online dating website.

7. Mean girls is a great example when contributing to typical stereotypes during teenage years, conveying materialistic high school ‘it’ girls of which being the main protagonist Regina George, straight through to the outcasts of school life who struggle in social survival.