1. The document discusses a romantic comedy film opening created by the author. It conforms to conventions of the genre, such as using a voiceover, exaggerated gender stereotypes, and romantic music. 2. The film represents average teenage social groups through its teen actors and neutral portrayal of the main characters. It focuses on simple morning routines to make the film relatable. 3. The author thinks the film concept could appeal to both Hollywood and independent film companies due to its unconventional concept of the "red string." Columbia Pictures is suggested as a potential distributor due to its range of genres.

1. Question 1
In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
• This question is testing your understanding of issues around forms and conventions in
relation to production
1My rom-com film opening conforms to the conventions of real romantic comedy films. It
starts with a voice over that explains the idea behind the film, the red string, which will
obviously be the feature of the film as it is the title. This technique is used in many romantic
comedies such as Bridget Jones’ diary which uses voice overs to fill in what is happening in
the plot, in a similar way to Bridget Jones’ diary I have the main protagonist of my film doing
the voice over.
The morning routine is the comedy aspect as it plays to and exaggerates stereotypes of
men and women; how the female character spends most of her morning looking in the
mirror and needs an extra 2 hours to get ready but still leaves her house at the same time as
the male character. I had my actors wear red tops as red is often a colour that represents
love and so often features in rom-coms also as they both wear the same colour it connects
them so the audience can assume, if the string wasn’t a big enough hint, that these two
characters will probably end up together. I also had my female character wear a skirt as
most rom coms conform to having characters dress in gender specific clothes.
The non-diegetic music also fits into rom –com conventions. I used a piano piece as they are
often used in love films because they have a calming romantic feel. The minor notes in the
piece are meant to symbolise the loneliness of both characters, on reflection I think that a
piano piece without a minor scale would have been better because it makes my film feel like
more of a romantic tragedy than a romantic comedy. I was between using this piece or
another piece of music that had an oriental theme to reinforce that the red string is a
Chinese proverb. However, this piece of music did not fit in with my film opening and did
not have any connotations of love or romance.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
2 my rom com film opening represents average teenage social groups, and so I used teen
actors to be my main characters so that the audience could relate. I wanted to present the
characters in a neutral way so that the audience would not prefer one character over the
other, to do this I dressed them in the same colour (red) so that they would seem equal.
Again I have mainly conformed to stereotypes within gender roles to fit in with most rom
coms. I didn’t want my characters to be very out of the ordinary, to make my film more
relatable I just wanted to present two average teenagers and so the morning routine is just
a simple routine that most people who would watch this film do every morning. Although

2. my main target audience is female, by adding a male character and having them juxtaposed
against the female character I hope that I have been able to represent both male and
female teenagers.
3 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Even though I conform to conventions of real rom coms I think that the concept behind my
film is something that is quite different. Because of this I think that the idea could be picked
up by either Hollywood or independent film companies.Big companies that are known for
distributing rom coms are companieslike Columbia pictures. They do a whole range of
different genres and so I think my film could offer something different. As well as this,
Columbia pictures produces and distributes a mixture of genres require a mixture of target
audiences, other films that this company have distributed such as ‘The Amazing Spiderman
2’ might not draw in teen girls and so my rom com could expand their target audience.
4 Who would be the audience for your media product?
I think the target audience for my film would be females between the ages of 14-24.
5 How did you attract/address your audience?
6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I edited my film using Adobe Premier and had to venture onto after effects to stabilise
some of the shots.
7 The preliminary task was the first ‘film’ I had ever made. I went into media with no knowledge of
how to film, edit or direct .However, now with the help of a few members of the group I have
learned the basics of editing along with a few extra skills like stabilising shots and how to do a
successful split screen. In my preliminary task I had a few sound issues and some rather
embarrassing editing fails but I feel that this film opening has really challenged me to become a
better editor. I faced a few difficulties with framing shots as I could only have half of the screen I
think I managed to frame them all quite well to fit into the tight space and if anything it helped me
to reduce dead space. I’d still like to improve my editing skills as it is something I feel a little lost with
without any help and to be able to use more advanced fine tuning skills.I also still have a few

3. problems with the focus on some of my shots so I need to take more care when I film and spend
more time checking that each shot is perfect. One thing that I did not manage to do was colour
grading and I think the quality of my film would be better if I had done.