The document discusses a media product that uses conventions of teen films, such as stereotypical characters, to tell a story from the perspective of the popular girl rather than the outcast. It will be set in a school and use a yearbook as a prop to convey this. Inspired by other teen films like Napoleon Dynamite, it will not clearly reveal the protagonist at first to create suspense. Feedback was incorporated to improve the opening sequence.

2.  Our media product uses teen conventions such as stereotypical characters where the protagonist is a ‘popular’ girl at
school. Conventionally in teen films, the protagonist is the outcast and is faced with a dilemma related to teen issues in
which they have to overcome. We have stuck to the same storyline, however basing it from a different protagonist’s point
of view. Thus instead of the story being from the outcasts point of view, we portrayed the story from the “antagonists”
point of view. Therefore to achieve this in our opening sequence, we represented stereotypical characters. As stereotypes
aid audience ease into what they expect of the character with regards to the situation. Our opening sequence follows
conventions of a teen film being based around the setting of school. This is reflected through the use of a year book as a
mise-en-scene, as it conveys that the protagonist is still at school. Similarly as an audience we infer that the plot is based on
relationships and friendships from the use of images in the year book.
 We were inspired by Napoleon Dynamite, by not revealing the protagonist which creates suspense towards the audience.
In the opening sequence for the Napoleon Dynamite we established that the character was either in a school or
college, with props such as the library books, and the ID card being used in the Opening Credits. So we decided to
incorporate this into our final idea and use props such as stationary.
 The soundtrack is used to represent characters in Clueless, as when we are first introduced to Deon’s boyfriend, there is
hip-hop music in the back ground, and this reflects the characters “bad boy image”. The use of a voice over in Clueless
builds Cher’s character, as her monologue helps the audience to understand her character, seeing things from her point of
view. Thus fits in with the teen genre as the narrative generally revolves around “teen issues” for example when she is
talking to her friend Deon about relationships, the use of a sound bridge is used to show the audience what Cher is actually
thinking, reflecting on her opinion.
BURN
BOOK

4. By using a year book this
shows that it the based
around school life which is
conventional.
The concept of not revealing the
protagonists. However from the
mise–en –scene inferring the
type of character she is.
The messages written on the page and
the frequent pictures Melissa is in
reflects her popularity
Clear theme of
relationships is
shown using teen
language

5.  Be distributed only in Britain as it relates to more teenage girls in the UK rather than internationally, schools
are seen from different perspectives
 Best means of distributing our product – internet first, TV, Cinema – minimise the risk of piracy and gives
variety for the audience.
 Paramount would most probably distribute
 Film 4 ideal media institution as channel 4 owns it and it is a British
 It is due to our opening sequence that fits its values of “make trouble”, furthermore channel 4’s main target
audience is the same as our ideal target audience.

6.  As a part of our research, we created our ideal audience. In the format of a facebook profile
page, as it related to our target audeince, being interactive on social networks. More over,
this profile page reveals information about our person, their interests and likes. This helped
us base our opening sequence on what our ideal person would want to see and expect.
 http://www.slideshare.net/MissCTurner/audience-profile-facebook-1
 Our ideal audience is directed towards teenagers aged 16/17 who is interested in romcoms
and have a social status. Be able to interact with others and not be a shy person. Likes social
networking ie; facebook and be a people’s person with a sense of humour, as this is what our
protagonist reveals about her personality. However, some secondary audience it might appeal
to is, adults in their early 20’s as it may make them reminisce over their high school
memories.

7. Audience Feedback;
 The stationary signifies that the character is still in education therefore would appeal to the target
audience, as they are still in education and can relate.
 From our feedback of our first rough cut, we were told that a way to improve it was to include a
close up shot at the beginning to make the storyline clearer. Also to change the soundtrack. We still
need to add our voice over which should bring the whole storyline together.
 From our audience feedback of our second rough cut, we added a voice over which was effective as
from our final cut, our feedback was that the voice over aided the storyline, making it clearer and
engages the audience.

8. Initially this was our first idea. We had the pictures of the protagonist
in order of appearance, in with Melissa (Vaneesha) is first as she is the
main protagonist. The photography was supposed to symbolise the
storyline, Nikil (Avnish) has his arm around Melissa, which represents
that they have some form of relationship, where as Serena (Krishna) is
positioned further away, signifying that she is unwanted, however she
is looking up towards Nikil, in which as an audience we infer that she
has feelings for him. We created this poster a form of audience
feedback. To see whether the poster would appeal to our target
audience. The you of colour in our background was to reflect the life of
the target audience. More over using a variety of colours doesn’t make
our film gender specific.
However it was pointed out that the distinct colour difference looked
primary, thus we wanted to make it look more teen and change things
accordingly.

9. From our audience feedback, it was
brought to our attention that our
opening sequence was similar to that of
Mean girls, and was suggested that we
should maybe use a similar approach
regarding the conventions used on its
movie poster.
The colour theme of purple reflects it’s target audience
as it is girly. The positioning of the characters are also
similar to how our poster is, as it indicates that the
protagonist is different to the other girls in the
background. Also the catch phrase “watch your back”
reveals the context of the story, that it will be about
gossip and betrayal, thus following the teen
conventions. Therefore we have incorporated all of this
into our poster.

11. • I found that using the camera was pretty easy except you have to have steady hands so
that we have the right focus however using a tripod was easier. Staying within the 180
degree angle while using a camera is important so that your work doesn’t go out of focus.
• We used iMovie to edit, iMovie is an editing software to edit movies on the Mac. It was
hard to use at first because we hadn’t used it before but after a while we got the hang of it
and gained new skills.
• Production work helped improve and build my skills by using new technology. From the
beginning and developed new skills throughout the production work.
• Wordpress, helped us to organise and present our work successfully and professionally
into a blog so it is easier to follow and explain what we did at each stage
• Youtube was really helpful as mostly everyone uses it so this allowed us to share our
work. I think that we used it effectively for audience feedback and uploading our videos!
• Facebook was definatly a good medium in order for us to improve our work as people
were able to share and were able to freely give back feedback whenever they like

12. The stationary shows
that the protagonist is
still at school. Related to
audience
The use of pink nail
varnish and Jewellery
signifies the protagonists
feminism and portrays a
typical “girly girl”
The scripted Font can be
interpreted as being quite girly,
and reflects its target audience.
The use of Phones an Ipods to
represent the new age of
technology and how it is
associated with the younger
generation and modern
audience.

13. It was harder to make a story board for our final piece than our preliminary task, as we were still unsure
how we would be able to effectively convey our storyline through a yearbook as it would have minimum
camera shots.
We have learnt from the preliminary task how to improve the quality of our footage and put it together
to make it look continuous in which we failed to show in our preliminary task.

14. ETHNICITY
Representation of ethnicity is negatively represented in Teen films
as there is usually an absence, or stereotypically portrayed.
However, we have used an Asian person as the main protagonist
which is not how the media represents typical Asians.
Typical teenage stereotypes presenting characters with glasses and
braces stereotypically place them as nerds, emos with long hair.

15. Strengths Weaknesses
Use of technology well Time management
Appealed to target Limited camera angles
audience
Interesting storyline Transition between editing
Clear narrative Unclear voice over
Introduces character well Soundtrack wasn’t to best
standard
Follows teen conventions