The document discusses how a media product's opening scene uses conventions of the romantic comedy genre. It describes including typical rom-com characters like a pretentious female and lazy male, establishing shots of city settings, using an upbeat song during the title sequence, bright lighting and colors, everyday props, and a split screen to show the different lifestyles of the two main characters, inspired by the opening of The Devil Wears Prada. Conventions are used to attract the target audience and make the world seem realistic rather than distracting viewers with special effects.

1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real
media products?

2. In preparation for our group film, I looked at different film genres and the
conventions of them. I began with looking at horror, some of the most common
conventions are dark environment, the main character being either a victim or a
murderer and lots of sound effects and ominous music. I then went on to look at
rom-com, the conventions include high key lighting, young good looking actors,
and is often set in cities or schools. We decided that with the actors and props
that we have, rom-com would be the most appropriate genre to go with. In the
opening of our rom-com we used a variety of conventions including, characters,
settings, mise en scene and editing.

3. Characters
We chose to use very typical rom-com characters, rather than having a single protagonist there
are two main characters, one male and one female both very strong characters but with clashing
personalities similar to “The Proposal” where the two protagonists have very different lifestyles to each
other. The opening scene focuses on the two characters on an important day in their life and therefore
showing that these are the main characters.
Male character is quite plain looking, Female character is very pretentious and
has a bad attitude and is very lazy snobby, wears designer clothing and is
seen as a villain at the start.
I chose to follow these types of conventions as the characters tend to be something the audience find
easy to relate to. Therefore choosing these typed of characters will help attract my target audience.

4. Setting
The settings that i used in our film opening was also very conventional of typical rom-com openings,
we used settings such as big, busy cities, parks, apartments, and workplaces but instead of just
filming the scenes in these settings we used them as establishing shots in our opening to give the
film an immediate city vibe.

5. Mise en scène
The mise en scene in the opening was very important as the conventions that we follow reflects the genre
that we are trying to portray.
A convention i have followed is for the popular song that often accompanies the title sequence of a rom-com,
I have chosen to use the song Midnight City by M83 as it is a well known, upbeat song that sets the scene of
a modern city and helps it appeal to the audience.
We tried to keep a soft, bright lighting consistent throughout the opening, we also made sure we
chose quite a sunny day to film as most rom-coms are filmed in high key lighting and incorporate a lot of
bright colours. We tried to achieve this using editing software as the weather was not always as sunny as we
hoped.
The props that were used in the film were everyday house items that could be found in any home, we
decided not to use too many random props as this way it is easier for the audience to relate to a more
realistic setting.

6. Camera & Editing
In the film opening I decided to use a split screen to get across the two very different personalities of the main
characters. The opening goes from panning, establishing shots of the city to a split screen of the two protagonists
getting ready for an interview. The two characters live very different lifestyles and it is obvious from the start they
wouldn't have much in common, this was inspired by the opening of The Devil Wears Prada where a similar scene
happens.
When editing the film I decided to keep the special effects to a minimum as unlike genres such as horror or sci-fi,
rom-coms tend to be more realistic. The realism of the film makes it easier for the audience to relate to it and won't
be distracted from the plot with special effects.