Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Originally, we planned on certifying our film as a 15 aiming it a British women who have an interest in socialising and relationships. Now that we have finished creating our film, we have decided that it is more of a 12a as there are no rude suggestions of any sort but the character does swear in the opening. When considering our whole film idea, it would be more appropriate to give the film the certificate of a 15. This is because we planned for it to be similar to films like Sex and the City (2008) which is classified as a 15 and so are films like Bridget Jones (2001).

We decided when we were discussing our audience profile; we thought that our film was likely to appeal to demographic groups C1 through to E. This includes people like office workers, skilled workers, students and pensioners and we decided that it would appeal to mainly females. In our research and planning we had decided that we aimed to apply the Uses and Gratifications theory (McQuail 1987) and wanted to use realistic settings and characters so that the audience can relate to them.  We also planned on applying the Hypodermic Needle theory to create a film that would be ‘easy viewing’ for our audience as they are likely to be a ‘passive audience’ and our film reflects that as we feed to basic information to the audience in an obvious way so that not too much processing is needed.

We had discussed that our typical audience member will be interested in fashion and relationships as well as things like cooking and keeping fit. We discussed in our planning that they are likely to shop in fashionable stores but not top end designers because of the demographic groups we are aiming at and their favourite TV shows are likely to address similar issues as our film like Sex and the City, or Hollyoaks. They are likely to have an interest in socialising and friendships and will have experiences of the stresses of work and love; however some of these issues are not to be addressed until later in the film when considering it as a whole.

We showed a screening of our film to our target audience and have received their feedback on what they thought of the film and if it would be something that they would go to see at the cinema.

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

When we were initially considering ideas for our film and were looking at existing rom-com’s we found that most were produced and distributed by mainstream, Hollywood companies. We therefore decided that were aiming for a mainstream film. We looked at existing films that are produced by mainstream companies, for example Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), distributed by Working Title, a conglomerate of Universal Pictures. This film is similar to ours as the setting, style and storyline are fairly similar and so our film would be suitable for mainstream audiences. Other films such as Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) also have a very similar storyline to ours and characters that are similar to our own characters. Universal Pictures would be an appropriate distributor for our film as they produce ‘traditional’ style romantic-comedies and ours fits into this genre and this company also aims its films to mainstream, mass audiences. We also considered the overall look of our film when we were thinking about mise-en-scene and we wanted to have an overall Hollywood feel to our film. We looked at the existing films to see what sort of costumes were used and we chose to use an office setting and our characters dressed in a very professional way to show this.



Universal Pictures is the sort of Mainstream Instition that
distribute similar films to ours

Working Title - a conglomerate of Universal Pictures that
distributes films similar to ours, e.g. Bridget Jones' Diary (2001)

Our film does however have elements that cold make it an independent film as we imagine it to be set in London with British actors and comedy elements that may appeal more to a British audience. This could mean that it may be more suitable for a company like Working Title to distribute our film as it would receive funding from the mainstream company Universal but would still be aimed at the appropriate audience. Using a mainstream distributor would also mean that our film could be shown in main cinema companies and could reach the audience we want to target.

Our film would most likely be released for premiere in London and then perhaps later released in other places as this is the setting of our film. If the film were distributed by a company like Working Title, because this is a British company it is more likely that the film would be released in Britain first to reach the right audience. Working Title has made films such as Love Actually (2003) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) which both have mainly British casts and have British settings despite being owned by the American Universal Pictures, and both films were shown on tent-pole release, premiering in London. This would therefore be the method of release that would be most suitable for our film as these existing similar films have had success this way.

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

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

Our film does use a lot of the typical generic conventions of a romantic-comedy however in our opening we look more at the conventions of a romance rather than the comedy element of the genre.  The colours that we have chosen to use in our opening like pinks, bright and happy colours reflect the mood of the piece and particularly the use of pink has connotations of romance. We used brightly coloured post-it notes and doodles to reflect the characters personality as she is quite creative and a bit of a workaholic. We also used typical ‘office’ objects including a computer and magazines with pens and pencils to emphasis the characters job as a journalist similar to characters like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. These colours and objects are used similarly in Sex and the City and Confessions of a Shopaholic.



Carrie Bradshaw
Sex and the City



Rebecca Bloomwood
Confessions of a Shopaholic



This is a screen shot of a shot from our film showing the objects on the desk
including magazines, post-it notes etc.

Our use of sound is also similar to that in films of the same genre as our character talks directly about love and we have romantic music playing throughout the opening to hint at the rom-com genre. We also use conventions like the photo of the man on her desk which hints at their relationship and her costume also emphasises at her sexuality. We conform to the stereotypical rom-com main character as she wears fashionable but professional clothes and adds hints to fashion with her painted fingernails and jewellery. She was dressed in a smart blazer and top similar to characters like Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City.

Carrie Bradshaw
Sex and the City
She is wearing light colours and
looks very smart similar to our main

character.



Our main actress getting ready for filming
wearing a 'girly' flowery top and smart trousers.
(she also had a smart blazer)



Carrie Bradshaw again, wearing a floral pattern similar to our chosen costume.

From doing several analysis’ of films from the romantic comedy genre, we found that most are set in a city setting and so we set our in and office location in London. This has been a commonly used setting in other rom-com’s such as Bridget Jones’ Diary and The Devil wears Prada.  



Thiw is the setting that we used to film
our opening before we added any props.



A scene from The Devil Wears Prada which also uses a similar office setting like the one that we used.









The use of the voiceover in our opening is also very similar to the opening of other films like Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) and Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001) and is a typical convention of a romantic comedy. These are two of the films that we used for inspiration for our film as we took the obvious British elements from Bridget Jones but the journalism, discussion of love side of things from Sex and the City. We decided that we wanted to use this in our opening as it means that the audience is immediately seeing through the main characters perspective and is able to relate to her straight away. It also introduces her job and hints to her personality setting it up for the rest of the film.

When we were considering the storyline of our film as a whole, we took inspiration from films like The Break Up (2006) and Bridget Jones (2001). This was because both involve some sort of break up between a couple and show the difficulties of balancing a love life and having a demanding job.


Bridget Jones' Diary



The Break Up (2006)





An over-the-shoulder shot of Carrie Bradshaw in

Sex and the City



In our opening, we wanted to keep the identity of the speaker somewhat hidden to capture the interest of the audience and so that we could give hints to who she was but still leaving the audience to ask questions about who she is. This meant that we used a lot of shots from behind our character including over the shoulder shots and long shots of her at the desk. From analysing various other film openings of the genre I noticed that other all introduce the character fully showing her in her everyday setting doing her job. We decided to go against and challenge this typical type of opening to introduce something different about the opening and to keep the audience’s attention throughout.





The over the shoulder shot that we used in
our opening to hide the character's identity



Our title: ‘Penelope Fox: Lessons in Love’ gives a direct indication to the genre of our film similar to the recent film Love and other Drugs (2010) and older films like Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). Our title appears in a light pink attractive writing in our opening which typically shows the genre of romance and happiness, conforming to the typical generic conventions of a rom-com.

Diary of Editing

22/03/2011

- final cut express
- found it hard, changed to imovie
- put all shots in order
- fiddled with timings

23/03/2011

- looked for music
- played with timings

24/03/2011

- added some of the titles
- struggled with main title
- worked with louise on voiceover
- had difficulties - decided to do it in sections - had to adapt script - didnt quite complete the voiceovers

25/03/2011

- we completed the voiceover with Louise

Initial Rough Cut



- worked on timings and titles
- added the soundtrack

28/03/2011

- We re-ordered some of our titles to the correct order to make the film more realistic
- We edited the length of the shot with the photograph in to make it shorter

29/03/2011

- Edited the size of the titles, made them larger and easier to see
- Had a final check over timings and sound

Second Rough Cut



31/03/2011

- Made the film title stand out more, changed the words 'Lessons in Love' to a typewriter font and had the letters checkered in however this was extremely time consuming as the letters had to be changed individually and ended up taking a lot longer than we had hoped.
- Added in our institutional logos and adapted the timings according to the opening logos.

Final Cut