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.