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Welcome to my blog!

My name is Adel Aitey and welcome to my As media blog which contains my media coursework and exam work. For think project I paired up with Riona Drangsfeldt. 

All the videos featured on this blog can be found on my YouTube channel. 

Thank you!

Final Cut #tbh

#tbh or To Be Honest

Final Cut

This is our final film opening. The difference between the draft and this one is that the soundtrack is changed. We have used our own version of the song Valentina by The Hunts. We have asked our music teacher to work on the soundtrack he has used drum kit from Login Pro which is a software for digital audio workstation we have also used acoustic guitar, Cajon Drum, xylophone and ukulele. Except changing the music we have also added the tags where we told characteristics of each character so it would be easier for audience to recognise them. This is one of the conventions of teenage rom-com. For example "DUFF" to tell the audience the social call of each character they have used name tags.

Evaluation Question 1

1) How do your products use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

I have looked at different types of rom-com/ drama genre. Bridget Jones Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually, DUFF, Submarine, Wild Child and Pride and Prejudice. Analysing those movies gave me the ability to understand what story line to follow. It also gave me ability to recognise different conventions of rom-com genre. 

Conventions of Rom-com, Drama genre movies

        - Camera:

• It usually starts off with the long or establishing shot to show the setting and location for example in the movie Pride and Prejudice started of with establishing shot and on Wild Child they had an establishing shot as well. 
• After it changes to close up to medium shot to introduce the central protagonists, this type of camera change was made in Bridget Jones Diary as well which is rom-com genre Working Tile movie. 
  - Editing :

• There isn't many presence of editing in rom-com genre compared to action, science fiction genre movies such as avatar. They have to do a lot of SFX and editing to create a fictional character or to make the film fast pace. 
• However, there can be a cross cut to another central protagonist. This is to show the binary opposites between the characters. For example in the movie Devil Wears Prada. They cross cut between the central protagonist and the other three girls to create a binary opposites between them.
• It can also be the establishing shot of the setting to a long shot of characters home.
  - Sound:

• They almost always begin with non-diegetic soundtracks, for example movie The Proposal.
• It can be jazzy music or string instrumental such as guitars which will be up beat and light hearted.
• The diegetic is usually quite and muted until meets the character, changes shot to the character.
• Voiceover is ofter used to give exposition. In the movie Bridget Jones Diary, they use voiceovers, this was done to give the audience the feelings of the characters as well as to inform them.
  - Mise-en-Sćene

• It is different depending where it was set in: location, time
• The ones which are set in England, which are often produced by Working Title which is a subsidiary of NBC Inetrnational who are owned by Comcast. They usually play off the stereotypes of British middle class people.
• Where as the ones which are set in America often feature the stereotypes of suburban person or business person.
• The lighting usually takes a big part of this genre as if the lighting is dark and dull this may tell us that it is a horror, detective and mystery genre movie. Rom-com is almost always has a bright and colourful lighting which connotes happiness, joyful and cheerful.
  How does your product use or challenge conventions?
  - Camera:

• our film opening started with a medium shot of the central protagonist sleeping. 
• After is changed to a close up which followed the conventions of rom-com genre. 
  - Editing:

• We have used fade and different transitions to add some change to the setting. We cropped some things out and placed some in. We have also done quite a few split screens.
• There was also a cross cut between the two protagonists.
  - Sound: 

• we had a non-diegetic sound with the diegetic sound. For non-diegetic sound we have used song: Valentina by Hunts.
• The the diegetic sound was quite so the non-diegetic sound was dominant.
• We have not used any voiceovers to show the thoughts of the protagonist like the other rom-com genres, movies such as Bridget Jones Diary, DUFF, Mean Girl, etc.
  - Meise-en-scene:

• It was set in different places, such as the house of the protagonists and school
• The lighting is bright and colourful 
• The costumes were made particularly for each  character. The mean girl and her +2 were wearing pink clothing, skirts and had the hair open, make up wise: We put more make up on those three girls. We have tried to follow the stereotypes of popular girls which were set in media. For example in the movie "Mean Girls" the antagonist was wearing pink clothing and she even set out a rule wearing pink on Wednesdays is a must. 

  

  
  

   For the nerdy girl we had a argyle pattern to make her look geeky we have also had glasses and blouse with a vest on the top. We did not put any make up on her so she would look plain. This type of clothing is often portrayed in media as a geeky girl. 

  
  

  
  

  For Logan the popular boy we had a grey shirt with jeans because that would make him look sophisticated but trendy at the same time. We went more of a casual look but not like hoodies because this would mean that he is geeky. In the movie Wild child the popular boy was wearing shirt and jeans. 

  
  

  For the new boy Jason we decided to make him wear something casual. He wore greenish jeans and hoodie with nikes. This look was taken from the movie DUFF the jock was wearing similar clothing but since this character is new and is a potential new popular boy we decided to make him look like the popular boy in the movie "Mean Girls" and "DUFF"

  
  

  

  
  
  
  We have used miss-en-scene to challenge the conventions of the typical rom-com genre films.  I have looked at the movies such as "Mean Girls", "DUFF", "Clueless". There is always the equilibrium, disruption presented at the beginning. 
  We had a geeky girl waking up and showing her everyday routine until she reaches school and she interacts with the mean girl who changes her life. 
  
  The stereotype of the mean girl is young, wealthy, blond, caucasian girl where as we have decided to have myself, an asian
  girl as mean girl. Which challenges the conventions of rom-com genre, we have used some stereotypes of the mean girls from the movie "Mean girls" the characters in this movie wear pink and it connotes their "girliness" and has an intertextuality with "Mean Girls". However, the geeky girl is blond caucasian girl. To change her appearance and to create that nerdy effect we have used miss-en-scene. The costume was plain, she was wearing checker patterned skirt a white blouse and a cardigan on the top, black knurly glasses and a book, in terms of make up we have not used any to create that tired effect.
  
  
  
  

  
  

  I have done quite a few researching about this genre and I noticed that sleeping is a common

  convention of this genre which was used in many movies such as "The Proposal". In this

  movie the two protagonists wake up and and get ready for work. This we have used in our 

  movie but instead of going to work our characters went to school. Another thing the did is 

  cross cutting between the two characters where as we did split screens and cross cuts. 

  
  How does it represent social groups or issue ?

  
  
  Graham  Burton has a theory about classifying audience by their social and media grouping. The social grouping of my target audience is young 13-18 aged females. They will be english speaking and of mixed ethnicity. 
  
  
  Our characters have been taken from the consideration of the movies which have been released earlier. We have got the mean girl the same as any other school rom-com genre movies such as "The Princess Diaries", "Mean Girls", "Princess Protection Program"and "Wild Child". All these movies have the geeky girl as their central protagonist who change from ugly duckling to a beautiful swan and there is always the disruption as the mean girl is introduced. 
  
  
  On the right side there is an image of the central protagonist of the movie "The Princess Diaries". She is the outsider of the school and very similar to our central protagonist. If you look on the image above you may see our central protagonist, she is wearing similar cloth to Mia Thermopolis their central protagonist who is played by Anne Hathaway.
  She has black reading glasses, checker patterned skirt and a cardigan. 
  
  
  However, looking on the other side, we can see the antagonist of our movie. We were inspired by the movie "Mean Girls" the movie which's title tell the story. We have got three mean girls the same amount as in Mean Girls. Their costumes were inspired by that movie as well.
  
  
  Here you could see the three mean girls from the movie "The Princess Diaries" they are wearing pink tops, skirts and crop tops which shows the objectification of the female body. If you look on the right side the girls are wearing pink clothing and short skirts which is quite revealing if you consider that they are only the high school students. This type of social groups are strongly stereotyped among the media. They are the ones who have the attention in school, they dress up a certain way and they are found attractive by the males. The media tries to create a specific barrier for the mean girls by advertising them in a certain way such as wearing pink releasing clothing, being very confident of themselves and they are mostly caucasian. In our movie we have followed almost each of those points except we has an asian girl playing the mean girl instead of blond white girl with blue eyes. This challenges the representation of social groups in media as asian society is presented as boring, smart and with strong accent in media. 
  
  
                                                      
  
  Age:
  
  
  Our target audience are 14-19 olds, our product represents it as the protagonists in our movie are 16-18. The female protagonist Heather is geeky, vintage dressed and middle class. People from that age category would recognise her and find that character within themselves. The antagonist in this is the mean girl Veronica, the two girls are binary opposites. Veronica is popular, she dresses up well and is attractive to male characters, where as Heather is geeky, unattractively dressed and does not show the objectification of female body. Those two characters are complete different so they appeal to wider audience. 
  The scene which we have used in the classroom was an example of mise-en-sćene, we have used this scene to represent the age group. Our target audience would relate to it as they are in Group E which means that they have got experience with school and could easily relate to it. 
  
  
  Gender:
  
  The social group that I think our product represents is females as teenage rom-com is widely targeted at mostly females, my audience research shows large percentage of audience are females rather than males. Stereotypically males prefer action, comedy movies rather than romantic, where as females prefer romantic comedies. For example movie "We are your friends". This movie has a rating of 4 stars from Cosmopolitan a female magazine. As well as the female central protagonist Emily Ratajkowski was on the cover of a Cosmopolitan magazine. Another central protagonist was Zack Efron who is very popular among females therefore this movie should have followed the success as well as the movies he was in before. However, the movie was not a complete success and partly it was because the movie was rated 15 in UK which did not allow major audience of Zack watch the movie. 
  

  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  Nationality:
  
  
  The characters in our movie have mixed nationalities, they have different accents which creates wider audience for our movie. Fiona Drangsfeldt is the other director of movie and she is Irish, so we thought that this movie could be targeted towards Ireland as well as US. The characters have different accents however, they are all understandable so would be able to target US audience, not like movie "Mickybo and me" which is a Northern Irish movie. This movie is not a great example of mass audience as one of the most important reasons are that the movie is with a string Northern Irish accent which was hard to understand for english speaking audience. 

  
  

  Ethnicity:

  
  

  Our movie did not follow all the conventions of the rom-com genre as the protagonist is usually caucasian and the antagonist as well as the whole cast. But in our movie we had the central protagonist who was caucasian English girl followed by the new boy who is Scottish. However looking at the antagonist in our movie we can see that she is non caucasian asian girl with a portuguese boyfriend who is the jock in the film which brings it a bit of a counter-stereotype to the movie. At the beginning we were supposed to have different characters with even more mixed races but we had to change the idea as it didn't make that much sense. Looking at the rom-com movies there is barely any non caucasian main characters. 
  
  Sexuality:
  
  Our product represents stereotypical representation of sexuality. Looking at my research rom-com genre are mostly heterosexual. Looking at "Mean girls", "DUFF" and "Wild Child" all the protagonists are heterosexual. Heather is in love with Logan where as he is in relationship with Veronica who later falls in love with new boy who is in love with Heather. This creates a double triable which is less common to the audience which makes our movie stand out from all the others. 
  
  Target Audience:
  
  
  The characters in our movie are 16-17 years old. The movie is also set in school location and therefore our primary audience would be teenagers. 14-19 year old. The movie is set in school therefore our audience may relate to the movie. The reason we have decided to put on 14+ target audience is because of the violence. Looking at the similar genre movies they include Violence, Strong language and nudity. We have not included any of that in our movie except there may be somme little fragments of violence.
  We have done some research about the genre we are doing so I can say that our target audience are:

• females
• 14-19 years old
• Group E, D
  From the research we have done we have included the love triangle which is used almost in every rom-com genre. We has the mean girl and her boyfriend who is geeky girls crush, we have also got a mysterious new kid who is going to be the potential boyfriend of the geeky girl who is also attractive for the mean girl.
  The love triangles are often used in Richard Curtis's movies such as:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  In "Love Triangle" movies they always follow Todorov's 5 part Narrative Formula. 
  1. A state of equilibrium at the outset
  2. A disruption of the equilibrium by some action
  3. A recognition that has been a disruption
  4. An attempt to repair the disruption 
  5. A reinstatement of the equilibrium
  
  In such movies there is a girl who gets in a love triangle between the two men and she has to choose between her mind and her heart. Which often ends up with the "happy ever after ending". An example of such a movie can be "Bridget Jones Diary" She meets Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver. She first falls in love with a man who she knows will never marry her but after she realises that she is destined to be with Mark who would be her potential husband and here in this movie she has to choose between her mind and her heart, whether to be with a man who she has a crush on or be with the man who she fancies now.
  
  We have created such a mystery in our movie. Looking at the "DUFF" we can see how the central protagonist is aiming to get into relationship with a boy she has a crush on for a long time but after trying to improve herself for that boy she works hard on herself with her childhood friend, after working with him for such time she finds herself falling in love with her childhood friend who is the popular boy in school and mean girls (antagonists) boyfriend. We have planned a similar story for our film which has already gotten target audience. Looking at that movie we got a clear view who our potential target audience are.
  
  Characters:
  
  
  We have created some binary opposites with the characters. 
  We have got the Mean girl who is popular in school, just like Regina George from "Mean Girls", we have the Geeky Girl who is a mixture of Mia from "The Princess Diaries" and Bianca from "DUFF". These two characters are completely opposite, one is popular and the other one is an outsider, one is shy where as the mean girl is overly self-confident. 
  Looking at the males characters, we have got William who is a new boy in school who is not introduced properly in the movie yet. However, we saw him dressing up and getting ready for school. This character was inspired by Wesley from "DUFF", Mark Darcy from "Bridget Jones Diary". This character is beginning of with a friendship and ending up with a relationship with the central protagonist. 
  

  
  
  
  
  And then we have the popular boy who is known as the mean girl's boyfriend. He is popular, confident but he gets easily shut down by Veronica (antagonist mean girl). This character was inspired by Aaron from "Mean Girls" and Nick from "DUFF". Nick in that movie is playing the crush of Bianca who is the central protagonist in the movie "DUFF" she tries to change herself for him but ends up falling in love with her friend. In our movie the two males are going to fight over the geeky girl which will cause her suffer because of the attacks of the mean girl who is against of geeky girl being in any sort or relationship. In movies such as those the central protagonist always suffers from the antagonist because of the male character who the protagonist falls in love with. 
  These are the relationships between the characters in our movie.
  
  
  
  
  Intertextuality:

• Love Actually DVD 
• Submarine DVD
• Bridget Jones Diary voice over which we have used when our main character enters the school
• Napoleon Dynamite when we were doing the titles
• Devil Wears Prada fast paced music at the beginning 
  Adult and teen genre rom-com:
  
  
  The rom-com genre has two types, the first convention is adult rom-com, and the second one is teen. Teen rom-com is the convention of rom-com we have followed. Since our characters are 16-17 years old we thought that the target audience would be in that age category. I thought that the audience could relate to the characters more as they are going thought the same thing. The teen rom-com is usually set with teenage characters, may have location of school and whose target audience are 13-19 years old females. Where as looking at the adult rom-com the setting is different and the slang which is used is different as well. The setting is more related to work and centred around adult life, the characters are mature so verisimilitude is achieved easily. For example, we have Bridget Jones Diary which is set at the work place and the characters are all above 18. However, the teen rom-com has different location, uses lots of slang and the characters are bellow 18. For example Wild Child, the central protagonist in this movie is bellow 18 so as the other characters in the movie. Looking at those two conventions I can say that the two types portray each other differently. The adults find teenagers mean, antisocial and not as active as they used to be. Where as the teenagers find adults boring, out of date and annoying.