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

Title of the Film The title of our film is displayed in the last frame, and it fades out a few seconds after the image has gone blank. This was created on live type, like the rest of our titles and embedded onto our footage. Dont Look Back in Sadness is typed in zapfino in white. We chose to place the title here as there are no actors on screen, and Sam has just walked out of the shot so it illustrates his moving on. We decided to leave the tree in the shot, as it was the focus in all the memories so it means something to the characters. We kept the colour of the title the same as our smaller titles, as it stands out against the grass background, but we changed the font so it looks like calligraphy, giving the impression that it is hand written and therefore Sams idea. As the main target audience is female, this also suits them as it is girly, but also delicate like his feelings. To display the title without any actors is fairly common in romantic drama films, as the examples below illustrate. Although in these films, the title was always the first thing we saw, so our title challenges this layout, but also agrees with its placing. Using a curly seems to be uncommon. Although Letters to Juliet breaks all of these norms.

Setting/Location Our establishing shot is a long shot of the tree in the park and what surrounds it, we wanted out whole title sequence to revolve around this area. By doing this it shows the area has meaning to Sam, even when they were children (as the memories show) picture of children and the tree x 2 We decided on using a tree for this as it would agree with them, although showing little change. If we had longer to do this task then we would have filmed during different seasons, so there would be blossom, leaves or snow on the tree. Parks are popular in films as they are an idealized romantic setting, which can create a

variety of moods depending on the mise-en-scene. We wanted an isolated, depressing feeling, but as we were filming in a public place we had no control over this, when we were just filming Callum we tried to ensure there were no people around, but in the memories it didnt matter. In New Moon a meadow is used, which is similar to a park, but in Remember me and Letters to Juliet the establishing shot has no link. This suggest that our media production challenges real media products of our genre, as although parks are used, it is normally later in the film rather in the opening sequence. Costume and Props Every film needs props and costume, and ours is no different so it is therefore a typical media convention. The tree is out main prop, but we also use a scarf, watch and funeral prop. The costume we mostly cared about was Callum wearing a suit, as this paired with the funeral program gives the impression Sam has been to her funeral. All films, including ours, rely on costume and props to create personalities for the characters.

Camerawork and Editing For the majority of our film we used cross dissolves as this overlapped the ending of one clip and the beginning of another, so that they did not stop, to show its a continuing trail of thought. We kept all out shots before the memories the same length so it didnt linger on them for too long, and we didnt put a transition

between these. In most films they use a straight cut, so the image just changes to the next. This shot shows the actors fading into the tree, for this effect we changed the transparency of the clips so as one became stronger the other became weaker.

Title Fonts and Style This frame is the one that credits out main actors. The titles are split in two parts Callum Harris and Amy Holmes. The font we used is applegothic, as with all our titles, except the title as we wanted to make the title stand out, so we chose something simpler for the rest of the titles. The font for this frame is bigger than the others so it is clear that they are the main actors in the title sequence. We positioned all our titles in either the left or right bottom corner, but made sure they were inside the grids on final cut express. This is common in all genre of films, not just ours specifically as it gives more credit to the main actors and whose who spend the most time working on the film.

Story and how the opening sets it up. This shot is showing the beginning of the transition into the memories and the start of the title sequence. The phone comes to life as the screen is filled with the picture. Using memories or focusing on the past is reoccurring in films of this genre, shown in the pictures below. This shot sets up the story as its the beginning of the memories, and using the funeral programme illustrates why he is remembering his childhood. Using memoires or the past is common in films of our genre, and the effect of the picture moving is used in childrens fairytales (skip to 00:11 of the video below the document).

Genre and how the opening suggests it For this frame I have used one of the teenage memories. It shows Sam and Emily holding hands and looking into the distance. It shows that the film will be about love, as they are standing as a couple. As a whole, out title sequence shows something has gone wrong with their relationship, Emilys death, and this is common in romantic drama films as the story line resolves around solving this dilemma. Our film challenges this genre as normally the couple end up together, like in Letters to Juliet although in Remember Me a death also causes this to be impossible but the couple are together for the majority of the film, unlike in ours.

How Characters are introduced. The first character to be introduced is Sam, although we dont introduce his name in the opening sequence. Emily is out next character, but we first see her as child, alongside a younger version of Sam. They age as the camera zooms into their hands, and zooms out to reveal them as teenagers. This illustrates to the audience that

they are the same people. This is an unusual way to introduce characters as there is no dialogue, just music and ambient sound. Special FX We didnt use any special FXs as they dont fit into out genre, they are more common in sci-fi or action films. This is the closets shot we had to any special FX as we used an action match to show the children aging into teenagers. This image paired with the music works really well in our sequence. By not using and special FX we stuck to the rules of media conventions of the romantic drama genre, although in New Moon they do use some as it is also classified as a fantasy.