Evaluation Q1

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

• Rather than challenging conventions of real media products, my products used and developed the conventions.
• In my previous blog post I identified several conventions of romantic comedy; http://anniesa2.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
  Teaser Trailer:
  
  
  In the clip above which is from my teaser trailer, I used many pushes to show the conflict between both the girls. This uses the conventions of a teaser trailer by speeding up the action. In this way it is more like a teaser rather than a full length trailer. This creates more interest for the audience, as the action happens quicker and reveals less narrative, making the audience more curious.
  
  
  Between the main guy (Jay) and the female lead (Sara) I used fades to show that they are complete opposites. This is typical of a romantic comedy because it usually allows the audience to gather that the man and the female are likely to be very different.



• I used Saras character and challenged the stereotypical view of Pakistani's who come to London. I did this through satorial coding; in the first few shots, Sara is shown as the 'innocent naive Pakistani girl' wearing a fuscia shalwar kamees. However as the teaser develops her change in clothing exposes her true character, and thus chellenges the way that Pakistani's have previously been represented in films such as 'East is East' or 'My Beautiful Launderette'.

One of the conventions of a romantic comedy I used was the fact that most romantic comedies tend to have a love triangle. The love triangle narrative was useful in allowing me to explore the clash between different cultures.

Another convention that I used and developed was the fact that romantic comedies tend to have an obstacle between the two protagonist characters. I used Jasmine's character as a device to help build up the plot. The image below shows the obstacle:



I also at the beginning of the trailer added a certification slate to indicate which audience it is appropriate for. As it is a romantic comedy and needs to reach a wide audienec, I have used a slate that indicates it is appropriate for "all audiences." I also included the logos of the two distributors, as is conventional of all trailers. This indicates the production values to the audience.

Poster:

Magazine Cover:

Audience theories:

• Cultivation theory- This theory is concerned with stereotypes, the more people see something the more they begin believing in it. British Asian's have previously been represented as traditional. Films like 'East is East', demonstrate the significance of satorical code. This was shown through the characterisation of Meena (the daughter in East is East).  Therefore I used the satorical code in my teaser trailer and tried to use it as an icon to show the stereotype that British Asian's do like to hang on to their roots from back home.
• Desensitisation theory- According to this theory, the more the audience see something the more we accept it. Therefore in romantic comedies the more love triangle narratives the audience sees, the more the accept it as a convention of romantic comedies. Therefore I used the motif of the 'push' transition to illustrate the conflict between the two girls. This showed that the convention of some sort of problem in a romantic comedy was obvious in my teaser trailer.