AS Level Media Studies
In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Throughout of filming and planning process we based all of our decisions on whether or not they fit the conventions of a teen comedy. This is because we wanted our project to be highly stereotypical and conventional on the genre we had chosen, although we wanted to fit all the conventions in order to make the project more original yet still conventional we did challenge some of the conventions.
The biggest convention that we stuck to was the use of 5 different cliques, during our research and planning stage we did ask our target audience which 5 cliques they would expect to see in a teen comedy, this is how we chose our cliques for our project. The cliques that we decided to use are; The popular girls, The weird kids, The Goths, The Jocks and The Geeks. These cliques are the most stereotypical ones that are seen in teen comedies which means they are fitting the conventions of our genre.
Mise en scene:
In relation to mise en scene we stuck quite strictly to conventions, especially when it came to costumes and non-verbal communication. The costumes that we chose suited the current fashion styles during the time that we were filming and fitted the conventions of a teen comedy. The costumes that we chose for the popular girls were all very neutral colours, quite revealing and very fashionable. We chose these types of costumes for this particular social group because we wanted them to be relatebale, fashionable and familiar for our female target audience. The costumes for the Jocks was very stereotypical American sports player, we chose this style not only because it is very conventional but also because it makes the Jocks look desirable for our entire target audience. The goths were dressed in very dark clothing, with dark make up and different coloured hair, we chose to dress them like this because we wanted them to look like outcasts and create a sense of mystery about the characters. We decided to place the Geeks in very sterotypical costumes, these were flannel shirts, sweaters, blue jeans, and large glasses. We chose these costumes because they showcased the stereotypical modern nerd look which we felt would be relateable for our target audience. Finally we placed the weird kids in completely random costumes, these were all different and made no sense. The main character was costumed in a hawian shirt, sparkley shoes and shorts, we did this because we wanted them to look funny and abnormal.
The non verbal communication in our clip was very important, we used in consistantly with all of our cliques because we wanted to form a relationship between the audience and the characters. The popular girls used a lot of non verbal communication, especially Rachel. We made her use a lot of direct contact with the camera during the clip of her and her squad walking down a hallway, we did this because we wanted the audience to be slightly intimidated by her as well as beginning to form a relationship between the character and the target audience. We found that popular girls are the intimidating and higher class clique wich is why we found that it was conventional for them to use this type of non verbal communication. Another clique that we used a lot of non verbal communication with was the Goths, we made sure they didnt look at the camera very often to ensure that we emphasised their isolation from other groups and highlighted their incapability to form relationships with other people. For the other groups we just asked them to have happy facial expressions and to only occasionally make eye contact with the camera.
For the props, we didnt use that many. For the popular girls we stuck highly with conventions, this is why we used the most popular phone which is an IPhone 6 and high end handbags. We used these because we wanted this clique to be envied by other people because this is conventional of a teen comedy. The geeks are the clique that we used the most props with, we used; Glasses, Backpacks, Comics and Textbooks. All these props are conventionally seen in teen comedies when the geeks are on scree, we wanted this clique to be as stereotypical as possible.
The settings that we used throughout the whole filming process was a school building, we used a range of different locations within the school. These were; The field, hallways, the reception, the car park, a classroom, the library, assembly hall and the stairs. We chose these locations due to it being conventional for a teen comedy to be set within a highschool due to the target audience being around that age.
Camera Work;
Again we tried to stick strictly to conventions when it came to camera work, we used a lot of mid shots when shooting all of our cliques. We chose a mid shot as our general type of shot because it allows the audience to see the characters clearly, including their facial features which allows them to form relationships with them. The mid shot also allows the audience to see costumes, settings, props and non verbal communication; this means that the audience are seeing the full mise en scene that we included in the clip which makes them feel a sense of familiarity. During our filming process we did use close ups, this was when we did the individual shots of the main characters. We chose to use close up shots because we felt like it would allow the audience to form a closer relationship with the main character because of the shot being more intimate and personal. Using close up shots to form relationships between the audience and the character is highly conventional of a teen comedy. Another highly conventional shot that we decided to use was an establishing shot as the opening shot, this technique is used in teen comedies like The Breakfast Club and Means Girls which is why we decided to do it. The use of an establishing shot of the front of a school building sets the scene of the clip and allows the audience to understand where the clip was set, in our case a school. This shots makes the audience feel comfortable and they see that it is familiar.
During our filming process we did use some shots that were not conventional, for example during the goth scene we used a lot of extreme close ups focusing mainly on the eyes and mouth. We chose to do this because we wanted to be slightly more original and to show that the clique was different compared to the other groups. We felt that the exteme close ups excentuated the idea that the goths were isolated and unusual. We wanted the audience to see the goths faces, and make up which is another reason for why we chose this type of camera shot. Looking back we still believe that the use of the extreme close ups was very effective and gave our clip a bit of an edge compared to other teen comedies.
Editing;
Editing was a large element when it came to making our final product, a lot of out elements were added in post production. For example all of the sound, font and lighting. We had to adjust the lighting on a lot of our shots due to the different keys in light whilst we were shooting. We did try to aviod drastic changes in light intensity but in some cases it was not possible, this is why when it came to the editing process we had to use sony vegas pro to allow us to edit the light before we transferred it into to the overall clip. Through out our entire clip we used an amazingly large amount of fast paced editing and quick cuts, we chose to do this because it is highly conventional of teen comedy and allowed us to stick to the upbeat, excited feel of a teen comedy. To make the shots shorter and faster we did have to cut them down and edit them to ensure that they were the perfect length and speed and that they matched all of the other shots. The fonts that we used were added during the editing process using song vegas pro, we used 1001fonts.com to import the fonts that we had chosen, then we transferred those fonts into the editing software we was using and finally imported and positioned that into our final product. We chose to use brightly coloured fonts, the colours that we used suited the clique stereotypically which meant that they were all conventional.
Soundtrack;
Our soundtrack consisted mainly of our score and the narrative, both of which are highly conventional elements of a teen comedy. Our score is very upbeat, fast paced and exciting, we chose this song because we feel like it showcases the overall emotion that we want our audience to feel whilst watching our teen comedy. This is who I am has very meaningful lyrics about being an individul and who you want to be, we thought that our audience would be able to relate to this and allow them to feel uplifted by the themes in our teen comedy. Using an upbeat and exciting soundtrack such as This is who I am is very conventional of a teen comedy which is why we chose to do it. A narrative is a highly conventional element of a teen comedy, it is usually spoken by the main character which is why we chose to have our main character from the wierd kids clique reading the narrative throughout the whole narrative. Our narrative contained very conventional themes which involved judging and voicing opinions on other cliques around the setting, themes like this one were included in some famous teen comedies such as Means girls and The Duff. After analysing these films during our research and planning stage we decided to use this technique in our teen comedy to make it as conventional as possible.
There is one convention that we didnt follow, which is the used of a lot of diegetic sounds. We initially included these sounds in our teen comedy, and we did like the sound of it. But once we added the score and narrative over the top of it, it sounded muffled and interfered with the overall clarity of the narrative. This is why we decided to remove the diegetic sound completely and just leave the narrative and score.
