Evaluate how your product used, developed, or challenged the forms and conventions of real media products.

Title

• We chose large bubble writing for our title, which appears in pink on the first page of the photo album.

• Fits well as the colour pink connotes girly things, so it suggests from the outset that this is a teen drama aimed towards females.

Credits

• We chose a plain white font for our credits, as they showed up well against the pink background

Characters

• Our main characters are young females.

• We cast two young females as the main characters as this is fitting with our genre, and also relevant and relatable to our target audience, as the majority of the time in a Chick Flick the main character/s is a girl.

• The love interest is a white male. He’s appearance fits into the stereotypical gender conventions of being the attractive boyfriend of one of the key characters, e.g. ‘Aaron Samuels’ the boyfriend of the popular ‘Regina George’ in ‘Mean Girls’.

• The girls in the corridor scene are made to seem intimidating and clique-ish, as we got them all to stand together gossiping.

• The cast that we use all create a high sense of verisimilitude as they all look as though they are the right age to be in school.

Mise en scène

• Typically, chick flicks that are aimed at our audience are set in scenes that the majority can relate to, such as a high school

• Used props such as books and  notepads to create a high sense of verisimilitude, as these would be common in a stereotypical high school.

• One of our scenes was set in Charlie’s bathroom – we used props such as perfume bottles and hair products to exaggerate her lifestyle.

• We cast Rachel as Rosie, she is smaller than Becca, who plays Charlie, which helps indicate to the audience who is in the position of power, as Charlie is constantly looking down at/on Rosie.

• We got Rachel to carry a rucksack and Becca to carry a handbag to highlight the juxtaposition we were trying to create. Also rucksacks connote studying and ‘geekiness’, whereas handbags are seen as more glamorous and feminine. Use of props to establish character is common in our genre.

Camera Work

• Used a close up on Charlie’s face in order to enable to audience to gauge her reaction, also this may have caused the audience to dislike Charlie as they’re able to see her facial expression and she looks really angry and indignant, when clearly Rosie’s done nothing wrong, which will hopefully cause the audience to sympathise with Rosie.

• We used shot reverse shot – a typical technique of all genres, used often when filming a conversation- to film Rosie and Charlie talking at the bottom of the stairs.

• We used lots of close ups at the start of the piece when the girls were getting ready, so that the audience could familiarize themselves with the characters. Convention of all openinf sequences, not only our genre.

• This can be typical in chick flicks as they help highlight who the main characters are and what significance they have to the story.

Editing

• We used a page turn transition to smooth the cuts from scene to scene, and from the split screens to the full screen.- these just made it more obvious to the audience that the current scene was over and helped create the photo album feel, as if we are seeing a snapshot of their lives. This photo effect is common in the genre.

• We also used a fade transition to show the establishing shot of the school - conventional technique in fast-moving film openings.

• We decided to cross cut between the two main characters at the start, to highlight the juxtaposition between their morning routine. This technique is commonly used in the TV Drama ‘Glee’, which has a high amount of female viewers.

Sound

• We used two main sound elements, the first piece of non-diegetic music plays over the scenes where the two main characters are getting ready, and the other starts at the establishing shot of the school and continues through till the end of the piece.

• The music is has a pop feel, and is quite girly, so it gives an upbeat feeling to the film. The non diegetic sound used at the start is also quite happy and upbeat, so I think it’s relevant to be used in the part where the girls are getting up, and getting ready.

•    The dialogue used in our film demonstrates the power between the two main characters, as Charlie has a lot more dialogue than Rosie, with Charlie saying long sentences and Rosie just giving short answers