Evaluate how your product used, developed,or challenged the forms and Conventions of real Media Products

PREDICTIONS BASED ON GENRE RECOGNITION

•  Easy to make predictions from our opening- shows relationships starting- shows conflicts

•  Audience feedback gave us confidence in our piece as they recognised it as a ‘chick-flick’/ ‘teen drama’ immediately and could guess how everything would develop.

• Could be some concerns about being predictable / unoriginal - but this is a genre people enjoy for its comfortable familiarity, not to be shocked or surprised so it is not surprising we have stuck to conventions so completely.

TITLE 1,2,3

•  Pink text on top of a picture of a photo album – the font gives a sense of being someone’s handwriting - establishes feminine nature of genre.

•   Pink photo album - sense of storing memories / year book feel

• Colour pink is used to link in with the ‘chick-flick’ genre - notice how it is a key accent colour on this shelf of DVDs:

CREDITS 4

•   Appear when there is a split screen next to the clips of the characters.

•  Pink ‘handwritten’ font- links with the ‘chick-flick’ theme.

•  The credits appear next to the clip, the clips are presented as small squares, and there is a pink background – all this is to give the sense of the inside of a photo album and a sense the girls' life is being 'written' - lack of verisimilitude associated with genre.   

CAMERA WORK 4,5,6,7,8,9,10

• ·High angle during the split screen of both girls in bed enables the viewer to see the girl’s bedroom revealing their personalities - often seen in film openings and was made very popular by 90s teen drama Dawson's Creek:

•  Two shot and close up is used when Seth helps Rosie pick up her books. This can be typical camera work in chick-flicks/teen-dramas as there is often love interests and relationships and the two shot show intimacy between two people. It is often totally obvious who will get together from the beginning of the film, but this is not the pleasure of watching - the pleasure comes from seeing how they eventually fall in love as in "10 Things I Hate About You"

•  A close up of Charlie is used to show her emotions. This close-up is used to make the viewer feel negatively against Charlie as a character as she is giving dirty looks to Rosie, a character the viewer is positioned to like. Having a clear 'villain' who taunts the 'good girl' is also a common feature of our genre from Rizzo in "Grease" onwards, and they are easily identified through close ups:

Like this character, they often follow a redemptive arc through the story and end up being more likeable at the end.

CHARACTERS 5,6,9

•  ‘Chick-flick’/ ‘teen-drama’ usually follow one character throughout and usually have a conflict between the main character and one other- which we show in ‘Just a Girl’

• In teen- dramas/ chick-flicks there are often two or more juxtaposed  stereotypical representations of teenager shown- and this is the case in ‘Just a Girl’

• Our two main characters are ‘girls’ which common in a ‘chick flick'
 
• We cast two girls who were quite the opposite. The ‘geek’ is significantly smaller than the ‘popular’ girl. Making it realistic for the geek to be picked on and intimidated by the popular girl.

 

• The ‘geek’ is represented as not having any friends- following the social conventions of the geeky characters being lonely and unpopular.

• We cast two other girls to play the friends of the ‘popular’ girl- having similar characteristics to the popular girl portrayed a stereotypical representation of a ‘type’ of teenager as seen in this classic canteen scene from "Mean Girls":

     MISE-EN-SCЀNE 5,6,7

• The geek character is portrayed as vulnerable which follows the  stereotypical social conventions of a ‘geek’-this representation of the ‘geek’ character is shown in ‘Princess Diaries’ – being nervous and vulnerable to bullying.

•   The love interest is represented as popular- having friends around him.

• Typically teen dramas are set in high schools/ secondary schools- which is the case in ‘Just a Girl’

• Costume plays a big factor in a ‘Chick-flick’/ ‘Teen-drama’. It defines the characteristics of the characters.

• The costumes are usually exaggerated to make it clear of the characteristics

• Teen dramas often use props like make-up, mobile phones, and books to define characters.

• Both of the girls houses, when first filmed, didn’t really define their characters, the set just looked like two plain bedroom and bathrooms- didn’t emphasise their characteristics. When we re-filmed we had more props to show the portrayal of both girls. More make-up products in the bathroom of the popular girl, and books surrounding the geeky girl in bed, exaggerated their characters

• The location of the scene was realistic because it was filmed in an actual school. This enabled the set to include lockers and props that would stereotypically be associated with a school.

• Costumes are all the same or similar as realistically people would be dressed similarly in a school- although accessories and props define the differences. In most teen dramas/ chick-flicks the geek wears glasses and to exaggerate that she is a geek we put Rosie in glasses in ‘Just a Girl’. A popular girl in a teen-drama/chick-flick normally has a perfectly kept hair, jewellery, make-up and altered uniform- and we have met this representation with Charlie in ‘Just a Girl’.    

• Rosie (the geek) carries round a rucksack, while Charlie ‘(popular) carries a handbag, shows that Rosie is more worried about something that is practical rather than what is seen as ‘cool’.

•   Rosie carries books in the corridor and busy in her locker while Charlie is with her friends.

 

EDITING 3

• We used split screen to show the comparison/contrast between the two girls.

• We used ellipsis during the piece in order to introduce the main characters and the school as quickly as possible.

• When split screen wasn’t used in the opening, we used cross-cutting to show the girls waking up and going through their morning routine. This allows the viewer to easily compare both girls, as we cross-cut to them doing similar routine things.

 

• In the first two minutes more screen time is given to Rosie (the geek), not only because she is the main character, but because we want the viewer to immediately sympathise with her as a character.

SOUND

 

• During research we found that music almost always plays at the very beginning, if not all the way through the first two minutes of a chick-flick/ teen-drama.

• We had two types of non-diegetic music playing through the first two minutes. The first type was played at the introduction of the piece, when the girls were waking up and doing the morning routine- this track was of the ‘pop’ genre which links with the teenage audience and the two characters. The second track is more of the ‘rock’ genre both of these genres are genres that can be related to teenagers.

• Although there isn’t much dialogue in the first two minutes if ‘Just a Girl’ the dialogue included is essential for defining the characters personalities. Charlie’s threatening dialogue of ‘have you done my homework’ suggests not only that she is a bully, but that Rosie is vulnerable for being used as a ’slave’, and also the fact that Charlie has asked Rosie to do her homework follows the stereotypical representation of a ‘geek’ being clever and enjoying work.

• Dialogue from Seth ‘You alright there, Rosie’ suggests he has a nice side and that there could be a possible relationship between these two characters.