EVALUATION QUESTION 1

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

Name, Titles and Credits of the film

Name:The name of the film: An Epic High School Love Story is shown in the very beginning of the film. Although in many films it is usually after the opening sequence, but here I thought of doing something different. So instead of putting the name at the end I put it right in the beginning.

Titles:Well in almost all films the titles are shown as the opening sequence starts with the acting going on in the film and according to the actors performing their names are titled as they act.However, like I said before, I wanted to do something to make my movie different, so I added the titles after the name of the movie unlike many other films.

Credits:The credits could not change as they are supposed to come at the end of the movie; but the one change I made was the bright red font for the main headings e.g. “Director” is in red and the name of the director, in my movie, “Rohama Waseem” (that’s me) is white. I did this because in almost all movies I find it very difficult to read the names of the cast etc. so I thought that if I have got a chance to make a movie why shouldn’t I make it in a way that I want movies to be! A bit selfish of me in a sense, but still I'm fulfilling the negative points in my mind about movies to make them in a way that pleases me.

Location/SettingThe location that I chose was Forman Christian College. I did this as it is a very big college and I could find all the locations that I needed for my movie. It had rooms for my sleeping scenes and proper college grounds and buildings for my bumping scene. It did take me some time to get permission to shoot in the college as cameras are not allowed there. However I did manage to convince the Dean of Studies madam Cheryl Burke to permit me to make my movie. They were very co-operative as they provided me a guard so that I wont have any difficulty in shooting my movie.

CostumesAll films have costumes and props, my film had very casual clothing. A plain white shirt for the boy sleeping with mustard colored trousers. Then a black shirt and light brown trousers when he heads for college. The girl also wearing a very baggy casual male type shirt and black baggy pajamas. She wears a bright yellow short shirt with black and white sports trousers and simple joggers as shoes.

PropsThe props used in my film were nerdy glasses which I borrowed from a friend, the bed, the dressing table, the mobile phone and ear phones which the girl was holding when she bumped into the boy and the books that the girl was holding.

Camera work/EditingFor the name and title I downloaded a template although in all the hurry and confusion I don’t really remember which site I downloaded it from. I have used just two video and one audio effects to my movie clip.Video Effects: 1: Cross Dissolve 2: Dip to BlackAudio Effect: 1: Cross Fade

Title FontThe font that I have kept for my movie title is simple. I have used “Calibri” for my font type. I have done this on purpose as my movie is not so romantic in the opening sequence that I have made. Therefore I preferred to make the title very simple like the movie is!I have taken a screen shot of the font used in the video with the proof of the font in the box.

CALIBRI

How my opening sequence sets up the story

The reason for my adding no dialogues to the clip was the poor voice quality. Therefore I thought of making it in narration. It seemed hard at first but it was quite easy to be honest! The narration is done in a way that it shows that the story has not ended here, rather it is just the “start of an epic high school love story”, as the last line of the narration starts. I have brought in the element of ‘love at first sight here’ with inspiration from Disney fairytales, especially Cinderella. This adds a little more romantic and a fairytale effect apart from the real world.

How the opening suggests the Genre

My film genre is a romantic comedy. The romance part comes when the boy an girl look at each other and smile. Whereas the comedy part comes in the nerd who falls in love with the hot shot of college and the part where they bump. It was hilarious the way they bumped into each other and the over acting of the bump that Ali gave was extremely unbelievable! It set us laughing for more than 10 continuous minutes without exaggeration!

How I introduced my characters

While I was planning my narration with Ali, we got many ideas about it but the best one was that the narrator would hide his identity till the end. That is, after the bang, he says “…and that geek over there, huh, that’s me!”. In the beginning the narrator describes the actor as “a young, charming… aaa… geek”. The girl is described when she is shown sleeping “Here she is… the dream girl of every boy”. This sentence shows how well known she is and the word “dream girl” shows that she does not accept boys at all!