Exam Practice Questions

1a) Explain how you used digital technology to adhere to or deviate from the conventions of real media texts?

In the process of creating our practical media texts we have used many digital technologies to help produce our work, with the intention of creating them similar to real media texts. For example, the most significant digital apparatus was the ‘video camera’, where we have filmed our Teaser Trailer. We used specific technical shots, and movements when filming, giving it a professional look. Additionally, the other use of a digital technology was the ‘Mac’ editing program (imovie), which helped dramatically to construct our filming material into a teaser trailer. We were able to cut out shots completely, and shorten them, making them sharper so that the whole teaser was that much faster paced; succeeding in a key characteristic of a teaser trailer, specifically the genre of a ‘Thriller’. The ‘imovie’ editing program had transitions that we could drag and drop onto sections of our footage, like at the end of shots and scene changes; this also helped make the footage snappier and sharper, shaping it into a teaser. The element of ‘music’ as another digital technology also helped significantly to the over view of our teaser. We found our soundtrack on ‘Audio production network’ where we tried three different tunes on top of our footage. We saved them onto a memory stick and transferred them onto ‘itunes’ on the Mac, and then played the tune as we watched the teaser, seeing which one fitted best with the moving images of our teaser. One in particular fitted the nicest, with the eerie beat fitting satisfactorily to the shot changes. The use of music made our trailer dramatically more like a professional media text, therefore suggesting that the use of digital technology is significantly important in sticking to the conventions of real media texts. In the production of creating a web page for our ‘film’, we cut out letters from magazines and newspapers to construct words. These words were then scanned onto the computer to make ‘links’ on our web page, such as, ‘Home’, ‘Trailer’, ‘Plot’, ‘Blooper Reel’, ‘Gallery’, and ‘cast’. So again, the use of the scanner as a digital technology contributed to make our product more like a real media text as it enabled us with opportunity for more choice for our own creativity.

1b) "The concept of narrative is essential to media". In what ways did you use narrative in the construction of your media product?

We initially began looking at the conventions of the genre ‘Thriller’, where we viewed films of that genre, noting down key characteristics that constructed this concept of ‘Thriller’. There are many films that are based around the cliché’s of this genre, so we decided to use one of these cliché storylines, sticking to the concept of a real media convention. The main girl ‘Isabelle’ is portrayed as a stereotype in the way that she is vulnerable from a recent breakup with her boyfriend, and is now being stalked, either by her ex boyfriend or somebody else. She is represented as a young girl, with blonde long hair that connotes innocence. Often the mise en scene of our shots displays her with her ginger cat, which connotes her security, love, and her ‘comfortable, safe’ life within her home; the one place where anybody should feel most safe within their four walls. However, this is disturbed for the young Isabelle, as a shadowy figure emerges himself into her home. We played on the narrative in a way that we suggested the ‘ex boyfriend’ to be the ‘stalker’. We did this by filming a flash back of Isabelle and her boyfriend ‘sam’ when they were together. He has an OCD problem, which results in him obsessively ordering the dvd’s. A camera shot of the dvd’s are displayed in his way of ordering in her home presently. Isabelle terrifyingly, hits them back into place; however the ‘stalker’ succeeds in her being misled, resulting in her concluding that her ex boyfriend is stalking her. We were able to display this ‘play on narrative’ by the use of the ‘imovie’ editing program on the Mac; where we flowingly ordered the shots of her, ‘looking’, ‘flashback’, ‘reaction’, and then ‘action’ of then hitting them back into place. Additionally, we also edited the flashback in black and white to suggest Isabelle’s thoughts (flash back).

1c)Explain how you chose your genre to adhere to the genre’s conventions of real media texts?

Initially we decided to do the genre of a romantic comedy for our final product of a teaser trailer. We began looking at the conventions of this genre and real trailers of Rom-Com’s as research to set a baseline as our starting point. We looked at Richard Curtis films, such as, ‘Notting Hill’, ‘Bridget Jones’ and ‘Love Actually’ as we admired his type of narrative (fun, silly, and light hearted). We began thinking of our own storyline and had an idea about a love relationship between a thirty year old male “player” and how he seeks help from his therapist to help himself ‘settle down’; in result they begin generating feelings for one another. In the process of casting we figured we would actually have to have a male actor of the age of late twenties/thirties, which we doubted finding. We needed somebody of that age requirement, which none of us knew anyone of that age, who more importantly could actually act. Eventually we came to terms that using somebody younger than thirty were not a realistic representation of what we wanted to portray, as it was the main dynamic of our storyline – somebody wanting to finally settle down in a relationship as he was getting older. Therefore we thought our best chance of making our film look more professional was to change the genre to something that we could in fact achieve. Our final decision was in fact the opposite of our first choice; as we decided to do the genre ‘Thriller’. So again we began with the basic research of watching thriller trailers and noted key characteristics of their genre, also noting cliché storylines and editing techniques, to effectively make our product similar to a real ‘thriller’ media text. We went with the idea of having the cliché ‘stalker’ in our film, who stalks a young girl and her boyfriend. The couple then separate and the stalker cunningly tries to suggest it is her ex boyfriend who is watching her and sending her threatening letters constructed from different letters in magazines. Isabelle (the lead girl), is given no choice to believe that it is her ex boyfriend and the story twists into a messy triangle. Our storyline was influenced by the films ‘Enough’ and ‘Sleeping with the enemy’, so effectively our film is a bit of a cliché, however you could look at it in a way that we have adhere to conventions of real media texts. Additionally, the idea that the girl is led to believe it is someone else, is cliché in a way that it is ‘dramatic irony’, where the audience know something that the actor does not; in result this builds anxiety and tension from the audience’s behalf as they watch the unaware young girl.
The choice of our genre also affects the technical aspect of our product (editing). By choosing the genre ‘thriller’ it meant that typically we would darken our shots and images to denote a more terrifying interpretation. The pace of the editing would also typically be quite fast paced in a teaser trailer, but specifically in a thriller to frighten the viewers, making our product more like the conventions of real ‘thriller’ media texts.