Evaluation, Question 1- In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our product very much develops stereotypical forms and conventions of a real 'teen drama' film/television product. The storyline itself follows a typical teen drama storyline, as it has a underlining message; which teen dramas are mainly based around, ours is about peer pressure and the consequences of giving into it.

       Our Geek          Stereotypical Geek

From the very beginning our film introduces a stereotypical geek, wearing geeky pyjamas, reading glasses and pigtails. As the film goes on we are also introduced to some stereotypical popular kids with lots of makeup, long curly hair, fashionable. We write the characters to deliberatly conform with a typical teen drama character set up. We filmed in believable settings that our audience would be able to relate to, these settings are normal everyday household settings which are typically featured in 'teen drama' films.

Band Logo

Throughout the party scene we use original music by a local band called 'Scarlet Sunset' i feel that this music is a unique part of our film as we use different songs off just their album, this is effective because it holds the whole story together, and the rock theme behind it emphasises the house party that the film is set in, which again follows the conventions of a typical 'teen drama'. 

On a technical level i believe that we've used all the possible conventions of continuity and the language of film and editing. Continuity is particularly important in making a film run smoothly, due to having filmed on several occasion we have to make sure we had our hair and costumes the same every single time, we also made sure that we filmed at the right time of the day so that the lighting was right for the time of day. We made sure we stuck by the 180° rule, however in some parts of the party scene we broke the rule for effect. We also used match on action when cutting between different film shots, such as knocking on a door, walking in the door, and shutting it.(as shown in the clip below)
                                             Match on Action in Our Film

What is the 180 degree rule?

Editing of continuity, and
editing titles to the beat
of the music.

Furthermore, we used rhythmic editing in our titles editing to the beat of the music to again conform to continuity so that it was smooth and easy for our audience to watch.  However, when it came to editing continuity isn't something that was absolutely crucial within our film, as we used a very effective jump cut and cross cut editing techniques throughout a lot of the film.  We thought this was an effective way of showing passage of time as well as it being time efficient as we only had 5 minutes time limit for the entire film. (as shown in the clip below)

To avoid making the film too jumpy and hard to follow we made sure that we put in parts which were longer and have a lot of dialogue in order to shape the film.


Our Jump Cut Scene                                    Jump Cut Scene in Breathless (Godard, 1960)


Wild Child cross cutting                           Our cross cutting

This montage of cross cutting between getting ready and walking down the stairs was influenced by the teen drama film 'wild child', we thought that this sort of editing sequence would be upbeat and a great contrast between the conclusion of the film. This scene is used to subvert the expectations of our audience, in that they are made to believe that she's going to have a good time, shes going to meet new people and her life is going to be a whole lot better, however; this isn't how our film is concluded.

Our film creates a lot of audience pleasure, it follows richard dyers theory of entertainment and utopia.
Utopia is an ideal world, where people are transported when watching the film; Giving the feeling of what the audience lack.

If the audience are lonely, it gives the solution of community (lots of new people, house party)

If the audience are tired/exhausted, it gives the solution of energy(jump cuts, party scene)

• If the audience are Bored, it gives the solution of Intensity (high/low emotions)

Our main objective when researching, planning, filming and editing for our film was to involve as many conventions to conform with a typical 'teen drama', in order to both entertain and educate our audience about peer pressure and the possible consequences of giving into it and having the need to fit in with people, is it really worth it?