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

1) The first photo in the grid is the title of the film, which is a high angle, extreme close up. We chose to have it next to a phone as this represents the influence technology has on a modern teenagers live. This also shows that it is an alarm and so connotes the start of the day or in this use the start of the film. We used a purple serif font as this is stereotypically a girly style/colour. This is significant as the target audience is teenage girls. In this title shot you can also see a pink perfume bottle which is again associated with girls and connotes that the film is going to be based around a girl's life. Pink/Purple coloured titles are a conventions of the teen angst genre and during my research of other films found that these types of titles are shown in other films such as Mean Girls.

2) This shot shows one of the settings used in the opening sequence and in the film which was a school. We used this setting as the film is based around school life and the feeling and problems that come with it. The target audience of teenage girls can relate to the school life and the problems it bring which is why we based the film around the love/social aspect of school life. The lockers and other aspects of the school are examples of iconography. The school setting is a well identified convention of the teen angst genre and my research into other films of the teen angst genre identified that many other teen angst films use the setting of a school, including Easy- A and High School Musical.

3) The clothes in the film differ for each social group. The older, popular group has the most modern/trendy clothes as this is important to them because clothes are an important indication to how popular they are. Expensive clothes and accessories are an important to teenagers social status. The younger group wear school clothes as they are at school during the film and school clothes are conventional costumes for characters in the teen angst films. We chose to do this because teenagers spend lots of time at school. Researching other films lead me to see that many other films including Easy A that are American films and so public schools do not have a standard uniform. This is similar to our older group who wear modern, trendy clothes. The film Mean Girls has a stereotypically girly clothes that the main group of girls wear. These as pink, modern clothes and a conventional for teen angst.

4) The camera work shown in the fourth shot is a long shot. We used a range of shots in filming our film, including close up, mid shot, long shot and extreme close up. The shot shows some of the editing we used such as the adding in names to help the audience know who is who and their relative backgrounds/personalities. The circle and name are in a friendly, colourful style as this will interest the target audience as teenagers take more notice to things that are bright and exciting rather than a title that is dull and boring. These sort of special effects are conventional in teen angst and research showed this in films such as Juno.

5) The title shown in the 5th shot above is a typical title for the teen angst genre. It is conventional as it is pink and in a serif font which connotes that it is targeted at a young female audience as pink is associated with young females. These are a major convention of teen angst films as it helps to establish quickly that the film will be targeted at females and the film will be based on a teenager girl's life. As said above the film Mean Girls also has a pink title as it connotes the female gender.

6) The opening sets the story up by introducing the main characters and what their role is in each others life.
We introduce the main character, Charlotte, by her voice-over explaining who she is. The voice-over of Charlotte then goes on to describe her situation that the film is based around. She also introduces her friends and how she perceives them. 1st person voice-overs are a typical convention of the teen angst genre as the help to set the story. Most of the teen angst genre films that we studied have voice-overs such as Juno and Easy- A

7) The Genre of the film is made clear from the opening of the film. There are many aspects that connote the film will be based around a girl's life and will be the teen angst genre. The pink flowers connote that the film will be based around a girl and that the genre will be something that girl's enjoy watching, such as teen angst. Also the fact that it is a young female that the opening of the film focuses on getting ready for school indicates that the film will be about her and the life of a teenage girl. This shows the genre is teen angst as it is about teenager's lives. The mise en scene such as the pink flowers that allow the genre to be portrayed to the audience and this a convention of teen angst. Films such as mean girls show this mise en scene through clothes, lighting, and props.

8) We introduced our characters by adding in voice overs and highlighting them with their names in editing. The voice overs introduced the characters vocally and how the main character (Charlotte) feels about each of them. We then used editing to highlight the characters in turn, using a brightly coloured circle, and label them with their respective names. The names were in stereotypical 'girly' colours  as this connotes that the target audience and characters are female. Other films such as mean girls use pink fonts because, as stated above, the colour pink connotes that the film will interest girls and be about girl.

9) Special effect were added in to the film during editing. We used transitions to bring in the titles in a way that would be seen as fun and exciting by our target audience. Adding in the labels and circles when we introduced the characters and the titles themselves are the most common special effects found in most films in most genres as well as the teen angst genre. For example, mean girls, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, Juno and Easy A. We also had the use of a flashback that used transitions that showed it was a flashback and the voice over also stated that it was in the past. Many teen angst movies have flashbacks that help explain the plot and why the characters feel a certain way about each other.