Main Task Evaluation - Question 1

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

The main conventions we come across when researching our RomCom films were well used in our final piece. We discovered conventions such as the voice overs of the main characters. Each film we watch we noticed that nearly all openings involved a voice over by the character that the story was mainly based on. We noticed that they either spoke about their life so far or a special moment in their life, which tells the audience of a memory thats relevant to the story. Another convention we noticed was that the films like to show a typical romance in the beginning to show that the story is a RomCom. These however could of been good or bad. For example a couple already happily together in love telling the audience that something may cause this relationship to falter, or a woman/man falling in love with someone at first glance, allowing the audience to realise that they were going to spend this film trying to get that love from that person. Also, we noticed that each film showed a small piece of comedy throughout their film and the beginning needs to start it off. For example, Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason begins with her jumping out of a plane for her job then landing in a pen full of pigs. The humour is shown whilst her voice over explains her love for Mr Darce. Other conventions in RomCom films that we discovered were that each opening had a certain soundtrack to introduce the first scene or characters. We tried to insure that all of these conventions were in our main task so it was a true RomCom start to a film.

Our main task and our research we collected for our coursework are similar in many ways. This is because we interpreted most conventions that we discovered into our film. These conventions were the voice overs- as we made our main character, Auntie Babs, become her own conscience, read an email from one of her fans and talk to the viewers of the film introducing the film. Another similar way we compared our research with our film was we added in music to enter us into Babs office. This was to give a sense of happiness to the audience to think that Babs is a happy character. However the music ends when Babs is revealed as she seems down sitting at her desk reading the email. We put in some sexy music also when she seductively day dreams her perfect day in the office with Paolo. We felt this was appropriate for that scene because it produced comedy and showing that she feels very strongly for him. On the other hand we had one piece of research that we didn't interpret into our piece. This was the timeline of the main character's life, which gave the viewers a straight profile of their personality and lifestyle. We felt this wasn't necerssary for our final piece because we discovered that only American RomComs included this and we were aiming for a British RomCom affect. So we felt best to leave it out.

Our main task sticks well to the conventions of our genre. This is because we used most of them in our final piece and done the conventions the way the British RomComs used them. For example we used music that created the mood for the beginning and fitted the story. We also used a piece of music to show an up beat day dream for Babs. We all agreed that we should include that because alot of the British Romcom's we watched we noticed that the woman do day dream alot about what they wish could happen but don't have the guts to actually push themselves to do it. Another convention we stayed the same was the credits. We noticed that in the films we researched that they slowly faded in over the shots so they didn't distract the audience that much from the actual film. We also kept a good colour scheme as another thing we noticed was that they kepts the same font and style of the credits and the title of the film. We also showed alot of comedy that slightly resembled Bridget Jones and her behaviour in her films, and a love interest which is shown in many other films.

Our main task does deviate from the conventions in some areas. For example, our voice over is slightly different to what we researched in British RomCom's such as Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason and About A Boy. We changed this by having the voice over reading an email. This was appropriate for our film because it fitted in with our story, to show that Auntie Babs is like some sort of Agony Aunt, hense the name. However, in the films we watched their voice overs seemed to be about themselves and their problems they face in life- not about someone elses wonders and delights sent to them by a friend. However, after the email was read out we add in more voice overs to show that she is now thinking about herself and encouraging herself to impress Paolo.