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

'Pretty Popular'

We decided to make a chick flick, as we felt this was a genre with which we were all familiar with, and could relate to. I've seen a lot of chick flicks previously, and felt this was a genre that I knew well. Additionally, with the resources and facilities available to us, creating a chick flick seemed the best option. 

We looked at opening sequences for films similar to our ideas for our own, with Legally Blonde and Lizzie McGuire being the most relevant. 

From researching titles, we discovered that pink was the most commonly used colour, as this conveyed the girly themes and chick flick genre. The titles would all use the same font, which was usually the same font as used in the final title, thus keeping in synergy. Music was consistently upbeat and lively, maintaining a fast temp throughout the opening scene, and setting the scene and tone for the rest of the film.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main representation in our film opening is that of the British teenagers of today. We see contrasting personalities and lifestyles within this social group however, in the form of our two character Lauren and Scarlett.

Some films we looked at when deciding our representations were 'St Trinians', 'Mean Girls', 'Fast Girls', 'Legally Blonde', 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging', 'Wildchild' and 'Lizzie McGuire'. From these films, we knew how teenage girls were represented in chick flicks, and how different character roles affected these representations. Conventionally, the main characters would be very girly, with their lives focusing on their issues involving their parents, their friends, fashion, school and boys.

Teenagers in chick flicks today usually have the most up to date technology, and tend to fight with their parents about things such as school, homework, going out, friends and money. They have strong ties with a small group of close friends, often including a best friend character, these friends are incredibly important to them and crucial to the story line  Clothes, make-up, popularity and boys are all problems usually arising in their lives, and the course of the chick flick is based on their journey in solving their problems.

LAUREN

Lauren, our protagonist, is the typical chick flick heroine. She is blonde, pretty, clever, popular, and has a seemingly 'perfect' life. We have shown this through the mise-en-scene of our opening, as Lauren's bedroom is not only pink and girly, it also has many different photos of friends on the walls, and a report with an A* grade on it. Lauren takes great care with her hair, outfit and make up, as she is seen applying lip gloss and mascara, and also buttoning the top button of her shirt, something which is considered to be very fashionable within modern teenage culture. Lauren travels to school with two friends, who like her are dressed in sheer shirts, skirts and heels, along her journey we see her chatting with her friends, and they all seem very happy and comfortable with each other. Hence we have established Lauren's character.

SCARLETT

Contrastingly, with Scarlett, our antagonist, we showed her lazy and reluctant to get out of bed, in her messy and cluttered red room, littered with cigarette packets and clothes. This use of the mise-en-scene in her room established her character as more messy, unique and rebelic. In Scarlett's room we were careful to remove any photos of friends, as we felt this would create a greater contrast with the character of Lauren, and there was no sign of school work, stationary or even a desk. Her hair and make-up reflected the personality of Scarlett, with dark, volumous back-combed hair, large amounts of dark eyeliner and eye-shadow as well as bright red lipstick. Our aim was to make this girl seem rather 'slutty' and promiscuous, establishing her as a character our audience would immediately be able to dislike, and recognize, and we used clips of Scarlett shortening her tube skirt, and unbuttoning her shirt in order to reveal more cleavage to show this character trait. Scarlett travels alone on her way to school, and smokes a cigarette leaning against a wall, showing her to be the kind of girl who doesn't care what anyone thinks, and perhaps implies that she wants to be seen so blatantly disobeying rules.

LAUREN'S BOYFRIEND -Thahesh

As Lauren was meant to be the prettiest and most popular girl in school, we felt it would be appropriate for the character to have a boyfriend. We used an Asian actor for this character, as we felt this represented London, and the diversity in ethnic groups. While initially we had planned to include the boyfriend in the opening, we later decided that the inclusion would be too difficult, as we needed it to be just Lauren and Scarlett entering the school together, and in these shots, Thahesh dressed fashionably and smartly to also coincide with the character of Lauren herself. Ultimately, we just included a photo of Lauren's boyfriend on the computer screen on her desk.
Throughout the course of our film, Lauren discovers Thahesh is actually very vain and shallow, more interested in her status and looks, than her personality. Despite his seemingly loving actions, he dumps her when he realises she is no longer the 'Queen Bee', due to Scarletts corruptive plans, while Lauren is devestated at first, she later realises how much better off she is without him.

Originally we planned to include Thahesh in our opening scene, with Lauren greeting him at the gates before entering the school, however we found that this would be too difficult, as we needed to get Lauren and Scarlett alone together for their entry to the school, to highlight their differences and raise questions into the connection between the two characters. In our final opening, Thahesh only appears in a photo on Lauren's laptop, and this established the character as Lauren's boyfriend.

We represented our British teenage girls through our use of mise-en-scene in each girls room, and our use of make up and costume. We depicted both girls getting ready for school, and applying their make up.

BRITISH

Since the majority of chick flicks, and the ones we were inspired by, are American, our decision to make our chick flick British was a controversial change, and would be something new and interesting, differentiating our film, due to the different stereotypes and character conventions recognisable of a British setting. Globally, Britain is known for tea, the Royal Family and rain, as well as the iconic London landmarks. British girls are stereotypically supposed to be more laid back and polite than Americans, with emphasis on their natural beauty, hence the 'English Rose' stereotype. British girls may also be considered by Americans, to be both beautiful and intelligent, with good values, while typically in American films, girls seem to either be smart and geeky looking, or stunning and dumb. 

In making a British chick flick, we knew we needed to alter the typical character conventions slightly, and so we decided our main character would be better as a blonde, with a typically 'English Rose' preppy look. American chick flicks tend to have the blonde featuring as one of the 'bitchy' characters, and our alteration of this was a far more British take on the genre.

 ESTABLISHING CHARACTER

Lauren's room was very pink and girly, with lots of floral and pink items, including make up, cosmetics and notebooks.

Contrastingly Scarlett's room was very messy, strewn withclothes and cigarette packets.

We used split screens to contrast the look and actions of both characters side by side, with Lauren on the left and Scarlett on the right. Here we contrasted the colours, styles and actions of each character.

Lauren's drawer contains stationary items such as pens, notepads and a calculator, while Scarlett's is more messy, containing cigarette packets, sweet wrappers and condoms.

While Scarlett uses a bright red lipstick, Lauren uses a pale girly pink gloss.

Here we contrasted the make up of the two characters, with Scarlett being heavily made up with dark eye make up, while Lauren is more natural, with cleaner and more refined make up.

We showed Lauren tucking her blouse into her skirt, and Scarlett rolling up her tight tube skirt.

The colours of the two bedrooms are contrasted here, as we synchronise the action taking place in each shot.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

From our research into media institutions, we decided that StudioCanal would be the most likely distributor for our film, 'Pretty Popular'.

STUDIO CANAL

est. 1999



We looked
at many different distributors, initially looking at the distributors for chick flick style films, like our own, these included 'Wild Child', 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging', and 'St Trinians'.

The distributors for 'Wild Child' and 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging' were Universal Studios, and Paramount Pictures respectively.

We felt St Trinians and Fast Girls were closest to our idea, with the heavily British theme, and overall 'girliness', so we looked into their distribution companies, Entertainment Film Distributors and StudioCanal.

Either of these two distributors would be relevant for distribution of 'Pretty Popular' as they were both British, and had both previously produced films of a similar and relative genre, hence these distribution companies were experienced in distributing to our target market. For our opening we used the ident of StudioCanal, as 'Pretty Popular' and 'Fast Girls' contained very similar themes, and appealed to the same target audience, and therefore we thought StudioCanal would be a more likely and beneficial choice of distributor.

We created the production company 'Seagull Productions  for our film, and created an ident, which appeared at the start of our opening sequence and depicted a seagull flying. Seagull Productions produces high concept family and teenage orientated films, which aim to achieve universal appreciation through fun and relatable subject matter. They are a British company, and the name and image of a seagull is used to highlight this, as seagulls are a representative of the British seaside.

We researched the marketing strategy of the film 'Fast Girls', the athletic topic of the film was intended for release alongside the 2012 Olympics. The trailer for this film highlighted the British aspect, with many London skyline shots, as well as introducing the well known actors in the film. Genre and themes are clearly established with shots of the girls competing, constantly wearing their 'Team GB' kits throughout.

Typically, our film would be shown in large chain cinemas such as Cineworld, Vue and Odeon, as the relatable concept is aimed to appeal to a wide audience. An ideal release time for our film would be at the beginning of the summer holidays, as this is when teenagers will have most free time, and will be looking for a way to spend time with their friends in their holidays.

If the film was successful, I would expect to have a DVD and/or Blu-Ray release, with bonus features such as directors commentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers and behind the scenes footage. I would expect TV release to be on a well established channel such as Channel4 or BBC, which already screen their film to our target audience, Netflix or LoveFilm would also be potential distributors  and exchangers of 'Pretty Popular'.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Here I have created an audience profile, detailing our target audience for 'Pretty Popular', and conducted research into what three members of our target audience think makes a good chick flick.

SPECIFIC AUDIENCE RESEARCH

MORGAN, aged 17
-Studying English Lit, History, Sociology and Biology
-Enjoys watching pretty much anything, but especially likes comedies and rom-coms.
-She feels that a good chick flick should be able to make you cry, and feel good about yourself and your life.
-Her favourite films are 'The Breakfast Club', 'The Little Mermaid', 'Bridemaids', 'Pitch Perfect', 'Grease' and 'When Harry Met Sally'.
-She watches chick flicks with her little brother, or her girlfriends, usually at home or at her friends houses.


RUYI, aged 16
-Studying Art, Textiles, Maths and Economics.
-Likes to watch comedies and animated films.
-Ruyi said that a chick flick should be able to make you laugh more than anything else, and should ALWAYS have a really good looking male character. She also said that the main character has to be likeable, and that she would need to identify with the hero.
-Her favourite films 'Legally Blonde', 'Shrek' and 'Daria'
-Watches chick-flicks at home with her dog.



ALEX, aged 18
-Studying Sport Science and Physics.
-Likes to watch girly rom-coms, Disney films and horrors.
-She thinks that a chick flick should contain characters you recognise, and should be based within a setting well known to us, like a high school.
-Her favourite films are 'Love Actually', 'Tangled', 'Sinister' and 'The Orphan'.
She enjoys watching chick flicks at home with her family, or in the cinema occasionally with her friends.

Our secondary audience would be 16-24 year old males, who would probably be going to see the film with their girlfriends, or female friends. Making our film very funny would appeal to this target audience, and we would aim for the same approval from boys as 'Mean Girls', which has become a cultural classic film for teenagers, due to the comedy and relatable themes.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We chose the chick flick genre as it is very popular with out target audeince, and this is a target audience we can identifiy with, and know very well. Speaking to members of this target audience would be very easy, considering we ourselves were part of it, and hence we know exactly what the target audience expects to see, and we have seen many other films within the same genre.

We conformed to expectations of a chick flick, providing girly topics such as fashion, friends and boys, as well as humour, and relatable events and characters, which are highly identifiable to our target audience. A huge part of the appeal of chick flicks, is the likeness to the target audiences own lives, and hence their ability to easily lose themselves within the plot and characters. However, we took a modernist take on the genre, showing our protagonist Lauren's realisation of her true desires in life, and discovering what is most important to her.

As chick flicks are a typically American genre, usually set in high schools, we decided to make a heavily British version, conforming to British school stereotypes. In doing this, we made our protagonist the blonde, prettiest, most popular girl in school, characteristics typically applied to the villain of a chick flick. This controversial decision challenges the social expectation that girls should immediately dislike a character for being 'perfect', and recognise the antagonist role through these characteristics.

Split screens were used to contrast the actions of the two main characters, presenting them as opposites and creating suspense and enigma as the audience wonders how these two characters are connected. We found that the technique of using split screens, was relatively typical of our genre, as the upbeat and bouncy style of these types of films fits in perfectly with the style of split screen action used.





MARKETING STRATEGY
We would use posters on bus stops and in girly magazines such as Grazia and Heat, as well as television adverts, which would be shown during ad breaks of TV shows which are watched by our target audience. Our advert would feature humourous clips from the film, as well as shots of our two main characters, introducing their rivalry, and hinting at the events to come. We would also use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to further promote our film to our teenage audience, as we know the majority of our target audience would be using these sites. A Facebook page would typically contain photos, links to the official website and trailer, and little snippets of information about the upcoming film.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Some technologies used in this project were familiar, as I had used them previously in video projects, whilst other technologies were new, or more advanced. This meant I gained new skills in these areas where I had not previously worked.

OUR ANIMATIC

After creating our storyboard and shot list, we then created an animatic sequence, using photos of our proposed shots. This not only allowed us to see how our film would flow, but also enabled us to practice and visualise our proposed shots on location. Our proposed actress for the role of Lauren had to drop out prior to our first shoot, however she was present for the animatic sequence, and she can be seen here playing Lauren. We used the same software in creating our animatic (Adobe Premiere Pro), which enabled us to also practice for our uses of the split screen technique.

FILMING

EQUIPMENT
We used a Canon Legria HV30.
 I had previously used this camera in the GCSE film project, and so was familiar with this piece of technology.
We also used a tripod, microphone and clapper board when filming. I found all of this equipment pretty easy to use, as most of it was fairly self explanatory.

TECHNIQUES
In our sequence we needed to use a pan to establish the setting, whilst this was easy in Lauren's room, for Scarlett's room we needed to use a skateboard, as the tripod did not enable us to get low enough to create our smooth floor level pan. With these skills there was a lot of trial and error, and logic involved in thinking through the problems we encountered, and solving problems using items we had readily available to us.


LIGHTING
Due to a need for bright, well lit shots, we needed to learn to use a lighting kit, and while the lights were very large and heavy, and heated up very quickly, they were relatively simple to master. In order to create a warm glow we directed the lights towards the ceiling or a wall, so that the light would bounce off all around the room. In addition to this, we used a large reflective disk, to further aid the bouncing of light. Downsides of these lights were the enormous weight and size of the bag containing the three lights, which was a struggle especially when we were forced to take public transport. In addition to this, the lights got very hot, very quickly, meaning we had to be careful not to touch the metal of the light, and also meant they would heat up a room after being left on for a short period of time. Because of this, we had to ensure lights were switched off between shots, and use gloves if handling them.

EDITING
To edit, we used Adobe Premiere Pro, which I had previous experience working with from previous projects, and hence found this relatively easy to use, with the addition of a few new techniques which were learnt in relevance to our film opening.

We cut our shots together, and then used Procamp to edit brightness and contrast. Our shots all needed to look the same, and we wanted a very bright and colourful atmosphere throughout all of our shots.

TITLES
We used Livetype to create our titles, and here we decided on colour, style, font and effects.
Our titles were all bright pink, in a bold capital lettered font, which stood out against any background, and this was also the same font as our final title, thus keeping in synergy.

Within Livetype, we could apply motion and effects to our titles, and so we had some titles appearing and disappearing in sync with the action taking place. Examples of this include the title which spirals down the sink as the tap is turned on, and the title which is blown away as the hairdryer is turned on. Availability of these effects really added to our sequence, as the movements interacting with the action was very 'chick-flick-esque', and was a tecnhique we had previously seen in the opening of 'Lizzie McGuire'.

Our final title used the same font and colour as all of our previous titles for the word 'Popular', and a lighter pink, and a more curly, handwritten font for the word 'Pretty'. 'Pretty' slides smoothly into shot, while 'Popular' is stamped rapidly in red, and these different title styles are representative of the narrative and characters.

SPLIT SCREENS
We used split screens to contrast the personalities of the two characters, and despite the fact that I had not created a split screen before, I found this to be a very simple technique, and mastered it very quickly. In order to create a split screen, we simply cropped each clip by 50% on opposite sides, then used the positioning tools on Premier Pro to line up the action to create a match. Some shots were relatively easy to match, while others needed to be intricately timed in order to achieve a perfect match in the action between shots, the lips are an example of this. Our use of split screens made our sequence far more interesting and carried our narrative more effectively. The two characters can be contrasted side by side, and this aided our introduction into the two different girls and their personalities, hinting at the roles they will later play and hence intriguing our audience.

MUSIC
The soundtrack used for our opening was downloaded from freeplaymusic.com, where we search for upbeat, lively, pop-style tracks, eventually deciding on a sound clip called 'Full of Mesh'. We had to edit this clip in order to make it fit with the action taking place, and we did this by repeating certain sections, and slowing transitions between different parts of the soundtrack. As we had to use un-copyrighted music, we were not able to use a pop song, and most chick flicks open with a well known, popular song, hence we felt this was a downside to our music choices and availability.