Evaluation

This is my Evaluation of the short media project my group did on romance.

My media product uses some forms and conventions of romance. The first noticeable form and convention in the product is the music playing in the background. We used a song called ‘Dream come true’ as this music gave the product a happy mood. We edited the song, selecting the parts of the song which would suit the clips best e.g when the man is approaching the door the music builds up to show suspense. Comparing the start music when the man is walking which sets the scene to the end music, it changes the mood as when the man and woman stand at the end the music is at its highest which shows the audience this is the high point of the product when they are happiest. If we had used spooky music which would have challenged the forms and conventions it would give the media product a different mood. The situation also agrees with the forms and conventions of a romance as it shows a man who has been away for some time return home to his girlfriend. People may relate themselves to this man and woman as this situation is a very common situation in a relationship. He also gives her a flower, which also agrees with the form and conventions in romance. Romance can be symbolized in many ways and one is through flowers, the giving and receiving of flowers show a love between one another, different flowers can show different feelings. In this media product the flower is used as a symbol of love from the man to the woman. This leads to the next from and convention of the characters, a man and a woman. This is the stereotypical romance which therefore agrees with the forms and conventions but if we were trying to challenge forms and conventions we could have used two men. There are some forms and conventions in the media product though which do not agree with the forms and conventions of romance. One of these was the location, due to the lack in time we had to film the product we were restricted to film in the school grounds. A romance could be filmed in school grounds e.g about two pupils in love but our story line was a man who has been away for a while returning to his girlfriend so the location did not agree with the story line. If we had a longer filming time we could have filmed in a restaurant which would have agreed with the forms and conventions. As this was a short task at AS level we did the acting ourselves but this did not matter as we wanted to the stereotyped man and woman.
My media product represents a particular social group. They could be described as young and in love. The main social group represented is young people. They are represented as in love as this is a romance. Most people can relate to this as they have experienced or thought about young love. Recently young people are represented in the news and headlines as troublesome and violent but this media product shows that not all are. If we had filmed a drugs deal this would have agreed with the latest headlines and news as it would show young people in a negative way.
This media product might be distributed to media institutions with audiences of young ages targeted at secondary school pupils, an example of this kind of institution is Disney. The media product would be right for this kind of institution because this institution have the audience who are most likely going to watch the product as it is of people their age and like to believe in love.
The audience for my media product would be secondary school pupils as they are at the ages when they first want to be in a relationship and this product shows how even though the man is away when he returns the woman is still there waiting for him. This may not be the truth in real life but teenagers want to believe in love and would find this product appealing. This would give the audience a positive attitude of love whereas if it were about the woman betraying the man this would have a negative view on the audience. This may also give teenage girls the idea that betrayal was ok.
We attracted the audience by trying to keep to the forms and conventions of a romance as the audience would be watching this for the romance, this may have been because if it was on T.V it would say it is a romance and if we went against the forms and conventions they may not be attracted t keep watching. We also keep the audience watching by building up suspense when the man is walking as the music speeds up which make the audience keep watching as they want to see what happens next. The audience is also attracted into the story as it is not quite clear what has happened, so what to watch more to find out what happened and why.
From the process of constructing this product I have learnt how the camera works and widened my knowledge of editing. I had never used a camera for filming before so this product has got me to terms with the cameras we used. I already knew how to edit clips but I had never created a media product before. I used the skills I already knew and then developed them by experimenting with the clips and seeing which transitions etc. would wok best. I also learnt how to connect the camera to the laptop and import the clips into iMovie. One of the key things i learn which i can apply to other projects I do is to save the work every 5 or 10 minutes in case the Imovie unexpectedly shuts down or something goes wrong. I have also learnt that each member of the group should back everything up on a memory stick in case the work is lost from the laptop all together or if a group member or members are not here, I still have the work to be getting on with. That was a problem we overcame as many lessons one or two people from the group would not be here and we had to carry on the work.

Sophie