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

Michael is a coming-of-age, romance, comedy film. To answer this question I have separated it into 4 sections: genre, narrative, form and style.

We watched many teen romance, rom-com, and teen comedy films, as well as independent and British films. From this research, we used the information to plan our characters, narrative and style.

Genre

Some of the common genre conventions we found:

Genre Conventions:	Media Text Example:	Challenged or conformed?
Teenage male protagonist (often awkward or is different to other characters)	Noah Taylor (Submarine)	Conformed Male protagonist, Michael, is awkward and quirky
Plot focused on protagonist's journey	The plot focuses on Scott Pilgrim's (the protagonist) journey to win/win back Ramona (Scott Pilgrim VS The World)	Conformed The film follows Michael's story and his plan to get Lara (his ex-girlfriend) back
A quirky best friend who follows protagonist on their journey	Leah, Juno's best friend (Juno)	Conformed Tris, Michael's quirky best friend, is there throughout the whole film with Michael, helping him get Lara back
A friend who develops into a love interest for the protagonist	Todd and Olive (Easy A)	Conformed Tris is also the friend who, in the end, becomes the love interest for Michael
Protagonist is currently going through a major transitional period of their life (dark themes)	Tyler's parents split up in the beginning of the film due to the event of his brother's suicide (Remember Me)	Challenged We do not focus on any dark themes, our media product focuses on less complex themes, such as teenage love
Secondary School/ High School Setting	Set in an American High School (Juno)	Conformed Our film is set in a British secondary school
Protagonist usually matures or seeks self independence	At the end, Scott learns that he must have self-respect and be open to friendship before he can have a mature relationship.	Conformed In the end Michael understands how fickle and self-centred Lara is and falls for Tris instead who has been there all along
Mutual friend between love interest and protagonist	Patrick is the link between Sam and Charlie (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)	Conformed Michael's friend, Louis, is a mutual friend between Tris and him
Love interest currently has a popular/pretty partner	Regina George (the popular/pretty partner) and Aaron Samuels (the love interest) are together (Mean Girls)	Conformed Lara (the initial love interest) goes out with Brad Douché, who is more popular/'better' than Michael
Protagonist has an unusual Family	Overly protective father who will not let his youngest daughter date (10 things I hate about you)	Challenged Michael's family are not focused on much in the film opening or the film

Narrative:

Todorov's Narrative Theory
We took influence from Todorov's narrative theory, but did not fully conform to a classic narrative pattern.
We started the film off with disequilibrium, then added a secondary disruption which was then solved and then ended with the conventional 'new equilibrium:

A reference point for of our narrative theory is Freaky Friday (2003):

Levi- Strauss Theory of Binary Opposites
We also set up the following binary opposites:

• Male VS female
• Single VS In a relationship
• Sad VS Happy
• Good VS Evil (Michael VS Brad)

Propp's Character Theory
Our characters conform to Propp's Character Theory:

• Hero = Michael
• Villain = Brad
• Helper = Tris
• Princess = Lara

However we did not include the false hero, donor or dispatcher

Enigma Codes
Our opening will set up questions like:

• Why did Lara break up with Michael?
• Who is Brad?
• What will he do to get her back?
• Will he get her back?

Semiotic Codes

Michael crushing the ice-cream shows his anger and his desire for revenge

Michael writing a list of 'why you should take me back' to Lara, demonstrates his distress and how hopeless and desperate he is to get her back

Michael crying implies his misery

Michael ripping up the paper with force and also the broken biscuit on the table of the other shot suggests his anger and annoyance with Lara, but also how upset he is

Cultural Codes

• Terraced/semi-detached houses - UK (London)
• Music culture references on Michael's bedroom wall:
• My Chemical Romance poster (Punk Rock) (US)
• One Direction cardboard cutout (Pop) (UK)
• Jimi Hendrix poster (Classic Rock) (US)
• Radiohead poster (Alternative Rock) (UK)

Action Codes
We challenged action codes, as Michael's behaviour is unpredictable in our opening.
This was done to make the opening more interesting and enigmatic

Symbolic Code

Time passing showed through the montage - typically a montage is showing an extended period of time

For example the opening of Hot Fuzz (2007):

Form:

We also conformed to the typical form of an opening sequence, to establish genre, narrative, (some) characters and institutions:

Style

Titles:
After looking at some indie and British film openings we found that the fonts used are a simple Sans Serif, this was done to not draw the attention away from the visuals happening on screen:

Scott Pilgrim VS The World (2010)

Scott Pilgrim VS The World (2010)

Submarine (2010)

Youth In Revolt (2009)

We conformed to this and used a very simple font:

The font for our opening title sequence

Also we decided to use integrated titles to make the titles more interesting and push ourselves futher. This was influenced by Scott Pilgrim VS The World (2010) and Zombieland (2009), which are not typically indie rom-com films, but we asked members of our core audience and they thought it added to the opening and made it more interesting.

Scott Pilgrim VS The World (2010) Integrated Titles

Zombieland (2009) Integrated Titles

Colours and Grading:

We chose to grade our opening to give the product a more natural and realistic look:

Shot from Michael

Colour Scheme from Michael

This low-key lighting and natural grading is typical of independent films. For example, from About Time (2013) and Submarine (2010), which both have similar genres as Michael:

Shot from About Time (2013)

Colour Scheme from About Time (2013)

Shot from Submarine (2010)

Colour Scheme from Submarine (2010)

This is more obvious when compared to high budget, hollywood blockbuster films, which use more vibrant colours:

Shot from The Amazing Spiderman 2 (2014) 

Soundtrack:

In the opening scene we wanted the soundtrack to establish and reflect the style of our genre

This is our soundtrack:



We felt this song was a good choice as the acoustic guitar added to the indie style and the slow rhythm established the romantic and sad moods

An example of this is the opening of Submarine (2010), which use a slow piano and guitar song which makes the indie style obvious.