Kayvon Nabijou - 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 rom-com. During the research and planning stage for our film opening, we considered the genre, form, narrative and style of our film opening in relation to real films, keeping in mind relative existing theories that might help us. The real media texts that influenced our decision making process included 'Scott Pilgrim vs the World', 'Submarine', 'Juno' and the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, The World's End).

Genre

The table below shows conventions of the genre and whether we conformed to them or challenged them.

Form

From watching existing film opening and studying various theories, we found that all film opening follow certain forms and conventions and all contain the same information but in different ways.

This is our self-recorded soundtrack for the film opening (see mind map above for reasoning)

Narrative

We stuck close to Todorov's narrative theory, as many of our reference films have done the same. This is shown in the flow diagram below. We flipped our narrative slightly so that the start of the film is in disequilibrium. This makes the film stand out and look more original and interesting from the start.

Narrative references included 'Scott Pilgrim vs the World', 'Youth in Revolt', 'Submarine' and 'Juno'.

Whilst the above three films all start with some level of equilibrium, 'Juno' was a film with a similar narrative to Michael, starting with Juno finding out she is pregnant - complete disequilibrium.

Propp's character theory:

Michael - Hero

Lara - Princess

Brad- Villain

Tris - Helper

Louis - False Hero

Roland Barthes' theory of codes:

Enigma Codes: 

• Why has Lara so suddenly broken up with Michael?
• What is Michael going to do about it?
• Who is 'Brad Douché'?

In hindsight, we could have set up stronger enigma codes, such as revealing the very start of what Michael's plan of action is.

Action Codes: The start of our opening has Michael trying to hold Lara's hand and her pulling away, as well as her awkwardly looking at him. This suggests that their relationship is not healthy, and so her breaking up with him does not challenge the audience's expectations. Michael's reaction, including running away and crying in his room, does challenge their expectations, as it is unexpected after how calmly he responds initially to the break up.

Semiotic Codes:

• The montage of Michael being sad causes the audience to feel mixed emotions - is he being pathetic or do they sympathise with him
• Michael crushing the ice-cream shows his anger, making the audience wonder what he is going to do next
• Michael ripping the paper up links to themes of his mixed emotions of sadness and anger
• Michael crying shows he is sad
• The act of Michael writing a list of reasons why Lara should take him back shows his weakness and desperation at the time

Cultural Codes:

• Recognisable setting - terraced houses, in a UK big city
• Popular music icons on Michaels wall - One Direction (UK), Jimi Hendrix (USA)

Style

In my opinion, this is one aspect of our final product that, when it came to filming, we paid less attention to compared to the other elements of our film opening. However, in post-production, we graded effectively to get a simple, natural style. We also looked at other films of the coming-of-age genre to look at how they construct their titles.

Grading

When grading, we were going for the most natural look we could without making the image look flat or too cold, to give the audience a realistic yet enjoyable experience.

Before grading:

 After grading:

This 3-wheel colour-corrector is what we used to grade our shots:

Titles

We took a lot of inspiration from other film opening for this aspect, such as 'Submarine', 'Scott Pilgrim vs the World', 'Panic Room' and 'Zombieland'. Initially we wanted to integrate our titles into shots (e.g having a title sitting on a shelf), but time restrictions meant we wouldn't be able to focus on the other aspects that needed attention. In the end, we semi-integrated our titles, having them go behind Michael as they passed him and then having other titles coming out from behind Michael. 

   

This is how we integrated our titles:

When considering the font of our titles, we looked to several coming-of-age films such as 'Submarine' and 'Scott Pilgrim vs the World'. We found that they all contain very simple fonts. We conformed to this, as it looked appropriate in the relatively mundane setting of Michael's room.

This is the font we used for the film title: