Evaluation task 1 - In what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In shot 1 an establishing shot is shown. This shot shows what time of day it is which is therefore setting the scene. Over the top of this shot is the title of our film, displaying the film logo that we have used. The logo includes the title of our film "Madison. However we tried to use a font that was similar to a young girls handwriting. We did this because it is commonly used in films of all genres, especially teen angst films, examples of films using this include '27 dresses', 'footloose' and 'the fault in our stars'. In the logo of our film we have also used an image that suggests someone has just kissed the page. This is to suggest that Madison has signed the page and then left her kiss as a signature. The kiss is used as it is usually associated with teen girls and teen angst films normally use this, for example in Mean girls the lip print is used to cover the 'burn book'.

Shot 2 shows a mid-shot of the three 'mean girls'. In this shot all three girls are wearing pink which connotes femininity and calmer, peaceful love. As pink is a colour used to represent girls we noticed teen angst films use this colour often, especially to be worn by the 'mean girly girls'. This is why we therefore choose the colour pink and made sure that the three antagonist characters were wearing this coloured clothing. As  all three girls are wearing pink it also groups them together and makes them easier to distinguish from the other characters for the audience. We tried to make sure that the other characters in our opening sequence are not wearing pink and are wearing costumes that represent them. In the opening scene and title sequence of our film we dressed Madison, the main character in blue denim jeans, a white top and a black leather jacket with faux fur around the top. We thought this was quite a neutral outfit which showed she was new to the school and therefore was not part of a select social group. The white top also connotes her innocence and naivety which we used to foreshadow the end of the film and she is naive and moves groups to sit with the mean girls as she thinks it will gain her popularity and make the boy she is crushing on like her.


Shot 3 was a panning shot we created around Madison's bedroom. We wanted to use this shot as it showed perfume bottles and other things the lead character has in her room. This set the genre of the film as the pink perfume bottles and mirror suggest a females bedroom. As the camera panned round the room other things were shown such as fairylights, jewellery hangers and pictures of young girls were shown. This would furthermore suggest the femininity of the person who the room belonged to but would also suggest the age group of the characters in the film. It would not be expected for older women to have fairylights and other items like these in their room, however it is a stereotypical teenage girls room filled with stuff that would be used. This therefore shows the genre of the film as showing a mostly pink quite girly room would make the audience assume that the film is going to be a teen-angst based love story, rather than an adventure or a horror film which would use different colours to connote different things and would also be likely to use much darker lighting than the lighting used in this shot.


Shot 4 is an establishing shot as it shows the location of the scene being shown. The shot shows lockers which would immediately suggest a school setting to the audience as they would not expect to see lockers anywhere else. There are few characters in this shot of the film, however the audience would pay little or no attention to these characters as they are not made to stand out or shown in the centre or foreground of the screen, instead they are based in the background of the scene and pushed to the sides, also none of these characters are looking towards the camera or showing any signs of body language which suggests that they should be paid attention to.

Frame 5 shows an example of the editing that was used to create our film as it shows a screen shot from a shot reverse shot sequence where Madison and Dylan, the male and female lead, first meet. It is also the first time Dylan is actually introduced to the audience and they learn anything about him. The frame also shows more advanced camerawork as an over the shoulder shot has been used to show who the conversation is between, as well as the 180-degree rule being used. As this scene in the film is very important we had to make sure we had chosen the correct camera shots and angles to be used, this is because it is the first time the characters met which sets up the future story lines.


Frame 6 shows how characters are introduced. In all teen angst films, such as mean girls the mean girls make large entrances, this highlights who they are and portrays to the audience the popularity they hold. We tried to recreate this stereotypical scene from teen angst movies in our opening sequence when the mean girls are first introduced. To do this we had the trio of antagonists burst through a door, Amber obviously leading them. This creates a type of tension already and all the attention is drawn to that moment, the other characters who showed students in the school noticed this and stepped back, out of the way of these girls. This is because it shows that they are popular and no one wants to be in their way or get on the wrong side of them as their life at the school would then become hell.



Frame 7 focuses on the font and style of writing used. We used the fancy handwriting type font as this suggests someone writing but the curls and flicks suggest it is written by a girl. This is then confirmed by the use of the two colours pink and white. The white is used to stand out and tell the audience the job title, however we used a different colour for the names of the people as this was much bolder and more eye-catching. We felt this information was more important than the job title and therefore needed to be shown in a more obvious way.


Frame 8 is one of the first shots shown after the title's and shows a closeup shot of a note stuck to a door wishing Madison a good day at her new school. This sets up the entire storyline and tells the audience exactly what is going on. Up to this point all sound heard has been non-diegetic sound of music and an alarm clock, therefore there has been no speech that highlights what is happening in the story, however this tells the audience so they can build anticipation as to what will happen on her first day and therefore make them want to watch it to find out.

Frame 9 is a shot from a car window as Madison is on her way to school in her sisters car, we used special effects here as we wanted to make the shot shorter so it was not boring but we did not want to cut out too much of what was happening, therefore we speed this shot up which made it much more effective and faster for the audience to watch.