Evaluation1

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

Our Opening sequence is based around many opening sequences we researched, as well as this we also developed and challenged it. Little Blue is based around a fantasy genre it has aspects of magic, the evil step sister the Good Samaritan etc. Our open sequence used some convections of our researched genre like
Spirited away
Cinderella
Jack and the bean stalk
Edward scissor hand
Enchanted
Lanbriyth
Little red riding hood
Night of the museum
Matilda
Harry potter
Jumaji
We researched many types of fantasy movies which could help with our stimulus. We used some convection from these films because we felt the audience will engage with our opening more as it would be recognisable and the ‘’typical’’. Each of these fantasy movies each helped us with our opening they way started or the theme of the movie and different techniques they used. With each movie it helped us expand on our characters and what types of props and costumes can be used. Each movie helped any sound we could use to make it a fantasy genre. What type of audience and what type of fantasy?
We managed to chop up all the researched openings and make it into our own being based on them but different. Our opening has similar aspects as a fantasy genre would for example
We had a fantasy typical soundtrack played throughout
We introduce the character’s persona
We give the audience a sense of place
We give hints about what may happen
Fantasy like titles
The themes used in our film

Our group wanted to make sure we had hints of fantasy in our opening whether it was the music prop or costume. The theme of our film comes under
Jealousy
Sibling rivalry
Envy
Neglection
Hatred
Anger

Our film is based around these different themes, it is mainly focused around jealousy sibling rivalry and neglection and we make this obvious in our opening it is shown in the picture where we have the mum and dad and daughter close and happy together, then we have the stepsister looking upset and distant and from this you get a sign that maybe there’s a form of neglection and jealousy.



These films are typical in a fantasy genre and we wanted to make it obvious that the stepsister felt out the family we got this idea from Cinderella where this film constantly shows that Cinderella is left out. We did this with our opening using the picture to show this. Jealousy is another theme that we use where the stepsister is jealous of her sister because she feels she is more cared about; just like in Cinderella they are jealous because they feel she is prettier than them. Our group felt these were the obvious themes you find in a fantasy genre.

Our opening starts of very suttle and the audience probably feel something positive may happen because we have establishing shot of teddies and colours and books,

This isn’t really common in fantasy films because they start of confusing us before we fully understand the concept, but instead we chose to tell the story. From here the audience will realise the story is to do with jealousy envy and sibling rivalry so they know what is expected or what may happen.

Our film challenges most typical fantasy genre because you would expect the stepsister to be the victim, when actually its the sister that receives the most attention from her parents. The stepsister is jealous of her younger sister, she treats the sister badly and bullies her in front of friends but Little blue’s parents are unaware. So when the audience see the picture they automatically feel sorry for her but little did they know that pictures can be deceiving. When the picture appear we zoom into the stepsister so we keep the focus on her hopefully to get the audience think twice about feeling sorry for her. By showing the picture we wanted to audience to know that the stepsister distanced herself from the family and that her facial expression should show that she is a jealous of her sister. We still wanted to stick with some conventions of fantasy movies by showing there’s always the good Samaritan ‘’Little blue’’ and the villain ‘’Stepsister’’ The audience would assume its the other way round but as the film goes on you see the real side of each character and picture cannot tell ones personality. We got this theme from Matilda where when she is first born the audience would assume she will be loved because the opening is a happy mood but as the movie goes on you find she is a victim.


People assume Matilda will be loved up and taken care of but she has to do that for herself which is not what we expected.

Similar to this is Harry potter where we expect him to be taken care of but instead he is pushed to the side. We would assume he would be taken care of because he has magic and maybe his family may appreciate that but instead disown him.

Another way in which we challenged conventions is that we didn’t make the protagonist obvious at the beginning we gave hints about character but wanted to keep the focus on all the different teddies colours etc to build up tension and get a sense of character before introducing her, where as in other fantasy movies we straight away know who the protagonist is.

Lastly we challenged conventions we are related with fantasy genre is that we didn’t use a voice over which you normally find in a fantasy movie where some one narrates what will happen.
For example Stardust was opening we used they have the voice over of a man narrating the movie; we didn’t use this as although it’s typical in most fantasy openings. We didn’t use the typical props or lighting to insinuate to the audience that this is a fantasy instead we wanted to give the audience sense of character, place.


Our opening sequence follows a typical fantasy movie with a magical door opening leading us into a magical world, we have child like props in the room. We have a doll house fantasy books, teddies and colorful pens. It starts of with a happy mood everything is related to a child and everything a child would want. We followed a typical technique that a modern fantasy movie would use where you want to be part of the protagonist lifestyle/film. Throughout our opening sequence we are giving sense of character, when little blue steps in collecting her bag we get a sense she is a innocent little girl in her own world, this is in most fantasy movie where the protagonist is never a bad person. As the camera pans to the next shot you see a family and little blue she seems very happy innocent and warm hearted but as it moves across we see the stepsister from here she seems unhappy angry and distant we already get a sense of what is happening or what may happen and that the stepsister is the villain as you would see in most fantasy films and we are always told who is the goody and who is the bady in the opening of most films.
Our open sequence uses various techniques you would find in a modernized fantasy film. We have the typical fantasy soundtrack played throughout to show mystery and wonder, the music helps to convey to the audience that we are leading them somewhere. We used dissolves to pan across every aspect shown in opening to give a sense of character and lifestyle. We use this to create the idea that the character may be spoiled and living in a fairytale like life. Each scene flowed into each other everything was done slow and calm and peaceful to show this character is a happy loving child.