When She Was Mine

1. Media AS Film Evaluation CHARBEN ALILIO When She Was Mine

2. Conventions: Romantic Dramas The simple white writing on black background connotes the straight forward plot. The word ‘ She ’ and ‘ Mine ’ suggests a romantic plot. In stereotypical romantic films there is always a female and a male protagonist. They are usually introduced in the opening scene to portray the importance of their characters and to show the audience that the plot will be based around them.

4. Inspirations Before I started production on my romantic film, I decided to look into various opening scenes of romantic dramas. The film that attracted and inspired me most is a film called ‘Candy’ directed by Neil Armfield. What attracted me to the opening scene of this film was the simplicity of it. I found the lack of dialogue and the simple background music both beautiful and mysterious at the same time. The focus on the two male and female protagonist immediately suggest a romantic attraction between the two, also the lack of knowledge given to the audience about the two protagonist is an interesting touch as it helps lure in their concentration on the storyline. This is what I tried to apply on my own piece of work.

5. Inspirations Wong Fu Productions is a company made by three Chinese-American media college students who started producing short films for their chosen course. They posted their work on YouTube which soon became a international phenomenon, they won awards for their work and are now working on how to expand their production company. The work which inspired me most was their ‘HK the one days’ collection which are little love stories in which they filmed in their home city of H ong Kong. They mixed both the American convention of romance with the Asian representative and added subtitles to give it a more legitimate Asian heritage feel to it. This is what inspired me to convey my own heritage to my piece of work.

8. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Star Cinema is a film company which is based in Philippines and mainly produces Filipino films. They produce films which are also set in different countries other than the Philippines such as ‘The Caregiver’ which was set in England and ‘Dubai’ which was set in Dubai. They also produce a lot of romantic films most of which are award winning. I think this film company might distribute my media product as it fits in with the genre of most of their films. My romantic drama has two Filipino protagonist and the dialogue is in the native language and so it would accompany most of their productions. Fox Searchlight Pictures is a film division of 20th Century Fox . It specialises in independent and British films, alongside non-English-language films, and is variously involved with the production and/or distribution of these films. I think this film company might distribute my media product as my film is of British production and fits in with the independent genre because it is low budget and simple, it is also a non-English-language film.

11. Audience Feedback “ gives clear connotations of the romantic genre…” “ uses the same conventions as real romantic dramas…” “ would appeal to romantic people- young and old…” “ the music made it realistic and went very well with the theme of romance…” “ the sequence was well thought out…” “ presentation background linked very well to the genre…” “ incorporating a different ethnicity to the piece was particularly good…” “ the presentation was very detailed but at the same time understandable…” All the audience who provided me feedback were able to identify the text as a romantic drama sequence, this implies that I used the conventions and imagery of this genre effectively. They also identified my target which was of the romantic type. My audience described my piece as ‘realistic’ and ‘romantic’, and I was very pleased with this feedback as that were the values I tried to encode onto my piece. All of them mentioned that my presentation went well with the genre of my film. Over all I was very pleased with the feedback I got from everyone as they thought very positively of my piece.

12. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? iMac: PROS:easy to use, start up fast, log in easy. CONS:sometimes have problems with saving and file storage, not all files are suitable for Mackintosh program. Panasonic SDR-H81 HDD camera: PROS:user friendly, easy to maneuver. CONS:catches the smallest shakes when filming, saved film not always at the right folder. iMovie: PROS: easy editing and adding effects. CONS: limited title style, some effects does not work on certain types of video clips. Garageband: PROS: copyright free music, my own creative outlet, user friendly, lots of instruments without the hassle of recording in a studio. CONS: time consuming, limited types of loops for music sequence, not a note by note music piece, no vocals.

14. Thank You