2. 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In many aspects we tried to follow the typical conventions that most audiences would expect from
this genre of media product. We focussed the story around the stereotypical social group of “teen”
and set out to attract audiences of the same age.
Our sequence however in some ways does challenge the conventions of a stereotypical superhero
film as it portrays the main character “the hero” to be female rather than male. With this in mind
our film had a preliminary audience of the female gender.
We tried to develop conventions as much as possible by having things such as obvious binary
oppositions however unlike most films of the same genre the oppositions not only lye between
“hero” and “villain” but also between the two main characters; siblings. Hence the name for our
sequence binary oppositions.
We wanted to create a sequence that followed at least one of the conventions of a real media
product therefore we based our sequence on the idea of binary oppositions and made this our
primary focus to portray this through the opening sequence of our film.
3. 2: How does your media product represent particular social
groups?
Our product tries to represent a range of different social groups however some are more
prominent that others - this is displayed through the editing and time on screen through our
opening sequence.
The opening sequence to our product demonstrates that the main focus for social groups is
teenagers. There are three characters featured in the opening sequence two of which are in this
social group. The other social group we represented was young adults and this is established when
the third character in our opening sequence is shown.
For teens we tried to focus on two different stereotypes “chav” and “geek” so that audience
members could relate more to one or the other. The way we did this was by creating an image
that is very cliché of both – the chav having hair tied back, chewing gum and scruffy clothing. The
geek wearing glasses & well dressed. (Examples of this can be seen in the images below – still
shots taken from out opening sequence).
4. 3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media
product and why?
I believe that the type of institution that would distribute our product would be British distributors
such as working title and Pathe.
Some of the biggest superhero titles or films that comprise this genre are associated with
American distributors such as DC and marvel and I do not believe our product is unique enough or
does not challenge the conventions to and extent that would attract mass audiences such as the
films associated with these distributors I.e. Batman, Spiderman and X-men.
5. 4.Who would be the audience for your media product?
As mentioned on a previous slide we tried to represent two different social groups in our product
therefore we aimed to target it at the same types of people.
By having the main characters as teens our main target audience for our product would be teens. I
feel that by having characters that are a similar age to the audience then they can relate to them
in some way therefore the film automatically becomes more intriguing/enticing for the audience
watching it.
Likewise we also featured different social groups such as young adults so that we were not limiting
our target audience to just one type of people, however we tried to contain the audience to just
these two social groups so that the product could be made with them in mind. If you target your
product a too larger audience it is harder to make a sequence as different audiences have different
needs/requirements and expectations as this vide below demonstrates.
6. 5.How did you attract/address your audience?
We tried to attract and address our audience by featuring characters that were of a similar age to
them. We tried to cover all areas of this social group (teens) by exploring and representing two
very different characters i.e. chav and geek.
We felt by doing this would enable the audience to relate to at least one, if not both of the
stereotypes in one way.
We felt by generalising and representing the characters in a stereotypical way audiences would
find humour to the product also.
7. 6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process
of constructing this product?
Since the construction of our product I have learnt how to use a range of technologies for editing
purposes. The main one being iMovie program on Apple Mac computers. This is a software that I
was previous unfamiliar with but since creating our sequence I now feel comfortable in using and
doing the following:
1. Editing clips (i.e. cutting them down)
2. Adding effects to clips
3. Merging clips together through transitions
4. Adding credits and titles to a sequence
5. Adding a soundtrack
6. Altering a soundtracks volume levels.
I have also widened my knowledge on the program audacity, which has allowed us to edit the
soundtracks featured on our sequence and cut them down to the appropriate length.
8. 7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you
have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I feel I have learnt a lot over through the progression of our product development. One of the
main things being the conventions and expectations of a genre such as the superhero one.
I now feel confident that I have a good understanding of what sorts of conventions are involved
with a film of such nature how it is important to be unique in your product but still following
certain aspects and conventions so that you are catering for your audiences needs.
I have learnt the importance of target audience and how it is essential to base your product on
certain age/social groups in order to make it a success (different groups require and expect
different things and it is not possible to meet the needs of every different audience)
I have also broadened my use of technology and now feel confident of producing a
product/sequence such as ours on programs that before I had never come across or knew very
little about.
