2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product focuses on a young boy who has lost a girl but it is unknown to the viewer to how and why she isn’t with him any more. We have made the boy fit the stereotype that males deal with sad times on their own and don’t want anyone else’s interference; they have to control their feelings in front of people and put on a face but when their on their own they can let it all out and be sad, remember happy memories, think that he can still see his female friend and not have to worry about anyone else but how he feels and how he plans to get over his loss.

The fact that the male is still young and the flashbacks seem to be not too long ago shows that this could have been his first love and/or his first loss. It seems quite deep and that he has fallen hard because of how upset he his and how he walks around all gloomy, but this shows how fragile he is and how much he isn’t used to the change and he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him next as he’s never felt this way before and it’s a new experience for him and he has to learn how to move on with his life.

In films you would normally find the female sad and depressed of the loss of someone she loves so we have gone against this norm and presented a man with these feelings and confusion; that the girl can quickly and happily leave but he’s still hung up on her and is struggling to let go. Which can be seen as quite unusual as the stereotype of young males is that they can forget a girl easily and go after a new one, our film shows that if u really love that person it’s hard to forget and move on. Some of the films that do have a male griever are older gentlemen e.g. ‘Notting hill’. But in ‘500 days of summer’ the male is more the age that we have chosen, this film also shows how long it takes for a man to get over a girl he loves but then when he feels a new girl could change his life and make it happy again he quickly moves on. This film is very much like our own with the memory flashbacks and the ages of the cast; however, it tells us from the beginning why she’s left and how he feels about it.

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

The genre of our film can be categorized as romantic with the story about a man trying to get over the love of his life. Other films such as 'P.S I love you' share this theme as the women protagonist who is trying to get over the recent death of her husband, but in our opening scene it is not clear whether the female character is a girlfriend or wife and if she left the male or the male left her or if the female died this will make the viewer intrigued to know what the story is about. Our story is different from most other films since in the opening scene we focus mostly on the male character where as in other films they introduce numerous characters from the start.

During the movie ‘Eternal sunshine’ the protagonist is alone on a beach, whereas in our film our protagonist is in Manchester town centre yet is still alone which shows contrast.

To reinforce the genre of our film we showed happy memories of the two people together while the male character is walking down a road all alone towards a canal, showing these memories can help the audience sympathies with the protagonist.

At the end of our film we show a memory of the characters holding hands, the female goes to sit on a wall near some daffodils, as the male is turning round, the film goes back to real time and looks back at the same scenery and the female isn’t there.

Eternal Sunshine

This is the poster for the film Eternal Sunshine, with Jim Carrey. It is about a man, Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend Clementine underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, he decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realizes that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
This relates to our film because Jim Carrey's character is on his own and wonders around like our character is doing, we have taken the lonely and depressing theme and feel from this film into our own; by using calm and soft music to portray a man living without the girl he loves. However in our story we have our man in a busy place to show how alone he is that he is the only person on his own, but we have him walking through quiet diluded places as if he has found empty spaces to dwell on his past and memories, Whereas in 'Eternal Sunshine' he finds the most deserted place to morn.

Notting Hill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyvwB8slwvk&feature=related

Here is a clip from Notting Hill where Julia Roberts has to walk through the paparatzi and in fairness walk out of Hugh Grants life. It leaves him to be quite depressed and all he can think about is her. Start the film from 4 minutes 30 seconds.

This is like our film because when Hugh Grants character is sad that his loved one has left him he walks, just like our boy walks around town. However, in 'Notting Hill' it shows the different seasons we just have one time and flashbacks to show the past. In the film you can see him making progression and becoming happier and trying to get on with his life whereas our opening has the boy dwellin on happy times and stays upset throughout the clips. At the end of 'Notting Hill' he reunites with her again, but the outcome of the people in our story is unknown.

new anamatic

This is our new storyboard and is the one we are useing for our final piece of an opening to a film.

New Shot list

Establishing Shot of the locations to show that the lonely character is in a busy place which is unusual when he's sad; you would expect an upset person to be in a quiet place to reflect on his past but we have put him in a urban location to show the contrast of loneliness and other peoples' happiness.



Low angle Shot on Boy to show his expression of dull and sadness with hardely any real, obvious emotion on his face.


Over The Shoulder of Boy to show what he is reading in the newspaper to show that he wants to take his mind off the events that have happened to him so he's reading other peoples problems.



Medium Long Shot, reading the paper to walking away from his sitting place quite slowely as he's sad and by walkin he believes if he keeps moving and keeps busy he can forget. but all it does is make him remember past times and memories of him and his girlfriend.



Medium 2 shot (memory of laughter). This will be edited to a slow pace with a texture as if he's dreaming to define the difference between real life and the flashbacks.



Tracking over the shoulder shot walking down the path so the veiwer can see where the boy is taking them and to show his journey on his own.



Long shot (memory) walking on path with his girl. This is the same place as the last shot but because it's a flashback it shows he's not alone and he's having a nice, fun time.



Medium shot of Boy turning to the place the girl was sitting, but she has gone as we are now in current time and she isn't with him for an unknown reason. He realises and is sad again as before he smile as he thought she was back, but it was just a memory.



Long shot into extreme long shot of Boy walking off still upset and alone as he was at the begining.

new story line

As we had to change our story line due to bad camera work and not enough shot angles as we were just panning for the photo scenes. So in this story it’s based on a depressed boy as he’s lost his girlfriend; he is walking through the streets of Manchester recalling different memories of their happy times together.

In the flashbacks we used some old footage from the first film opening we were going to do for the flashbacks as the camera and composition was good in some of them.

This is one of our attempts to film in the old version of our main project. In this shot the camera zooms out of the bed and then pans over a pile of photos, then onto a table. This was unacceptable to use as the camera was shaky and positioned incorrectly and due to the zoom work on the camera being unusable, subject to poor quality. Also the camera pan doesn't finnish on the table where the next scane start so the film doesn't flow.