Critical Evaluation- Question 1

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

We made sure that our film followed any conventions and continuity during both the editing and shooting of the film as much as possible to create a continuous film for the audience to understand and find it easy to watch.

The 180-degree rule is one the most important rules we followed, because if not it can be confusing for the audience to follow, e.g. where the characters are in the room may appear to have changed if the line is crossed. Even though we followed this rules it can be broken to give a confused effect this could be used in a psychological genre.

We have also tried to use a variety of shot to direct the audience’s attention and to show extra detail that is needed for the story line to make sense. For example a close up on the coin to show it is double headed and an establishing shot of the park to show where Sarah is and that it is snowy and icy.

Because we have used lots of different types of shots, to make these flow continuously together we also needed to use match on action. This is where a shot angle changes but the action still continues.

We also followed conventions such as time passing. We needed to show time has passed a number of times through out the film, subtly but still able to be picked up on. For the first passage of time we used text on screen to show that 5 years had passed since the last scene. If we didn't this would have been confusing as it wasn't the same actor playing the character as before because time had moved on and she is now older. Another technique we used was dissolves, both through black and straight into the next shot.

Even though our film is linear and shows the action in the same order it happens we have used a flashback
to show realization that the penny is lucky. This has allowed us to experiment with different transitions and filters to show it is a flashback of certain previous event but keep it continuous even though there is no match on action or similar shots.

Our film was originally a Drama as it met all the requirements, realistic characters, emotions and real life problems. But after we revisited our plot we realized it was more of a hybrid genre of both Drama and Fantasy because it included supernatural, magic components as the main plot.

Our film reflects a fantasy drama well, as it includes all the main conventions and paradigms needed to be in this genre category.

It reflects a drama as it includes realistic characters, emotions and real life problems such as; Sarah is a typical teenage girls whose mum tries interfering with her life by telling her what to do all the time, she slips on some ice while walking the dog and to make her day worse her mum accuses her of stealing even though she is innocent.

It reflects conventions of been a fantasy. To be a fantasy it needs to include supernatural or magical elements as the main plot or location. In our film our main characters grandma gives her a double-headed coin but this coin is magical and bring luck to its owner, through out the film the coin causes the bad thing that happen through out the day to be corrected such as when the dog lead is dropped the dog doesn't run away and after she breaks her phone it magically fixes its self. These elements could also be seen as paradigms of a fantasy about a lucky penny. For example the luck makes bad things better, our main character is helped and the villain is brought to justice.

However our film does also challenge this genre type, as it doesn't end happily ever after as most dramas do, we have left the ending quite open. The end shot is of the double-headed coin landing on tails and Sarah saying ‘This coin must be bringing me luck because it has stuck by me, unlike you.’ This doesn't end all wrapped up, we have left it so that it is open to interpretation and the audience can take what they want from it.

This film does fulfill the nature of a fantasy drama and would meet expectations, however even though it is a fantasy there is very little fantasy compared to other fantasy drama films such as the Twilight saga and Harry Potter because non of the fantasy in these film are real. However in our film it is a lucky coin and some people do believe lucky objects exist.

Our audience are people who enjoy dramas and but feel it is more targeted towards teenage girls.

Overall we want the audience to come away feeling happy and relaxed as well as thinking what will happen to the two friends relationship now Sarah knows the truth.
Richard Dyer's theory states that different people will respond differently to a film or media text to replace something that is missing in their own lives, this is called `Utopian Solutions.' For example if the viewer if feeling tired they are likely to enjoy something with energy like an action film. This theory is present in our film as it intense and anyone who is bored would enjoy this as it gives them something to intrigue and entertain them. For example Sarah doesn't know it is the coin until the end flashback but the audience do, also Sarah doesn't realise her phone is broken and then it suddenly gets mended. All these would leave the audience on the edge of their seat wondering when the main character will realise. I am confident we have achieved this because in the film we have teenage girls just like our target audience and so can relate to each other. We have event don't get resolved till the very end and we leave the ending open so that the audience will be wanting to know more and so not be bored any more.

Through out the making of our film we have recognized several similarities in existing films that we have used to help us improve our ideas as well as use similar films as inspiration.

For example for our title sequence we had an idea of lots of coins falling in a waterfall of coins effect. We then found an existing title sequence off ‘Dear John’ where coins are been made and they fall onto and off conveyor belts. 


We have used this as inspirations and tried getting the same falling effect but dropping coins onto a pile.

Another film we used as inspirations was ‘Vanilla Sky’ we analysed the flashbacks in this film because they were obviously a flashback with lots of fast clips and photos, this is how we wanted our flashback to look.

‘Just my luck’ had the biggest impact on our film, as it is very similar to our story line and narrative. For example the main theme is luck, both film have both luck and unlucky in them.