Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Evaluations- Q2

Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

A: To begin with, let me first make it clear that the main social group represented in my movie is a primary group-family. Families are extremely important as they believe in one common goal, follow a common structure of living and are there to help the individual whenever his social and academic lives are in disequilibrium.

My movie focuses more on the protagonist brothers as siblings are one of the extremely important members of any particular family. I wanted to make my audience aware of the negative impact on a child if his older brothers treat him badly occasionally, and ignore him when he needs them most. Sibling disputes are very common in real life, however there are times when either of the parties involved cross the limits and ruin each other's lives and images.

For example, looking at the Disney Original Movie StarStruck (2010), the two sisters who were one of the main characters didn't get along well due to the relative difference in age and tastes. However, in the end the older sister sticks up for the younger one when she is in need of her support and therefore change the audience' view about their relationship into a positive one.So, their relationship therefore wasn't strained to a great extent, unlike Ali's brothers' relationship with him.

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Sarah and Jessica Olsen-always bickering with each other

Here is an idea of the degree of relationship Ali has with both his brothers:


John-not happy when Ali playfully comes into his room
Ouni-giving Ali a steely look







So, as one can observe the relationship Ali has with his brothers is strained to a great extent.


My movie also focuses on boys and older boys' predisposition towards aggression as I show in my opening title that the brothers simply ignore their younger brother, John literally chucks Ali out of his bedroom when Ali playfully comes in.

Also, it focuses on teenagers' common characteristics which have been stereotyped and highlighted by society such as using Social Networking sites a lot. John, one of Ali's brothers is shown using Facebook instead of using his time efficiently and doing something constructive.

John- looking at the computer's screen, busy chatting with friends on Facebook instead of  doing something constructive


Evaluations- Q1


Q1: In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A: My media product challenges some conveniently used conventions of similar media products.


Take for example the movies similar to mine distributed by Disney. In 1950, Disney released Cinderella which though showed how an innocent girl receives horrible treatment at the hands of her stepmother and stepsisters, but doesn't harbor negative feelings and in the end gets married to a prince and lives happily ever after. This movie, since it was made at a time when Disney was mainly distributing movies for family entertainment purposes, it was more fantasy-based and ended like a fairytale story is supposed to end. But, I have given my movie a more reality-based storyline because in my movie the character does eventually harbor negative hopes unlike Cinderella who acts in a  'too good to be true' manner in the movie (when in real life this is clearly impossible).


Also, Disney has tried to release more mature and 'real' movies for teenagers, but all the movies end in a fairytale manner and all becomes well. In my movie however, all doesn't become well that easily. and which is why my movie violates the convention such movies pivot on. 


 
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Taking modern Disney movies into consideration, they have been slightly more realistic in approach, pivoting on social and psychological matters especially concerning teens. However, the movies have always had happy endings. And my movie will most certainly have a climatic ending, letting the audience decide whether it was happy or not.


Some examples of such Disney movies are:


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These Disney original movies have a thing in common; they both have happy endings, unlike my movie which is more reality-oriented than these particular movies








A convention I have followed is that I've made my movie revolve around social issues in young children, which is the case with many Disney Original movies. My movie begins with the shot of the main protagonist (Ali) and his surroundings which help to connect the audience with both the current physical and mental state he is in.

This was done in Camp Rock (2008) in which the character Mitchie Torres who in the first few shots of the movily is heavily focused upon and her surroundings along with her family to make it obvious to the audience about the type of girl she is and her current physical and mental state, thus providing insight into the character.

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A convention which I followed was keeping my characters strictly male as it is the case in many movies, especially ones made by Columbia Pictures as it is considered by society that boys are more pre-disposed to violence than girls. This was the case in a movie similar to one of my main themes which was the Karate Kid, and in the movie, the main character who became a victim to bullying was also male and so were the bullies.

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I haven't violated any shooting conventions because I wanted my movie to be mainstream and violating shooting conventions of such movies is risky.