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

Location & Lighting

Most musicals are shot in big cities. For example Chicago is shot in Chicago and on a huge stage. We decided to shoot in Piccadilly Circus because it’s a popular place in London and it has loads of tourist attractions and a theature.

A hall or stage as a rehearsal area is also very common in musicals. In Chicago, the use of a spotlight is very effective, so we decided to use one as well.

Costume & Characters

Costume is very important in musicals because it helps differentiate characters and stereotypes. Even though in musicals, most characters wear bright colours, in Chicago they don’t. They were dressed in dark coloured clothing be it more of a serious, mature production rather than Hairspray were everything is happy and jolly.

 

Music

In musicals, the songs are similar to the films narrative. In our film opening there was no singing. We had our character going to practise for an audition; it’s a build up to the main performance which would come later on in the film. We used an upbeat son sung by a young person which was from the musical genre. The song fitted perfectly with the film because it fitted the narrative.

Shots used

Through out the research, we noticed that high angle and low angle shots were used a lot.

We used both low angle and high angles shots in our movie opening. These shots helped us show facial expressions and location. We used a low angle shot to show how small she is compare to the big city. This shot also helps us establish her excitement of the attractions.