1a) Explain how you used digital technology to adhere to or deviate from the conventions of real media texts?

When planning our film we had multiple ideas in mind to use digital technology to adhere to the conventions of a romantic comedy film. Some we managed and some we weren't quite able to do as, ironically, we didn't have digital technology that was high tech enough.

Our trailer for @ccidentally in Love used the song Watch the Sun Come Up, by the artist Example. This is because it is a feel good song with a fun vibe. It has a strong feeling of romance about it that fits our film perfectly. As well as this is also a popular song. As our Film is a Rom com it's most likely directed at a mainstream audience, therefore choosing a popular song that they would have heard, is a good idea as it increases the chance them liking it and wanting to watch more of it. We did however have to edit this song a little, but this was because we were using yet more digital technology in order to adhere to real media texts...this was the well-known trick of a voice over introduction. We used Garage Band, a sound-editing program on the apple macs to, make certain parts of the song a little quieter when we had narration voice-overs and also for when we had dialogue. This was not a difficult task, and we made sure they were nicely faded in and out gradually giving it a professional edge. After the dialogue we then faded it up gradually but really well. The point in which we were doing this in this song was perfect as it was a small interlude in which the song was naturally meant to get louder. It was also leading up to the chorus of the song, this was great as it was the start of a new part of our trailer where we have a montage of Lucy and Ben smiling and on dates etc, all very typical of a Rom Com trailer.

To record the voice over we just used the Apple Macs, this was very easy process and wasn't too difficult. It's always very conventional for romantic comedies to have an introductory voice over as it sets the feel for the movie. Therefore taking the opportunity of the technology we had to do this was great.

As the song we used was a huge feature in our trailer we really tailored the editing to it, this makes it feel and look like there is a lot of effort put into it, which is very professional feeling. There is a point at the start where we completely edit to the beat of the music, just 0.1 seconds a shot. The shot moves up her arm, there are quick flashes of her hands typing in-between this. This it a very quick thing and it goes perfectly with the music, in which there is a particularly quick beat. It's a quirky introduction, with a professional edge. Really including the song, heightens it's meaning and relates it more to the movie, this is something a lot of real media texts do and it increases publicity as that one song is going to remind people of the film and how they fit together well. A real life example of this is the song Sweet Disposition, used in the trailer for 500 Days of summer. The song was used for all the trailers and in the film too with a lot of the shots edited to the music. After a while it became instantly recognisable as 'the song used on 500 Days of Summer'. We took a lot of inspiration from this film and felt embracing a good song choice was one of them.

There was one amazing thing that we wanted to do, but our level of digital technology in school did not let us, this was the famous split screen effect. We wanted to use this to show both Helena, Ingrid’s and Lucy's faces all looking shocked, all on the same screen but Lucy as the main feature. This is used in many film trailers as it lets you fit a many characters in as possible in such little time. It's also a really fancy feature that looks great and professional. Unfortunately we could not do this on the apple macs, as the program we have isn't the most advanced. This was shame, but we don’t feel it took anything away in particular from our trailer; it just would have been great in creating the effect of a real life trailer.