Our media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products in many ways. It is based on Honour Killing. It is an original idea and was mainly inspired by the Riaz Family Tragedy which occurred in 2005-06. It is a family/ relationship genre and the equipment used were camera, tri pod and imovie for editing. It was crucial to use the typical elements as it gave the sequence a sense of familiarity and it gave us the chance to meet the standard the target audience expects.
It was vital to do something new with a genre as it would hook the audience and the outcome would be different to what is expected from this type of genre.
I believe my innovation would be a success as the concept, theme and narrative was original, it is a sensitive subject and we approached the sensitivity in a mature manner and reflected the theme thoroughly without being biased or critical and without immaturity.
Burn In Love fulfils the requirements of an opening sequence as we have kept the duration of the sequence so that too much of the narrative is not revealed. It also fulfils the requirements of the Family / Relationship Drama Genre as it is based on the story of a mother and daughter, we see their relationship and the destruction of it, through flashbacks we visualize the events that contributed to the mother’s insanity. We see flashbacks from ’Grim’ times to ’Happy’ times and the climax of the sequence.
Burn In Love represents particular social and ethnic groups such as women, young people. These groups were represented by the use of costumes, appearance, actions, setting, use of lighting and music. Appearance played a major impact on our media product as it required specific character stereotypes, we required an Asian Mother, through costume lighting and make up we were able to achieve the look of a typical Asian mother stereotype. This stereotype is mainly like a housewife stereotype but it also consists of a mysterious veiled victim of male oppression and an uneducated foreigner.
The actions and activities carried out in the sequence represented social groups as the scene in which the daughter is with a male friend represents the social group of college students, however the mother represents the social group of a psychotic woman/mother.
The use of no speech enhanced the narrative further, it made the sequence look dynamic and functional. We have used various settings to represent various social groups such as, the mise en scene and location - the house created an sense of personalization it reflected the social group of the mother and the college reflects the group of students and young adults.
The lighting varies throughout the sequence, the clip starts off with dark lighting the effect this has is unnatural and unsettling, then as the clip evolves into the flashback, the lighting changed to natural lighting this reflected the happier times and the dark lighting reflected the dark moments in the protagonist’s life.
We intended on creating a sequence in Flashback Form this reflected the mother’s state of mind clearly and how confused she was about the situation. We used various transitions to reflect feelings and emotions that reflect the mental stability of the characters, we used the following transitions: slow/reverse/forward, Flash burn, credits, each element had a different effect which made the clip more sensitive. The editing pace varied between the shots, the flashbacks were deliberately slowed down to show that the mother is reminiscing, the present tense shots were created with normal speed which gave the shots a contemporary feel. The non-digetic sound creates an emphasis on emotion and feelings.
The most successful shots were in particular those in the dark, these made the clip more exiting yet more meaningful, in contrast to the dark shots were the natural lighting shots these were also effective as they made the sequence more complex. The editing style we incorporated was suitable to our chosen genre as it caused bewilderment and did not reveal the story straight away.As our idea was original and there was not much stereotyping on the characters, therefore we took up a challenge in order to create a realistic approach to the character of the mother, we tried to represent her in a realistic manner and fulfilled that as she does not look fake, also the audience responded as we wished as the characters looked realistic and not incompetent.
Film 4 produced a drama which entailed a similar story to Burn In Love called Yasmin. Which was produced in 2004, was about Yasmin, a British Pakistani, who lives two lives in two different worlds: in her community, she wears Muslim clothes, cooks for her father and brother and has the behaviour of a Muslim woman. Further, she has a non-consumed marriage with the illegal immigrant Faysal to facilitate the British stamp in his passport, and then divorce him. In her job, she changes her clothes and dresses like a Westerner, is considered a standard employee and has a good Caucasian friend who likes her. After the September, 11th, the prejudice in her job and the treatment of common people makes her take side and change her life.
The target audience for Burn In Love would be male and female age ranged between 16 + as anyone younger than this would not understand the narrative, it would be watch mainly by Asians as the central characters are Asian however people of any nationality could watch is as the story is straightforward. The universal themes we encountered were mainly love and revenge, these made the narrative appeal to a wider audience.
This target audience is suitable for the product financially as it relates to the lifestyle of many people therefore it would be supported throughout.
Our product gained a positive reaction from the target audience and proved a success, we gained constructive feedback and very little criticism.
The events that occur Burn In Love are not chronological, however at the start we created a sense of time and place but each event occurs in a different place hence we captured all the places individually and the time was also reflected in the sequence.
We used binary opposition to create conflict in characters and situations, such as the difference in age of the characters which created a contrast in the roles, it also created a conflict in the lifestyles of characters and nature of the characters as there is Good vs. Evil, Honor vs. Disgrace, , Mother vs Daughter, East vs West and Past vs Present.
The ideologies Burn In Love gives an insight to the typical “Asian Family Honor”, and what honor means to these people, the effect this has on people is disturbing, the stone hearted mother’s behavior is unaccountable and not required yet her nerves take over and the consequences shock the audience, as this is so shocking the audience is kept hooked into the sequence.
We have used technology in many different ways whilst creating the sequence, we created a blog, the internet for research and YouTube. We used camcorder, tripod, imovie and music sites. In the blogs we included articles, YouTube clips, images and other information. We included all this information on our blog by embedding, copying, CDS/Pendrives, videos (old footage), external hardrive and the camera.
I have learnt many things about technology during the creation process of the clip. I learnt that shots can be edited in various ways which can give the clip a different look and gives the opportunity to visualize the narrative thoroughly, by using technology to edit the shots gives the sequence a more complex look and there are very little limitations that impose on our ambitions.
We used technology to receive feedback by creating questionnaires and asking for their point of views on the sequence, this was effective as we got various answers, the majority of the audience understood the concept and were pleased with the product overall, yet some people did not understand the concept of the flashbacks.
Since the preliminary task I have learnt a lot of things in regards to the sequence using technology, I think Burn In Love is better in a number of ways as when we shot this we knew a lot more about cinematography, lighting, mise en scene, sound and editing, also the use of using the transitions and effects also enhanced the clip which made the concept a lot more interesting. We experimented with the compositions of shots and used a various types of shots. The editing, cuts and fades were a lot more smoother and the sequence was flowing properly, the concept was more interesting and the character building was done in a better way, we created characters in a more obvious way, the titles and fonts, layout, and varied colour scheme created a more interesting and effective sequence.
Burn In Love was a very successful sequence due to the sensitivity of the genre, the key strengths of the clip are the flashbacks and the cliffhanger at the end however this clip could be improved to make it more effective. One improvement that can be made is that we could do more shots of the mother throwing petrol around the room, this would make the clip more realistic. I believe if this concept was taken further it would be a success as the idea is original and it is sensitive, therefore had to be handled with maturity or else it would not appear realistic, I think we incorporated the realism of the situation and handled the concept with maturity therefore Burn In Love was a success.
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