Presentation evaluation

In the pointers below I am explaining the advantages and the disadvantages of my presentation. Overall, I think my presentation was very confident and interesting however, there was still room for improvements. This below is all my aspects which worked well for my presentation:

1) The first aspect which worked well about my presentation was that my presentation and designs worked accordingly to the topic which gave the audience a clear cut definition of what my studies about. Also, by picking these specific slides and designs, attracted and engages the audience to keep watching and listening to the presentation.

2)The second aspect which worked well in my presentation was the information of which it consisted. In particular i had good coherent explanations about the theory of media; I used media terminology to depict my text. Moreover, I attempted to included all theorists in my presentation so I will have a wider understanding when writing my study up.

In the points below I will explaining what features did not work well with my presentation and how can they be improved for the next presentation.

1) The first feature which needs to be improved for my presentation will be making my key concepts more detailed. The reason being is that currently my points are very narrow and vague. They need to be more detailed so that I can really get within grips with my study so that it will show the examiner that I have really thought about it.

2) The second feature which needs to be improved is the actual pace of the presentation as it was too quick. I need to make my speech more slower so that the audience can understand clearly my points. This needs to take place so that the audience can get to know in detail what my study is about and maybe generate some future ideas for me.

3) My final feature which needs to be improved is by adding my pictures in my presentation. This is so that audience can create assumptions about the characters if the audience have not seen the film. Also, as I had hardly any pictures i noticed that I was doing alot of the talking which audience members then not paying attention and becoming easily distracted. If i had added more pictures from the start then I probably would have draw the audience further.

Movie Reviews

Cinema Blend: www.cinemablend.com/reviews/Mean-Girls-502.html

Reviewed by Joshua Tyler

Mean Girls is a movie viciously poking fun at teen cliché’s in the most obvious ways possible. The popular kids are always the prettiest and because they are pretty they are all of course bitches. But somewhere in there Mean Girls is still brilliant, showcasing outlandish and insanely sarcastic humor, the type that might slip out the corner of your mouth when no one else is looking. The jokes are random and unpredictable; the story itself, while wrapped in cliché seems to be more interested in making fun of itself than fully exploring those.

This is a movie so packed with offhand jokes and quick hits that it’s impossible not to miss at least some of them. While I’m not sure Fey’s script ever totally transcends the Clueless-like genre into which it dips, it gives great belly laughs on the sly. Fey really is one of the most original comedy writers working today. Her humor is biting and sharp, enough to make Mean Girls stand tall in an already comedically strong movie year. Yet I can’t totally shake the feeling that had it not been at least marginally targeted towards teenage girls the cruelty could have been taken further.

Summer Research Task...."Mean Girls" (2004)

Media Representations

The media representations of the film "Mean Girls" is a mixture of different stereotypical views of a girl. However the main protagonist (girl on the left in the picture) representation changes throughout the film as in the beginning she is represented as a shy, intelligent girl as she is new to the school. As she progresses with school life as her representation of a shy, intelligent girl changes to a sexual object by pampering herself up and wearing provocative clothing just as the three girls on the right in the picture.

They are being represented in this way to show the teenage audience the lifestyle of the stereotypical girl. This is done to add a bigger impact on the audience so that the audience can relate to the characters, making them more intrigued in the film.

The representation i believe is a not a fair realistic view as I think that it has been exaggerated to add humour to the screen. A clear sign of this is that they made the three bad girls all bimbos which suggests that all the "promiscuous girls" in society are bimbos. However they did challenge the representation by adding Linsley Lohan to be the clever, fourth member of the evil clan.

Media Languages and Forms

Within the film there are different levels of denotative and connotative meaning, however the connotations levels were much higher which means they are a lot more meaningful. For example, in the film poster above the main character is wearing a red jumper and the colour red connotes things such as love and danger in which she was both faced within the film.


The clothing and gestures were key aspects for the films message to come across as the audience knew how a character was represented just by their clothing and gestures. As the "Mean Girls" were represented as bimbos alot of hand gestures were used to show the groups secrecy that they obtained.



The film was largely set within the premises of a High School which distinguished the audience to be teenagers. The shopping mall was another key setting in the film as this where the girls loved to shop for their outfits and check out guys. A final key setting that was used was at Regina's house were the scrapbook was made about all the other students in the school.

The commentary that is in the film is all Linsey Lohan's thought, as us the audience can hear her thoughts. This puts the audience in Linsey's point of view. The voice over on Linsey's thoughts, acts as a sound bridge over certain actions and soundtracks playing simultaneously.

The main iconic figure that kept on appearing in the film was the colour pink. The colour pink is a girly colour and is associated with femininity. In the film the colour pink is worn constantly by the "Mean Girls" as it is their favourite colour.

Narrative

The narrative of the film follows a simplistic chronological order to that of Todrov's theory whereby he spoke about the equilibrium, disequilibrium and the new equilibrium. Also us being the audience were forced to see the point of view from the main character Linsey as she was the centre of attention and the voice over was coming from her thoughts, so we knew what she was thinking at certain points in the film.

The hero's and villains were adapted from the stereotypes to that of high school life. "The Hot Chick" was the villain and Linsey was the hero, showing at the end of the film that good does overcome evil. However, the twist in the narrative was when Linsey joined forces with the "Mean Girls" and adopted the same evil features they had.

The sound and music within the film plays a important role as it sets the mood for the audience. The majority of the sound and music that was featured was mainly soft flowing music to give a sense of a cool calm and collective atmosphere which is mostly associated to girls. However, hard hitting music was played to show tension between the girls.

The major themes that the narrative embodies is love, as the whole battle in the end was over the boy that Linsey loved and Regina too. Another theme that is clear within the film is friendship and it shows that you should keep your friends and don't try and be someone your not.

Genre

The genre of the is a hybrid genre as it is a mix between both drama and comedy. The film makes reference to both a drama film and a comedy film by having serious issues raised in a humours way to have a different impact on the audiences reaction. The major generic conventions that are used in the film are humour, suspense and the battle between good vs evil. The iconic features within the film were features such as the colour pink, the provocative clothing, the phallic symbols of make up (the shape of the eye liner) and the scrapbook that was produced by the characters.

The audience's generic expectations I believe are fulfilled in the film as the expectation was that in the end good would overcome evil and it did. Lindsay overcame Regina by being the bigger person and speaking out loud and telling the truth the whole school.

The film stars the big teenage Hollywood superstar Lindsay Lohan as the main protagonist. Lohan is best known for her romantic chick flicks or her high school romance films. In a way "Mean Girls" is a film which is similar to the ones that she has starred in making her the perfect actress to star in it.

Media Institutions

Director- Mark Waters
Filomgraphy: 500 Days of Summer
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Just like Heaven
Sorry, Haters
Mean Girls
Freaky Friday
Head over Heels
The house of yes



Paramount Pictures is a mainstream hollywood film production and have produced hundreds of films. Paramount Pictures is a very established film production industry and competes against the best such as Universal Studios.





The film "Mean Girls" was distributed in many ways such as film trailers, film posters, tv adverts and many more.

Media Values and Ideologies

The major values and ideologies that are embeded within this film vary from love, to status, to friendship. However, the most pronoun of them all would be is being yourself and not somebody else because then people won't the real you.

The criteria that has been used to select this type of film was the stereotypical views of females in high school and how their lifes can change just by making new friends.

Media Audiences

The film "Mean Girls" is targeted to a primary audience of teenage girls. The reason they are the primary audience is becuase they can relate to the text with issues or problems they might have (personal realtionship). The secondary audience would be teachers and school for survillance purposes so that they can see what students are like.

The scale of the audience is on a large scale for teenager girls as the population is never ending and there is never a decline in the amount of teenage girls. The possible audience readings for teenage girls for this particular text would be to learn to trust your friends and for them to understand the mening of being yourself.

Overall, I think that "Mean Girls" is a good helpful film for teenage girls all over the world as at most high school there are "mean girls" there who like to pick and bully others. Therefore, this was a good eye opener for girls to see how to cope with certain situations that do occur at high school.