Audience feedback

Questionnaire

Questionnaire

1) Gender: male female

2) Age: 13-16 17-21 21-25 26-30 30+

3) Favourite genre: Comedies Horrors Action Romantic Comedies
Thrillers Sci-fi Adventure Drama Musicals Historical

4) Who do you usually go to the cinema with? Friends Family Family and Friends by yourself

5) How often do you go to the cinema? Once a week twice a week
Three times a week once a month occasionally never don’t know

6) What’s your favourite film, and what do you remember most about it?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


7) What do you expect to see in an opening sequence to a Romantic Comedy?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8) What type of comedy do you prefer? Slapstick comedy spoofs
ironic comedy parodies teen comedies ‘dumb’ comedies British humour classic comedy horror comedy ‘mock-umentaries’
screwball comedy

9) Have you ever seen a film with either homosexuality, homosexual connotations and with homophobics? Yes no

10) Would this type of film interest you? Yes no

11) The basic plot of our film is based around the main character Arthur, who is confused about his sexuality. This comes in between him and best friend Lily, who secretly has a crush on him. Rumours and stories start going around school, ending up with Arthur getting emotionally and physically hurt. Would you want to go and see this film?
Yes No

Looking back at your Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From out Preliminary task, this project has been much more stressful and time consuming. For example, there was far more complications than the last project, and was far more difficult using other students who weren't in our media group. This was because we had limited time to complete the filming, and the extras also didnt have as much time as us. As well as complications while filming, like messing up the script and forgetting to say the right thing. Also, we came across many times that other groups wanted to take out the cameras the same time as our group, so this was an issue at times. We also had some organisation problems, as none of our group were that well at organising.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From this production, I have learned many lessons about the equipment, organisation and skills. While creating our film, we came across numerous problems about the equipment, for example, there were many times when our group wanted to book the camera out, or use the edit

suite, but another group had booked it out before hand. As a group, we therefore became limited to the times we could film or edit, and this was also very time consuming, as there was many shot to log and as we re-filmed some scenes and shots. Also, I found that we had to get a lot of help from a teacher with the editing suite, as we found all the processes confusing and we counldnt remembre some of the ways to do different processes. This was mainly because we only had an hour or two slot twice a week or so, and was difficult to remember.

I found also that there was many documents that we had forgotten how to lay out, such as the treatment and the shot list, but we found our preliminary task sheets and worked out how to set them out.

Another piece of equipment that not only I, but most of my group, found difficult to use was the blogger. As this was a new website, I was unfamiliar with it at first, but over time, I got used to it and knew my way around.

How did you attract your audience?

As our product is set in a school, this immediately brings in the audience in the range on 12-18, as they themselves are at school, so they are familiar with the setting and can relate to the environment. They can relate to the fallings out through friendships, however there is also a niche audience, through homosexuality. We have used a homosexual antagonist. as this will bring in a niche audience, and is also conversive, as thi is rarely done in films. Curiosity too will bring in another audience. As we used both male and female characters, this brings in both of these audiences in, and this is therefore not biased. Age is another factor, that brings in audiences, ad

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our main target audience would be teens and adults, as this is based around teens, but looks at more deeper situations that adults would want to watch. We can get female audiences by the delicate plot of our film, and the main characters, as they can relate to the female character and can relate to the friendships within the film. We can grab the male audience of the film from also the plot of the film, and the comical side of it too. The adult audience can relate to times when they were at school, and maybe can get lost in the character and environment of the film, as they can relate to times they were at school. Also our film covers a delicate and not very widely used, and this can attract audiences, as this is rarely seen in films.

Also, the genre of our film, romantic comedy, will attract audiences that enjoy this type of film too.

How does your media product present particular social groups?

As our film was based around school, and there is a clear distinction between the 6th formers and the lower years, by their dress code. The 6th formers were wearing smartly dressed, and differed from gender and the day.

We have make sure that we have had a range of different stereotypical characters in our product, such as the 'bad boy' image of the character Alfie, for example by texting in class. We also have a caring, happy but emotional character, and this is Emily. She walks off when Arthur is ignoring her.

There is also a clue as to the social group in the music, as this is stereotypically seen as teens as this is rocky, upbeat and happy.

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

In our product, the structure of sequences follows the conventional ways of an opening sequence. We wanted to keep along the same lines as other romantic comedies, as the audience will then be able to recognise the genre and identify easily with the characters and the plot. Some things we kept the same were the introduction of characters. One way we did this, was by having a voice over for the character of Arthur, as this was an interesting and different way, and goes against the conventions. This therefore challenges the conventions of Romantic comedies. This would therefore capture the younger audience, as it is a more up-to-date way of using technology. We also created enigmas for the rest of the film and grabs the audience with a thrilling plot. If these were not included, the audience wouldn't want to watch the rest of the film. To get this information about what the audience likes, dislikes and needs, we studied other films of the same genre and copying these into our film.

In our product, we wanted to achieve a light hearted and obviously teen based opening sequence. We achieved this by use of Mise-en-scene. For example, the clothing. This was obvious to the audience the age range of the film. and the time period too. This also gave the audience incite into the characters. For example, Arthur numerously wore a long black coat, hiding his identity behind clothing. Also Alfie shows his layed back attitude by wearing light coloured shirts with the sleeves rolled up. These micro elements add to the overall style of presentation. You can also find the music shows the time period and the genre; this is a rocky, upbeat and happy song from unsigned bands, and this can show an early sign to the audience these elements, and set them ready for the rest of the film. Another micro element that is seen is the setting, this automatically shows that the film is based around school, and therefore shows the main target audience. From other media films we looked at, we had seen how these micro and macro elements can help show the audience the genre and time period by these factors, so we took this into account when getting ready.

When in the editing suite, we chose to use a small red font for the production name, to make the name stand out against a black background. This was to create a dramatic effect for the production, and this dramatic effect gets the audience ready for the film, and shows them that the film will have this affect on them too. However, we used a white outlined lettering to show the names of the actors and actresses, as this doesn't draw the attention away from the film too much, as they were conventionally shown while the actors were talking and acting.

We decided as a group to do a teen Rom-com with a twist, as we found not many films with this type of story line with the genre. We also chose this genre, as our group is surrounded by the target audience and this would thus make it easier to find additional information about what they need and what they want, and we can get this information first hand. Also, as we ourselves are the same age as the target audience, we know already what our age want, therefore making it easier to attract the audience. Our film goes against conventional genres slightly, as we are confronting a delicate subject about homosexuality, and this is rarely seen in films.

Through our pre-production, we had many ideas about what enigmas would grab the attention of the target audience, and this was quite easy to do once we had decided on the plot of our film. We challenged the forms by creating enigmas around the confusion of the main character's homosexuality, in a way that the audience laughs at the situation, but not to the extent that the audience find his homosexuality an issue; this was not what we wanted. We have also done additional research and seen from films how they have Incorporated enigmas, by what the characers say, and the situations they put themselves in, and we Incorporated this into our script and production.

We tried to introduce the main characters first, so the audience would know the antagonist character, and this is conventional, as this happens in all films. We did this by having the main character, Arthur, do a voice over telling the audience his name, and saying his school too. This is not the conventional way to introduce characters, however we felt that we needed this edge to help capture our target audience. This too was used to introduce the other main characters, Emily and Alfie, through Arthur's voice over. Another way we introduced the characters, was through edited lettering on the screen, informing the audience the actors name.

In our production, we tried to use a variety of camera angles, but keeping them natural, as we want to make the film believable and relatable. We tried to use a wide range of shots too, to show that our film was action packed. We used mostly conventional shots, like medium long and long shots. We used other camera shots such as panning, as this makes a change for the audience, to keep them interested. We also used a conventional establishing shot. These also help show we have learned from films we have studied about conventions of an opening sequence, as they have all included these shots and angles, and we have also learned how different shots can connote different meanings. For example, a lower shot onto a person shows their insignificance and makes the audience see them as a lower status, whereas a high angle shot up to a character can show they have more importance and have a higher status. We did not use this in our project, as we wanted to show everyone as equals, so we used level shots of the characters and had shots with everyone in it, to show they all have the same importance and status.

We tried to have a variety of sounds in our production, as this shows the audience that time and money would have been spent on our film, and it would be worth them seeing. We have used the conventional sounds in our product, such as a sound track at the beginning. This gives an inclination as to the type of film it will be. We also included a voice over to help inform the audience a little bit of extra information. This is quite subversive, as not many films have a voice over that are Romantic Comedies, so we decided to include this to add an edge to it, and this would also bring the . We also used a sound track over the top of our opening sequence, as this is conventional, and helps the audience know what kind of genre the film would be.

In our production, we used some special effects like fading. This can either mean a difference in time or a change or location, and this helps the audience keep up with whats happening with the story. These are conventional, and are widely used for these reasons, and is the easiest way to do so. Fading was also used when the names of the actors came up, as this eases it in, and makes it less distracting than if it had used hard cuts to pop up. These were easily done on the edit suite, as we have had practice before hand, with our preliminary task, so are familiar with the basics of the edit suite. We also had to speed up one of the shots panning across school, as we felt the original was too slow, and a waste of time.

Evaluation

Pre-production report

Mise en Scene

Throughout our production, our characters are wearing typical 6th form uniform clothes. These consist of suits for the male characters, and for the women characters, smart work style clothes. This was easy for us to do, as the characters were already wearing what was needed, as we filmed during school. The hair will change, as we will be showing different days, and therefore will need to be different. Other extras too wore the same smart clothes, apart from the lower year extras; they were wearing the school uniform. This was a burgundy blazer and black trousers or skirts.

In the classrooms, they were set out in a way that is easy to identify as a classroom, such as tables, chairs and posters. This too was easy to accomplish, as this was already done for us, we just had to get permission from the teachers. The outside of school too was already set out how we want, and didn’t need to change anything here.

We mainly used places outside, and therefore used natural lighting. This gives the atmosphere a natural feel to it, but we will have to make sure the weather is fairly consistent, so the continuity stays the same. We want the sun to be out, as this makes the overall feel of the film, as this will make the audience feel happier. We will use artificial lighting however in classrooms and places inside and these will be easy to access and use.

There will be many props used in this project, such as mobile phones. These will be used a lot, as this is shows the film is up to date, and will be used to contact one character to another, and this will also be used to create comedy. Other props include the book ‘Merchant of Venice’, as this is crucial to later parts in our film that won’t be shown. Others include typical school equipment, like notebooks, pencil cases, work books, laptops and bags. These will be used to create a sense of realism. These are the main props that we will use in our production.

For each character, they will have different character movements. For example, Arthur’s character is quite withdrawn and doesn’t make big actions. Lily’s character is bubbly, and is quite loud and will make larger movements than others. Another main character is Alfie, and he doesn’t make that much disturbance, and is ordinary in his manor of behaviour. There will be ordinary younger students walking around, and they will just be walking normally out of school. We want this to be as natural as possible, as this will further the naturalism of our film.

With this document, it ensures us that we are safe on set and will remind us to inform the cast on our set of saftey hazards and safety for the equipment.

Opening Sequence

At the beggining there is a medium long shot of Arthur sitting in his bed on his laptop. He is smiling and showing appropriate emotions fitting to the narration playing digetically in the background. While this is happening, he is typing on his blog all the things that he is saying. It is evident from Lily's facial expressions that she has feelings for Athur but he quicklly runs out of shot. Through this whole scene, there is diegetic narration over the top. It then moves into a corridor where Arthur is removing a script from his locker when Alfie appears around the corner in a really stylish way before quickly cuttin back to Arthur in his bed typing. It then cuts to Alfie appearing normally, as Arthur is again is talking over the top. Alfie briefly acknowledges Arthur, and you see a close up of his reaction, which is at first shock, but then he nods back and carries on. This then goes onto a sequence of shots showing scripts being read, pencils being chewed, facebook being checked as well as mobiles and ipods. This is then cut to a medium long shot of both Arthur and Lily on a bench in school talking about the play and Alfie. Alfie walks past and Arthur looks solemn. The opening sequence finishes with Lily leaving Arthur on the bench by himself as he sighs. There is a final screen shot of him blogging his thoughts.

Job Roles

Proposal

In our group, we decided to create a romantic comedy, as we all enjoyed this genre, and thought it would be easy enough to produce. This took some time to decide, as we all had many ideas, but chose this one in the end.

We chose to make our target audience teens to adults, as this would be easy for us to do because we ourselves are teenages, and are surround with people of these ages, therefore we know what they like. Later on, we will create a questionnaire to find out their faviourite genre and numerous other pieces of information that will help us poece together our film.

We concluded that it would be easier for our production if we based this in school, as this would create a niche audience, and would be easy access when we come to filming. This will also give us extras that we need; other students, teachers and our school friends. As some of these too are in Media AS, they would be informed about what to do on set, and if we had any difficulty with filming or equipment, this would save us time.

We will be using both natural lighting and artificial lighting. These will be done by using the sun when outside, or through the windows in a room, and light bulbs on the ceiling. Both of these will help create realism, both indoors and outdoors.

We have decided that with the conventions, we will keep the basic storyline the same; the love triangle, and the problems thst the characters incounter. We will also have the protagonist characters shown in the opening sequence, as this will reaveal to the audience who the film will be about. We will also have the title shown in the opening sequence, so the audience know what film they are watching. We will be reavealing the actor's names, the location, and the time period in the opening sequence, as this is another convention of a film, and will set the scene for the rest of the film.

We will be using a range of different camera techniques, such as panning, hard cuts and differnet camera angles, as these will help show character status, character importance and establishing shots. Fast edits will also reveal how fast pased the film will be.

We have talked about the distribution and the exhibition, and we have decided of using the 'ordinary' ways of exhibition like trailors, posters, radio adverts and adverts on popular internet sites such as facebook and twitter. This film would also be viewed in cinemas and later released on dvd.

research

The Wedding Singer

Micro/macro

Within the first couple of minutes of ‘The Wedding Singer’, there are many elements that give clues to the audience what the film is about. For starters, the first backing track that you hear, is of the main character is singing a well known 80’s song, ‘you spin my head right round’, and this is played before any images are shown, therefore focusing the attention on the singer. As this is a well known song, and is an up-beat and happy song, the audience know that they will feel this emotion through the film. Also, the audience gets a small clue that the film will be in this time period. This is also shown by the clothes that they wear, and the way they dance, as these fashions and trends were popular in the 80’s and these factors are clear to the viewer.

There are some micro subversive elements, such as the main character, Adam Sandler, is a wedding singer, and you don’t usually link the two together. This however is shown positively, therefore reinforcing it. Another Micro element is shown through the editing of the camera work. As there are many hard cuts, this shows that the film will be fast paced, and action packed. Along with editing, there are other factors such as, when the names of the actors, directors, editors etc came up, they would whoosh across the screen, and have a black background, showing the importance of that person. Within the lettering, they would have glitter on the letters, adding a bit of glamour to it, reflecting that of the film.

One major macro element of the film is that as the opening sequence is during a wedding, so the audience can assume that this is what the film will be about. Another macro factors can be seen by what the main character says during the song he’s singing. Such as “can someone get some pants on that kid” and “I’m talking to you grandma molly”. These phrases get laughs from the people in the film, as well as the audience. This then shows the audience that he is the protagonist, as he is popular and funny. Unlike the normal conventions of an opening sequence however, there is no indication of an antagonist, as this character comes in later.

There was a wide range of camera movements used in the opening sequence. For example, there was tracking and tilting, and some was taken with a hand held camera, to create a more realistic environment for the audience and so they can feel like they are there in the room. There were many different shot sizes that ranged from close up to high angle shots. These can symbolise many things. For example, the close up shots show the importance of that character, as this was for the most part only used on the main character. The high angle shots were of the people on the dance floor, so the audience can see all the characters, and be able to explore the environment more efficiently. There was also a low angle shot, and this was aimed at a few people dancing, and this could have been used to create a sense of realism for the audience, or a change in pace.

Timeline
0.00.10 – New line Cinema
0.00.18 – New line cinema again, but with music starting (*)
0.00.24 – Director’s names*
0.00.32 – Actor’s name – Adam Sandler *
0.00.39 – Actor’s name – Drew Barrymore *
0.00.48 – Title *
0.00.54 – Actor’s name – Christine Taylor *
0.01.04 – Actor’s name – Allen Covert *
0.01.17 – Actor’s name – Angela Featherstone *
0.01.22 – Actor’s name – Matthew Grave *
0.01.27 – Actor’s name – Alexis Arquette *
0.01.32 – Actor’s name – Frank Silverto *
0.01.35 – Actor’s name – Christina Pickles *
0.01.44 – Casting by__ *
0.01.51 – Music by__ *
0.01.59 – Music Supervisor by __ *
0.02.09 – Costume Design by __ *
0.02.16 – Edited by __ *
0.02.21 – Production Designer __ *
0.02.29 – Director of Photography __ *
0.02.39 – Co-Production by __ *
0.22.44 – Co-Executive Producers __ *
0.02.49 – Executive Producers *
0.02.55 – Producers *
0.03.02 – Written by __ *
0.03.16 – Director *
0.03.20 – on screen – “Ridgefield Banquet hall, 1985”

Conventions Of an Opening Sequence

During an opening sequence, the viewer is usually confronted with the an Establishing shot of the scene, and this shows the audience the setting, the time period and sometimes even the genre. The next conventional shots that the viewer sees is the protagonists (the main narrative the film is based around) and the antagonists (the character that gets in the way of the narrative progressing or the 'evil' character). These also can give away clues to the plot, the time period, the genre and the location. Another is a narrative enigma. This is where a situation comes along and builds up tention in the audience, and works towards the main plot of the story. These enigmas also keep the audience interested in the film.

History of Romantic Comedies

The western European medieval period created the romantic love situation, from the previous Ancient Greece had used sexual or social elements. However the 'romance' came to later be 'romantic love' situations rather than the heroic adventures from the medieval romance; these adventures revolved around the story line of a knight's deeds on behalf of a lady, which were later changed into the love of that woman, woven in with the idea of that deed.

Shakespearean comedy and Restoration comedy remained dominating with the start of financial level of the Gilded Age, during the post-civil war, combined with the heightened openness about sex in the Victiorian era. (1837) This was later evolved with Sigmund Freud's theories about the psychological needs for sexual desires. The beginning of the film industry in the early 20th century, involved most of these and romantic comedy was widely used. The styles of Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedies, gave way to more harmless comedy.

The French woman Virginia Woolf (1882) started creating stories that ended 'happily ever after' at the beggining of a serious relationships, and the picture of a difficult marriage.

lighting

Lighting

lighting is very important for the production in a film, as different lighting effects can help create a different atmosphere. There are three main lights, and they are fill light, key light and back light and they all have different affects.

The Key LightThe key light is the main and strongest light out of all three, as this faces towards the character at a slight angle. This will also ohighlight the background scene, and will cast off a bit of a shadow from the character. This could be used to emphasise the main character, and his importance.

The Fill Light

This is the secondary light and is placed on the opposite side of the key light. This is used to take away the shadows that are created bt the key light. Also, this light would be softer and less brighter than the Key light. this also creates a softer affect on the face of the character.

The Back Light

The Back light's primary use is to light up the behind the character. This creates a three dimentional look on the character or subject, aand creates subtle highlights arouond the character's outline. This also helps separates the background from the character. This could be used to hide the character's face, if no other light would be used, and this would help create a thrilling, and mysterious scene.

You can also have another light to light up the background. This can be used to make the background more visable, if it is important.

This was our attempt to recreate this 1980's image. I think that we got it quite similar, minus the fact that it was not in a dark room, so there is far more light that the origional image. We captured the shadows under the eyes, cheekbones, nose, lip and chin well and these was done by using a key light.

This too was another image that we copied. I think we again got this quite well, as we have the same highlight on the cheeks, lip, nose and forehead. The positioning too is quite similar. In the origional image, there was a back light and a key light.

Out of all the images we managed to copy, I think this one went the best, as we have the same defined shadows, and positions as the origional. Also, the shadows are in the right places; one side of the nose, one side of the hand, cheekbones and neck. We used a fill light that was close up to the model, and a back light to highlight the hair and ear, although you can not see this.


This task was more complicated than we had initially expected, as it was hard to get the right positioning of the model, as well as the lighting. we also spent some time working out what lights were used in the image.