Welcome to my A2 media blog. I'm Angela Chen and my candidate number is 9025. I am working in a group with Thakshana Yogeswaran(9179), Monica Aghadiuno(9365) and Godgift Emesi (9044). We are group 3. To navigate my blog please click on the 3 labels to the right of the page below named A2 Research and Planning, A2 Construction and A2 Evaluation.
Group 3 - Music Video
Group 3 - Digipak
Our Digipack, top left - back, top right - front, bottom left - inside panel, bottom right - inside panel (CD)
This is a link to our website, click the image above to enter our site
Behind the scenes on the shoot day showing how what each of us got up to behind the camera and our love for the project as well as our support for our fellow classmates.
I think my prelim experience was awesome and would definitely prepare me for next term's music video coursework in every aspect.
1. I would be prepared to take on any role having had the experience of playing Hayley Williams and remember the advice I got from professional people.
2. I know who I would like to work with and who I work best with which is an important aspect when trying to create a project.
3. I will be prepared for the editing as I am familiar with how long it takes to edit a music video as well as the various functions I have learnt how to use on Premier.
4. Watching Jack film everyone on the shoot day gave me valuable insight into how to work the camera and get cool frames and varied camera movement.
5. Planning for the shoot day and casting is essential as even with an edit schedule we were running late. Also next term's music video might require help from non-media students meaning we need to be organised.
My film opening sequence uses the conventions of romantic comedies in style and form and also develops and challenges the conventions of rom coms in narrative and genre. It has taken inspiration from 5 main media : John Tucker Must Die, The Inbetweeners, Superbad, 22 Jump Street, and the Big Bang Theory.
Plot
The Life of Guy is about the life of a student named Guy who is nerdy, socially awkward and has no luck in his love life. We follow his home life and school life as he gets rejected on his first blind date and then befriends a girl at school who guides him on how to interact with people and how to dress. He goes through many experiences such as social events and ends up in a relationship with the girl of his dreams.
1. FORM - Please watch the first 2 minutes of John Tucker Must Die
2. GENRE: Typical characters/behaviour
In rom com films there is a typical group of characters:
The main lead - could be a princess or hero
The side lead - comedic character
The love interest - girl or boy
The lead's opponent for love interest or the villain
Another villain
Mean Girls
The trailer
Lead - Cadey Heron
Side lead - Janis Ian
Love interest - Aaron Samuels
Opponent for love interest - Regina George
Another villain - the plastics in general and mean students
Life of Guy
Main lead - Guy
Side lead - Lindy
Love interest - was Bella, becomes Sophie
Villains - boys at school who make fun of him
Typical events
Rom coms usually contain light-hearted, humourous events centred on the ideal that true love can help people overcome any obstacle.
It would start with an argument/falling out with current love interest or having no luck with love
Then boy meets girl or vice-versa who are meant to be for each other but are kept apart by differences.
They overcome each obstacle, getting closer despite a few fallouts
Finally they can officially be together in either a relationship or marriage.
Pretty woman is considered the most successful film in the romantic comedy genre.
Typical themes
Love
Friendship
Betrayal (light-hearted/for comedy)
School/Work
Personal journey
Themes wise the Life of Guy is very conventional - it follows his love life with girls such as Bella and Sophie, his friendship with Lindy and other guys, the rejection/betrayal of Bella and how he changes by the end of the film.
Typical mise-en-scene:
Setting: usually in the city or a town, an urban place. Set at school or workplace.
Costumes: usually each character is dressed to represent a social group but generally do not try to follow up-to-date trends. Appearances are low-key unless the characters are fashionable. Examples of fahisonable characters are found in Mean Girls, Clueless and GBF.
Lighting: high-key, clear, natural looking, warm
3. NARRATIVE GENRE
Our film's narrative follows the classic conventions of Todorov's Theory. In the middle column is the Mean Girls narrative and on the right column is Life of Guy's narrative in comparison.
Specific narrative techniques we used:
Flashback - our opening is not edited as a flashback but shows the past events of how Guy met Bella which is also explained through the voiceover. Guy looks back on himself and reflects on what his life used to be like.
Narrative Ellipsis - we cut out certain unnecessary scenes such as him walking back to his room from the bathroom to cut out potentially boring scenes and in order to speed up the pace - the audience can fill in the gap themselves.
Enigma Code - The audience will be left with wondering: What will happen to Guy after? How will he handle the break up? Will his life ever change? Who will he meet next?
Cross Cutting - We used cross cutting from Guy running down the street to Bella waiting outside the take away for him and then back to him running.
Role of characters and how they move plot along Propp's theory
Biggest breaks in conventions
Guy being a male lead who is a victim at first but becomes the hero.
Guy having a female friend who he does not end up going out with.
4.STYLE
We used the Life of Riley as our soundtrack.Not only did we like it because of it's similar name to our film opening, we liked it as a happy, upbeat song which is often used in comedy films to set a light-hearted mood. It also emphasises Guy's happy-go lucky personality in the opening.
We also employ a voiceover like many comedy films such as 500 days of Summer and Easy A do. Similarly Guy reflects on what he used to be like and tells us his story from his future point of view.
Please watch the first 5 minutes of Easy A.
We've decided to go with bright warm colours and achieved this using spotlights and natural sunlight. This warm colour palette and high key lighting is a conventional style of comedy films.
We have gone with white funky font for our titles as they are simple and informal as if they could be written by hand. This appeals to our target audience of students and teens as it creates a youthful, informal style to the opening. Simple titles are used in John Tucker Must Die and funky titles are used in She's The Man.
Our media product mainly represents the first social group through the voice over, gestures, appearance and props.
Our opening starts off in a boy's bedroom which is neat, simple consisting of a PC, Tv, Xbox games and game posters on his walls. These props connote his gamer fanatic lifestyle and slightly geeky personality. He even has a Call of Duty themed calender.
We drew inspiration from The Big Bang Theory in which the set is very dressed up and shows off everyone's nerdy personalities and interests. Everything is tidy and there is a telescope to accentuate their interests in space, numerous books, PCs and other gadgets.
This gif shows guy's weird side and makes the audience laugh at him but also like him as it portrays him in a slightly adorable, childish light.
Who brushes their beard? Only Guy. This scene engages the audience who will crack smiles as he does a strange thing yet again.
This gif shows Guy running in an unusual way for comedic effect and adds to his lift of unusual behaviour which connotes the opposite of cool and reserved.
However it is his voiceover and gestures that really accentuates his nerdy persona and awkwardness. From Guy picking out a bad outfit and styling his hair horribly to looking in the mirror thinking he looks good, shows just how wrong his judgments are of certain situations. This is typical of the social group we want to represent. The looking into the camera scene below was inspired by The Inbetweeners movie scene where everyone gets ready for their first night out abroad. The audience can't help but laugh at their weird actions as they are funny yet very much relatable.
Guy's gestures connote his social awkwardness as he introduces himself in a traditional, business like way to Bella; he shakes her hand rather than giving her a kiss on the cheek or a hug which would be more modern, friendly and date appropriate.
This is inspired by the awkward way Seth tries to talk to Becca in Superbad. Despite having feelings for her, his nervousness and inexperience results in him referring to her as a 'sister' and trying to nicely punch her on the arm.
The voiceover also reveals that the current changed Guy also thinks he used to be uncool and oblivious as to how he should handle social situations.
Bella represents the social group of stylish girls who want relationships but have certain standards.
Guy's voiceover also represents the cool guy who has friends as Guy's personality and lifestyle have changed by the end of the film. This is reflected by what he says. He admits he used to have a lack of friends and probably turned away many girls from talking to him as a result of the way he dressed and behaved.
20th century fox is our distribution institution for our media product. It one of six major film studios. They are widely known for distributing Hollywood, blockbuster films and have distributed many successful rom coms.
We chose 20th Century Fox because as well as having distributed some of the most highest grossing films in history such as the Titanic and Avatar, it distributes films from almost every genre. One rom com that they have distributed is John Tucker Must Die which we based our title sequence on. Another film they've distributed is the Life of Pi which is what inspired our title.
Life of Guy's release plan
A global saturation release in cinemas which will be staggered
A UK premiere at London's Leicester Square as it is a British production company
A US premiere in Los Angeles which will create a buzz and word of mouth just before the release
When: Initial release will be in the summer at the end of July in the UK and US as many people will be off school and work for their summer holidays so there is a greater chance of them going out and visiting the cinema.
Other formats: There will also be a DVD and Blu-Ray release once the film has been theatrically streamed in the last country of release.
This release plan is inspired by the release of The Night at The Museum: Secret of the Tomb which is a comedy also distributed by 20th century fox. It had a UK premiere in Leicester Square London on the 15th of December which creates a lot publicity for the film. Because 20th century fox is so vertically and horizontally integrated, it can afford to market a distribute a film like The Life of Guy. Also with 20th century fox's long standing history of successful films, it will give Life of Guy a boost in publicity with people knowing a reputable distribution company is behind it.
Marketing
Bus posters all over the UK with Guy, his bestfriend, girlfriend and another guy on the front of the poster standing side by side.
Global billboard posters
Official YouTube trailer
Official facebook page and Twitter feed
TV spots on channels such as ITV, Channel 4 and E4
Trailer will be played at the cinema before films of the same age rating such as The Duff.
A traditional marketing plan works well for our film just as it did with The Diary of a Wimpy Kid which was also distributed by 20th century fox.
The Life of Guy appeals to three main audience groups:
Core: Rom com fans
Rom com film fans are a very diverse audience group and so our film being mainly identified with this genre ensured it was very playable as there is a huge market for comedy films.
Secondary: Teens/young people aged 15-24
The characters in The Life of Guy are all in this age group and are students which makes the film very relatable to young people. They also provide role models for young people to aspire to.
Tertiary: British people
Since our film has a British cast and is set in London, it has a national appeal.
This graph show that the 15-24 age group make up the biggest demographic of cinema visitors thus young people are a huge market to target.
Though some films may target fans of other genres for example BH6 which targets superhero film fans as well as animation film fans, we were not targeting fans of action, sci-fi or adventure/fantasy films Our film is exclusively rom com and does not connote aspects of other genres such as life on other planets, magic powers, or crime.
We made specific decisions such as on the mis-en-scene and narrative of The Life of Guy to appeal to specific audiences however our continuity editing and style appeals to the general audience.
Blumler and Katz’s uses and gratification theory suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media to best fulfill his/her needs.
Personal Identity
Finding reinforcement for personal values
The opening actually portrays Guy as someone people do not want to be like. However the voice-over provides a role model for guys who have either ever been socially awkward or just had no luck in their relationships as it’s the voice of a changed Guy who now has a social life and better judgement.
Relationships
Using the media to identify with others and gain a sense of belonging
Many audiences can relate to Guy’s actions and voice-over such as his bad outfit and cold shower and the fact that he now knows he used to act and look like such a muppet. As well as finding him funny, the audience can empathise with his embarrassing actions, perhaps having done or experienced similar things in the past and find him like-able.
Diversion
The need to escape from everyday life and relax.
Escapism is offered when through Guy’s actions such as brushing his beard and running weirdly. These events entertain the audience and the use of camerawork such as pans and using the camera as a mirror for Guy and style of editing make the opening very realistic as if the audience were watching a tv episode on someone else’s life . This distracts them from their own.
Surveillance
Using the media to find out information (such as about how current school life is like)
In our opening people we get to find out how Guy, a socially awkward person is like. We see his home life and learn about his hobbies, tendencies and his blind date routine which shows us more of his personality.
I gathered some audience feedback to see what my real life target audiences would actually think of the film opening and whether they would watch it if it was a film.
I asked 9 acquaintances the following question and the all replied with a yes.
I asked 3 people on Facebook to tell me in detail what they thought of The Life of Guy.
I have learnt quite a lot about the technologies involved in the construction of my film opening sequence. Skills that I have gained include:
Overall I think the technologies I learned to use were generally efficient, effective and professionally modern. The filming equipment was sufficient for amateur filming and the editing software was very up to date. I enjoyed using them.
From the preliminary task to the final product of our film opening sequence I have learnt a lot in the pre-production, production and post-production stages of filming.
This is the result of our preliminary task.
The prelim brief
"Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule."
The film opening brief "To produce a 2 minute opening for a fiction film. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright free source. It should be clear from your sequence who the target audience is." The prelim brief was very specific as it detailed exactly what it wanted us to create apart from the actual dialogue and mis-en-scene in comparison to the film opening brief which was much more open, allowing us to show as much of our own creativity as we wanted.
I really like our final outcome. Although it's not perfect, it came a long way and improved in all aspects of production and post-production such as the storyline, acting, camera framing, following continuity conventions, music and voice-over.
Highlights of the project:
I really liked coming up and working with the narrative and themes of Life of Guy with my team
I loved filming and directing at the shoot sessions during which we all had many laughs.
I liked editing on Adobe Photoshop as it wasn't completely new to me which meant that I wasn't clueless and could polish and learn more skills.
Blogging my progress was time-consuming but allowed me to be creative and is more exciting than creating numerous word or publisher documents.
Turning the Life of Guy into something my group can be proud of was hard-work but satisfying.
Finally it was a joy working with my awesome team who are very cooperative and supportive.
Low-points of the project:
There were not many lowpoints as I really did enjoy this project.
Shooting sessions seemed long at times but we had regular breaks and laughs
Editing was more intensive in the second week and we didn't have a third opinion on things.
We couldn't get a hold of Superhero boxers which would have made the underwear scene less awkward and more comedic.
If we had more time:
I would've considered shooting more during our filming sessions as the narrative flow did not end up being perfect and editing can't help to cover up awkward shots or breaks in continuity all the time.
Maybe we could have created our titles on LiveType rather than on Adobe Premiere as they weren't cinematic and could have looked better.
How I hope our finished film will be received by the audience:
I hope our audience really like our opening sequence as we spent a lot of time and effort on it
I hope they can relate to and laugh at Guy.
I hope just as many guys as girls are willing to watch it and find it funny
I hope that they think our voiceover is clever
I hope they like it enough to want to watch the rest of the film if it were ever made.
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