Point 21 - The Sound

The sound for our opening title was going to be a mixture of soundtrack and voice-over narration. It starts with narration in the playground scenes and then cuts to a motownish/funky track when you see the male actor much older and when he's walking down the road. It then cuts out straight away when he falls over onto the zebra crossing and then when walking into his office calm music is playing to set the location of an office job and then it fades once he recieves the invitation from his secretary and dialogue takes place between the secretary and Gordon Twiginam.

Point 20 - Storyboard

Point 19 - Narrative Theorists

When researching the narrative theorists I quickly realised that a lot of the theories fitted to our groups narrative for our film task. For example, Propp's theory of having 8 stereotypical characters matches our characters as we have a villan (the bullies), a princess (the girl crush) and a prince (the main nerdy character who gets the princess in the end) With Todorov our equilibrium is the main male character getting on fine in life, the disruption is him getting invited to the Reunion and embarassing himself and the re-equilibirum is getting the girl and the school bullies becoming nice. Strauss's binary opposition theory takes place also with evil vs good and female vs male.

 

So through this task I've discovered these theories still relate to the media nowadays even though they were created in the late 20th century they still take place and help create big hollywood blockbusters.

 

Point 18 - Story Arc

A brief sypnosis of the whole film:

• The film starts with a young man narrating over the top of the opening titles. He is giving the audience background information into his life mainly about how he was bullied in primary school and wasn't very popular. We are given the oppression that he like a girl in this act.

• It then goes into the present day where he is much older and shows him to be successful. Although physically he has changed into a man his appearance is still dorky and his social skills still lacking within the office environment. Whilst at work he receives an invitation to his High School Reunion and his past comes back to haunt him.

• He visits his parents on the weekend to receive advise, they give him encouragement to return to high school. The whole high school reunion adventure takes part through out the weekend.

• He arrives at the hotel and the first group of people he meets is the gang of bullies, who pestered him at school. They haven't matured at all resulting in mocking of the main character as he has been tripped up by one of them.

• The film then goes on to show the whole weekend. The main character determined to impress ends up in a lot of embarrassing situations. The main embarrassment is when he tries to approach his old high school crush. However through all these embarrassing moments and a large disruption within the story line, the main character ends up with his high school crush. Resulting in the group of bullies leaving him alone

Films like the ones below will give you an idea of what we are aiming for:

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE
YOU AGAIN
GROWN UPS
ROMY AND MICHELE’S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

Point 17 - Key Elements

Here are the key elements that need to be shown in our film opening in order to conform to the expectations of the genre we have chosen, the audience we have chosen and what is expected of a film opening:

• The name of the film has to appear (when the guy is walking)
• The production company's name is mentioned
• The writer, co-producer etc titles appear (when the little kids are playing in the playground)
• A voice-over is used when showing the titles
• The lead actor's name appears when he appears on screen
• It hints the genre of comedy by the actor making mistakes i.e falling over at the beginning with his briefcase
• The narrator is introducing himself and giving background information. Through this he his giving hints about the storyline about what the film is about
• Actor = A guy of a young age, preferably 20-25 years old, so a similar age to our target audience
• When the lead actor receives the invitation to the reunion and it comes to the end of the opening it's clear there is a drama storyline unfolding and the audience are eager to find out what happens next. This is key when creating an opening as it needs to grab the audience straight away.
• Through using young actors and showing a modern era by a man having an office job etc it should interest our target audience of a 'townie' who are a tribe that are very recent and up-to-date with things.

Point 16 - Research on Institutions

Research on Institutions on Prezi

Point 15 - 'Pearl and Dean' website

When looking on the Pearl and Dean website and in the business section I learned about how the industry categories their audiences.

They commented on the drastic change in cinema over the past decade, showing people how it used to be all about the Hollywood blockbusters but nowadays people are more likely to watch a heartfelt documentary or an indie film not some big 3D family action film. This has had a big impact on the diverse range of audiences who go and watch films at the cinema.

Pearl and Dean split their target audience into three groups: Family (family focus attracts a housewife and child audience), 15+ (Cinemagoers who are young and upmarket) and Art House (The art house cinemagoer is older). This is then split again into: Age, Class and Gender. An example is shown below:

For our film opening I would categorise our perfect audience member into the 15+ group as they are upmarket and young so would be similar to the tribe group of a townie which I defined as my perfect audience member on the previous post.

Point 14 - Perfect Audience Member

When researching on the uktribes website I found my perfect definition of an audience member was a TOWNIE.

• This tribe is the core of the British Population
• They like a variety of entertainment
• They like R 'n' B, mainstream hip-hop and pop music, but this isn't a main focus
• They are very into talent contestants, celebs and soaps.
• Holidays and socialising are a big thing also

Tribe Icons:

Cheryl Cole, Danny Dyer, John Terry, Lacey Turner, Scott Mills and Rhianna

 



Brands and Media Consumption:

As you can see this tribe are very top heavy on Media, Radio and Cinema but not so much on reading newspapers and keeping up-to-date with events going on in the world.

For our type of film this tribe definitely fit the criteria of our perfect audience member. They are very trendy (hence the name!) and are the people to ask when wanting to know what is happening in the entertainment world at that moment in time. They are very into their media so would be good judges for our type of film when finding out what works and what doesn't. They seem very relaxed and easy-going people and would pair well with our genre as it is a funny, light hearted drama comedy.

And this is how they dress:

Point 13 - Audience Research

Our task was to find out some audience research on what films people think have good openings, what attracts people to films and what puts them off. Here is what we find out:

Audience Research on Prezi

Point 12 - Mood Board

This moodboard shows the type of mood we are aiming towards for the film opening. The words on the board are stereotypical characteristics of the characters and the pictures are the type of characters that will feature in the film such as a secretary, a middle-class man, and a young boy who is nerdy and is an outcast (hence the school photot with a circle around a particular child) and the location of which it is set.

Point 11 - Annotating 9 Key Shots

For this task I've chosen to use the opening of ' Breakfast at Tiffany's'.

Key Shot 1 - This shows the opening title of  'a paramount picture' letting the audience know the company that produced the film.

Key Shot 2 - The screenshot is an establishing shot of a street in New York City, setting the location of which the film is set.

Key Shot 3 - This shot is of Audrey Hepburn getting out of a taxi, showing her middle class level in contrast to the high clas store next to her.

Key Shot 4 - The next is a low angle shot of a lady looking up at a Tiffany and Co store. With her look of a pearl necklace and hair in a bun along with the high angle shot looking up at it, it shows she is someone who is a wannabe high class women.

Key Shot 5 - Thie screenshot shows Audrey's full length dress and her whole body portraying to the audience her elegance and class.

Key Shot 6 - Another screenshot is of Audrey Hepburn staring into the Tiffany and Co window display while eating her breakfast. This shot is on screen for about 30 seconds while the titles appear to the right. By the length of time it is shown it is giving off the idea that she is day-dreaming and longing to have something in the shop.

Key Shot 7 - This shot is taken from inside the shop looking out at Audrey Hepburn outside creating the effect that she is seperate from them and in a different world of which she wishes she was part of and with her head tilted we assume she is thinking.

Key Shot 8 - This shows Audrey Hepburn walking away from the shop while the titles appear on screen and she is putting on her scarf.

Key Shot 9- This screenshot shows Audrey running into a building with a shot of a driver waiting outside giving the idea that she is late.