Evaluation presentation

From our evaluation questions we have put together a powerpoint as a group as an evaluation for our whole piece.

The audience feedback i got of the questionnaire was really useful. We found out that the setting was was the audience seen as 'typical' for a romantic comedy. The school setting with Gracie walking down the corridor and walking into the classroom is something the audience can relate to.

Other things that were found out from audience feedback was how we engaged the audience which the majority said was holding back the identity of our main character at the beginning as we just decided to show her feet getting out of bed and the back of her until she got to college. A lot of the audience said it was really easy to relate to the character, expecially when they heard the voice over, this could be because the teenage voice and thoughts were similar to their own.

The voice over was really effective and was mentioned a lot in our evaluation questionnaire, some reasons included : introduced characters, give voice over of stroyline and background, used in many romantic comedies and creates familiarity, felt like a friend and get close to the character before you see the film and it also follwed the character exactly.

It was hard for us to decide what institution our film should distributed by, 2 main companies we found distributed romantic comedies is disney and working titles, i think it will dpeend on whether we are going for a british romantic comedy or american to which institution we approach, we wanted our opening to be british so we decided working title will be the best for us.

The majorit of people thought that the date? definately conformed to the codes and conventions of a romantic comedy by the use of soundtrack, voice over, plot, the characters introduced within a stereotypical boy, costume, setting and general mise en scene, which we also agreed with because from allt he other romantic comedies we analysed we also found this. The audience also believed that the camera shots created different moods, for example they believed the long shot connoted that the main character was isolated and different which was our aimed effect. They also liked not seeing the female protagonists face at the beginning, giving the feeling of a mystery and that they wanted to see more.

As well as positives there were also negatives and the majority of the audience think that things in our opening should be changed to fit the typical codes and conventions of a romantic comedy maybe from other films they have seen. Most people thought that the male protagonist should be shown more especially showing that he is totally the opposite of her and connoting to the audience her love for him more. From the feedback they also believe that other characters shoiukd of also been introduced some people also thought that the geek could have looked more stereotypical and there should of been more close ups of her character for the audience to get a connection with her and it also would of fitted in with the voice over. There was a suggestion the music could of been more upbeat leading to a peaceful mood when the male protagonist appears as well as the voice over being louder.

Everyone thought that our opening was amimed at 15-18 year olds which is successful because that is exactly who we were aiming it at. The audience believed this because of the age range and the setting of our rom com. This is because it made the age group easier to relate to the character and the location.

Half the audience feedback suggested that the soundtrack fitted the age group . However the other half thought that it could have been more upbeat and modern, however this would of been hard for us as the music that we could use had to be form an unsigned band and the audience wouldn't of heard it before anyway so it has to be really suitable for the genre for them to like it. Some people believe that the music could of been more romantic when they first see joe.

Everyone said that they liked the editing and gave it great continuity with the audience able to understand what has happened. From this we believe that we have learnt how to use fade in, fade out, and dissolve effectively. Through this however we have also realised that things can effect continuity such as same things in the background cars being in one scene and not the other and by noticing this caused it to flow better.

We noticed things that could of been changed such as the credits at the end needed slowing down to give the audience a chance to read who was actually in The Date. It might of been more effective if we named the actors one at a time along the bottom of the screen instead of all at once. Also an improvement could of been made to te corridor scene were there is a zoom in used, this should of been used slower to give audience time to engage.

From the task as a whole we realised the importance of planning and using the correct shot for the ideal effect., using the right shot gave the audience a connection with the characters at the appropraitre times. It was also hard to keep to the codes and conventions of a romantic comedy and at a number of times had to shoot scenes again , however at ehe end our opening fitted everything and was really successful.

Eval questions

i have now started the evaluation questions to give out to the audience which include things that we really need to find out about our opening and to see whether we succeeded in everything we put into it and by having this feedback we will see how successful we were.

questions i have used include

Does our opening have the typical idyllic setting of a romantic comedy you would usually watch?




From the colour the lighting, do you get he feel of the genre of romantic comedy?




In the opening do you believe this is the stereotypical geek you would see in a romantic comedy?




Did you feel engaged within the opening?

Again

from looking over our filming we found a massive disaster with the filming being all wrong. From allt he other films we analysed we found that we didnt follow the codes and conventions needed to be in a romantci comedy and we starting to film really off track and not stick to the genre, codes and conventioins of a typical romantci comedy, such as the female protagonist being a geek meant she had to look geeky in certain clothes and ways although ours didnt really stick to this costume and the way we filmed at different angles didnt work for the shots to come alive either.

We started a fresh cutting the end scenes of the classroom and spending mainly spending two minutes of our whole film opening of the female protagonist getting readyfor college, walking to college and with a voice over explaining the storyline than trying to rush too muc h into 2 minutes.

We have now finished filming with the geek walking to college and sitting in the classroom looking over at the male protagonist with the voice over telling the audience how much she loves him, the shots that were used were long shot and panning her as she walks down the road into the gates, then a jump cut into her walking up the drive and having a long shot of this also.
When she gets to the school doors we have a behind the shoulder long shot of her walking in so you see her charcteristic and personality without giving too much away.

Again

Filming!

today we finally starting our filming after school. We gt every shot done excep the ones were we need to use peoples houses. It was all postiive and all the actors we chose worked effectivly and we got the shots done very quickly. The only problem we came across was people remebering the script so we solved this by telling them to inprevise it as it would come out much more natural than they did when trying to remember the script.

Practicing

From having our pitch and storybord completed we decided to take a video camera and practice some shots which we thought would work throughout our opening.

We did the gate scene with them both walking in at the same time and decided on panning on both characters walking down the road into the gates havig a split screen down the centre, and another scene we pratciced was when Gracie walks into the classroom and is barged by other people such as, Joe. We decided to have a medium shot of her walking into the classroom as if we were ont he inside and her getting barged into the door.

They were the only two main key scenes we rehersed incase we had problems when coming to actualyl filming it.

pitch etc.

Havne't put much stuff on here for quite a while been really busy with sorting out our ptich and finishing my evaluation for the pre liminary task.

From our pitch that we did, we wanted to create a setting that would be idylic to women and attract our target audience, who were females aged between 17-18. We wanted the mian storyline to be the most popular male in school falls in love with the inoccent geeky female protagonist, they go on a date because of the popular boy (Joe) saying yes to going on a date wit her just to be nasty to her, but ends up truly falling in love.

Female protagonist

Name: Gracie
Age: 17
Interests: Golf, maths and protesting
Hobbies: going to gigs, maths and golf
Looks: glasses, un fashionable, blonde hair, blue eyes, slim build.

Male protagonist

Name: Joe
Age:18
Appearence: tanned skin, dark hair, light eyes, sporty build
Interests: sports, music, women
Hobbies: parties and going ot the pub, however secretly writes poetry to express emotions

This is hjow we imagined our charcters to be.

Pre liminary task video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToxFegm5E7A&feature=channel_page

Preliminary Task

Me and my group have finished our preliminary task filming and editing, we included 180 degrees rule and straight cuts thoughout to get the emotional effect that we found out rom coms have from our film openings and analysing codes and conventions, such as the typical weak princess that is always shown in this genre. We included a range of different shots, such as long shot, close ups and big close ups to bring connections with the shots and the audience.

I have also completed my evaluation on this and this consists of everything we did in detail, and for me to look over what we did and to see oif we covered everything successfully.

Universal studios PP

Today i have finally finishede my universal studios power point. This however was difficult because i wasn't sure what information to put on there which i ould find useful.

I included past romantic comedies's they had done and then though of what type of influence this would have on me, with what codes and conventions the films consisted of, such as pretty woman, nice neighbourhood etc.

I also researched who their partners were and how they helped universal studios become so successful.

Universal Studios

Today i started my power point on institutions and started it on '21st century fox', i then researched the institutions that my films that i analysed were made by, I then realised that the institution that dominates romantic comedies is universal studios, and therefore i am going to start my power point again to make sure it is correct for the genre of film i am doing.

General progress

sorry i havent wrote on here for a while, well on friday i presented my codes and conventions powerpoint to miss hadley and started researching 21st century fox and other institutions mainly american as our group prefer romantic comedies produced by american film institutions.

Our group also decided on friday what codes and conventions we would like our opening to contain from all the analysing we have done on a number of different film. We decided that the we want non diegetic sound, modern clothes, modern setting (idyllic), typical good looking male and female character, Propps theory of character types (princess, hero etc.), and a linear narrative.

At this early stage we couldn't decide on much more.

whole film analysis - p.s i love you

today i have finally completed the last of my whole film analyse's, and foudn the same codes and conventions apply with this film as with all the others.

whole film analysis - the sweetest thing

I have also just completed another whole film analysis of 'The Sweetest Thing'. It was easy to do as it also had a linear narrative structure and had certain character types very similar to the other romantic comedy i analysed.

I have noticed so far that they all contain similar things, such as the same non diegetic sound to set the scene everytime the genre is presented, such as a romance scene

From looking at the films also i have also picked upon the fact that it is always the woman that is stranded with the character type as a princess, the one who needs help or is left on her own.

I am going to look at one more full film now, which is p.s i love you or Juno.

First whole film opening - the holiday

today i did my first film opening which was 'The Holiday' everything about this film i love. I have found out what the generic codes are, the narrative structure and much more which was really helpful for me to find out, as im doing a romantic comedy myself.

I enjoy finding out the different character types and finding out which ones are really needed in this type of genre, such as a hero, villain and princess. These three are always brought up throughout. From this film i have found out that there are certain types of narrative structure in this particular film it was linear as the story followed a basic straight forward storyline including no flashbacks etc.

Looking over 5 film openings

From looking over the 5 film openings i have decided on what type of character i want in my opening. I want a really dominant female overruling all the men and getting her own way with everything. Not a typical dumb, pretty blonde. The setting has to be beautiful and the woman has to be well known, i will share my ideas with the rest of the group and also see what they think and combine our ideas however i think this would work good and appeal to my target audience of young teenage females.

The men however have to stay good looking!!!

10 things i hate about you!

The last and final film opening is 10 things i hate about you, i liked what it contained in the first bit of the opening however it isn't very engaging as it looks quite plain and boring like nothing is going on, and it doesn't give any clues or an insight into what might happen next.

I wrote about how the audience are drawn in but i found this hard because i couldn't find a specific thing that could draw them in except for the idyllic setting it is based in. This film needs mroe bright colours and more events happening for it to be gripping.

One major thing i liked with this opening however, is we have another strong female!!
exactly like the one from 'the holiday' i am really liking the idea of having a really strong female in my opening and the male being seen as weak, as i know this will appeal to my target audience as i have aimed them at females of my age group and if i enjoyed females being the dominating character in a film then they should too!! :-)

50 first dates

the next analysis of film openings i did was 50 first dates, and really didn't like the way it portrayed the genre of romantic comedy. it has all different women being made to look really dumb and the man amde to look clever. I dont believe a film like this would appeal to my range of audience, i prefer 'The Holiday' so far as it portrays women the way i think they should be portrayed.

My analysis was hard to do as i really didn't understand women had to be put across so negatively, however i have gathered more ideas from watching this and now i know what type of things i need to put in it and things i need to avoid. I have noticed from doing these first 4 analyses that they are all set int he modern day with young people, sometimes students or people in late teens early 20's, these are ideal films to look at for the target audience i have chosen.

The holiday continued

i have now finished my analysis of this film and so far it is defiately my favourite! it contans all the stock codes and conventions i would love to have in mine! the woman is really feisty with high status and the man has low staus! its great!

I like the way she is so patronising to him as well, asking quesitons about why he cheated on her, this is really good as all women ask millions of questions in real life about these types of things, so i think it is a really good film for young women and teenagers to relate to, the domestics that they wish they could face up to

really liked this opening

The Holiday!

I have just watched and analysed 'The Holiday' opening. I really like this film as it makes me feel happy at the end and the way Cameron Diaz plays such a strong character by booting the man out of her house! which is rarley seen in a rom com, i love the fact it is differetn and the men are made to look weak and the women really strong characters.

From analysing i have also noticed that it also doesn't have any non dietetic sounds in it, al the music is parellel to what is going on in the scene.

I really like this film opening and would love to do my own film like this! think it really states what a romantic comedy should be about, women being strong, and because our target audience is young females i see this feature as being important to put in ours :)

Hitch

I have started analysing hitch in lesson today. It was really hard to analyse as it was really confusing, although it contains the same elements that the sweetest thing did, such as, a voice over of the main character being the narrator and hearing this gives you an insight into who he is. It also has non dietetic music over it setting the asmostphere.

I like the way this film is set out at the beginning looking at the differetn selwection of woman as we as audience know that women are the focus of his real job and that adds humour.

The sweetest thing opening

I have just watched 'The Sweetest Thing' opening. i havent really gathered any ideas from it yet but there is non dietetic music in the background which i think will be good to use as it sets the atmosphere. the analysis was alright, maybe could of been more detailed but i couldn't really gather much from the this opening, hope the nest one will be better. Although i really liked the fact that i could relate with the main character.

Doing some research!!!!

Over the past couple of days i have been researching my 5 film openings for my analysis. It was a hard choice as i really couldn't narrow down my favourite films to 5!!!!
But finally i did, with my choices being Hitch, The Holiday, 10 things i hate about you, The Sweetest Thing and 50 First Dates. All these films are my all time favourites! I love romantic comedies and therefore this will help me loads on my actual filming as i have ideas with what i want in it.

From watching all of their openings it has given me so many ideas i can't wait to start the filming! I have noticed that the opening mainly consists of comedy not romance.

I have a vague idea of a little thing i would like in my opening, a voice over. I think it is really effective when a non dietegic sound such as the main person in the film being the narrator at the begginning really sets the scene for the audience, I haven't shared this idea with the rest of the group yet, not until the actual decidision on what we are doing.

I am now going to complete my 5 film analysis openings.

Power point

Today i did my power point, which consisted of who is my target audience,, what ideas have i obtained to create a successful product and what are your audience expectations and finally putting an audience profile onto it. 

I feel i benefited from this as it really narrowed down what i am going to do for my film and what i need to do to succeed with this. My favourite area for this is the audience profile, and imagining the type of person i want to watch my film which was:

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Favourite Genre: Romantic Comedy

Favourite type of film: British

Hobbies: Going out with friends

Favourite film: Bridget Jones

Favourite actress: Kate winslet

and this gave me lots of ideas in my head for a film as i am a female aged 17 i know exactly what i would want to see in a romcom, and therefore because my target audience is the same age and gender as me i know exactly what they would expect. Im glad i completed this PP and now i now where Im heading from here clearly in my head and i am feeling positive about the filming and the stock characters i need in it. 

Analysis

Yesterday we started our analysis which was successful, as we have concluded what film genre we want to choose and who our target audience will be. Gathered all our results together was successful as we had such a number of different things to work from, and had found out a lot of really goo information about people such as, "What role do you think males usually play?" and answers from this were really helpful for us.

We then came to the conclusion that we are going to do a romantic comedy aiming at girls aged between 15-19. which Im really pleased about as i can relate to everything that goes on with events in my own life. 

Questionnaire editing

When doing my draft questionnaire last week i started putting questions in which i found irrelevant such as, "Who would be your ideal character?", this wouldn't narrow my results down enough and therefore i got rid of this question and put in more relevant questions and actually thinking about what i really need for good results and what things i need to find out about what people like about films etc. 

I then handed out my questionnaire to people by handing 20 of them out to different people with a range of ages, some people being my family and others at college. I then gathered that questions such as, "what is your favourite genre?" 

horror

comedy

romantic comedy

thriller

westerns

musicals

were better ways of asking questions as they gave me most information as they wasn't open to discuss and they didn't have to discuss about it, there was just a straight answer. Another thing that happened when our group brought our questionnaires together was that we all found out we had similar questions and that if we went back we could of gathered totally different questions and therefore found out more information, not the same.

Questionnaire editing

Using the Blog

Hi Carlie

Firstly, well done for getting this baby up and running. Secondly, make sure you are using this to reflect on what you have done rather than simply posting lost of your research. It is essential during this unit that you reflec ton everything you do and consider why you are completing tasks and how they inform your practical work.

I am looking forward to being able to watch your wonderful work from afar.

questionaire

How old are you?
12-
12-15
15-18
18+

What are your interests?

What are your hobbies?

If you could make your own production or film which genre would you choose?

Romance

Horror

Thriller

Comedy

Romantic comedy

Westerns

Musicals


Is this your preferred genre of film? Why?


What is your past knowledge of this genre?


Which films present this?
What is your idea of a successful film? Does this film engage you all the way through?


What do expect to see at the opening of your preferred genre?


Do you prefer British or American films?

What gender do you think dominates a film?

What roles to you notice males usually play?

What roles do you notice women usually play?