Location for opening

For our film opening, we plan to film in several locations in Wymondham, Attleborough, and Norwich. The location in Wymondham that we will be filming in is Luke's house. This will be the house of the man in the film. The location in Attleborough in which filming will occur is in my house. This is because my house and Luke's house both have similar layouts which is what we are looking for as this may represent the idea that the man and woman's generation are all the same. Each house also has a few features, such as staircase layout, that were planned in the storyboard.

The locations in Norwich that we will be filming in will be in and around Chapelfield Gardens, outside a police station, and outside a coffee shop. The coffee shop will be for the final scene in which the man and the woman both arrive at the date and she is covered in mud and water and looks messy, but the man is clean and tidy and has had a good morning

On the left is a shot of a roundabout where we will see one character be pushed into the road. We have chosen this roundabout as it is quite busy with cars but not busy with people, so we will be able to get all of the shots we need without any of the public getting in the way.





Storyboard

Here are my storyboards for my romantic comedy film opening. As you can see, we intend to attempt a split screen style video, as this may be effective for a romcom style montage.

Casting for opening

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the characters for our opening are as follows:

The man (unnamed currently) - teen

The woman (unnamed currently) - teen

The free coffee man - old man, 60-70s

The child who nearly runs into the road - 7-10 years old

The person who is hit by a car - undecided

The police officer - 30s

The bag thief - unknown, he is masked but will be tall

The Narrator - someone with a powerful voice

The first character, and one of the two main characters, is the man. He will most likely remain unnamed as there will not be a situation in the opening in which a name is needed. This character will be portrayed by Matthew Koster who, before he was chosen for the part, also answered the audience research questions.
The other main character is the woman. She will be played by Matt's girlfriend Sammy, who also participated in the audience research. The reason behind this is that she is also a good age for the video and as they are already a couple, they will be able to act better towards each other.
The coffee man will be played by Luke's dad Carl Bates because he is an appropriate age for the part and he looks like Carl Pilkington (star of the TV show 'an idiot abroad') which will bring some comedy into the opening if people notice the similarities.
The child who nearly runs into the road will  be played by Luke's younger brother Jack because he is 13 but looks much younger so he will be able to act appropriately around the road and will be able to act better.
The person that will be pushed into the road by the woman will be played by Daniel Saker. This is because he is around the same age but a little shorter so it may look like a child being pushed into the road.
The police officer will be played by my dad's friend who is a real police officer so will know how to act in the situation.
The thief will be played by Nathaniel Jones as he is a tall person who will look scary enough with a mask on for the part.
Finally, the narrator will be played by either Oliver Russell or Miss Tremblay. We are going to record both of their voices reading the script and choose the better suited one for the job.

Audience research for opening

As part of the preparation for our film, we have to ask a random group of people a few question about our genre and our idea. The questions and responses are as follows...

1) What do you expect to see in a film opening?
2) Which film openings have you seen which have particularly stood out?
3) What are the conventions of a rom-com mock genre?
4) What may you expect to see in the opening of a film in this genre?
5) What do you think of our idea? (talk about it here)
6) Would our opening sequence convince you to watch the rest of the film?

Matthew Koster
1) It should be exciting and should give plenty of background information about the characters.
2) Star Wars, The Matrix, Terminator.
3) Lots of puns and jokes, dark humour may be funny, and many clichés about rom-coms.
4) Same as question 1.
5) The idea of 'breaking the fourth wall' is very good, it could be very funny.
6) Yes, it would be very good.

Evan Jenkins
1) I would expect to see a few shots of the setting and the characters backgrounds.
2) Star Wars, American Pie.
3) It needs to be funny as well as using lots of puns. Puns are not always funny for some people.
4) The setting to the film, a few characters introduced and funny to set the mood.
5) It sounds very funny and is good as it bends the general conventions.
6) Yes.

Sammy O'Connor Balsillie
1) Dialogue, scenery visible, a list of people in the film (opening credits).
2) In time, Star Wars.
3) Some sarcasm and awkward but funny moments between two people. Many types of humour.
4) A fake audience laugh, an introduction to main characters.
5) A pretty cool and funny idea.
6) Yes.

Andy Woodrow
1) An introduction to characters and ideas.
2) Back to the Future, Fletch.
3) Humour, a good story, and fun characters.
4) A must is character history or background and setting of the scene.
5) It is very good and has great potential.
6) Maybe, lets see how it looks when done.

Poppy Frost
1) characters enter, make sure the genre is clear.
2) Coraline, Road to El Dorado.
3) Cheesy romance between two people, who clearly will be together.
4) Characters and setting is important.
5) Very entertaining and funny idea.
6) Yes, to see how the relationship progressed.

Becca Stimpson
1) Introduction to some character and location. Also being shown the genre through clear use of conventions.
2) Back to the Future, Guardians of the Galaxy.
3) Good, relatable characters, humorous.
4) Introduction to some of the main characters - showing their lives.
5) Very interesting idea that could be good if portrayed well.
6) Yes.

Dan Saker
1) An introduction to the characters in the film, and something that sets the genre.
2) Memento, Star Wars, The Dark Night, as they are memorable and introduce the film well.
3) Taking the micky out of the classic cliché moments of classic romantic comedies.
4) The 2 main characters doing things in a funny or stupid way.
5) I like the idea, its sounds very funny and works really well.
6) Yes because I like rom coms and comedies so it will be good.

These are the responses for 7 people, but we have also asked people the questions on camera so that you can see and hear their exact reactions. We will use this information lots to help with what we should do in our opening.

Target audeince for opening

Our film is a romantic comedy/mockumentary so there could be a lot of variation in the target audience. There will be people coming to see the love story, and others for the comedy and for the fact that it takes the mick out of existing romantic comedies such as Love Actually to give it a Family Guy style twist. I think that the best audience would be teens to young adults as the story will be more relatable to someone the same age. People who watch romantic comedies, or just comedies may be the type of people that we would expect the most. The mockumentary style part of the film will be the way that we use comedy to express our hate for romantic comedies. We hope that this will be funny as humour can sometimes be difficult to get right.

Prop & Costume list for opening

We will need to source the following props for the opening:

• toothbrush
• toothpaste
• deodorant
• coffee
• handcuffs?
• handbag
• fake blood

We will also need to source the following costumes/clothing for the opening:

• pyjamas for man & woman
• casual clothes for man & woman
• apron for coffee man
• police uniform

We need to make sure that the casual clothes that the woman wears will be old clothes as she will be getting them ripped and muddy.

Characters for opening

The important characters will be as follows:

• The man (unnamed currently) - early 20s
• The woman (unnamed currently) - early 20s
• The free coffee man - old man, 60-70s
• The child who nearly runs into the road - 7-10 years old
• The person who is hit by a car - undecided
• The police officer - 30s
• The bag thief - unknown, he is masked but will be tall

The last 5 on the list will only be in the opening of the film for a couple of seconds each, the main characters are the man and the woman who will be featured throughout.
As well as these, we will also need some background extras for scenes such as the one in which everyone applauses when the man saves the child.

Film opening rough script

The scene is a small town. There are video clips of the town and people doing different things walking and doing daily activities.

Narrator - The scene is a small town. There are video clips of the….oh dam that's the wrong bit…hang on (flicks pages on a script) ok, finally here we are after I definitely didn't accidentally read the wrong thing. 

Hi there. I want to talk to you about love. Love is all around, everyday. But the one day people start to show it is on the 14th of February. Valentines day. A day where love flows around like a river…no hang on, no I'm done. No, why is that there? (video’s stop). Come on, seriously (mocking voice) “Love flows like a river”, stop now. The only people in here watching these silly rom com’s are either obsessive girlfriends who want to see fricking Zak Effron take his top of or lonely guys looking for a place to go where he can disguise his tears. This is stupid, right start again please I’m going to make this script more realistic to the modern world. God, this is stupid. Might as well be directed by Michael Bay would make this day even more brilliant…what, he does? You’re kidding. This is a ROMANTIC COMEDY! There aren't any explosions in this film, he’s going to be like a lost little puppy bless him. Right let’s do this stupid film opening.

Shots rewind back to the start

(coughs) Valentines day. A day of love, a day of kindness, a day that’s after Ice Cream For Breakfast day and Curling Is Cool day (videos pause) It’s true, look them up I'm not lying. (Videos play)  Our story starts in the small town of Wymondham where we see some couple doing (mocking voice) “lovey dove smoochy woochy stuff”. (whisper, sigh) god i hate my job…anyway here's a song your girlfriend might like (cheesy pop song plays)

last between 45 seconds and 1 minute

in the next few scenes, there are two things going on. The first is a man getting ready and the second is the woman getting ready, who will have the worst time getting ready to go out to meet the man. 

(The mans day)

1. The man gets up bright and early ready for his day out.
2. He goes to the bathroom the brush his teeth and shave
3. He gets changed and sprays deodorant on
4. slides down the banister to go grab some toast for breakfast
5. Leaves the door waving bye.
6. stops a kid from running into road
7. gets a free coffee
8. walking
9. walking
10. gets to the table outside café waiting for his date
11. waiting
12. date arrives, he says “well at least its not raining…”

(the woman’s day)

1. sleeping.
2. sleeping.
3. sleeping.
4. wakes up in panic and jumps out of bed.
5. runs out the door.
6. running down road and accidentally pushes/knocks someone into the road who gets run over.
7. police grab her
8. running out of police station
9. running
10. running and falls in puddle, gets very wet and muddy. 
11. part of her clothes gets caught on something and rips
12. gets to the date looks like a state. He says “Well, at least its not raining” then she gets mugged.

scenes 12 blends together. Each scene lasts maximum of 5 seconds.

 

Courtesy of Luke Bates' media blog (we worked on this on his blog first).

Film intro update

For the opening to our film, our genre is Romantic Comedy. This is because we do not like them so we will be putting a sort of mockumentary twist on the genre to make the film funnier. We will think of many areas of a stereotypical romantic comedy and then reverse them so that the film is totally unlike what people are expecting. In the first two minutes that we have to create, we will see a man and a woman getting up and ready to go on a date, however a few things may go wrong for one of them.

To see what would happen, we turned to audience research. We will ask a group of people the following questions and note their responses...

In a typical romantic comedy....

• who would you expect to have a bad day? Man or woman
• who would you expect to show their emotions the most? Man or woman

I think that information about this will help us decide how to make the opening a romantic comedy that is not a romantic comedy which I believe will be very effective.

Pitching an idea for a film

Today, we pitched a made up film idea to the rest of the class. We worked in groups of 4 or 5 to create our ideas.  For inspiration, we were given four cards. One had the genre, two were characters, and the last was a prop. Our cards were as follows:

• Action
• Chrissy
• Roger, 46
• A bottle of wine

From this we created the following idea: Roger and another man called Jason were partners in crime, they stole things, beat people, and robbed banks. At the start of the film, they are seen robbing the bank. However, Roger is arrested and Jason gets away. The rest of the film is then about Chrissy (Rogers Daughter) meeting Jason and working with him to get her father free again.
The name through the keyhole can from the fact that Roger is going to be locked away in prison and the fact that the only way that they can get him out is with perfect precision. Much like a key and a keyhole. The way that we are using the bottle of wine is through the timing of the film. We find out that Roger is on death row and only has limited time left to be rescued so to show the progression of time running out, we are using the nursery rhyme about bottle on a wall. At the start of the film, there is very little sound, only a child singing about 30 bottles on a wall while a montage of slow motion bank robbing is happening. Then as a woman is running out of the bank, she knocks a table and a bottle of wine falls off the table and onto the floor. As soon as it hits the floor, the singing stops and all of the sound and normal speeds kick in. To finish the film, and making a circular narrative, as Roger is freed from the bank at the end, the last thing that we will see is him walking out of the prison after all of the guards have been killed by Jason and Chrissy and the camera just shows his cell and the sound fades out and the child singing fades in as the last bottle of wine falls off the wall (the shelf). This makes the film start and finish at the same point which makes the story seem complete.


I found the pitching part interesting because I do not really enjoy giving presentations but I found it really fun and easy to do. I spoke mainly about the target audience for the film which we agreed would be late teens to mid 20s, but I did go on to say that it is suitable and would be enjoyable for an older audience too because unlike the average action film, there was a good story behind it. An example of an existing action film that I enjoyed is Kill Bill. This film is action from start to finish. There is plenty of fighting, so much blood, and an awesome protagonist played by Uma Thurman. This action film is unlike our idea because ours would not have so much blood, I think it would be a less gory film so that the audience will focus on the story rather than the action.

Overall, I think the pitching went fairly well and not only did we get good responses, we also learnt things and it was good to be able to practice what the real film makers do.

Film opening

Today, we have started to plan for our actual film opening. For this project, I will be working with Luke Bates again as the work that we did for 'get off my land' went really well and we both have many good ideas for the opening. Ideas that we have had include:

• A documentary looking at animals
• A romantic comedy but with the opposite things that would be expected from the genre
• A film about a man who uses magic and psycology to commit crime

We are going to brainstorm ideas and see which of these we can get the most ideas for.