Media Evaluation of Fixed On You

For my media coursework I worked as part of a group to create an opening sequence of a film called ‘Fixed On You’. I worked with Luke Shufflebottom, Gemma Bland and Grace Rewaj; together I think that we communicated and cooperated well and were able to portray our original ideas as we first planned. My particular contributions were filming the opening sequence and drawing the story boards. We all had different thoughts and ideas of what we wanted to include so I tried to incorporate these in the story board designs and piece together which ideas would work best. Our initial idea was contrasting a male and female in some way, we finally decided that by stereotyping these characters into some form of binary opposition, such as male geek and popular female, that the audience would be able to recognise what point we are trying to get across.

The genre for our opening sequence is British romantic comedy. We have used the typical elements of using a male and female- an obvious choice for romance- so we decided to make a twist. We realised for some watchers the genre may be confusing as at first the sequence doesn’t connote ideas to do with love this is why we included the text message between the two characters to make the audience think these two are romantically linked. This is a vital point in the opening sequence and alerts the audience about what could be about to happen. We challenge their ideas once we get to the end of the sequence as the two completely walk past each other in the street, not even noticing each other’s existence. The long shot establishes location and emphasises that the two characters are completely un aware of each other.

This creates enigmas in the audiences mind of who these people are and what they are doing, therefore, making them want to carry on watching the film. This also challenges the requirements of the rom-com genre, a typical storyline is not what we wanted to portray, we wanted something unique and different, something that would make you want to carry on watching. In our questionnaire we asked ‘What genre do you think that opening sequence was and how could you tell?’ people replied ‘Teen romantic comedy by using stereotypical representations of teens in this modern society’ which shows that we portrayed genre in the best possible way.

The social groups we have represented would be the young male and female groups. In this modern day, stereotypically there are various different social groups people are associated with, such as Chavs, Goths, Fakes and many more. Usually boys are associated with mess and unhygienic habits, in our opening sequence we wanted to portray our female character as this and our male character more female like, such as taking care of his appearance and keeping himself tidy. This idea of switching roles makes our film slightly unusual a bit different from the rest, a technique we used to try and keep the audience interested. We have tried to portray two completely opposite characters that be known to the audience will eventually fall in love. The watchers first thoughts would be noticing how Gemma is extremely untidy, from shots of her bedroom floor, her messy hair and her wild dress sense. (seen below)

Luke on the other hand is a geeky neat-freak which we have shown this through his costume mostly, for example his shirt and tie and his cellotaped glasses.

I think how our characters act and the situations they are put in offers an alternative to the typical stereotypes of girls and boys, it challenges the boundaries for normal representations for these sexes, showing the audience another point of view.

We have used various different shots to show each character. When trying to focus on on ething we experimented with camera angles, levels and shots. Below are a few examples of screen shots we included to portray our characters.

This is a close-up of Luke typing a text to Gemma, this particular shot creates enigmas in the audiences mind of who he is texting before the text is recieved (seen below).

This is a lower angle shot of Gemma buttoning her jeans, with this we then used fast continuous shots between her and Luke and they both did up their pants. This looked really effective one put together and also added to the link between the characters.

Because our sequence follows the genre of a British romantic comedy I think the best media institution that could distribute our product would be Working Title films. They have produced many famous British films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually, most of these being the most popular British (romantic comedy) films up to now. Because the company are so well known for making great films people would be inclined to come and see ours after following in the footsteps of many other well-known films.
Our target gender would mainly be females, as this is typical of romantic comedy films, however we would also welcome a secondary target audience of males to watch the opening sequence to relate to the boy in it. Research is shown that in the BFI Handbook 2005 that the largest percent of regular cinemagoers are ages between 15 and 34, I believe targeting our audience at this age would be more financially right as it would bring in most money. In our questionnaire we got feedback on the audience it would attract and this was ‘teens and possibly various other ages’. I would probably give our film the certificate of 15 because aiming the film at this age group could potentially create the most interest with the public. Another factor I would expect could be that a large percentage of our viewers to be female teens due to the characters ages and also the similar social situations young people can relate to in this film such as dating and stereotypes.
We have used lots of technologies to research this product such as youtube.com, blogger.com and imdb.com along with various other websites. I think these have helped our group to remain focused on our final piece and by researching other similar films has given us the ability to expand our ideas and note down what we think would eventually turn out best. iMovie and iTunes were the software we used to create our finished piece, although sometimes difficult to use once we learnt the techniques it was fairly easy to edit and piece it together giving us an effective and realistic outcome.

In our preliminary task our shots didn’t flow well and I thought that personally it was a poor example of directing and filming a sequence. “Fixed On You” looked dramatically different than our first sequence, I think that as a team we have all learnt new techniques that have improved the quality of our work. By keeping the camera recording at all times we learnt that whilst editing you can create a much smoother flowing sequence that looks less jumpy and is more efficient. By using a range of different shots and styles our opening sequence was more convincing and looked more professional. Teamwork was also essential for being successful by using the ideas of everyone in our group we came out with the best possible final product we could produce.

In conclusion to what I have stated I believe that we have created a very realistic and appealing opening sequence. I have found from the questionnaire that 100% of the audience that watched the opening sequence really enjoyed it, 'Good average pace, fantastic music... makes you feel good' and 'would deffinately want to watch the rest of the film '. I am really happy with the outcome and believe the feedback from the audience we got showed us that a lot of people, and more importantly mixed genders would enjoy and want to watch the rest of this film.

Lauren

evaluation of final film.

Evaluation

Our media film was called ‘Fixed On You’, and was a romantic comedy opening sequence. I worked with Luke, Gemma, and Lauren and to create our piece, and although I was not part in the acting side of our piece, I took part in the filming and directing side of our opening sequence. We also worked together to come up with the idea for our piece and to write down what we wanted to do and achieve through our work.
Our genre is a romantic comedy, based on a blind date scenario. Our product fulfils the requirements of an opening sequence as we introduce the main characters of the film and introduce a setting to the film. We introduce these elements of our film by using cinematography and different shots that show the character and their surroundings. Also, we used many conventions of a typical romantic comedy. We showed that by going on a blind date it is bringing in the element of romance, and by having lukes character the way he was portrayed, it brought humour to the piece which is the comedy side of our piece. We challenged the genre by showing our two characters pass each other in a long shot at the end of our sequence. The audience would not expect this as the general build up to the climax of them meeting each other would suggest that this would not happen, and the typical genre would have the two characters talking and interacting. In contrast to this, we did feature a typical convention of a romantic comedy by making our two main characters opposites, which means that you would presume they would not get along, and especially not fall in love, which is what would happen later on in the film. We used different types of media language to establish the opposite characters, such as mise en scene when showing the setting of the characters bedrooms. This contrast in the characters engages the audience in a more exciting way, raising an enigma where they want to know how things will turn out between them, setting up different audience expectations. Our choice of doing this proved successful towards our audience in our feedback that we received. 100% of our feedback correctly stated that our opening sequence was a romantic comedy, and said that we portrayed it well and made them want to see more of the film, which shows that we were successful in our work.
Our piece represents young people, getting ready to go out on a date. In our case, we had a unique, quirky character for our female role, and we presented our male role as a stereotypical ‘geek’ character. Our male character wore big glasses, a suit, and at the end, a hat and a scarf to go on his blind date with our female character, who is the complete opposite, wearing up-to-date clothes and is portrayed as a stylish character. This represents opposites between the two characters by using mise on scene. Our representations of the two different types of people were dominant representations as they were how the audience would expect those stereotypes to look and act. For example, the way Luke side combs his hair and puts on the glasses, in contrast to Gemma putting on her makeup and back combing her hair. Also how Gemma’s room is un-tidy and she comes across as laid back and relaxed, whereas Luke’s room is well organised and tidy. This is typical behaviour for the opposite characters.
Film companies such as ‘Working Title Films’ would produce a film like our piece, as they have put money into films such as this before. They have made films such as ‘Love Actually’, ‘Notting Hill’ and ‘Four Wedding And A Funeral’, all of which are British romantic comedies. This is why I feel this company would back our product within the industry, as I feel they this company feel as though there is room within the film industry for this style of production. Romantic comedies are proven to be popular with a wide audience; with films such as ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’, which is a romantic comedy, making a lifetime gross of $241,438,208.
Our film could appeal to a wide variety of audiences, however we decided that our main target audience would be teenagers of around 15 and young adults to around mid-thirties, as they tend to be the people mainly interested in this type of production. Also females would be targeted more in this film as it is females who would tend to watch this genre, however, it can also appeal to males too. Our audience could have a lot of public interest, as when we researched into people who regularly attended cinemas, this is the group that came out at the highest percentage, which would prove good financially for our production. Also, our audiences feedback proved that we was right in believing that this group would enjoy this type of product as they all said that they enjoyed it.
In our opening sequence we gave basic information on our characters everyday characteristics and with the use of showing the phones and the text messages, is set the story off to show the idea of a ‘blind date’. Also, when we finish our opening sequence with the two characters walking past each other, it shows that they do not know that they are going on the blind date with each other, which raises the enigma of what will happen between them as the audience can clearly see the binary opposites within the characters. A sense of time is created by the jump shots between the two characters getting ready to meet, and then when they ultimately leave there houses and walk past each other. The ideologies within our piece is that normally, these two type of characters would not be put together to go on a date in a normal situation, and therefore you feel as though it is going to be a disaster when they finally realise that it these two people going on the date with each other. However, this is how we used our characters to attract the audience, as because this ideology is there, they will want to know if it turns out this way or not.
The overall feeling of our piece is very up beat, and the music we used goes with this. Our music is non-diegetic as it is not what the characters can hear, it is just used over the top of what they are doing and you cannot hear the characters. The connotation used with the music however, helps to begin to tell the story in a different way. Some of the chorus to this song says: ‘And she(he) knew from the finish to the start, that it was bound to fall apart’. This is a good connotation to put across to the audience, as this is what we feel we want the audience to expect. We don’t want the audience to feel as though these to people will get together and be happy, and if they do think this then it would spoil the end to the film. The mise-en-scene- used is effective in the way we represent the characters in their clothing and appearance, and in the way that there rooms are represented when they are getting ready. The shots that we used were linked together by using jump shots between the two characters whilst they are getting ready to go out and leave to meet each other. A particularly effective part of the opening sequence in which we did this was when we put the camera in the characters drawers. When Gemma opens her drawer we see a low angle shot of her pulling out some makeup, and then when she shuts it, we see Luke open his drawer and pull out a tie. Also there is a part where we link up the shots when they are putting on their pants, swapping from each character until Luke has zipped up his trousers. Our editing pace is quite fast in these parts, as we had to get the timing right for it to work as them getting ready. If we did this slowly, it would not have worked as effectively as we wanted it to look as though the two characters, although opposite, where doing similar things but in their own way, at the exact same time, without knowing. This is the first initial clue that they could get along later on.
I feel as though throughout our work I have learnt a lot about the technologies used within the making of a film. We have used you tube to research different clips that are relevant to our film. Also we have Imovie to edit our film and transport our filming from the camcorders to the computer. I would not have known how to do this if it was not for our film. The way in which you edit the film was new to me as well so again; our film has helped to teach me new things about making a film. We had to edit and trim our shots to make it look correct and run smoothly.
Since our preliminary task, I feel that we have learnt a lot in our group about how to make a film and about how you edit and make it look more professional. When looking back at our preliminary task, the shots seem very jumpy and therefore do not work as well as the shots in our final piece as our shots are now much more smoother and look better. Also, we use better shots in our film than the ones in the preliminary, such as low angle and jump shots from one character to the other. Also, our characters are introduced without the use of dialogue in our film, which I feel is better than how characters are introduced in our preliminary task as the upbeat music for example makes it less boring and more enjoyable to watch and get into the feel of the film.Overall, I feel as though our film worked really well, and I feel like we put across our characters really well, making the comedy in the piece stand out too, which I think was an important aspect. I am very pleased with our piece and I just feel as though if we was to do anything different, we could have improved on our team work skills to come up with some more challenging camera angles and different lighting for different types of shots to create a different mood, and also to just make the shots that bit more interesting. But, overall I do feel as though we have made a very successful opening sequence and have set up the story well for the rest of the film.

Grace.

Ananlysis of opening sequence (love actually)

I have chosen to analise the opening sequence to love actaully, as it is the same genre as our opening sequence to out film and I can look at the features that appear within the opening sequence to set the scene for a romantic comedy.

First of all, the sequence starts with long and medium shots of different people hugging and kissing. The sound is non-diegetic as we cannot hear the sound that is matching the images on the screen as we hear a voice over. The voice over and images both show or introduce the aspect of love. The spoken aspect of the sequence talks about different types of love and how love is always there within society, while the images that go with this show us love in a visual way as we see different types of relationships showing their love for each other.

When the title of the fi;lm is shown, the word 'love' itself is shown in red. This is because red is associated with love, so this connotation suggests love and romance within the film.

The comedy aspect is introduced within the song that is sang as it is up-beat and they have to start again several times as he keeps getting it wrong. First we see a close up of him singing along to a well known song about love, however, it is changed to be sang about Christmas.This establishes the time and setting of the film as it is set within the christmas period. Also, swearing is used to create quite a relaxed and normal atmosphere.

here is a link to watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_saCHD4Wzqk
Grace

Analysis of opening sequence (Its a Boy Girl Thing)

I am only evaluating the first two minuets of this clip as the clip is a lot longer than an opening sequence.

The sequence starts off with titles this is a regular thing on most opening sequences. Then it goes to a white and black contrast and shows characters been drawn to show how the main characters have grown up. This is a very clever way and very different as they don't usually do it like this for a movie. Also shows the opposites of how the two characters don't get along. By using digetic music and non digetic speaking to show the music that can be heard and showing the difference that the girl is reading and the boy is listening to really loud music. This shows opposites yet again between the two characters. By using jump shots it is also a clever way to switch from one shot to another to show the closeness of the characters and also introducing them to the movie. Using mes on sen it also shows the differences between the two characters as you can see the girls room as clean and tidy and siting down very elegantly as the boy was jumping around the room with a messy room it shows the opposites of the characters.

Gemma
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Analysis of opening sequence (need to embed video

The film begins with an extreme long shot of New York city and then the title of the film comes up in big red flashing letters, the title being red connotes that the film could be about love or even danger. This then cuts to a medium shot of a couple walking out of what looks like a hotel towards the camera, as they walk towards the camera it backs off with them as the audience there and is handheld to add to the realism and the non digetic music of mike suggests that the mood is a happy one. The mise en scene in this shot is a woman wearing a grey dress and a man also in a dull looking suit, which would put them in the stereotype of working class and of white collar. The shot seems to be of them walking through the middle of New York obviously going to their jobs and everyone else in the also seems to be wearing dull business like suits. This jumps to a point of view shot of a man opening the door to what appears to be a flat, the man himself is not presented well and is also wearing plain clothing and we can see in the background that his flat is a mess hinting that he isn’t as well organised or well off as the first two characters. This then proceeds to a point of view shot of a girl standing in the mans doorway, she’s wearing a scouts outfit with a short skirt giving the impression that she is a tart, there is then a long shot of the woman jumping on to the man so we know that they are in a relationship of some sort. From watching the opening clip we have established two different kinds of people the woman who was of white collar and looks like she is upper class and the man who looked that he may be of blue collar judging on his home, by seeing the lives of these two characters we know that they are different and obviously the storyline is going to be about them. I think this clip is a good example of what we are trying to achieve because it creates two opposite stereotypes and the audience know that they are some how going to be linked in the film.

Luke

The Final Piece

The final piece, our thoughts

Lauren:
Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of the short opening sequence because I think that we followed our idea's and concepts through well and covered our characters in a good stereotypical way. I think the geek character, Luke, worked really well, his image and his actions should make the target audience laugh and be entertained as it's obvious what character he is trying to portray. Gemma's role also works well however I think if we made her more 'rebel-like' the opposites would be more identifiable to the audience.

Luke:
I am pleased at the final outcome of our opening sequence, we worked together as a team and the ideas we initially thought up worked well within the sequence. The characters were very sterotypical and we succesfully distinguished that in the sequence

Gemma:
I am incredibly pleased with the outcome of the opening sequence! I think the way that the characters were portrayed very well as Luke as the geeky on and Gemma as the different more daring character! I think it also showed the opposites very well by using the cut editing from flipping from one clip to the other. I think if we had made the character Gemma more daring it would have been more distinct. Also it would have stood out to the audience more!

Grace:
overall, i feel as though our piece has been very successfull in what we wanted to avhieve. I think that we worked well as a group to create a piece that would be entertaining and that would make people feel as though they would like to see the rest of a film to go with our opening sequence. I feel we achieved this well, and I am very pleased with our final piece.


Unfinished, Lauren,Luke