Media EvaluationThree’s A Crowd

By Lauren Hookings

Introduction to my filmThe narrative of my 5 minute romantic comedy film evolves round two brothers both liking the same girl. One manages to get a date and asks for advice for the date to be a success. The other brother likes the girl himself so gives him bad advice in order to sabotage his date. The date goes bad. Then the girl goes home and the other brother is there and takes her on a date and go back to his place where the other brother finds them together.

Conventions- Narrative theory • Rolande Barthes theory is used in my five minute film. His theory is that there is a

negotiated meaning between institutions and the audience. Reader produces new meaning when reading a text, making use of previous experiences as well as other texts. The reader associates for instance a dark alley with a robbery because they have seen the clichés in other forms of text. There are meaning in icons. In my film we use this to create comedy. When the boy walks in on his friend under the duvet with the girl the audience automatically associates this with sex. We play on this by when the boy lifts up the duvet they are not having sex but reading the gunnies book of world records. This creates comedy because it is unexpected.

• Claude Levi theory of film is that the structure of a text uses binary opposites night/ day ect. We have used this in our film to create tension between the two boys. One is innocent because he doesn’t know how to deal with girls or dating while on the other hand the other boy is. This can relate to Propps theory of a limited set of characters, each with their own purpose is also used in our film, with there being a typical villain and damsel in distress. However depending on how the audience interpretation of the film the villain could also be an anti-hero. There is a negotiated meaning to our film. The audience could say the boy is a villain because he gave his friend bad advice and took his girl. Or on the other hand he is an anti-hero because he takes the girl for a good date making her happy.

Issues• Romantic comedies generally deal with issues quite light

heartedly due to the lack of seriousness in the film as a result of the use of comedy. For instance 50 First Dates deals with the serious short memory loss but makes it comical because the guy has to take her on 50 dates.

• Issue we deal with in our film is the issue of loyalty and friendship between the two brothers. The betrayal of both by one brother in order to get a girl. The modern social rule of ‘bros over hoes’ is questioned in our film. A recent film has just come out called ‘This Is War’ that deals with the same issues but are to friends which are MI6 agents and one girl.

How we conformed to romantic comedy conventions

• Firstly the narrative of a struggle over an individual is a common romantic comedy plot device. For instance it is used in one of the films I watched for research ‘John Tucker Must Die.’ We applied this struggle to our film because a struggle can create comedy.

• We also conformed to rom com conventions by a the use of dialogue. We uses typical romantic gestures and turned them on their head. We had the ‘Bad brother’ give 3 pieces of bad advice which incorporate both typical romantic gestures and comedy. Tip number 1 was ‘don’t splash out. Woman have waited years for equality give it to them.’ This is saying the boy shouldn’t pay for the date. Paying for a date is a classic dating tip used in numerous romantic comedy films, Tip number 2 was ‘don’t give her compliments.’ Again is another typical romantic convention. Tip number 3 was ‘don’t dress up.’ Audience feedback said that changing tip 3 to a more convention romantic gesture like ‘don’t give flowers’ would be more conventional.

Camera work• We purposely used representations in our film. We used the representations of a

villain and innocent boy. Who are binary opposites.

We used different camera shots to create these representations as well as dialogue. The first camera we used was a zoom in from a long shot to a close up which ends with the ‘villian’ winking directly to the audience. The shot implies to the audience that he is up to no good and is going to sabotage the date. The direct wink to the audience allows the audience interaction with the character and creates dramatic irony. The shot also creates comedy because it is unexpected and a mischievous wink.

This shot is of the ‘innocent boy’ singing ‘Good bye my lover’ by James Blunt. The choice of song is very typically soppy and romantic . His expression is very heart broken even though they went on one date which is also funny. This also conforms to rom com conventions of camera shot

In this shot we did an over the shoulder shot of guy watching the girl come out the door towards him. So we see her entrance from his perspective, representing the male gaze, which is commonly used in romantic comedy's to show a males attraction towards a woman.

We used cutting between this shot of the ‘bad brother’ and the girl under a duvet to the other brother crying in his bedroom to create tension. Tension is created because the audience assume the guy and the girl are making out under the duvet then the brother who had a bad date with the girl is in the next room crying over her. The cutting foreshadows that the boy is going to go into his brothers room therefore tension is created

We used camera shots and mise-en-scene to create a sense of place. This is the bad date scene. We used a unique shot of filming the characters through their reflection of the car door mirror. By doing this we establish that they are in the car but also we see the location of the shot which is a car park behind the mirror. The shot further allows us to see the mise-en-scene of the Mcdonalds cup, therefore shows the audience they have been to Mcdonalds and are now eating and we can see the facial expressions of both characters clearly.

Place

How we subverted from media conventions

• We subverted from rom com media conventions by having the ‘Bad guy’ win the girl in the end. We choose to do this because it was a more comical ending.

• The bad date itself is a subversion from typical romantic comedy conventions because it is very unromantic but it creates comedy. Our target audience was more focussed towards males while creating our movie and the comedy side appeals to a male audience more than the romantic.

• For instance in ‘Legally Blond’ a rom com film which main target audience is a female audience lots of the mise-en-scene is pink, like pink out fits ect. Pink is typically considered a female gender colour and that why it was used but it doesn’t apply to our film.

Editing

We followed typical editing styles of conversations as you can see from this screen shot of editing. We switch between both characters with rapid cutting. One character has a medium close up then the other has a close up. This allows for the audience to see the facial reactions from each character. The close up we uses for one of the characters because his facial expressions are more important because they reveal that he to likes the girl. Also this scene is quite chatty and the cuts represent a comfortable conversation between both of them.

Editing and sound processEditing our film was a very long process and I think I underestimated at the beginning how long it would take. The main editing we did was cropping scenes. So that dialogue flowed easy and smoothly. At the beginning we had a few problems with some shots beginning to dark which made the continuity of the scene not right so we had to re-film a few shot. Once we fitted and cropped scenes we then started adding audio. Like music and separating action from audio so that the audio continued when the action didn’t. We used one sound effect from imovie which was called’bell2’ in between two long shots of a character in on outfit then another. We used the sound effect as a time bridge between 2 shots instead of a fade. Additionally we used fades in our movie to show the passing of a significant amount of time.

Use of MusicWe added in music at the end of the film which was Marvin Gay ‘Lets get it on’ at the end of the last scene to imply that now the girl and boy are going to have sex. The song continues into the ‘The End’ title but then we added another sound effect called ‘ vinyl screech’ which we added to stop the original music and imply so the audience something is going to happen. We then show another short clip of the ‘innocent boy’ reading a laughing at a book. This emphasises he has no idea that his brother and ex date are making out, making him seem innocent or stupid (depending o how the audience interpret it.) Then we go to the credits and the music from the original scene carries on.

Creating my Poster • I based my poster on the ‘Ugly Truth’ poster. I decided on this poster

because I liked the alignment of the poster and the cheeky gazes of the models.

• A common form and convention of rom-com posters have a plain white background with the main characters in the centre it is simple but effective because the colours stand out and the pictures

• I like the colour palette of black and red. The red connotes love and anger which are appropriate for that film but also to my own film so I applied it to my poster, also my article and the opening title sequence to my film

Audience Feedback

Here is the first draft of my poster. From my audience feedback from my questionnaire revealed that 9 out of my 14 results answered to ‘what can be improved’ that they thought it was rather plain and simple and could be more interesting. There for I improved my poster by following the forms and conventions of the ‘Ugly truth poster more carefully.

Finished product

The poses of my models are for a purpose. The girl has her head turned towards the boy who is standing confidently and gazing out to the audience. This implies that she is attracted towards this male not the other male who her back is turned against. The other male is slouched and has a sad expression on his face gazing at the female further implying her wants to be with her but she isn’t interested.

Added credits which are a form and convention on all posters

I added more graphics like the ‘Ugly Truth’ poster . The lines add some structure to the poster I had them so the models head could peer over them.

Made my title bigger and changed the font so it was more bold and compact.

I added in this graphic because in the heart there are two people and in the title is states ‘three’ therefore give a clue to the audience that there is going to be conflict also the heart shows there will be romance

Finished Product

Got a puff which will catch the readers attention matching the colour palette and is also a hook point

Used the same font as my poster mast head so there is constancy between the two. Also with the intention that the reader can possibly recall the movie poster or the article from the masthead of both

I conformed to the common convention of the Films credits at the beginning of an article in bold so it shows the reader it is separate.

My text is set out like a typical interview style, question then answer.

I used Photoshop and the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the models from the photos original background. I placed my photo in this position because like the article before the photo takes up more than 1 A4 page. Also my photo subverts because there is no background but it allows more text to surround the models and the text more easy to read

My interview is quite informal which subverts from many movie articles like the ones in Empire magazine. But I wanted it to appeal to my target audience of 16-26 year olds so they could identify with the language also I wanted the comedy to come through so the article could reflect the comedy in the film.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The poster I think represents my movie well. The stance and poses of the models show the audience the relationship between them even before watching the film also the tag line is a very brief and simple ‘2 boy’s one girl, who’s gonna win?.’ But it gives the main plot of the film that there is going to be a struggle between these two boys to get the girlMy poster and double page spread I created purposely wanted to have some continuity between them so the audience just by looking at the article can identify with the poster. I used the same font which is (). I particularly used this font because it is similar to texting font which has conations of youth and modern which links with my target audience. I also used the same colour pallet on my poster and article; red, black and white. Red connotes love and anger which are both in the film and also is eye catching, back I used because it connotes mischief and also easy to read on a white background.

Audience Feedback

• I have incorporated audience feedback through out my evaluation.

• However further audience feedback revealed that they enjoyed the plot of the film and the comedy in the film was entertaining

• One piece of audience feedback I received my teacher that if we had more time we should of included more music because music is very common convention used through a romantic comedy film.

Technology I used 3 main programmes to form my film…• Photoshop- Used this program to edit and enhance photographs for my

poster and article. Main tool I used was the magnetic lasso to cut out my models from the background also to resize images.

• I Movie- edit movie. Uploaded movie from the Sony camera, deleted unnecessary scene, cut down scenes, alternate between different shots, add audio.

• Indesign- Create layout for both my poster and double page spread. Place photos and added text.

• Sony digital camera- to film • Word Press- to record my progress and research throughout my journey

of my film. Enables to upload pictures for research and own work.

Skills I have gained

• Imovie was a completely new programme to me and throughout my film I have gained more confidence in using it. I have learnt to import music and add effects such as fades.

• Using a camera made me more aware of how much effort it put into a single shots and how to effectively use a tripod.

• Photoshop and Indesign I was already familiar with because of As work and the skills I learnt from them was helpful in editing photos and laying out.