Primary Research- Interviews

We interviewed 3 boys and 3 girls to see if they liked Romance films, which is our chosen Genre for our trailer.
The questions we asked for our interview were:
1. How old are you?
2. What are your hobbies?
3. What's your relationship status?
4. Do you like romance films?
5. What's the best one you have seen?
6. Why did you like it?
7. What would have to be in the trailer of a romance film to make you want to watch it?

We interviewed our first girl and we asked her if she liked Romance films and what she would look for in a romance trailer. We took on board what she said and thought we could include some of the ideas she mentioned. She said she would like to see the good side and the bad side of the trailer
because if she just saw the good side then it wouldn't be realistic.

Next we interviewed our second girl and she said she didn't like romance films because she can't relate to it. She then said the best romance film she had seen was Dear John, because she liked the actors. For her to watch a romance trailer there would have to be some action. We took notes on what she said and took on board her comments.

Next we interviewed third girl and she said that she liked romance films. She liked it because there was a nice, easy plot line to follow and she liked the acting, The best one she has seen is Titanic because its a really well scripted movie and she likes the cast in it. For her to watch a romance trailer, it would have to be happy and have good actors, We took notes on her interview and took her comments on board, when we start filming our trailer.

Next we interviewed our first boy and he said he liked romance films because they have an engaging connection with reality. The best romance film he has seen is the Notebook because the story is intense and interesting to watch. In a romance trailer he would expect to see, simple conventions, two people finding eachother and love developing. We once again took the important notes from the interview and we will consider his ideas for when we starting filming.

Next we interviewed our second boy and he said he also liked romance films because they engage you into it with their pain and heartbreak and you feel the love they go through. The best romance film he has seen is Charlie St.Cloud because its nice to see their love for each other and then we're they're upset, you feel upset. In a romance trailer he would expect to see drama and a brief spell of what the story line will be like. We then took notes of what he said and will consider his ideas for when we are going to start filming.

Finally we interviewed our third boy and he said sometimes watched romance films, depending on who he is with. The best romance film he has seen is The Notebook because the two characters suit eachother and they are opposite so they work. In a romance film trailer he would expect to see explosions, nudity, girls and guys and let the story flow. We took notes on what he said and once again will consider his ideas when we begin filming.

Character Profile Protagonist

Character Profile- Protagonist 
Name: Raven Rosalinda Fair
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Mixed race/ half Spanish/ half white
Parents: Mum (Spanish) Rosalinda, Dad (White British) Connor
Siblings: 1 older brother called Andres
Lives: Croydon, Shirley
Income: Part time job in Waitrose, £7.20 an hour
Social Class: E, Student
Personality: Introvert/ polite, empathetic, friendly, smart
Hobbies: Reading, horse riding, smokes for stress, drawing, science fiction books, baking
Relationship status: Single

Character Profile- Teacher

Character Profile- Teacher
Name: Daniel Grey
Gender: Male
Age: 24
Relationship: Complicated Marriage with Maria who had recently had a miscarriage
Job: Chemistry Teacher
Income: £28,000 a year
Social Class: C2
Personality: Shy, Misguided, Sweet, Kind, Mysterious
Hobbies: Reading, Cooking, Helping his Nan, Crosswords

Character Profile- Best Friend

Character Profile- The Best Friend
Name: Tiffany James
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Asian
Lives: Selsdon, Croydon
Social Class: E, Student
Income: Part time job, Waitrose, £7.20 an hour
Personality: Bitchy, Gossipy, Two faced, Jealous, Funny, Confident
Hobbies: Partying, Drugs, Alcohol, Drawing, Gaming, always wants to have fun
Relationship Status: Lesbian but single, she wants to go out with Raven but she is jealous.

Target Audience Profile

Perfect Target Audience 

Name: Jennifer Davis 

Age: 17 

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: White British

Social Class: E, Student

Parents: Married 

Siblings: 1 little sister, 1 big brother 

Lives: Norbury 

Income: None/ unemployed/ student

Personality : Bossy, friendly, honest, popular, kind

Hobbies: Crosswords, art, shopping, ice skating

Relationship: Single 

British Board of Film Classification Age Rating

A U means means Universal. It means that anyone can watch the movie but it normally means 4+ as the BBFC don't know the certain things that could upset kids. 

PG means parental guidance. This means that the audience has to have an adult with them while watching it as some scenes could be inappropriate for little kids to watch on their own as they might not understand it or the child could get upset by what they are viewing.

12A means that people below the age of 12 cannot view the film unless they are with someone above the age of 18

A 12 rating means that no one below the age of 12 can view the film as it involves some inappropriate things that could be upsetting for younger ages.

                                                                                         

  No one below the age of 15 is allowed to watch or buy a rated 15 film as it contains certain scenes that aren't suitable for younger years.              

Rated 18 films are not allowed to be bought or scene (in cinema or at home) or rented by anyone under the age of 18 as nothing in them is suitable for people under that page.

                                         

Possible Story lines

Our group all came up with ideas for our trailer and chosen genre which is a Romance. Here are some of our favourite ideas that we thought of:

• Teacher, student love affair. New chemistry teacher comes in and attracts the eye of all the girls, however he only see's one girl in the back of the class. From this a whole spiral of events happen; for example his wife has a miscarriage, the teacher is confused about what should happen between him and the student. 
• A family could be going to Brighton, for a few weeks during the summer holidays. The family have a mum called Elise who is recently married Kai. Elise already has two children; a daughter called Tiffany who's 19 and a son called Elliot who is 17. Throughout thew whole holiday Tiffany and Kai have a growing emotional relationship and end up having an affair. However, Elise doesn't know this but Elliot does... what will Elliot do?
• An immigrant comes into town on a truck. A girl finds him on the street and shelters him and looks after him. After time they fall deeply in love but then he gets sent away. The girl is devastated and spends most of the film looking for him.

The story line we have chosen is the first idea with the teacher, student love affair. We thought this would be an effective idea and easy to film. 

• A girl called Betty is in love with her childhood friend Ian. They go to school together even now but a big argument causes them to never speak again. A few years later they run into each other but Betty is now in a complicated marriage. Her feelings towards him start coming back... what will she do?

Our Chosen Genre- Romance

My group have all agreed on the genre we want for our trailer and the genre we have chosen is Romance. We thought this would be a fun genre to film because we have researched a lot into this and we feel confident that we can produce this trailer. We have researched all the conventions and watched romance trailers as well so we can get an idea about how we want it to look. We want to try and challenge the stereotypical romance trailer and make it different in a way, so it will engage the audience and will make them want to watch it. We are already thinking of some possible story lines and what kind of settings we will use. We are then going to do some primary research by conducting interviews with people and asking them if they like romance films and producing questionnaires for people to fill out. We are then going to record the results from the questionnaire and consider the ideas from the people in the interview, so we can use them in our trailer, once we start filming.

Analysis of a Fantasy Trailer

The film trailer i am going to analyse is Harry Potter and the philosophers stone. This film is about a boy who finds out he's a wizard and goes to Hogwarts, which is a school that teaches the witches and wizards about magic. They use many spells and there are a lot of mythical creatures which link to the fantasy genre i am researching about.

At the beginning of the trailer we see owls, which link into the fantasy genre and we know that they will be featured in the film. It starts off with seeing Harry locked in a cupboard and someone saying "there's no such thing as magic". This will make the audience think that magic will be involved in this film and the audience might feel a bit confused as to why he is locked in a cupboard. Then it shows Goblins and this definitely links into the fantasy genre because they are mythical creatures and can be quite scary in some ways. The music begins quite quiet at the trailer but slowly builds up and gets louder as the trailer progresses. It has a magical feel to it and the sounds are quite unique to give that fantasy effect, telling the audience that this will be a fantasy film.

This is the part of trailer where we see Harry holding the wand for the first time. The audience will be able to tell that there will be a lot of magic involved and all the characters will be using wands. There is a lot of dimmed lighting in this picture, it gives a leery effect behind him as he is standing there holding the wand. This part of the trailer still doesn't show everything that is happening, so the audience will still be asking questions about why he has a wand and where he is going.

This is the main setting where the film is set, the castle. A lot of fantasy films have castles so this is an typical setting for this type of film. The lighting is very dark and this could make the audience feel quite scared in a way because they see this huge castle surrounded by water, hills and a full moon which is the only source of light. In some ways it's quite a magical scene as well with the students in small boats on their way to the castle. The castle could make them feel quite vulnerable because they are in these small boats and they are looking up at the castle which is high above them and it looks overpowering.


After this part of the trailer, the music starts to build up more and its gets louder so the audience will know that its going to get more fast paced and realise that something is going to happen. It also gets more intense as things start going wrong in the film and when the characters are in trouble.

This is quite a dark part of the trailer. First there is a creepy forest which is another typical setting in a fantasy film. This has very dark lighting in and this would make the audience feel scared and will wonder what the hooded figure is. The mist on the floor adds to the creepiness of this scene because its behind the figure and it makes it look more scary. We also see Harry standing to the side and he looks vulnerable and he is alone so we can tell that he is scared of this figure coming towards him. This could also be a contrast from the start of the film when it was happy and magical, but now we see this scary scene and we can tell that this person could be a threat to Harry and we will want to find out more about it.

This is one of the mythical creatures in the film, the troll. They made him look much bigger, so he would look scarier to the audience. This angle of the troll is a low angle shot because we are looking up at him. This makes him look intimidating and we feel vulnerable against the troll. There is low key lighting behind him makes this scene more scary because it has a creepy effect.


In this trailer there is a lot of low key lighting, especially when the creepy scenes are shown, this will make the audience feel scared. Also this trailer has typical fantasy settings such as a castle and a forest. Both are used with low key lighting because it is set at night and might look quite creepy in some ways.

Conventions of a Horror Film

Genre: Horror

WHAT ARE THE CONVENTIONS OF HORROR?

• SETTINGS

Small communities or isolated places. Urban environments, dark streets and narrow alleyways. Large cities or run down ghost towns or being alone.                                           

                                 

These type of locations are usually associated with zombie apocalypse type movies and sometimes serial killer movies.

The dark alleyway provides a sense of vulnerability so this is mostly where the victim gets attacked. A prime example of that is in the movie sin city. Sin city is an action fantasy film but the only reason I chose it as my best example because of all the dark scenes.


Often sometimes would have a very dark history like houses that anew family moves in to, abandoned houses that people go an investigate, hotels and insane asylums. The top 2 movies that come to mind when thinking of houses with history are:

1.     Woman in Black 

2.    The Conjuring

The Conjuring is a typical example

of a house which is haunted by past experiences and a new family moves into the house and is tormented by the demonic movements. Compared to the Woman in black the house in The Conjuring is much more cleaner and well kept but still has the eerie atmosphere.

 The woman in black is an example of a movie about an abandoned house and has been taken over by ghosts and someone goes into explore what is going on. Whereas the house in The Woman in the black is dirty and the audience can clearly tell that no one has lived there for many years.

TECHNICAL CODES

The camera work is very expressive and unnatural. High and low angles can connote fear and nightmare. POV shots are important because they allow the audience to see the characters world through their eyes. This effects the audience by making feel scared and vulnerable just like the victim. Handheld shots make it difficult for the audience to make out what is happening this way the audience would be more intrigued to carry on watching. Disturbing sounds are very important in horror movies. Ambient diegetic sounds cause a sense of reality for example footsteps and doors creaking.

ICONOGRAPHY

   Visual style: Often dark colours like red and black which links to evil, blood, danger etc.

    Lighting is expressive and non naturalistic. Low key lighting can create dark shadows and unfamiliar shapes in blackness. Lighting can be motivated naturally for example fire, torches. Props can help us to further identify the horror genre. Specific props can be identified with a certain villain or character. i.e. Chainsaws, machetes, knifes , claw , gauntlets, house appliances. Common objects include: weapons, masks, icons supernatural, religious icons.

CHARACTER TYPES
The protagonist is usually the victim and the hero of the movie. the villain is often a monster mutated freak, alien serial killer and most of the time possessed person.The stupid/ immoral teenagers that always get killed. Creepy child. Police officers that can either be good or bad.
Many more: Ghosts, zombies, demons, psychopaths, stalker, weirdo werewolf. 

 THEMES

Good vs Evil

Depression

Religion

Childhood issues

Revenge

Supernatural

Beyond death

Science gone bad

Zombie apocalypse 

Nightmares

Madness

Insanity

Lust

Self consciousness

Envy 

Suicide

Post done by Celyn Ofori

Conventions of a Romantic Comedy Film

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Analysis - Romantic Comedy Trailer

 "Friends with Benefits"

"Friends with Benefits" first came out in 2011, directed by Will Glunk and stars Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson and Jenna Elfman. 

The plot of this film two friends decide to try something new and take advantage of their mutual attraction without any emotional attachment, they soon realize romantic comedy stereotypes might exist for a reason.

 The characters of a film try and get out of the stereo types about relationships and how being intimate with someone always leads to deeper emotions but soon get challenged when their own emotions start acting up.

 Analysis of the trailer

Camera-Shots & Movement - the high angle long shot right at the beginning of the trailer enables the viewer to see the setting of the film. 

By using the shot, the viewer can already tell that the film will be quite busy and fast pace as the setting is a busy city. The behind-the-shoulder mid shots used to first introduce both the main characters allows the viewer to get a good look of them. This shot shows that both characters are good looking and quite young, which is stereo typical of a romantic comedy.

Sound - there is a non-diegetic soundtrack that goes on through out the film. The soundtrack is quite fast and cheerful at the beginning and it stops when the characters say something funny. For example, half a minute into the trailer, the soundtrack is quite pacey and outgoing when it stops and the male lead says "i guess we should just start". This allows the "comedy" element of the film to kick in so the audience can understand the genre of the film.

Editing - around the ending of the trailer a lot of fades are used to separate the shots. This shows the different things that the two characters do together. It makes the audience understand their relationship and makes them understand that they are humorous and adventurous characters.

Mise-En-Scene - stereo typically they have used very good looking so through out the film their costumes are quite flattering.

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Conventions of a Romantic Comedy

Romantic Comedy's (also known as "rom-coms) are films that have humorous and light-hearted narratives that revolve around someone's love life; they were originally a sub-genre that formed from romance films.

Narratives: the narratives of rom-coms can vary. The basic narratice would be two characters, usually a man and a woman, meet and then part in the middle of the film due to a disagreement or an argument but then reunite at the end.

However there are now different themes in rom-coms...

• love at first sight
• marriage/divorce
• bestfriends in love
• high school teen love
• love triangle etc...

Characters: the stereo typical characters for a romantic comedy would be...

• Good Looking Male - the male lead of a romantic comedy would normally be a good looking young actor who is generally the main love interest of the film. He is presented to be quite big headed and funny. 
• Good Looking Female: the female lead would be a good looking young actress who would be a bit "dopey" or sarcastic but still manages to catch the eye of the "good looking male).
• Parents: somewhere along the film one of the characters parents would be involved and stereo typically they would be embarrassing and very open.
• The leading males bestfriend - the male's bestfriend would normally be the funnier one but they aren't always as good looking as the male lead. They normally go through the film either trying to convince the male lead out of "falling in love" and going through it picking on them for being "in love".
• The leading females bestfriend - the leading female of the film normally have a group of friends. They are all equally as good looking as each other and they go through the film as being the female leads "therapists" or a helping hand as they give advice to her about what she should do about her situations etc...

Setting: rom-coms are normally set in big well known cities such as New York, London, LA etc. But, it normally depends on the narrative and theme of the film. For example, if it's a "love at first sight" film, then they are normally set in big cities where they are around a lot of people and it's always busy. However, if it's a "high school teen love" movie they might be set in smaller settings.

Mise-En-Scene: the mise-en-scene for rom-coms depend on the narrative and the theme...

Costumes - stereo typically most of the characters in their costumes would normally reflect on the type of person they are.

For example, if the leading female is quite shy she could be dressed in a midi skirt, a shirt and a cardigan (subtle and not revealing). Another example could be a leather jacket, a nice top and jeans for the leading male if he is presented as the "cool guy on campus" and quite big headed and cocky.

Lighting - because rom-coms are light hearted and quite uplifting, the lighting all through out the film would be high-key which produces a very flattering and general mood of the film. During the more depressing bits of the film, the lighting tends to be low key to mirror the mood of the characters.

Props - the props in the film would depend on the characters and the narratives. Depending of their jobs, if they go to school or not etc, they would have different things on them, for example, a briefcase.

Post done by Fariha Khan

Conventions of a Romance Film

Genre: Romance

We created a prezi on the genre of romance trailers, exploring the codes as well as conventions of the genre, gave examples of some romance trailers, commented on what we think is effective within that trailer and what we liked. Lastly, how we would accommodate some of these conventions within our trailer, how we are going to challenge or follow traditional stereotypical codes and conventions of romance genre.  

This is the prezi Sarah created: 

This post was made by Sarah Divilly 

Conventions of Fantasy films

Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap. Fantasy films often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, escapism, and the extraordinary.

Examples of fantasy films: 

• Lord of the Rings
• Harry Potter 
• Chronicles of Narnia
• Tron
• Pan's Labyrinth 
• Star Wars

Codes and Conventions 

• High production values
• Younger target audience although significant older appeal
• Wide/saturated distribution (normally by an American Studio e.g. Warners or Disney). Mainstreamers and Aspirers
• Dedicated, sometimes obsessive fan base
• Convergence and Synergy – computer games, merchandising, forums and blogs, fan sites…
• Emotive, often ‘romanticised’ narratives
  
  Hyper real, idealised representations
• Saturated primary colours
• High key lighting
• Significant CGI and FX e.g. green screen technology
• Aspirational, escapist characters, often undertaking a quest
• Occasional political narrative themes only understood by an older target audience with significant cultural capital (e.g. about minority groups)
• Reputation for being ideologically traditional e.g. Disney ‘teaching’ gender roles to young target audiences
• Positive narrative outcomes (happy endings)
• Simplistic, linear narrative (e.g. a Hobbit travels across middle earth encountering danger)
• Iconography includes magic, mystical creatures e.g. Elves and Fairies

Harry Potter: Magic is the main feature in this fantasy along with trolls, giant spiders, giants, elves, goblins, dragons and mermaids. They are all mythical creatures.

Settings: A castle, Forests, lake. All typical settings for a fantasy film.











Star Wars: Space is the main feature in this fantasy. It is set in the distant future. It includes futuristic technology which included lightsabers, droids, cyborgs, laser blasters, spaceships, unrealistic planets, the force, clones and vehicles.
Settings: Space, Spaceships, Planets







Lord of the Rings: This is a epic high fantasy with Dwarves, Elves, Wizards, Dragons, Mythical creatures and monsters.
Settings: Castles, Forests, mysterious locations and buildings.






Forbidden Forest: This is a typical fantasy setting because it is dark and creepy. Normally in fantasy films the characters will meet some mysterious creatures who live there. There is a lot of low key lighting because it is overgrown with trees, plants and other wildlife growing there. This is a very popular setting which is used a lot in fantasy films.

Castle: Castles are also another popular setting because the main characters live there or it will be their goal to get there throughout the film. They are normally surrounded by a lake, trees and plants. There will be lots of bright lighting because it is in an open area and there will be a happy atmosphere. Castles are the best setting because they have the fantasy theme with kings and queens living inside.


Mysterious locations/ places: This setting is usually the type of setting when no one really know what it is but there is a lot going on. This one looks like a house with contraptions flying around. There is low key lighting and high key lighting in this setting, it has quite a weary effect with dimmed colours in the sky. Normally mysterious characters will live there and we wouldn't know much about them but we find out more as the story goes on.