The Pitch

Our pitch contained all the ideas of our film and was used for us to sell our film ideas to the rest of the class and our teachers.
It included details on our film synopsis, characters and casts and locations. We also included description of what our opening is to consists of with a detailed description of the opening shots. We decided our camera angles and used images to show the audience exactly what we intended to do. We also showed samples of our storyboard and script to show we had planned all aspects of our film. We have made a PowerPoint of all our ideas making it look more professional and organised.

With all these details finalised and planned already it should make the shooting of our film as easy as possible. Our storyboard
is extremely detailed and mentions the camera movement, camera shots, and the timing of each shot so we know exactly what to do for each shot.

When we performed our pitch to the class and teacher, we included everything that was supposed to be included and showed the audience exactly what was going to appear in our opening. The pitch was successful and our teacher said our idea was good enough to be approved. Our final things to now do are to perfect our storyboards and scripts, create our shooting schedule and then begin to start filming our opening.

Synopsis of Film

Before we began filming our opening scene we needed to have a clear idea on the synopsis of our whole film. This was essential as it allows us to give away clues of what is going to happen in the remaining of our film in our opening and allows us to have a clear idea on the characters personalities and therefore how to portray them as well as a clear idea on what is going to happen in each part of the film making it easier to create our opening.

Here is a brief outline to our synopsis:
Beginning
Equilibrium Set, Harvey and Katie introduced separately through their morning routine
Characters are introduced/ Personalities made obvious
Characters bump into each other
Characters are then at a date, and both get stood up, the couple interact

The Middle
Relationship develops
Girl’s sister (Janine) gets a job at the same place as male character
Janine andHarvey spend a lot of time together
Janine walks in on Janine and Harvey drinking together and gets the wrong idea (Disruption)
Katie and Harvey do not contact each other, yet still think about each other
Harvey goes to Katie’s house, brings singing lepricorn to sing her a romantic comedy (Attempt to restore)
Katie slams door in face
Katie constantly thinks about Harvey
Janine meets with Katie, and tells her about how she got the wrong idea, and explains that they were planning a romantic surprise for Katie

Ending
Typically ‘happy ending’ (Restoration of the equilibrium)
Harvey romantically proposes to Katie, by writing (in flowers) will you marry me on the ground (in a field)
Ends with a perfect wedding, and the couple drive past where they first met and smile to themselves.

Preliminary Task

Before half term we were given the task of our preliminary task. The task had to include someone opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with short dialogue between these two characters. It also had to demonstrate a match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

We storyboard our ideas for the task and scripted it, making it easier to shoot as we new exactly what we wanted. We then chose where to shoot the task and filmed our preliminary task ensure we included all the aspects.

After Half term we then edited our footage on 'imovie' to create a flowing sequence and attempt to match edits in order for the clip to flow and be easy to watch. We then evaluated our task in order to find aspects we needed to improve on along with areas that worked well in order for us to produce the highest quality opening we can and receive the best grade possible.

We realised that some of our framing needed work as we didn't always use the rule of thirds. We also found that we need to shot more footage as, although we tried to shoot each scene from different angles to make it easier to fit together, when it came to the editing of our clip we were unable to completely match some scenes causing it to be quite jumpy and not smooth flowing. We were happy with a lot of our footage as we used tripods causing it not to be shaky, however our handhold shots weren't completely smooth and we need to ensure that we change this in our opening. Another aspect which we were happy with were the use of different shots such as over the shoulder, medium, medium-close and two shots, although we do want to ensure we use an even wider range when it comes to our final filming. We were also especially pleased with the outcome of our establishing shot. When it came to the editing although all the shots didn't flow those that did worked really well and allowed us to see how much the quality is improved when shots fit together perfectly.

This task allowed us to see what needs to be done when it comes to the final filming and what we need to ensure we improve on within this. It also gave us a lot of positives of our ideas that worked really well and aspects which we were good at. The editing within this task also allowed us to see the length of time needed to produce a quality opening and gave us vital information in that we need to ensure we film more footage so our shots fit together perfectly.

Institutional Context

As a group we looked into film industries such as 20th century Fox, Hollywood and the BBFC - Regulation and control. After gathering this background information from these we then looked in more detail and focused on the Company Universal and created a case study on it. We chose universal as it as widely recognised company and released the film Love Actually which was the most popular film from our Questionnaire.
We researched in to the compnay Universal in order to find the Media companies that it owns and there relevance, Its production and distribution element as well as films that it has recently released. From this research we then decided if Universal would be a suitable company to work with for our project and once we decided it would, we explained why we thought this and the reasons behind our decision.
Below are a few slides from the guide we produced on this company.

Evaluation of Textual Analysis

With the other members of my group we then gathered all our textual analysis's together in order to find the common code and conventions of Romantic comedies. We looked at what were the common settings, themes, colours, lighting, camera shots/movement, sounds, costumes, characters, Actors, Narratives, Enigma, iconography used along with typical movement and gesture seen. We created a PowerPoint in order to feedback these findings to the rest of the class and in order to make it easy for us to see what the recurring conventions of this genre are. This is important as it will allow us to include them in our opening and ensure it is clear what genre our opening is for.

Below are a few slides from the PowerPoint we created of the codes and conventions typical to a Romantic Comedy.

Textual Analysis

The next part of our coursework was to complete 8 detailed textual analysis. We were required to complete 5 analysis of Romantic Comedy Openings, paying specific attention to; the setting, camera shots + movement, mise en scene, editing, colours and themes. This was in order to help us see common code and conventions and aspects we needed to include in our opening. We then also analysed 3 full films concentrating on Stock characters and settings, Themes, Narrative, Iconography and Enigma. For these analysis i chose to analysis PS I Love you, Bridget Jones and How to lose a guy in 10 days as they were films that came up as peoples favourite films in our questionnaire analysis. These analysis were important and it was essential to make sure they were detailed as they allow me to understand the genre and the codes and conventions that make up the genre of romantic comedy making it easier to produce our opening.

Friday 22nd January

On Friday, we then had to present our findings to the rest of the groups and Mr Cramb. We Explained the analysis of what our graph showed and what we had found and how this would affect what we are going to include within our opening. Some of the essential findings we found from our questionnaire was that the target audience tends to be females of age 12-25, city based openings with the female often coming up as seen as the most dominant character. The music needed to match the mood of what was being shown on screen and we also discovered that PS i Love You, Love Actually and Bridget Jones were popular Romantic Comedies due to there story lines or humour therefore felt we should look into these films in more detail.