Our film uses typical conventions of comedy, such as a lazy main character who
likes to drink and a solicitor who looks at adult magazines whilst talking on the phone to a client. Although they may not be in all comedy films, we often see such characters with similar traits in more modern comedy films such as Pineapple Express with the main character as a person addicted to marujuana and does his job in roundabout ways.We develop these conventions in our film with the storyline and the events that happen in the film. For example, to emphasize Jim's lazyness we had shots of him lying on his sofa watching TV and playing games.
The music we used follows the general comedy conventions of being up beat and we chose rock/indie as it links with our main character and the poster at the beginning.
The opening sequence of our film is similar to a few films that I've researched, most notably Step Brothers and Dodgeball. In our film we start off with the titles, showing the film and
the main cast and then it goes straight into the film with the music over the top. This is similar to Step Brothers as the music and how the start of the film consists of the brothers just doing their own things is the same as Jim who gets up, watches TV and plays some games.Jim gets up and goes down stairs into the bathroom whilst his brother exits his room ready to go to college.
Jim shuts the door behind him and it cuts to flowing water, with the camera zooming out to show thats it's only water pouring into a cup which is light hearted humour as the audience may be thinking that we were showing him urinating. He then goes into the living room and sits on the sofa which we have a similar angle found in Dodgeball.
Jim receives a phonecall from a solicitor telling him his Uncle has passed away and left his brother inheritance, not him which gives him a shock but procedes impersonate his brother and claim the money as his.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film reprents social groups such as the low class teenage male who has finished college and is jobless. We also added in how he likes to drink and party which can be seen by the drinks we placed in his room. This represents other teenagers in similar situations as him and also attracts them to watch to film as they're familiar with the situation the main character lives in. Although this is stereotypical, it's also realistic as there are people out there who have gone through a similar situation in life.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A major Hollywood studio wouldn't be distributing our film as it has a british feel about and low profile actors. However, it could be sucessful even with these setbacks as comedy films don't focus as much on the special effects used or the high budget sequences, more on the dialogue and script.
A small distributor such as Warp Films (they would have a part in production) or Optimum Releasing (This Is England and Four Lions) would distribute our film in Britain. The film would start in cinemas and go onto DVDs after time on screen, following the standard route films take. It could also be bought or rented using the internet with sites such as Amazon, Play.co.uk and Love Film.
There would be possibilities for merchandising in the film as there are props that we use which advertise products such as the gaming console shown during the title sequence and the phone. Clothes which Jim wears could be of a certain brand and attract viewers to buy clothes from the brand, as the main character wears it.
4.Who would be the audience for your media product?
The general audience of our target audience would be 15-25 males, as that age group can relate to the main character. However, older viewers may find out film interesting if they like the plot or just enjoy comedy.
The main cast are males only and if the film were to carry on for full length we would only have girls be sex symbols and play a small part, which would detract our female viewers to an extent but some would still watch the film as other comedy films such as American Pie have this approach and have some female viewers.
Similar films to ours include Step Brothers, Superbad and Pineapple Express which have the typical bro-comedy, two or a group of close friends who experience silly situations together. As shown in our audience feedback, these films are amongst peoples favourites and they would watch our film takes ideas from them.
The film would be classified as a 15 as we created the film to follow these guidelines. The language would be too strong for 12, but staying within the limits of 15. It also has brief nudity but is not strong, which would keep it at the 15 classification.
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/15-2
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attract our intended audience of 15-25 year old males using the cast, which is of a similar age group consisting of 19 year old Jim and 17 year old Craig. Jim and Craig would go through things in their life which the audience can relate to such as partying, college or being jobless.
The audience would also witness most of the film from Jim's viewpoint and the camera shots would generally be of his height. This will put the viewer in Jim's shoes, which would make them enjoy the film more and the comedy would seem more natural to them.6. What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?
We used Sony HDV1000's to film and we learnt that the cameras aren't complicated to use, which helped us as things such as white balance, checking if it was on widescreen or watching our shots on set helped us save time and gave our film a look of high quality. The tripod can take awhile to set up to make sure it's level and isn't too loose or tight and it can also restrict us as some pans and tilts were harder to pull off with the tripod due to it getting stuck sometimes.
There were some problems we faced such as the lighting. As we didn't have time to film it all in one day the weather would sometimes take a change for the worse, which would mean we have less natural lighting and wouldn't give our film a summery feel.
We used Final Cut Express when editing our footage. During the few sessions we spent editing, we developed skills to be able to do all the editing ourselves apart from when we needed certain effects to be added into our film. One effect we used was Dip to Colour Dissolve which helped our opening title sequence blend into the film smoothly. Another effect we used was a High Pass filter which we placed into the audio to give the effect of a phone call. We also did small things like increasing the audio levels on some shots to keep the levels consistent, increasing the speed off the titles to match the music and editing our shots to cut to the beat of the music.
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
We spent time planning what we would do in our film and what the plot would be. The planning and storyboarding ensured we were focused on what we had to do and we also thought up better ideas than we had originally thought as the production went on. The shooting script also helped us not waste time trying to figure out what to shoot first and what goes where in editing.
The research we did gave our film a more professional feel, as our film has conventions from other modern comedy films which we found by watching and analysing other films. The research we did also gave us an idea of our audience and what they want, which enticed us to make our film have similarities to films such as Step Brothers.
Our use of the different shot types has definately improved such as match on action and different angles and height as seen in our film. I feel that I'm comfortable using the editing software and cameras without much help apart from the more advanced effects in editing which I may need to figure out.
Our lighting was also much better in our film than in the preliminary task, we saw that problem after we filmed our preliminary task and we made sure we did it properly in our film.
Finally, I feel that our film was sucessful in fufilling a 2minute opening of a comedy films and it incorporates everything I feel that would make it obvious to the viewer that the film is of a comedy nature.
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