Analysis of a Title Sequence - DodgeBall

For research into title sequences I chose DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story

Immediatly the audience is watching a parody TV advertisement for Globo Gym which features shots of weightlifters and exercisers. These shots mainly consist of the female body in tight clothing, giving the audience an idea of the commercial.

The narrator has a cheesy american voice talking to the viewer and asking them questions, much like stereotypical advertisement people would expect. He goes onto to say "tired of out of shape and out of luck with the opposite sex" and it shows a shot of a male lifting up a female whilst he does push ups.


The narration then switches to White Goodman (Ben Stiller) and he begins to speak about the gym whilst walking the camera through it. We see various people working out and Stiller also speaks some ridiculous lines like "ugliness and fatness are genetic disorders, much like baldness or necrophilia". It jumps straight into the comedy and the audience is given a huge idea about what kind of character Stiller will play.

Goodman then shows the viewer a picture of what he used to be like, which is a crazy picture of him, obese and naked, eating ice cream.

We then see Peter LaFleur (Vince Vaughn) and the editing drops in pace, the music stops and feed good music kicks in, showing the differences in the characters.

The titles also come on now, the font is simple and orange which has a old-style look. The colour itself matches the main character and how he's only ordinary.
Peter carries out his daily routine of getting up, brushing his teeth and getting into his car to go to work.

Thank You Uncle Norman

The finished film.

Evaluation - Thank You Uncle Norman

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of media products?

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.

Analysis of a Film - Dodgeball

I choose DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story (2004) for my research into comedy films.

The film opens showing the distributor, 20th Century Fox.

It then goes into a parody of a commercial, with a narrator asking questions if the "audience" is tired of being overweight, of being the same old "you". This is a parody of various exercise commercials which tries to grab the viewers attention by asking them questions. The music which plays in the background is simple melodic music which is usually heard in these type of commercials. Shown on the camera are various shots of buttocks (mainly female) , it then pans into White Goodman (Ben Stiller), the antagonist of the film.

He then takes over the commercial and begins to explain about Globo Gym and why people should go to his gym. He also says some absurd comparisons about how fat is a genetic disorder like baldness or necrophilia, which people would find funny at how random and off the wall they are. The camera meanwhile is following him around whilst he walks through the gym past various weightlifters or people doing other exercises.

White then speaks about how he was a client at the gym and it shows a picture of him, naked and obese staring at the camera whilst eating ice cream. It then zooms out showing the TV and then pans to the left showing a dog and finally stops panning when the sleeping main character, Peter LaFleur (Vince Vaughn) enters the shot.

He begins to murmur stuff about how "it feels good" when it cuts to the dog on his crotch, which he abruptly tells to get away. The shot then cuts to the TV, where White Goodman tells the viewer to "come on down and join the winning team" and that "we're better than you and we know it" with him giving a thumbs up, which gives the audience an idea of his absurd character.

Peter turns off the TV and gets up to the fridge. New "feel good" music kicks in at this point whilst it shows him getting a drink, brushing his teeth and getting into his car to drive to work, titles also start showing the names of the main actors and the crew and also the film name.




Recorded messages on his voicemail system tells us about how he's overdue on bills (by 8th months) or overdue on certain DVDs, Drunken Hussies 3, Backdoor Patrol 5 and Mona Lisa Smile. The former seem like Adult DVDs whilst Mona Lisa Smile is an actual film which seems like something a man by himself wouldn't watch.

The location changes to Globo Gym, which then pans to the right and we see Peter's gym, Average Joe's which is the complete opposite to Globo Gym. Peter's car is being pushed by 3 people. It then cuts to inside the gym and the logo of Average Joe's, to make sure the audience didn't miss it the shot before.

Now, on this scene we can see that this also is a contrast to Globo Gym as Peter walks through the gym speaking to each of his customers as they're friends. In the commercial, we see White walking past people without speaking to them and how the people around him are only fixated on their looks not other problems they might have. The exercise equipment props are notably of lower quality compared to Globo Gyms equipment

Peter begins speaking to a skinny, dorky man about his problems about getting no messages from the voicemail dating he's been using. the camera cuts from Peter to the man during the conversation and Peter then moves on to the next person. This whole scene gives the audience information about the other cast and how their personalities are.

Peter and the next person, a small fat man wearing glasses who's exercising at the same time whilst they talk. The next person is sat on a machine and they speak about his current problem. The scene changes to the past where it shows the teenager at the cheerleading tryouts. It can be seen that he's obviously nervous by the way he speaks and how he tells the judges "good luck". His partner for the cheerleading tryouts is a fat teenage girl, who tells him that she's wearing no underwear and procedes to fall ontop of him after the lift. It goes back to Peter who tells the teenager that it'll all work out and he walks away.

Peter gets pushed against a wall by a man (Steve) as he's walking who talks like a pirate and acts like one as well. They speak about the fees for the gym and finally, Peter walks to his office.


As he enters the office, we see female legs and the camera cuts to show the woman turn around and greet Peter. She tells him she's a lawyer and they begin to converse about the gyms bills. The camera uses over the shoulder shots here to show the conversation and the reactions of Peter and the woman. Peter flirts every now and then with her during their conversation and finally asks her who would buy the gym anyway.

It then cuts to White Goodman with a man behind him telling him to squeeze it whilst White groans. The camera slowly zooms out and you can see White is only doing an exercise and the man is helping him. Peter comes in and White offers him some exotic food, which Peter declines. White tells him to walk with him and they exit the room with White closing the door on the Peter.

They speak to each other about the gym and what happens in the past whilst White insults Peter and his gym. He tells Peter he'll be making the gym into a parking space and goes into a tanning machine.

Websites

http://www.imdb.com/ - used to find films and information about them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - used to help find information on the comedy genre, different types of comedy, actors and any information about films which imdb didn't have.

http://www.youtube.com/ - for searching for opening title sequences, music

http://www.artofthetitle.com/ - useful for looking at unique film title sequences, although they may not be focused on comedy it still helped give ideas for our film.

http://www.filmsite.org/comedyfilms.html - a website with indepth information and explanations of comedy, the sub-genres and the history of comedy films.

Music Track

In my research I saw that in most comedy films, the opening atmosphere was defined by the music which was generally upbeat, consisting of modern rock songs which played out whilst the characters did their daily routine.

An example of this is Step Brothers which had Vampire Weekend - A-Punk as the music to go with the opening title sequence. It sets the atmosphere for the film whilst flowing with the editing.

However, Superbad used more funky music to suit the title sequence used for the film which was Too Hot to Stop by the Bar-keys.

The song we chose to use is Track 3 from High Energy Rock - Audio Network. We chose this as it had good synergy with our film and was the type of music we were searching for.

Audience Research

Audience Questionnaire

For further research into comedy films, we needed to ask our audience questions about comedy films and how they feel about them. The questions we asked were as follows;

1. What types of comedy do you like?

2. What are your favourite comedy films?

3. Are the actors in comedy films important? Why?

4. Do you prefer American comedy or British comedy and why?

We asked these particular questions to give us an idea of what we should focus on in our film, like whether our film should be more British comedy or have more of an American feel to it as most of the popular modern comedies are American.

Similar Films

One film which has a similar storyline to ours is The Secret of My Success (1987).

This is a film starring Michael J. Fox as a graduate of a university, who finds a job working in the mailroom of a company. He discovers that the company's employees are making bad decisions and finds a empty office in the building and assumes the identity of a new executive working for the company and making it successful.

The storyline is similar to our film as the main character assumes the role of someone else (in our film it's his brother) and how the main character gets into many impossible situations.

Here is a trailer of the film;



Another film which I see as similar is Richie Rich (1994).

This is a film starring Macaulay Culkin as the richest kid in the whole world, as he is the son of $70 billion tycoon. All the kid has grown up with is money and he hasn't been able to find friendship, until he encounters a group of kids playing baseball which he invites them to his home in a way to bond with them.
However, the greedy CFO of his father's company intends to take the family riches for himself, and goes to his home to steal the riches from his father's vault.

The storyline is similar to our film and it has many similar elements, most notably the money (although not the same scale) and how at the end of the film there's a morale to it. Richie figures out friends are important and in our film Jim discovers that he will work hard to be happy.

Script

Treatment for Full Film

Treatment

Film Title:
Thank you Uncle Norman

Duration:
100 minutes

Target Audience:
As we have chosen the classification of our film to be 15, our target audience is predominately made up of 15-24 year olds, although we expect to be able to attract viewers of up to 30 years old.

Synopsis:
Jim Phillips is 19 years old, unemployed and a party goer. With no aim in life he makes through each day playing games and going out drinking with mates. All this is broken however when he receives a phone call from a solicitor claiming his Uncle Norman has left his brother Craig £5 million and to tell the "lazy" brother how he doesn't get any.
Jim decides to impersonate Craig and claim the £5 million for himself, going to the solicitors giving his details and aquiring the whole amount with no questions asked. After getting the whole amount into his bank account, he travels to Amsterdam with a group of his best friends and they spend the money there, getting into all sorts of trouble like getting put into jail and meeting all types of people.
Craig finds out about Jim stealing his money and travels to Amsterdam himself to confront him, however when he gets there he learns that there's no money left and they both go back home, with Jim deciding to work hard to get a taste of the rich life again.

Suggested Elements:
The film is a comedy and one of the suggested elements is humour, however we intend to incorporate some drama into the film. When Jim goes to Amsterdam, there will be some scenes of him using drugs, as although seen as illegal in the UK it is legal there.
Another element which will be in the film will be how the main character is impersonating a person and how the brother gets caught up in it due to his antics.
Friendship will also be an element in the film, as he travels to Amsterdam with his friends and spends the money with them.

Opening Sequences of Comedy Films

Pineapple Express
A comedy film about "stoners". The opening is unique, as it is a flashback and is a take on why marujuana is illegal. The whole scene is in black and white, which indicates it's in the past. Although it doesn't give off a comedic atmosphere at first, the dialogue and expressions the characters make solidify the genre to the audience.
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Step Brothers

A comedy about 2 adults who become Step Brothers. (embedding disabled)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sczh_KjjFNU

The opening is upbeat and shows both the main characters, it also uses time jumps, which indicates that it's moving fast which would be how the main characters would feel as their parents suddenly hook up. It also shows the main characters doing ridiculous things which gives the audience an idea on what they're like.

Monty Python's The Life of Brian

An old british comedy film which tells the story about a young jewish man who is born on the same day and next door to Jesus Christ, and is then mistaken as the messiah.
The film starts with dramatic music, often seen in films about epics and sees 3 men crossing the desert on camels. The characters and dialogue used however, are what makes it a comedy. As many people know about how the 3 wise men came when Christ was born, however the dialogue and the fact that it isn't actually Jesus himself is what makes it funny.