End of Term Summary.

This term I feel like I have used time productively. 
As a group and individually we have completed; 


- Initial Genre Research
- Chosen FP Genre Research (analysis of 5 opening sequences)
- Initial Ideas for Opening Sequence
- Treatment
- Treatment Pitch
- Predicted Target Audience
- Audience Research (all of the methods used)
- Audience Research findings (analysis of results)
- Target Audience Profile 
- Treatment (new drafts)
- Screenplay (all of the drafts)


Next term, we aim to start the story boards, construct a production schedule, start filming and then start with the editing process. 

Blog Update 15th December

Today, both me and Connor Re-wrote our treatment templage. Becky was yet again absent meaning we had to continue and get on with the work making decisions ourself. We changed things in the treatment pitch including the title of the film from 'Love triangle' to 'Two can play that game.' We felt that this new title fits the film and comes across more effective. Me and Connor both feel that our research is helping to improve our opening sequence and we included constructive criticism from both the focus groups and interviews.

I am overall happy with the process we have made and i feel that we are ready to story board. We didn't manage to get our script and story board done but we have set ourselves tasks for over the christmas holiday which will help us catch up and be ready to film when we return.

Final Target Audience Profile

Based on the audience research that we have carried out, from the interviews and the focus groups we conducted we have gathered all the information and here is the final target audience profile.

Name: Rachel

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Occupation: College Student

Rachel is a teenager who lives with her family and her older brother and younger sister. She got herself at a job at a high street shop. She is into fashion and shopping and currently studies fashion at her college. She has a good group of friends and is in a big friendship group. She likes getting an income so that she can go out with her friends regularly. Her favourite thing to do in her free time is either shopping or going to the cinema. She's interested in the most recent films out and is mostly interested in Romantic Comedies, Romantic films and Comedies. On a Wednesday, she uses her Orange Wednesday and goes to the cinema with her friends to watch the new movies. She uses media to escape from her college work, these include, the internet, social networking, her mobile and she uses her iPod to listen to music and play games.

Rachel is not in a relationship but she feels that there is no rush to find one as she has time ahead of her, she wants to focus on her studies and have fun with her friends although she does have a crush. At sixth form she studies media, biology, psychology and ICT. When she is older she wants to be a veterinary nurse so she is good at sixth form and keeps to her deadlines. She is aiming to go to the University of Brighton and doesn't want to be put off by a male figure.

13th December 2011- blog update

In todays lesson Becky was absent and me and Connor continued to analyse our questionnaire answers. We started to take into consideration the answers for the target audience and will continue to write the target audience re-write. Hopefully becky will be in next lesson and we will continue with the re-write and as a group draft our screenplay.

Treatment Re-Write

Here is our treatment re-write that me and Connor wrote up, we are now confident that it is appropriate and suitable for a Romantic Comedy film. We have improved the story from when we last did the treatment, this was based on the results we got from the audience research we conducted. We have now changed the personalities so that there is a clear distinction between both Ellie and Jessica, so that the audience don't get confused between the two girls.


Two Can Play That Game

An Original screen play by Kirstie Staggs, Becky Hagger and Connor Still

15th December 2011

Centre Stage Productions presents a romantic comedy film about two girls named Ellie & Jessica who fall in love with a guy called Connor but they don't realise its the same person. They are the best of friends but live completely different life styles because of their personalities. Ellie is a secondary school art teacher who is very dipsy and enjoys her life everyday with the children she teaches whereas jessica on the other hand is a lawyer and acts in a very professional manor. She is a serious person as when she's at work this is how she has to act and her job can be stressful for her.

As the story unfolds we realise the two girls fall in love with Connor and they are best friends who have advised each other with advice on the same m an. This can only lead to disaster as there friendship will be tested as events unfold during the film.

Through going on dates, talking in work, conversations on the phone they reassure each other that there is not another girl on the scene and that he does like her not knowing its the same guy.

Think 'In Her Shoes' meets 'Something Borrowed'.

Our production company plans to have a montage in order to achieve the desired passing time effect targeted towards a demographic composed primarily of women. From our audience research we are going to include different ideas such as the music in the background with the voice over, over the top.

Focus Group Response

From this focus group we have taken the idea that was suggested that it starts off with one of the characters pressing off their alarm clock and falling out of bed. This adds to the build up of comedy they suggested about starting off funny and then building up throughout. We chose Ellie to do this part as she is the 'dopey' character out of them both and the one that is clumsy.

We also used the idea of the song playing over the top whilst the characters are getting ready in the morning, rather than using the idea of the radio being played we put the song over the top when she comes up from falling off the bed.

A good name for the opening sequence was suggested which was 'Two can play that game' we decided to go with this as the original name 'Love triangle' is quite common and the audience may be able to figure out what the film is about before even watching it.

This focus group has been very helpful as we got more of an understanding to what the audience of Romantic Comedy movies like to include along with suggestions to make our opening sequence better.

Interview Responses

These are the interviews that Me and Connor went and recorded. We carried these out to try and gain more of an understanding of who our target audience will be.

Interview with Miss O'Dell

Questionnaire Analysis

We carried out a questionnaire on surveymonkey to help with our target audience research.

These are our results that we received from the 22 people that took the questionnaire.

1. We can see that the majority of people who took our survey were females with nearly double the number of males who took part in our survey. We can now make a judgement because romantic comedies appeal more to females than males, we can use the answers from the females,  as we have a large amount of replies and build up the Target Audience.

   2. This question 'how old are you?' gave us an idea of the a age group that took this survey. We can tell that 21 out of the 22 people who took the survey were teenagers, so now we know they were mostly female teenagers between the ages of 13-19. This helps with our audience research as we can begin to take our target audience into consideration. This question could have been more specific as we could have done individual ages rather than a group of ages because although we have the age range we do not necessarily know the exact age.


     3. What is your occupation?

Student (18)    Teacher (2)   Kitchen Fitter (1)   Other (1)

3. From this question we can see that most of the people who answered this survey were students, we can make an assumption so far from this survey that we have mainly a female audience who are students. This is good for the genre we have chosen as we can really get in detail with our target audience as we predicted that it was going to be females from the ages of 15+.

     4. What was the last film you watched?

In time (2)
Twilight (3)
Arthur Christmas (1)
Angus thongs (1)
Anuvahood (1)
The Thing (1)
Human Centipede 2 (1)
50 first dates (1)
Paranormal Activity 3 (1)
Taken (1)
Passion of the Christ (1)
Office and a Gentlemen (1)
Anchor Man (1)
Harry Potter (1)
Wild Child (1)
Good fellas (1)
Chuck 'n' Larry (1)
Horrible bosses (1)
Hangover 2 (1)

4. There was a wide range of films that the people who took our survey have watched recently. Most of the films that were watch are films that have been recently released in the cinema or DVD. There were some Romantic Comedy films within these results which allows us to see that these people do watch Romantic Comedies. An example of this is; Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging, Officer and a Gentleman and 50 first dates.


     5. What are your hobbies?

Dance & Drama (4)
reading drawing writing poetry (6)
Shopping (4)
Football (5)
Other sports (9)
Cooking (2)
Music (6)
Cinema (1)
Other (6)

5. These are the answers that we received for the hobbies people have. Sports was a main category that most people take part in. Some of the other hobbies include dance & drama, shopping and music/concerts. These answers were from mainly the female's who answered the questionnaire.

6. We got a variety of answers for this question, the majority of people watch films at the cinema regularly. There is a disadvantage to this question, and we could have improved it as people may interpret the different types 'strongly agree', 'agree', 'sometimes', 'disagree' and 'strongly disagree'. For example; people might think sometimes is once a week whereas another may think that strongly agree is once a week. People might get confused with the question.

7. From the choices we gave the users we see that most of the people see film adverts on the TV with 21 responses and then Cinema with 14. This shows that these are the most common places film adverts are seen. We can say, from this information if we were to advertise for our film, that the most effective place would be using mainly TV.

This was the 'other' response.

8. The highest response from this this question was the internet, we can get a clear idea that when the users are on the internet they may come across advertisements etc. We can also see from this that news papers and magazines are not widely used so advertisement in these for the target population we aim to please would not be successful.

9. Please list three things you'd expect to see in a romantic comedy film.

Relationship (5)
Romanic Music (3)
Male & Female conflict - break ups (7)
Awkward Moments (5)
Kissing (2)
Love Triangle (4)
Freedom (1)
Hot Guy (5)
Hot Girl (1)
Love (3)
Exaggeration (1)
Sex (5)
Wedding (1)
Romance (4)
Comedy (9)
Cuddles (1)
Happy Endings (4)

9.There are alot of aspects of Romantic Comedy that have been brought up from this question, this helps us include parts and the main parts. The main aspects that have been said are Comedy, male and female conflict, relationships and some awkward moments which acts as comedy. We will take this into consideration and try to include as much of these elements as we can.

10. We asked for the genres to be ranked in their order of preference, the way the results were displayed was not clear but there was a high Romantic Comedy count so we can see that the responses we got from the questionnaire, the users are interested in Romantic Comedy's.

TV Drama homework

TV Drama: Casualty


1. Who made the show?
Jeremy Brock & Paul Unwin


2. What channel is it on?
BBC 1

3. What time is it on?
8:45pm Saturday 3rd December 2011.

4. What is the sub-genre?
Medical Drama


5. Who is the target audience?
The audience of casualty are mainly from the older generation as it has been screening since 1987. These days the audience are for adults ages 30+.


6. What was the narrative?
Ruth ends their relationship with Jay just before they are wanting to have a baby. Linda comes reunited with an old face who threatens her of her job. Also the ED catches fire. A plug socket in the basement was overloaded once too often and the fire alarms go off throughout the building.


7. What/who is being represented?
Relationships, awareness.

Focus Group Letter

This is the letter that Connor created to send out to people inviting them to take part in our focus group. This letter is appropriate because it gives them a choice whether they want to be filmed, and gives them a contact so they can reply on whether they want to be involved or not. 

Interview Questions

These are the questions that Becky put together to ask Miss O'dell in an interview. She used as many open ended questions as possible to get as much feedback and information from this interview to help us gather information.

Focus Group Questions

These are the questions that i wrote to ask our focus group. I believe that these questions will get as much information from the focus group as we need which will help when we gather the information together.

Predicted Target Audience

Gender: Female
Age: 17
Occupation; Student

Bio: Rachel.

Rachel is a 17 year old girl who lives with her family and her older brother and younger sister. She does enjoy life at home and as you can imagine, like any teenage girl, she often argues with her younger sister. Her older brother is very protective of her and at this moment in time she is single. She shares a room with her younger sister meaning that her privacy is invaded and she doesn't get a lot of time to herself. At sixth form she is studying ICT, Biology, Psychology & Media. At school she has many friends but tries to keep herself to herself. She is often on her phone and uses Facebook and Twitter. On a wednesday, she uses her Orange Wednesday and goes to the cinema with her friends to watch the new movies. Her favourite genre is Romantic Comedy, she likes the story line and the break-up and the final happy ending which is seen in most/all romantic comedy films. She is quite independent and doesn't rely on anyone. She has a part time job on the weekend in a fashion outlet. She is interested in fashion and tries to keep up with the latest trends, she reads magazines such as Hello! & OK!. She likes the new music in the charts and often listens to Capital FM. She often goes to concerts and enjoys the atmosphere that is given off.

Audience Profile Research. Survey

As a group, we discussed our ideas and came to a conclusion on the 10 questions we want to include in our survey.

Here you can see our final survey.

Click here to take survey

Audience Profile Research Potential Questions

I chose 5 questions that i thought our questionnaire should include.

1. Rank these genres in order of Preference.
comedy
action
romantic comedy
horror
thriller
fantasy
world cinema
romance
musical

2. How often a month do you watch films?
1-2       3-4       5-6       7+

3. What is your occupation?

4. What would you expect to see in a Romantic Comedy?

5. What are your hobbies?

Textual Analysis of Rom Com Opening Sequence 5

The Proposal

Directed by: Anne Fletcher

Written by: Pete Chiarelli

Staring: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds & Mary Steemburgen

Genre: Comedy, Drama & Romance

Cerificatiion: 12A

Click here to watch the opening sequence

The opening of this starts with a song playing over the top of the footage. The footage starts of with the main female character doing some exercise in the morning, and then changes to the main male character who then wakes up and checks the time as if he is late and in a hurry. The camera pans out and reveals that he is sleeping and then pans out even more to show the bedside and the clock. When he checks the clock it connotes that he is running late. The footage then switches back to the female getting ready with an over the shoulder shot looking in the mirror. The shots continuously show the process which occurs throughout their life in the morning. The sound then gets quieter and conversation occurs between Andrew and a female behind a coffee. The way that the conversation occurs and the casualness of it connotes that he usually gets a coffee at this time and it is a day to day routine. The way he is rushing through traffic and rushes in the lift we almost expect a bad outcome but he makes it into his office and then when he is there, he bumps into someone which delays him even more. 

  The genre conventions of Romantic Comedies that we see in this is the music over shots. The music is accompanying the footage giving it a story line in itself to relate to. Another genre convention is the use of the male and female relationship. This is the main genre convention that this Rom Com opening sequence uses. Through the alternating between the shots we assume that a relationship between these two characters are further in the film going to have a relationship of some kind.

The first character we are shown in this opening sequence is a female who is exercising in the morning. She then has shots of her which unfold her personal life in the morning. The way that she is not rushing connotes that she leads a calm life and is organised. The male we see in this opening sequence, Andrew, is rushing and is dressed smartly which connotes that he is working in the city and has a well paid job. 

Editing has been used in this sequence to alternate between the two characters. Even though there is no dialogue spoken there is a relationship which is not clear but will soon be revealed.
The lighting shows the time it was set which is in the morning, a darkish sky with a little light shining in on the curtains. This connotes that the actions which are to follow are going to be events occuring in the morning. 

The target audience of this film are teenagers and preferably females as it is more of a love film which may not appeal to males as much.

Textual Analysis of Rom Com Opening Sequence 4

Whats Your Number

Directed by: Mark Mylod

Written by: Gabrielle Allan, Jennifer Crittenden & Karyn Bosnak

Staring: Anna Farism Chris Evans & Ari Graynor

Genre: Comedy & Romance

Cerificatiion: 15

Click here to watch the opening sequence

In the opening sequence of what's your number there is music playing whilst there are some magazines which are being flicked through with different numbers of personal questions. They try and get the audience involved and giving them an insight to the type of atmosphere the film is going to give off. Once the magazines have been flicked through, it goes to a shot of a picture and then to a girl and boy character laying in bed. The girl wakes up and gets out of bed trying not to wake the male. She then goes into the bathroom mirror and makes herself look nice not as if she has just woken up. She then gets back into bed and the male wakes up and says 'you always look so great in the morning.' This connotes that this may be a reoccurring event that she wakes up earlier and often does this to keep the male happy. 

The genre conventions that this film has stuck with is the use of the song to open up the film. There is usually a song which the characters play against, in this case the song is being played over the characters actions.This music is a non-digetic sound as its a sound which the audience can hear but when the footage was being filmed, the actors wouldn't have heard it. Another genre convention that is used in this film is the use of the male and female character. Although we haven't been invited into the story yet we can connote that they are together as the picture on the side indicates this and then they are waking up in a bed next to each other.

The characters in this opening sequence that we have been introduced to seem very comfortable with each other. The female in this opening connotes that she wants to make her man happy and give him the impression she is always 'beautiful' and wants him to make her feel good about herself. From what we have seen from the male character, he is charming and wants to compliment his girlfriend. We dont know what the situation is between them yet, this is just a guess from what we have been introduced to. 

Camera is used in this sequence to show movements of the female character. It pans out from the photo frame to then show that the two characters are laying in bed. When she gets out of bed the camera goes to the floor and shows the creeping of her feet connoting that she is trying to be quiet. The camera also moves with the female character as she is going into the bathroom and an over the shoulder shot is used when there is footage of her getting ready in the mirror. 

Editing is used in this sequence as is a non-digetic sound, which was the music over the top of the footage. This sound was put in to complement the footage. Editing was also used to put together the animation of the magazines and zooming in to the text on each page. 

The target audience of this film are teenagers + preferably females as it is more of a love film which males may not be interested in. 

This may inspire our opening sequence as we will consider the use of the music over the top of footage and the way that the character looked into the mirror and the camera filmed this. 

Textual Analysis of Rom Com Opening Sequence 3

Love Actually

Directed by: Richard Curtis

Written by: Richard Curtis

Staring: Hugh Grant, Martine McCutcheon & Liam Neeson

Genre: Comedy, Drama & Romance

Cerificatiion: 15

Click here to watch the opening sequence

In the opening sequence of love actually there is the song called love is all around which is playing and then we are introduced to a character who seems to be in a recording studio singing that song.  We discover that he is not meant to be singing the usual lyrics to the song and is being told to sing a newer version. He sings the wrong lyrics yet again and everyone reaction shows that its not correct. After singing the old version twice, the newer lyrics were then sang and everyone was revealed and the song continued insinuating that it was Christmas  time from the new lyrics. 


The genre conventions that this film has stuck with is the use of the song to open up the film. There is usually a song which the characters play against, in this case the character is singing to the song and makes it comical by mucking up twice and the person in charge seems to be getting angry.  Another genre convention that is used in this film is the use of funny language and dramatic actions. The use of the Christmas lyrics in the song may connote to the audience that its Christmas time and they are doing there part for it. The swearing language of the character when he got the words wrong and also the words said during the song make the audience laugh and enjoy the opening. They want to know why they are re-making the song and this makes them watch on. The characters dance moves are humerus as people can relate to them and this may remind them of someone, the dancing of the 'boss' is unexpected but will also allow the audience to relate. 




The characters in this opening sequence that we have been introduced to are very casual. The main character, the person singing in the opening sequence, comes across humerus from the costume that he is wearing  as its meant to be winter time and he is wearing a short shirt. The 'boss' type character has a higher status to the main character and this is dropped when we see him dancing.  


Camera is used in this sequence to show expression on on the characters faces. When he sings wrong, the camera shows the other characters reactions. The camera pans round and then zooms out towards the right of the screen, this shows the setting of where the characters are at. The change between shot could connote a music video type feel, the camera could also be recording the music video of the song the character is singing. 


Editing is used in this sequence as there are long duration shots rather than quick cuts between them. There isn't any other editing used in this sequence.


The target audience of this film are teenagers + preferably females as it is more of a love film which males may not be interested in. 


This may inspire our opening sequence as we will consider the use of the music over the top of footage.

Textual Analysis of Rom Com Opening Sequence 2

Friends With Benefits

Directed by: Will Gluck

Written by: Keith Merryman & David A. Newman

Staring: Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake & Patricia Clarkson

Genre: Comedy & Romance

Cerificatiion: 15


Click here to watch the opening sequence.

The opening of this starts with a new song in the charts with the titles on the screen and the male character (Dylan) removes them on his touch screen computer. The camera slowly pans round and reveals that he is doing a talk in front other people. This connotes that he is at work as they are sitting with paper making notes taking in information he is saying. He then gets a phone call and knocks a drink down his trousers. The music comes back on and the phone conversation happens. The lady (Jamie) asks if he is still at work and he says no but he really is and she talks about the film they planned to watch. He gets in the car and rushes to the cinema, when the male says 'im here' the camera revels that the person the audience thought was meeting Jamie, it was actually someone different as a different male meets her for the film. Dylan then meets up with the person he was actually talking to on the phone.


The genre conventions of Rom Coms that we see in this is the music over shots. The music is recent music that is in the charts at the time of the film release. Another genre convention is the use of the male and female relationship. This is the main genre convention that this Rom Com opening sequence uses. We see one relationship at the start and then when both characters meet up with other people this one relationship the audience has judged then gets multiplied into two.


The first character we are shown in this opening sequence is Dylan the guy at work. He looks involved in his job making sure that his colleagues understand what he is trying to put across then gets distracted by his phone, when answered it appeared to be his girlfriend. This connotes that he takes his job seriously but is easily distracted at a little thing. 
The female we see in this opening sequence is dressed as if she has just finished work and is very inpatient. We can connote from this that she is in a rush and doesn't like to be let down when something has been planned. 


Editing has been used in this sequence to swap between the shots of the two main characters on the phone. Even though that the conversation inst between them, before we find that out, the editing of the conversation connotes to the audience that it is between them two and they are meeting up.


The target audience of this film are teenagers and preferably females as it is more of a love film which may not appeal to males as much.


The music over shots part and the way the editing of the conversation is used are aspects of this opening sequence that we could consider using in our Romantic Comedy opening sequence.

Textual Analysis of Rom Com Opening Sequence 1

Crazy Stupid Love

Directed by: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa

Written by: Dan Fogelman

Staring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling & Julianne Moore

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Cerificatiion: 12A

Click here to watch the opening sequence

In the opening sequence of crazy stupid love there is music playing over the tops of clips of a couples feet touching under tables. We presume its a meal table and then it revels that there is a man and a woman a meal table. They seem like they are deciding what they want to order for dinner, and the man thinks this too, but in the end the lady says she wants a divorce. It comes as a shock to the guy. It then goes into a scene where the couples child is at home enjoying her time with the babysitter before its time for bed and the child accidentally knocks over a picture frame with a picture of her parents. The picture frame is broken and has a smash in the glass and the babysitter picks it up.


The genre conventions that this film has stuck with is the use of the guy and girl relationship, this connotes the genre of film as most romance films are between a guy and a girl starting a friendship or in a relationship.
Another genre convention that is used in this film is the montage effect at the beginning showing the different feet under the table whilst there was music playing over the top, leading up to the main characters.
The use of the twist in the story, where the lady didn't choose what she wanted for dinner but chose a big decision and wanted a divorce sets the story from the start for the film. This shows a twist and comes into the Comedy part of the genre as the audience wasn't expecting this. This connotes that there may be other twists coming up in the film and that its about a serious matter on the couples relationship.


The characters in this opening sequence that we have been introduced to are very casually, dressing up before dinner but not too over done, this connotes they are a couple that we could assume have been together a while due to the child but during the opening sequence we dont find out alot about who they are individually. 


Editing is used in this sequence to attract the attention of the audience as it cuts quickly between the shots of different couples feet. There is a montage effect used in this opening sequence which makes the audience want to watch more as using the misc-en-scene of a table and peoples feet under tables is not a usual opening sequence for a film.


The target audience of this film are teenagers + preferably females as it is more of a love film which males may not be interested in. 


This may inspire our opening sequence as we will consider the use of the montage and how effective to the audience it can be to build up an opening sequence.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Once we had shared our pitch we felt that we had many strengths. One of our main strengths was that we had a good idea and story line. Both of our teachers agreed that using the montage would be a good opening for a rom com. They liked our use of research of the genre and the way that we was researching the conventions.

Weaknesses
In our group we and the teachers agreed that the main weakness we came across was that the two main characters were very similar and the audience would find this difficult to distinguish between them. So with Mr Lawes' constructive criticism we are going to change the characters personalities hugely for example a Lawyer and a Primary School teacher.


Opportunities
Our main opportunity is to make a successful montage that will fit to our genre. Also by making our characters different we have the opportunity to get our audience engaged with the relationship between the females.


Threats
The one threat we have is that there is a risk of the conversation not being interesting enough to engage the audience. We need to make it up beat and believable so its not boring and more believable.

Treatment Pitch Group4

This is our treatment pitch which we did on the 22nd November 2011.

Treatment Pitch Feedback

What worked well? (e.g effective application of genre conventions)
I believe that our pitch generally went well. As a group, we constructed a structured script which outlined all of the worries and questions that we thought people might ask. We talked about who had what role in the group, the target audience, why the opening scene fits the genre, some of the conventions that we challenged, the music that the opening scene included, the research we had carried out and we described our opening sequence. Myself and Becky were rather nervous and we read off the sheet, but Connor did really well by giving the audience eye contact and talking to them confidently.

What would make your initial idea even better? (e.g more reference and use of genre conventions)
To make our initial idea even better we are going to use Mr Lawes feedback on changing the characters so that they are totally different with different personalities etc. An example of this is to use one of the girls working in a primary school being very creative and then the other girl being a lawyer being very smart and sophisticated. We believed at a group this would be a good idea and we have planned to take a trip back to our old primary school to see if we can gain permission to film part of our filming their.

What will you do next?
We are going to have to re-think our idea and understand and discuss what we need to change and how we can change it to make it look better. We are also going to have to write the dialogue for the conversation, finalize where we are going to film, construct a shot list and draw up a storyboard. Another thing we will have to do is think about what actors we may want to use in our film.

Pitch Script

21st November 2011

Kirstie.

We decided to call our film Love Triangle made by our company Centre Stage Productions. As a group we’re hoping to create romantic comedy film about two girls named Ellie and Jessica who fall in love with the same man called Connor. As the story unfolds we (as the audience) realise the two girls fall in love with the same man and are best friends who have advised each other with advice on the same man. The twist however is that the two friends don’t realise they like the same man.

Through going on dates, talking in work, conversations on the phone they reassure eachother that theres not another girl on the scene and that he does like her, without either of the girls knowing it’s the same man. We decided to base our film on the two rom-coms; In her shoes & something borrowed. Our production company plans to have a montage in order to achieve the desired passing time effect as an opening sequence.

Becky.

In our opening scene we have various close up shots of things happening to show that the girls are getting ready. For example, shots of brushing teeth, doing hair & waking up. The shots will alternate between girls to show them both getting ready and to introduce to us that they’re both main characters. Over our opening sequence montage, we will have a song called Lenka- The Show. We chose this song because it’s a happy one and quite cheerful. Also the lyrics in it are about being lost in love and are appropriate. Also, it sets the scene for the rest of the film and makes the opening montage less awkward,  Later on in the sequence we will have the two girls on the phone to each other talking about their weekend and how Ellie met a guy Christmas shopping. Jessica then gives Ellie advice on the situation. Jessica reaches work and finishes the conversation with ‘im here now, I’ve got something to tell you’. We then have a shot of the lift doors closing on her and this makes the music cut out. This is the end of our opening sequence.

Connor.

The reason we chose to do a montage because our research on Romantic Comedy films showed that various films had a montage at the beginning. For example, the devil wears Prada, Just Married, Love Actually. We decided to do a montage because thought it would be a good way to introduce our two main characters and to show that they both have a similar aim i.e to get to work. This is how we know the two characters share something similar in life. We feel that this opening sequence will represent our chosen genre of rom-coms as it features two girls/women trying to win a man with many obstacles along the way. However, we did choose to change a convention; and we done this by making the two main characters two girls rather than a man and woman. This gives the typical romance story a twist as the main relationship is a friendship rather than a romance. However, it is still a romantic comedy as the main plot is that these two girls are both trying to chase one guy.

Kirstie.

Within our team we haven’t decided on specific roles just yet but we have a rough idea. Connor’s skills are editing and he has a steady hand when it comes to filming so we think Connor will be good at this. Becky is good at deciding what actually happens on screen and assembling the rush cuts before editing, so she will be given this role. I am quite good at editing and picking out little things that need to be changed so after Becky and Connor I will take over the editing to finish it all off.

Becky.

We decided our target audience will be females aged 15+. Of course certain conventions of this film will appeal to men, most of it follows the lives of two women and men may find it a little boring. We’re happy to take any questions. 

This is the script we went by when giving our pitch. We then answered questions that were asked by the class and teachers.

Potential Opening Sequence

1. Slow zoom in on alarm on the bedside.cabinet. The alarm goes of. Hand (Ellie) slaps on to the alarm, music cuts in 'The show-lenka'

2. Shot of Jessica rolling over in bed. Birds eye view of he stretching.\

3.  Close up of Ellie's feet landing on floor and being put into slippers.

4. Shot of toothpaste being put on tooth brush and then Jessica brushing her teeth. (mirror shot)

5. Shot of straighteners going through Ellie's Hair.

6. Shot of Jessica pulling her hair up. (defining characters)

7. Shot of Ellie buttoning up her top (close up).

8. Shot of Jessica buttoning trousers.

9. Shot of Ellie picking up her keys.

10. Shot of Jessica closing the door.

11. Shot of Ellie closing the door.

12. Shot off Jess climbing in car.

13. Shot of Ellie going through the ticket barrier at train station.

14. Shot of Jessica putting keys in ignition.

15. Shot of Ellie getting on train and doors closing shut.

16. Shot of train pulling away.

17. Shot of car pulling off drive.

Treatment Template

Love Triangle

An original screenplay by Kirstie Staggs, Becky Hagger & Connor Still

21st November 2011

Centre Stage Productions presents a romantic comedy film about two girls named Ellie and Jessica who fall in love with the same man called Connor.

As the story unfolds we realise the two girls fall in love with the same man and are best friends who have advised each other with advice on the same man.

Through going on dates, talking in work, conversations on the phone they reassure eachother that theres not another girl on the scene and that he does like her not knowing its the same man. 

Think 'In Her Shoes' meets 'Something Borrowed'.

Our production company plans to have a montage in order to achieve the desired passing time effect targeted towards a demographic composed primarily of women.

Plot Idea

Name of film:
Why him?


Summary of Plot Idea

• 2 girls
• fall in love with same man
• they're sisters and they didn't know
• find out that they are sisters

Summary of Entire Plot 
Starts of showing the life of a girl as she wakes up and gets ready to go off to work, as she walks out of the door it goes onto the other girl who is then walking out of a different door to her work. They tell people at work about a boy that they have fallen for and that there is a girl that is getting in the way of them being together. The boy identifies that they are similar in different ways and that they do similar things and have similar background history. He talks to his friend about the girls but in the end it turns out to be her sister that she never knew she had and vise versa.

Groups Chosen Genre

Our group has chosen to do Romantic Comedy. We decided to choose this out of all as when we discussed the options we became aware that to make action movies good, and look the part we haven't got the budget to create the effects and we would need really good actors to make it believable. We couldn't create the scene to look believable in the settings that we have, in the school. Our other option was comedy we decided that this wouldn't work as our chosen genre as it would be very difficult to pull off. The actors would need to be naturally funny and we would need to create a funny script to get on the audiences humorous side.

The three Romantic Comedy films we chose were;
Theres something about Mary
Just married
Bridget Jones diary.

The 10 conventions of romantic comedy that we are going to keep the same is;
1.the love story
2.the couple (boy&girl)
3.the comedy
4.obstacles in the way
5.the dates
6.the phone chats
7.the family involvement
8. best friends
9.the montages
10.the romantic music

The one convention we are going to change within this genre is going to be that the two main characters are the females rather then the lead male and female.

Genre Research

Genre Research

Genre Convention Research: Peer Assessment Feedback

The group I was in peer assessment with decided that they preferred my first scene choice.
This was 'Start as a flash back of when they was younger pretending to be fighting and their parents telling them off, and the back to reality as they're speeding off in their car with a person held hostage...' 

My opening scene differs from most gangster movie openings as i have gone for the less stereotypical opening. Instead of using a head gangster person and him telling his past to the camera under dark lightning with a spot light identifying him, like we see in 'The Godfather', I am using a flash back to start with to show when the gangsters are children play fighting with their parents telling them off.

In terms of genre conventions I used the main ones from a Gangster movie which include using the theme of swearing and slang language with violence, showing the film from one persons point of view about how they became a gangster. My group agreed that I used a good twist in the plan as in gangster movies they do not show how one of the people have a loving family but i wanted to put this in as a twist so it shows how he has to be a carer and look after his children. It acts as if he leaves his good life behind when he's out with his Mafia.

They agreed that in terms of genre conventions I could have understood the genre more, and used this to my advantage when writing the plan. I could have enhanced my knowledge of the genre and added more in-depth conventions and identified different ways of challenging the conventions.

Genre Pleasures Homework

Genre Pleasures Homework.

Let the Right One In

1. I am a horror fan when the film concentrates on the movie and tension is built and there is a clear focus but when there are subtitles taking the focus off of the film I don't enjoy it as much. Due to having to concentrate on the words as I cant understand the language of the film.

2. The trailer builds up tension showing previews and certain pieces of the film, the way the trailer leaves the viewer on a cliff hanger, builds suspense which makes me want to watch more. It doesn't show in the trailer that it is not in English and has to have subtitles.

3.

Familiar Conventions	Different Conventions
Spacious surroundings, very empty, lonely feeling	Eli protects Oscar who is a ‘normal’ human, then falls in love as she is a gentle person
Shadowy dull, dark lighting/setting (graveyard, forest. etc)	Eli ends up to be the weaker person nearer the end rather than Oscar
The method of death- the actual tool that is used, the way the killing is going to happen.
Blood (drinking blood) , gory scenes violence.
Vampires not coming out in daylight

 Eli ends up to be the weaker person near the end of the film when she nearly gets killed then a 'normal' human has to save her. This is a different convention as this doesn't usually happen, the vampire has higher status over the humans but this is switched. 

Throughout the film the familiar conventions that I wrote about were shown. There was lots of blood shown as Eli seemed to have blood around her mouth throughout. another convention that was shown was the loneliness and the forest. When the father hung and killed the man in the forest the blood and loneliness was shown as all we saw other than the main characters was a dog running through the trees.

The method of killing was also shown as a vampire, using their teeth and biting, along with that the dark scheme of lightening and shadowing was used.

4. The sense of the two main characters, Eli and Oscar being 'outsiders' visually is shown through a scene which puts their bedroom windows next to each other in the same shot. This may show that they feel close as two people but on the other hand they feel isolated and different from everyone else in society. 

Where Eli's window is blurred this could represent her character and along with hearing her arguing with her father. On the other hand Oscars window is not blurred which represents his personality as coming across as innocent.

5. Personally I liked the characters. Eli I liked as i feel that she was a 'normal' child but you could also tell that throughout there was another side to her and that she was hiding something. This could allow people to relate to her. Oscar I feel that people who have been bullied in the past and just deal with it- are able to relate. The way Eli knew that her and Oscar couldn't be friends as they were different but she kept him thinking they could which was quite mean.

6. The friendship part of the narrative appealed to me and how they are from two different backgrounds but still go on so well. they became friends and his moment comes at the end of the movie when he gets to save Eli. This shows throughout how they got along with different things, like the bullies and how she wants him to stand up to them.

7. The relationship Oscar and Eli have could be considered as unusual, as in 'normal' horror films they don't usually use two children to play the good and bad person. They wouldn't usually have the close relationship that occurs in this film. 

If Eli was not a vampire then the relationship wouldn't seem so unusual as they are two close friends and she wouldn't necessarily be hiding such a big secret but the way they are still a hero and a villain would out way the relationship. A clear two people, hero and villain, needs to be made clear but not too much so that it is predictable like a original horror film.

8. When a vampire is in a predictable setting such as a scary house, haunted house or a grave yard we loose the suspense and tension because we can tell what is happening, the mise-en-scene is clear. Where it is in a domestic surrounding people can relate to it and it is not necessarily expected. People can be aware and weary that it can happen in their domestic surroundings. I think we are encouraged to be scared of the vampire figure as she is seen as 'normal' with something to hide where she is larking about. This puts the audience in a situation where they should be on edge and aware in their own domestic environment.

9.I don't think Eli's father is represented to have a stereotype of a vampire. When its put into context that he just comes out after dark and Eli is like his 'partner in crime' it is more understandable. The behaviour seems to be passed to Eli as well but she tries to hide it more with her and Oscars relationship. His behaviour shows Eli to be powerful as he is seen to do things for her, like she has got him under control.

10. I think that at the beginning of the film where he is hanging the boy in the forest purely to collect blood he comes across as a bad person but when the film carries on, the love shows towards his daughter. It showed how much he cared for his little girl.When he poured the acid over his face and he ended up in hospital he put his life on the line for her. This gives a twist and a different approach to the horror genre. I think my sympathies lie with Eli's father as he is only trying to do the best for his daughter.