Friends With Benefits
Directed by: Will Gluck
Written by: Keith Merryman & David A. Newman
Staring: Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake & Patricia Clarkson
Genre: Comedy & Romance
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.
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