Deconstruction Part 2

I felt that not only should we look at a film from the related genre but also from a contrasting genre to see how the two compare visually. I have chosen to compare my first opening of 'Over her dead body' with a horror film opening. 

'Scream' (1996)

The opening of this film begins with a shot of the the phone, having the character answer the phone in a close up shot gives the impression that she is alone and that the only people involved are her herself and whoever is on the phone. This is then followed by a short dialogue section still in a close up shot supposedly to show that there is a close connection between the characters yet the fact they are speaking over the phone shows a distant relationship  between them. When the phone rings a second time you can see that the shot is slightly tilted, this could show the confusion of the character, the shot is not as close as the previous one but this distance shows that the character is feeling a little more uncomfortable.

When the character leaves the frame a clear shot of the garden through the French doors can be seen this can suggest that there is something outside and even though the character is not aware of this this shot makes the audience aware of a third party.



 

 

Deconstruction of Film openings

Seeing as the task is to create a 2 minute film opening it only seems right to analyse previous products.

'Over Her dead body'

This is the first scene in 'Over her Dead Body', it's a simple pan shot of pictures and notes on a cork board. The idea of this clip is to show the relationship between two characters over a period of time. People see corkboards as a place to keep their important notes or memories so by placing these images on a corkboard symbolises that these two characters have a very close relationship. Cream is a colour that is closely resembled with weddings and marriage, as is ribbon, so by having the corkboard covered with a cream background and white ribbons could forshaddow an upcoming wedding. Zooming has been used in some places to show the images more clearly, emphasising their relationship further.

This second clip shows a wedding invitation verifying the previous assumptions that there could be a wedding involved in the story line, presumably between the two characters shown in the scattered photos. Then the camera zooms into the bottom of the invitation showing the following...

This shows the film institutions at the bottom of the invitation, in a black script font keeping the titles in the colour and style theme. We can see that these colours are in the scheme as the invitation consits of black and white and fancy script font.

Using a subtle fade and zoom the camera focuses on the title and removes the surrounding set with a gentle fade. This emphasises the text presenting the viewer with a clear image of the title on a cream background.

The next scene is quite different. The titles quickly fade and the music changes dramatically to something much more upbeat and faster paced. The increase in pace and the wedding theme shows that the scene has become more busy and the fact that the scene shows someone placing a white plate shows that the characters are obviously flustered in the preperation for the wedding and have a lot on their plates. (no pun intended).

Over the next second or so items such as cutlery and side plates are being brought into the scene from various angles again showing the fast paced feelings that one would feel in the preperations for a wedding. This scene can also be used to predict the social status of the characters. Not only does this wedding feature a sit down meal but one where multiple sets of cutlery are necessary. This was considered something that only people of a higher social class would do because they were the only people who would be considered wealthy enough to host a meal with several courses.

The final scene of the opening titles shows the finished place set with the film title over the plate. This sets it up ready for the main opening scene in the film.

It thaen fades to a wide shot of someone laying out place cards, the amount of cards suggests that there will be a large amount of guests at the wedding and the event will be relativly large.

The next scenes show more arangements of decorations then it pans to this wide shot of one of the principle characters in discussion and rushing about. Thsi shot is to associate the character with the enviroment.

Deconstruction

One thing we had to look at was how our chosen genre was typically represented. Through some detailed analysis i have come to the following conclusions......:

Romantic comedies also known as 'Rom-Coms', are films with light-hearted, humorous story lines. They are usually based on the idea that true love can over come any obstacle.

In a typical romantic comedy; there are two young lovers who are 'Destined' to be together but face complicating circumstances. Usually though the two find a way to be together despite these differences.  

(Ghosts of girlfriends past)

 

Target audience

 

When researching into a potential target market I found that the expected gender for watching this genre was unsurprisingly female although a lot of males seemed to also be interested, (even if they hated to admit it), considering that romantic comedies are thought of as a female genre of film, many men feel embaressed to admit they also enjoy them. I also found out that alot of young couples tend to watch romantic comedies, whether it be to silently compare their lives with a light harted humorous storyline filled with a constant strive for perfection or to simply spend time with there spouse or partner.

We also carried out a questionaire in order to find specific details about our audience.
We posted this questionaire online and also handed out some. Below is the answers from questionaire.

1) How old are you?
11    -    0
12    -    0
13    -    8
14    -    3
15    -    4
16    -    17
17    -    5
18    -    0

2) What is your gender?
Male     -    14
Female -    25

3) What is your preferred film genre?
Action        - 20
Adventure  - 13
Horror        - 9
Comedy      - 30
Drama        - 7
Fantasy      - 6
Sci-Fi         - 13
Rom-Com   - 12
Musical      - 4
Historical   - 5
Crime        - 7
Romantic   - 8
other         - 7   

4) How often do you watch romantic comedies?
>Once a week    - 1
Once a week      - 0
>Once a month   -10
Once a week       -10
>Once a year       -10
Once a year         -5
never                   -3   

 

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Experience

Over the last term we have been looking at the software and hardware involved in media production. During our preliminary task we looked at recording our clips and then editing them using iMovie on the iMac.

The tripod was very uselful as it provided us with perfect framing, keeping the shots the same, to prevent any continuity errors.

Genre

First things first, we had to come up with a genre of film for which we would then create our film opening. We looked at the different types of film genres and felt that choosing the genre of 'Romantic Comedy'.

We've decided to go with this genre seems simple and open to many different options. I like the idea of challanging the ordinary and attempting to create a unique storyline which goes against the stereotypical romantic comedy genre but has the same main conventions and aspects.

 

 

Seeing as there are many films within this genre, it should be relatively easy to deconstruct other film openings and get an overall idea on how to aproach this task.