Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My film opening sequence uses the conventions of romantic comedies in style and form and also develops and challenges the conventions of rom coms in narrative and genre. It has taken inspiration from 5 main media : John Tucker Must Die, The Inbetweeners, Superbad, 22 Jump Street, and the Big Bang Theory.

Plot

The Life of Guy is about the life of a student named Guy who is nerdy, socially awkward and has no luck in his love life. We follow his home life and school life as he gets rejected on his first blind date and then befriends a girl at school who guides him on how to interact with people and how to dress. He goes through many experiences such as social events and ends up in a relationship with the girl of his dreams.


1. FORM - Please watch the first 2 minutes of John Tucker Must Die

2. GENRE:
Typical characters/behaviour
In rom com films there is a typical group of characters:

• The main lead - could be a princess or hero
• The side lead - comedic character
• The love interest - girl or boy
• The lead's opponent for love interest or the villain
• Another villain

Mean Girls

The trailer

• Lead - Cadey Heron
• Side lead - Janis Ian
• Love interest - Aaron Samuels
• Opponent for love interest - Regina George
• Another villain - the plastics in general and mean students

Life of Guy

• Main lead - Guy
• Side lead - Lindy
• Love interest - was Bella, becomes Sophie
• Villains - boys at school who make fun of him

Typical events
Rom coms usually contain light-hearted, humourous events centred on the ideal that true love can help people overcome any obstacle.
It would start with an argument/falling out with current love interest or having no luck with love
Then boy meets girl or vice-versa who are meant to be for each other but are kept apart by differences.
They overcome each obstacle, getting closer despite a few fallouts
Finally they can officially be together in either a relationship or marriage.

Pretty woman is considered the most successful film in the romantic comedy genre.

Typical themes

• Love
• Friendship
• Betrayal (light-hearted/for comedy)
• School/Work
• Personal journey

Themes wise the Life of Guy is very conventional - it follows his love life with girls such as Bella and Sophie, his friendship with Lindy and other guys, the rejection/betrayal of Bella and how he changes by the end of the film.

Typical mise-en-scene: 

Setting: usually in the city or a town, an urban place. Set at school or workplace.

Costumes: usually each character is dressed to represent a social group but generally do not try to follow up-to-date trends. Appearances are low-key unless the characters are fashionable. Examples of fahisonable characters are found in Mean Girls, Clueless and GBF.



Lighting: high-key, clear, natural looking, warm












3. NARRATIVE GENRE
Our film's narrative follows the classic conventions of Todorov's Theory. In the middle column is the Mean Girls narrative and on the right column is Life of Guy's narrative in comparison.

Specific narrative techniques we used:

• Flashback - our opening is not edited as a flashback but shows the past events of how Guy met Bella which is also explained through the voiceover. Guy looks back on himself and reflects on what his life used to be like. 
• Narrative Ellipsis - we cut out certain unnecessary scenes such as him walking back to his room from the bathroom to cut out potentially boring scenes and in order to speed up the pace - the audience can fill in the gap themselves.
• Enigma Code - The audience will be left with wondering: What will happen to Guy after? How will he handle the break up? Will his life ever change? Who will he meet next?
• Cross Cutting - We used cross cutting from Guy running down the street to Bella waiting outside the take away for him and then back to him running.

Role of characters and how they move plot along Propp's theory

Biggest breaks in conventions
Guy being a male lead who is a victim at first but becomes the hero.
Guy having a female friend who he does not end up going out with.

4.STYLE
We used the Life of Riley as our soundtrack.Not only did we like it because of it's similar name to our film opening, we liked it as a happy, upbeat song which is often used in comedy films to set a light-hearted mood. It also emphasises Guy's happy-go lucky personality in the opening.
We also employ a voiceover like many comedy films such as 500 days of Summer and Easy A do. Similarly Guy reflects on what he used to be like and tells us his story from his future point of view.
Please watch the first 5 minutes of Easy A.

We've decided to go with bright warm colours and achieved this using spotlights and natural sunlight.  This warm colour palette and high key lighting is a conventional style of comedy films.


We have gone with white funky font for our titles as they are simple and informal as if they could be written by hand. This appeals to our target audience of students and teens as it creates a youthful, informal style to the opening. Simple titles are used in John Tucker Must Die and funky titles are used in She's The Man.

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents:

1. young male nerdy boys
2. slightly cool boys
3. stylish pretty girls

Our media product mainly represents the first social group through the voice over, gestures, appearance and props.

Our opening starts off in a boy's bedroom which is neat, simple consisting of a PC, Tv, Xbox games and game posters on his walls. These props connote his gamer fanatic lifestyle and slightly geeky personality. He even has a Call of Duty themed calender.

We drew inspiration from The Big Bang Theory in which the set is very dressed up and shows off everyone's nerdy personalities and interests. Everything is tidy and there is a telescope to accentuate their interests in space, numerous books, PCs and other gadgets.

This gif shows guy's weird side and makes the audience laugh at him but also like him as it portrays him in a slightly adorable, childish light.

Who brushes their beard? Only Guy. This scene engages the audience who will crack smiles as he does a strange thing yet again.

This gif shows Guy running in an unusual way for comedic effect and adds to his lift of unusual behaviour which connotes the opposite of cool and reserved.

However it is his voiceover and gestures that really accentuates his nerdy persona and awkwardness. From Guy picking out a bad outfit and styling his hair horribly to looking in the mirror thinking he looks good, shows just how wrong his judgments are of certain situations. This is typical of the social group we want to represent. The looking into the camera scene below was inspired by The Inbetweeners movie scene where everyone gets ready for their first night out abroad. The audience can't help but laugh at their weird actions as they are funny yet very much relatable.

Guy's gestures connote his social awkwardness as he introduces himself in a traditional, business like way to Bella; he shakes her hand rather than giving her a kiss on the cheek or a hug which would be more modern, friendly and date appropriate.
This is inspired by the awkward way Seth tries to talk to Becca in Superbad. Despite having feelings for her, his nervousness and inexperience results in him referring to her as a 'sister' and trying to nicely punch her on the arm.

The voiceover also reveals that the current changed Guy also thinks he used to be uncool and oblivious as to how he should handle social situations.

Bella represents the social group of stylish girls who want relationships but have certain standards.

Guy's voiceover also represents the cool guy who has friends as Guy's personality and lifestyle have changed by the end of the film. This is reflected by what he says. He admits he used to have a lack of friends and probably turned away many girls from talking to him as a result of the way he dressed and behaved.

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

20th century fox is our distribution institution for our media product. It one of six major film studios. They are widely known for distributing Hollywood, blockbuster films and have distributed many successful rom coms.
We chose 20th Century Fox because as well as having distributed some of the most highest grossing films in history such as the Titanic and Avatar, it distributes films from almost every genre. One rom com that they have distributed is John Tucker Must Die which we based our title sequence on. Another film they've distributed is the Life of Pi which is what inspired our title.

Life of Guy's release plan

• A global saturation release in cinemas which will be staggered
• A UK premiere at London's Leicester Square as it is a British production company
• A US premiere in Los Angeles which will create a buzz and word of mouth just before the release
• When: Initial release will be in the summer at the end of July in the UK and US as many people will be off school and work for their summer holidays so there is a greater chance of them going out and visiting the cinema.

• Other formats: There will also be a DVD and Blu-Ray release once the film has been theatrically streamed in the last country of release.

This release plan is inspired by the release of The Night at The Museum: Secret of the Tomb which is a comedy also distributed by 20th century fox. It had a UK premiere in Leicester Square London on the 15th of December which creates a lot publicity for the film. Because 20th century fox is so vertically and horizontally integrated, it can afford to market a distribute a film like The Life of Guy. Also with 20th century fox's long standing history of successful films, it will give Life of Guy a boost in publicity with people knowing a reputable distribution company is behind it.

Marketing

• Bus posters all over the UK with Guy, his bestfriend, girlfriend and another guy on the front of the poster standing side by side.
• Global billboard posters
• Official YouTube trailer
• Official facebook page and Twitter feed
• TV spots on channels such as ITV, Channel 4 and E4
• Trailer will be played at the cinema before films of the same age rating such as The Duff.

A traditional marketing plan works well for our film just as it did with The Diary of a Wimpy Kid which was also distributed by 20th century fox.

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The Life of Guy appeals to three main audience groups:

Core: Rom com fans
Rom com film fans are a very diverse audience group and so our film being mainly identified with this genre ensured it was very playable as there is a huge market for comedy films.

Secondary: Teens/young people aged 15-24
The characters in The Life of Guy are all in this age group and are students which makes the film very relatable to young people. They also provide role models for young people to aspire to.

Tertiary: British people
Since our film has a British cast and is set in London, it has a national appeal.

This graph show that the 15-24 age group make up the biggest demographic of cinema visitors thus young people are a huge market to target.

Though some films may target fans of other genres for example BH6 which targets superhero film fans as well as animation film fans, we were not targeting fans of action, sci-fi or adventure/fantasy films Our film is exclusively rom com and does not connote aspects of other genres such as life on other planets, magic powers, or crime.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We made specific decisions such as on the mis-en-scene and narrative of The Life of Guy to appeal to specific audiences however our continuity editing and style appeals to the general audience.

Blumler and Katz’s uses and gratification theory suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media to best fulfill his/her needs.

Personal Identity

Finding reinforcement for personal values

The opening actually portrays Guy as someone people do not want to be like. However the voice-over provides a role model for guys who have either ever been socially awkward or just had no luck in their relationships as it’s the voice of a changed Guy who now has a social life and better judgement.

Relationships

Using the media to identify with others and gain a sense of belonging

Many audiences can relate to Guy’s actions and voice-over such as his bad outfit and cold shower and the fact that he now knows he used to act and look like such a muppet. As well as finding him funny, the audience can empathise with his embarrassing actions, perhaps having done or experienced similar things in the past and find him like-able.

Diversion

The need to escape from everyday life and relax.

Escapism is offered when through Guy’s actions such as brushing his beard and running weirdly. These events entertain the audience and the use of camerawork such as pans and using the camera as a mirror for Guy and style of editing make the opening very realistic as if the audience were watching a tv episode on someone else’s life . This distracts them from their own.

Surveillance

Using the media to find out information (such as about how current school life is like)

In our opening people we get to find out how Guy, a socially awkward person is like. We see his home life and learn about his hobbies, tendencies and his blind date routine which shows us more of his personality.

I gathered some audience feedback to see what my real life target audiences would actually think of the film opening and whether they would watch it if it was a film.

I asked 9 acquaintances the following question and the all replied with a yes.

I asked 3 people on Facebook to tell me in detail what they thought of The Life of Guy.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt quite a lot about the technologies involved in the construction of my film opening sequence. Skills that I have gained include:


Overall I think the technologies I learned to use were generally efficient, effective and professionally modern. The filming equipment was sufficient for amateur filming and the editing software was very up to date. I enjoyed using them.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From the preliminary task to the final product of our film opening sequence I have learnt a lot in the pre-production, production and post-production stages of filming.

This is the result of our preliminary task.

The prelim brief
"Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule."

The film opening brief
"To produce a 2 minute opening for a fiction film. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright free source. It should be clear from your sequence who the target audience is."

The prelim brief was very specific as it detailed exactly what it wanted us to create apart from the actual dialogue and mis-en-scene in comparison to the film opening brief which was much more open, allowing us to show as much of our own creativity as we wanted.

Construction Post 10: Looking back - reflections on our final outcome.

I really like our final outcome. Although it's not perfect, it came a long way and improved in all aspects of production and post-production such as the storyline, acting, camera framing, following continuity conventions, music and voice-over.

Highlights of the project:

• I really liked coming up and working with the narrative and themes of Life of Guy with my team
• I loved filming and directing at the shoot sessions during which we all had many laughs.
• I liked editing on Adobe Photoshop as it wasn't completely new to me which meant that I wasn't clueless and could polish and learn more skills.
• Blogging my progress was time-consuming but allowed me to be creative and is more exciting than creating numerous word or publisher documents.
• Turning the Life of Guy into something my group can be proud of was hard-work but satisfying.
• Finally it was a joy working with my awesome team who are very cooperative and supportive. 

Low-points of the project:

• There were not many lowpoints as I really did enjoy this project.
• Shooting sessions seemed long at times but we had regular breaks and laughs
• Editing was more intensive in the second week and we didn't have a third opinion on things.
• We couldn't get a hold of Superhero boxers which would have made the underwear scene less awkward and more comedic.

If we had more time:

• I would've considered shooting more during our filming sessions as the narrative flow did not end up being perfect and editing can't help to cover up awkward shots or breaks in continuity all the time.
• Maybe we could have created our titles on LiveType rather than on Adobe Premiere as they weren't cinematic and could have looked better.

How I hope our finished film will be received by the audience: 

• I hope our audience really like our opening sequence as we spent a lot of time and effort on it
• I hope they can relate to and laugh at Guy.
• I hope just as many guys as girls are willing to watch it and find it funny
• I hope that they think our voiceover is clever
• I hope they like it enough to want to watch the rest of the film if it were ever made.

Construction Post 9: My technical learning curve (production and post-production)

Production
I learnt a lot during the production and post-production stages of the Life of Guy that I didn't since my GCSE project.

Strengths:

• Handling filming equipment: I 've learnt that you can use a bubble tripod leveler for aligned shooting.
• Operating the camera - I feel I can shoot comfortably and navigate the camera with no problems now. I am more skilled at framing shots that are tighter and more cinematic than before.
• Planning the production stages was very helpful and efficient and kept us all organised an ready.

Weaknesses

• I feel like I need to improve on shooting master shots and just shooting in general so that I don't break continuity rules and I can make the visuals engaging so that the audience can follow easily. An example of bad shooting is the shot of Mario opening his curtains. This resulted in too much light entering the camera and Guy becoming a silhouette.
• I feel like the bedroom shots could have been better lit as the shots are grainy but this may just be the fact that the camera's picture quality is low in environments with low-key lighting

Post-production
I also learnt quite a lot from editing.

Strengths

• Trimming down shots to follow continuity rules - I can achieve a perfect match and create a smooth pace of action
• Colour grading using the Three Way Colour Corrector - I can change the hues of shots to make them look livelier and also achieve matches
• Adjusting volume levels - I am confident with this
• Exporting videos (that was new to me)

Weaknesses

• Apart from maybe learning how to grade more nothing really.

Construction Post 8: My personal contribution to the edit sessions

Editing was intensive and everyone was involved though Thakshana and I really had to be editing everyday of the second week as Mario was not available to help.

Personal contributions

• I chose the font we used which was Kristen ITC, this was important as it affected the whole look and feel of the opening sequence. It used to be a drab standard font which did not stand out and added nothing to the sequence.

• I helped to place the titles in the best places as on some shots there was limited space in the frame; we also had to space the titles out equally so that long periods of time without titles didn't exist as that was unconventional. I also helped Thakshana choose the transitions of the titles so they did not affect the pace of the opening awkwardly.

• I edited a lot of the sound levels making sure the music didn't overpower the voice-over and the dialogue was loud enough. This was crucial as on the day of the shoot sessions, the weather was always windy, affecting our outdoor scenes. When Bella and Mario are talking the background noise is especially prominent - this was very noticeable pre-edited as the opening cut from nice music to a loud whoooshh of wind constantly blowing. I couldn't cut this out by unlinking the audio from the clip as there was dialogue in the same shot so I used the pen tool to change the volume level rubber band from a low level to a high enough level that you could hear the actors' dialogue. This ensured that the background noise gradually faded in.

• Grading was new to me which meant I need help with it. There was one scene where the hue changed significantly from the shot to the next which was a continuity error as we shot both on different days thus the lighting ended up being different. 

Here is the video I watched to help me with the colour grading using the Three Way Colour Corrector.

After watching this I managed to solve the issue and now the colour change is barely noticeable.

Construction Post 7: My personal contribution to the shoot sessions

 My personal contributions to the shoot sessions included:

1. Helping to bring filming kit to Mario's house and back to the school. 
We took it in turns to bring kit to Mario's house from school and from Mario's back to school. Whenever I got a lift I would take the it as it wasn't a problem for me.

2. Being behind the camera
I did shoot quite a few scenes (shown below) in which I needed to decide how things would best be framed. I focused on changing shots up from the usual mid shots to close-ups and high angles to make the visuals more engaging.

3. Helping Thakshana frame some shots
Thakshana did shoot quite a lot of shots and I helped with keeping the shots and us organised using the clapperboard and shoot-board for every shot. I also helped her to frame shots and told her if we needed to zoom up closer or if shooting from a different angle would be better. This was important especially in Mario's bedroom as room for the tripod was limited and quite a few scenes took place between his bedroom and bathroom so we had to switch up the shot frames and angles to keep things looking different and fresh

4. Directing Mario to portray Guy's personality better
Sometimes the scenes we planned would turn out to look unexpected when acted and portrayed on camera. It wouldn't look like what I had first pictured that scene to look in my mind. So I did direct Mario for instance in the screenshot of me below I remember I had told Mario to come out of the bathroom in a happy-go-lucky way which resulted in him trying to shake his wet hair and even skipping back to his bedroom to show some character. When he just walked normally back to his room I felt like it became a filler shot. We then watched it back on the camera.

5. Reviewing every shot after we took them

This is a shot I filmed.

This is also a shot I filmed.

Me behind the camera trying to frame a shot.

Construction Post 6: Reflections on edit week 2

Me at the edit suite.

Above is our edit schedule for week 2. The reason why Mario's name is not on there is because he was on an AS Geography coursework trip so he made up for it by editing really hard in week 1 and on the Monday of week 2.

During the rest of week 2 me and Thakshana edited according to our schedule. We used various tools but mainly the the razor tool, the pen tool, ProCamp and the Three-way colour corrector.

What needed to be done and was completed

• We added in all the new shots from the back up shoot
• We rewrote the voiceover with Chris's (our media technician's) help and Mario rerecorded it on Monday after which me and Thakshana edited it in.
• We had to grade a few shots using the Three Way Colour Corrector
• We added transitions to the titles to make the opening more visually exciting
• We also perfected the sound, music and voiceover volume levels

Here is the final result.

Construction Post 5: The Back-up Shoot

The back-up shoot went very well. We did not need to shoot our whole opening, only a few select scenes such as the boxers scene, gaming scene and Bella scene. We decided to change Mario's previous Calvin Klein underwear to normal boxers as Calvins were too cool for Guy. We also added the Xbox scene to show Guy's love of gaming during which he receives a text from Bella and rushes off to meet her. Finally we filmed a few establishing shots and master shots when Guy runs up and meets his date Bella.
Here is some footage and bloopers from the back-up shoot.

What went well:

• The weather was sunny which cast a nice warm glow to our shots.
• We only needed to shoot a few shots so did not need to rush thus the session was relaxed and fun.
• We filmed all our new and improved shots successfully.

What didn't go well:

• Although the weather was sunny, it was still quite windy so there was still some background noise in the outdoor scenes where Guy meets Bella.

Construction Post 4: Reflections on our Edit Week 1

Edit week one went smoothly. Our team edited efficiently, harmoniously and intensively by sticking to the edit schedule we made.

We edited during our lessons which would range from either be 40 mins or 1 hour 20 mins in length. However this was not sufficient so we all decided to edit during our free periods, at lunch and after school if we were free. Most of the time we would edit together so that important decisions were agreed on by everyone in the group. We all tried our hands at everything such as the audio editing, the video editing and also titling. This ensured that we would all be prepared for edit week 2.

Me doing the titling.

What we changed and improved on

• The new shots we added portrayed our narrative much better.
• The continuity and pace of our opening has improved as we have tightened long shots up.
• We added our new music track called 'Life of Riley' from Incompetech, a royalty free music website.
• We added new SFX such as the alarm clock sound and text message sound.
• Our fellow classmates have watched our edited cut and we have received positive feedback from them

What still needs to be altered

• We decided to have a back-up shoot as we need to re-film Guy putting on his shorts. He previously wore Calvin Klein boxers which you can see on screen; they are too cool for Guy. We wanted to replace them with superhero boxers but we would have to order them online and did not have enough time. So we will dress Guy is a brightly coloured plain version.
• We need to re-film our outdoor scenes as our previous shots had a lot of background noise from the windy weather. The forecast for this weekend is sunnier so we hope the conditions are advantageous.
• We have to rewrite and re-record our voiceover as our current one does not sound good and doesn't fit right with the events in the opening. There are also a few awkward silences.

Construction Post 3: Reflections on our Main Shoot Session

Our priorities for this shoot are to shoot efficiently like we had done during our tests shoot (using a shootboard) and shooting our new shots till we're satisfied with them.
Here are some rushes and bloopers of the shoot.

What went well:

1. We knew exactly what we were going to shoot and shot many shots from various angles so that when it came to editing we had a range to choose from.
2. Our teamwork was great as always and we had many laughs trying to shoot and direct Mario's actions to make Guy's personality shine through as much as possible.
3. We dressed up the set better by putting up more posters and laying all his games out rather than placing them somewhere obscure.

What was bad:

1. It wasn't sunny which affected the mood of our scenes and worse it was windy and rainy so our sound got affected and shooting in the cold meant we focused less on the quality of our shots.
2. There was a period of time when people kept walking through our film set so we had to wait a while before we could resume shooting. That wasted some time but it was not a major problem.

Overall, I think we progressed but we need a back up shoot because I'm not fully satisfied with what we achieved for our main shoot.

This is a list detailing the improvements we came up with for our back-up shoot.

Construction Post 2: Our Post production kit

Our post production kit included:

1. Adobe Audition CS5.5 : to record Guy's voiceover
2. Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5: to edit the film opening sequence
3. Microphone - Blue Yeti USB microphone: to record Guy's voiceover

We also used a computer with 2 screens which allowed us to edit efficiently on one screen while watching the sequence on the other to check our progress. Adobe Audition is a program which allows the user to record sound and then export it in a format usable in Adobe Premiere for example .MP3.

Construction Post 1: Our production Kit

Our production kit included:

1. A camera: Canon Legria HF G30 Camcorder
2. A tripod: which is multi-functional in that we can change it onto three levels of height to suit our choice of angle we want to shoot at.
3. A clapper-board: to record our shots and their details
4. Clip-board and shootboard: so we can adhere to our timetable and be organised
5. Microphone: a furry shotgun microphone
6. Headphones: to listen to our sound after each shot
7. Two camera batteries and a charger: to ensure we finish filming in any case
8. A whiteboard marker and cloth: to edit the information on the clapperboard

Our production kit was very easy to use and easily brought to our filming location (Mario's house) as most of the kit was packed into a lightweight but sturdy backpack and the tripod into a zip bag.