Evaluation

The brief that I was working to, in my media coursework was to create an opening title sequence that had to be between 90 seconds and 120 seconds long. The genre of our film is romantic comedy/rom-com; and the sub-genre of our film is teen rom-com, which we have aimed to be as clique and heart warming as its predecessors of the teen rom-com genre. The title of our film for our opening title sequence is ‘Graduation Day’, and within the sequence the audience are made aware that the main character Rose is moving into her university dorm, with the assistance of her loving boyfriend Doug. They bicker as they begin to arrange the room, until they come across some memories in the form of a leaving hoody, a leavers photograph, and a year book that take us back to the beginning of their relationship and the film. With the assistance of a cheeky, up beat, indie-rock song ‘One day of spring’ which we was given permission to use from an unsigned band called Give Me The Sun.

The target audience for our film are a niche audience; teenage girls from the age of 14 to women of the age of 26 of all demographic groups. The psychographics of are our target audience are the typical ‘giggly girly’ type, who may suffer with insecurities and with low confidence. Our film will therefore not only provide an escapism as many films tend to, but may also build some confidence within the girls with our fairy tale like ending between our own modern day star-crossed lovers; Doug and Rose. The target women that we are aiming at are mothers to the teenage girls, so that it may provide a period of which they can bond together at the cinema. Also women who were previously the type of teenage girl, that are our target who are in their early 20s. This is so that they themselves can reminisce on their secondary school years; whether they lead a life more like the character of the popular bitch Shelby, or more like a quiet timid Rose. Women and girls each have a character with which they can relate to within in the film, and I am also sure that the women and girls will also have had experiences with their own Doug. They would enjoy socialising both online through social networking sites such as Facebook, as well as socialising with people, going shopping, and to parties etc… They’d also enjoy other films that are very similar to ‘Graduation Day’, such as ’10 Things I Hate About You’, ‘John Tucker Must Die’ and ‘Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging’ etc… There is also a secondary target audience, which are males within the same age group of 14-26. This is because many girls/women will go to the cinema with their boyfriends/partners and therefore we need to cater to males within our film too, so that it is enjoyable for all of our audiences. The males will also enjoy socialising both online through social networking sites such as Facebook, as well as socialising with people, going out with friends, and to parties etc…

We have done some audience research in the form of questionnaires and a pitch of our idea to a class of 16 to 18 year olds (our AS media class.) From both the pitch and the questionnaires we had really positive feedback with people saying that they could see our film had potential to be a successful film. However within the questionnaires it became evident that this genre would only appeal to girls and women between the ages of 14-26, as they themselves are either living a very similar life to the characters, or were living a very similar life to the characters, and therefore can relate to the film more, and find the subtle humour within it, more than a boy of the age of 14 would for example. With our pitch to our media class, we discovered that people liked our idea of keeping to the typical stereotypes within a secondary school; the ‘geeks’, the ‘popular bitchy girls’, and the ‘good looking, mischievous popular boys.’ They also encouraged us to use our idea of our subverted narrative structure starting at the very end and going back to the beginning, in order to tell the audience the story of Rose and Doug. With these positive feedbacks on our ideas we decided to definitely incorporate them into our opening title sequence, along with ensuring that we are appealing to our target audience as it’s evident that there is the potential that ‘Graduation Day’ could be as successful as films such as ‘John Tuck Must Die’ as long as we ensured that our film would appeal to our target audiences. This due to the fact that it was evident from some feedback that our film would not be entertaining across all genders and universally, which is quite typical for romantic comedies.

We have chosen to use 'Summit Entertainment' as our media institution to distribute our film. We chose this media institution has it has previously distributed many successful teen rom-coms such as ‘American Pie.’ They have also distributed a string of successful films including the mesmorising ‘fangtastic’ ‘Twilight saga’ that has been a hit universally, mainly with teenage girls who have started the ‘team Edward’ verses ‘team Jacob’ cult as a result of the successful films. As most of these films have been great successes, especially within our target audience range, this is another reason why we chose to use 'Summit Entertainment', as if they distributed our film, they too could make ‘Graduation Day’ a box office hit.

The narrative for our opening title sequence subverts the usual linear narrative as it begins at the end of the film, as opposed to the beginning, which is unlike the other rom-com opening title sequences, as my research into rom-com opening title sequences shows, such as ‘10 Things I Hate About You’, ‘Love Actually’ all have just the original and traditional linear narrative. However, even though we have slightly gone against the traditional rom-com conventions of an opening title sequence by subverting our narrative, our plot is very traditional in the teen rom-com conventions. There’s a boy and a girl at the same secondary school but from different worlds; Doug (the lead male character) is a popular jock type guy, and Rose is an unnoticed, bullied geek; Doug himself has even bullied her at times! Doug is dared by his friends to ask Rose out, and Rose un-knowingly accepts. However, Doug begins to fall for Rose and finds himself in love with her, but fate seems determined to keep them apart as she finds out that Doug was initially dared to date her, and breaks up with him and goes to the prom with Ching-lee (a fellow geek.) Doug finally cannot take not being with Rose any longer and when the pupils are having a mock graduation day at school, he makes a speech declaring his love for Rose; and the equilibrium is then restored in the film, as this speech leads her back into his arms again. It is not evident from the beginning of our opening title sequence that is the end of the film that we are beginning with, but as our sequence ends, Rose comes across a picture of her having things thrown at her by Doug and his friend Chad. This photograph then turns into this scene and the film begins with text at the bottom saying ‘one year later’, which denotes to the audience that they’re now going to go back in time within their story.

Our genre of teen rom-com is evident throughout most of our opening title sequence. Within our title sequence the only characters who are present in the form of actors are Doug and Rose, and their relationship is on full display through cute intimate moments such as Doug holding Rose. They are both teenagers and they’re moving into an oxford dorm room (which is evident as oxford is written on one of the boxes) so this connotes that it is a teen rom-com as there are two teenagers, a boy, and girl going to university.

We have tried to incorporate as many different camera shots as possible into our opening title sequence. We have used point of view shots, over the shoulder shots, establishing shots etc… Although at times it was a struggle to stick to the 180 rule whilst filming. There has been a lot of editing involved in the process of creating our opening title sequence. We used Final Cut Pro, and have edited everything from adding in scenes from previous filming, cross fading, jump cuts, adjusting the lighting, and speeding up and slowing scenes down. Within the production process our opening title sequence has gone from having just Give Me The Sun’s ‘One Day of Spring’ playing to having a voice over, to going to back to our original idea of just having the soundtrack. The soundtrack itself is chirpy, up beat, indie rock which connotes our genre well; therefore we felt that only this needed to be used within our title sequence. We also edited this by making it shorter in order for it to make sense with our progression of events within our opening title sequence. When filming it was vital that we concentrated on our mise en scene, as it was filmed in my brother’s bedroom not all the surroundings were dorm like, and if these were captured within the footage then it would ruin the whole allusion of my brother’s room being the dorm room, and in turn ruin our opening title sequence. The lighting in our opening title sequence is all light, as our genre would not suit any other lighting. So it was important that all of our filming was done whilst there was natural light, but we also had to use artificial light, which is why we have had to edit some of the lighting. The typography that is used within our opening title sequence was a font from the website Dafont, and it iss called ‘allstar.’ We have used this font consistently within our opening title sequence. It’s in black throughout as its mimicking the text that you would expect to appear in the year book pages. The typography therefore too connotes our genre, along with the evident relationship between the characters of Doug and Rose, and the subtle hints that we have left for the audience such as oxford being written on one of Rose’s boxes, and an open suitcase etc…

‘Graduation Day’ is a film filled with the clique stereotypes of teenagers in a secondary school; popular jock type guys, popular bitchy girls and geeks. These stereotypes are clearly shown through their costumes and poses within the pictures of the characters that act as the credits within our opening title sequence; for example Doug, our main character, is posing non-smiling in a baseball jacket, whereas Rose has glasses and books in her hand with a massive grin on her face. The mise-en-scene differs according to the costume of every character. Our lead female character Rose wears dull, pale, pastel colours and glasses, along with holding books which is typically representing her as a geek. This is also the case with another geek character; Rose’s best friend Mary. The props, costumes and poses connote with clarity their personalities and the social status' of the characters. The lead male Doug is wearing a baseball jacket and posing without smiling, which makes his character look cool, rebellious and unfazed; this is too the same costume and pose for the character of Doug’s friend Chad. The costumes and their poses instantly connote to the audience that they are popular, ‘cool’, and rebellious. The character of Shelby is wearing a black fur coat, with her hair down, and pouting. This instantly represents a typical popular girl, who too is evidently ‘cool’ and confident enough to wear a black coat, to pout shows the confidence she has in her looks, and therefore represents a popular girl. Our last character Ching-Lee is pictured with a goofy smile, and is dressed smartly. As he is Asian he is sometimes seen as a geek, as Asians are usually stereotyped as being very intellectual academically, and our character of Ching-Lee is no different as it clearly represents his character’s position within our film. In terms of our film being most alike to other stereotypical films, it would have to be similar to American films such as ‘Mean Girls’, whom represent their characters in the same clique tell-tale way. As our film is mostly set in a secondary school full of teenagers, we wanted to present the different stereotypes of our characters immediately in our opening title sequence, as this connotes the genre of our film.

Our typography is very American baseball-like, but we decided on this because our film is meant to be a clique, in a clique. The secondary school in which it is set in is mimicking America by having a prom and a mock graduation day, the characters all have the typical conventions of their stereotypes, along with ‘Graduation Day’ itself being swarmed in the typical conventions of a teen rom-com. The soundtrack is a song from an unsigned British indie rock band, again the clique is the soundtrack as most teen rom-coms use similar soundtracks, for example ‘Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging’ use the Stiff Dylan’s Ultraviolet for their soundtrack. Again, the soundtrack connotes the genre of our film and is typically used within a teen rom-com. The lighting we used when filming was bright to show the teenagers as fun, youthful and happy, which is also used in other teen rom-coms such as ‘Wild Child.’ Shots such as the point of view shot are not traditionally used in rom-com opening title sequences, however we decided to use it to show that the story was being told through the perspective of the character of Rose, it also provides an opportunity for the audience to see the surroundings of the scene without having to use establishing shots; which are what is traditionally used to show the surroundings. However, the establishing shots that we have incorporated do show the surroundings and the relationship between Doug and Rose.

When planning our opening title sequence we planned to use a digital SLR camera when taking pictures of our characters for the credits, to ensure that we obtained good, professional looking photographs of our cast. This camera was perfect, as we got brilliant photos which look professional with the lighting and focus being perfect also. We had to use a tripod when doing this so that we got still shots that were straight and not diagonal, and again that looked professional, as if they were school photographs. For filming we used a Canon video camera. The camera itself was efficient, however it was not the best filming equipment so at times we had to really concentrate to ensure that we got the shot that we aiming looking for, because at times it would be blurry, and ran out of battery extremely quickly. We did use a tripod at times with our filming too, so that we could have a steady shot when needed, to ensure that our filming did not look too unprofessional or unlike a film. For editing our piece we used the programme Final Cut Pro on the iMac computers. At first I did not know how to use it, but once I practised and with some assistance I began to learn how to use its basic features. It is an amazing programme that cuts precisely and makes the filming look brilliant, I do not know what we would of done without Final Cut Pro! We were able to add text where and when we wanted to, speed shots up and down, dim and brighten the lighting, cross fade, jump cut and get rid of little blemishes where needed. I have learnt to film by using different angles with the tripod, and learnt how to use Final Cut Pro at a basic level. I think the most successful aspects of technology that we used was the SLR camera when we were taking the photographs, and Final Cut Pro when we were editing. The least successful was the Canon video camera as it was not the best quality; however, thankfully Final Cut Pro was able to rectify that.

The most successful things about my project I believe were my research into romantic comedies and teen romantic comedies. I enjoyed analysing the opening title sequences of teen rom-coms and obtaining ideas for my opening title sequence, as without the in depth analysis’ we would not of been able to come up with a storyline for our film or a storyline for our opening title sequence. Another success within our project was gaining the skills to use Final Cut Pro, as it was so essential that we had an understanding of the programme whilst we were editing our project. I am also impressed with myself that I have learnt how to use such an advance programme such as Final Cut Pro; even if it is only the basics. The least successful part of our project was the planning in enough depth and then eventually the filming. We found it difficult to create a perfect opening title sequence that made sense, we had problems with keeping our cast together as we kept getting let down by unreliable actors when it came to the point of filming which is why the boy character's face is always hidden when filming so that the audience aren't able to acknowledge that it is a different actor from the opening title sequence, we had problems with finding a room that could pass as a dorm room, as well as difficulties with getting the soundtrack as the band took a long time to give it to us, which was worrying and stressful as we had a deadline. However, we improved our opening title sequence by carefully planning it again, making it look as realistic as possible, and ensuring that it made sense to an audience whom did not already know anything about the film (which of course is extremely essential in an opening title sequence.) The third time we filmed was the most successful of our attempts, so we were able to edit it quicker and better, as we had already used Final Cut Pro with our two previous attempts and we were also able to use some of our previous footage. Overall, there were a few hiccups in the construction of our opening title sequence and it’s still not perfection, but with patience and time, we eventually created our opening title sequence in less than a week; which is an achievement in itself.