Institutional Research

'Sup!

When doing institutional research, I initially began searching British films of the genre romantic-comedy. Surprisingly, the list I referred to on Wikipedia only named 108 films in that genre category made by British production and distribution companies, some of which include Bridget Jones' Diary (Working Title Films), Tamara Drew (Monumentum Pictures) and Mamma Mia! (Universal Pictures, Playtone and Little Star).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_romantic_comedy_films

I decided to research various British institutions which created films within my genre to educate myself in which companies would best be used to produce a film like ours. I chose to research Artificial Eye, Momentum Pictures, Entertainment Film Distributors and Working Title Films.

Artificial Eye

Artificial Eye is a British film distributor, specialising in foreign-language and art house films. It was founded in 1976 by Andi Engel his then wife, Pamela Balfry, who had a background working with Richard Roud at the London Film Festival. She became Artficial Eye's first managing director. Artificial Eye releases some 20 new theatrical films and 30 DVD titles in the UK each year. 

It distributed a variety of films including Fish Tank, a low-budget British Film, as well as 360 and What Richard Did. Although Artificial Eye is a British Company and showed willingness to distribute low-budget films as it did with Fish Tank, the genres it seemed to focus on are foreign and art house films, both of which don't fit with our chosen genre of romantic-comedy, therefore, the distributor is inappropriate for our film.

Momentum Pictures

Momentum Pictures, my second researched company, is one of the leading independent motion picture distributors in the UK and Ireland and releases approximately 20 theatrical films a year. The studio produces a variety of genres in film, including romance, comedy, horror, and family films.

Among other films, it has distributed Just Friends, P.S. I love you, and Dear John, all of which are romantic-comedy genre. Although the company doesn't seem to specialise or endorse low-budget production films, they do distribute a films with a range of genres, some of which are popular rom-coms and as a result, is a suitable choice for our film to use.


Entertainment Film Distributors

Entertainment Film Distributors is another British distributor of independent films in the UK and Ireland for various production companies, currently run by Nigel Green. The fact that they distribute independent films implies that they specialise in backing newcomers, unknown film makers and low-buget films, ideal for our film project.

The company distributes a variety of films in different genres, including Run Fatboy Run, 17 Again, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This indicates that this distribution company would be suitable for our film due to the fact that the company delves into our genre of romantic-comedy based on their wealth of films in that category. The films they produce in the rom-com genre are popular and well-known, inspiring confidence that our film would get wide-spread exposure and circulation. The company also works with newcomers to the film-making-scene and back low-budget films, which puts them ahead of Momentum Pictures and Artificial Eye, as Momentum pictures doesn't do a lot of work with low-budget projects and Artificial Eye specialises in art house and foreign films, neither of which are our genre.

Working Title Films

Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London. The company was founded by tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1983. It produces feature films and several television productions and is one of the most successful and well-known British production company, and its parent company is NBC Universal. It produces films in a variety of genres, including romantic comedy and have produced, among others, Love Actually, Bridget Jones' Diary and Definitely Maybe. All these films share the similar category of romantic-comedy and all three have been popular classics which are loved by the British public (Love Actually won a series of BAFTAs and Golden Globes), inspiring confidence in us as directors looking for a production company to create our film. The company has a positive image and history if success and is a promising option as a production company.


Pheebs OUT! ;)

22/01/2013

Hey All,

We didn't do much this lesson aside from preparation for filming and admin work mainly. Sam wasn't in school and so it was just Carolina and myself, however we'd had this conversation earlier on so she didn't miss anything and we didn't make any decision without knowing she was okay with it.

Roles:

Storyboarder - Sam (I'm pretty poor on the drawing front and Carolina wasn't overly keen so it was left to Sam with her stick people)
Organiser - Phoebe (I'm a crazy neat freak but also because I have a good attention to detail and am very organised in day-to-day life as well as projects and deadlines)
Script-writer - Carolina
Director - Group task, but Carolina and Sam will lead due to the fact that I will be acting in the film
Editor - Group task

Timetabling:

We chose to work out some later details about when and where we could meet up, film and plan. Comparing schedules, it turned out that Carolina and I have the same free periods (Tuesday morning, double) and although Sam had lessons during that time, we decided that we can use times after school and weekends for filming, as well as set-aside a day or two during half term to get the bulk of the filming out of the way.

Pheebs OUT! ;)

Full Synopsis

The Naked Truth Synopsis


"At the age of 18, in her second year of college, Naomi (Phoebe Bower) is the “queen bee”. She loves being adored by people and the attention she receives from boys. She will resort to anything to keep the power in her hands, even at the expense of her own dignity. Underneath her sweet exterior she is a girl who is very insecure about herself and feels the only way she can be popular is to give boys what she thinks they want (sex).

After having multiple flings with multiple guys she sets her sights on the main prize, the alpha male of the school, Aiden (Daniel Walsom). When she finally lands a date with him they hook up and she feels as though she has accomplished something great; however, much to her shock, Aiden has a girlfriend and not only is she popular but also ruthless.

Katelyn, Aiden’s girlfriend decides to get make it her job to get revenge on Naomi and posts a naked picture that Aiden took of her all around the school and online. When the rest of the school sees these images Naomi is alienated and a lot of her friends reject her, except for her two best friends who have been with her though everything, even with her bad reputation.

Naomi, however, is not willing to take things lying down; she aims to get her own back. Over a number of months Naomi and her best friends Abigail and Lauren plot and plan ways to get back at Aidan and Katelyn. Naomi puts ant powder in Aiden's jock-strap, cuts up Katelyn's school clothes, dyes Katelyn's hair pink and spreads a rumour about Aiden having a tiny penis, but both Katelyn and Aiden are able to find ways of styling them out and their reputations don’t get damaged. Naomi however begins to gain more and more friends after doing each prank as everyone who ever felt victimised by Katelyn decides to take her side.

Since none of their plans have worked, Naomi and her friends decided that they need to do something that will really hit Katelyn hard, so Naomi decided to go after Katelyn’s brother, Oliver. They plan to use as a source of information and find ways of humiliating Katelyn, just as Naomi was humiliated beforehand.

Oliver ends up liking Naomi and becomes close friends with her, much to his sister’s dismay. Naomi also begins to realise that that she likes Oliver as more than a friend and she feels something for him that she had never felt for another boy. She decides that she can’t keep using him and lying to him and so calls of the whole revenge plan thinking that she will go to him and explain everything to him, making everything fine.

Meanwhile one of Katelyn’s friends finds out about Naomi’s plan through the schools grape vine and rushes to tell Katelyn. Katelyn rushes to Oliver and tells him everything and although he is crushed, Katelyn is filled with joy over the fact that her brother no longer likes Naomi.

When Naomi and Oliver next see each other he ignores her and, after seeing the smug look on Katelyn’s face, she realises that Oliver has found out everything. Naomi is heartbroken and begins to give up hope. After many sleepovers filled with chocolates and tears, Naomi’s friends convince her to do something because nothing will ever change if she sits around crying.

The next day at school a large crowd gathers and Naomi tells the whole school that she is sorry for what she has been doing as she had dropped to Katelyn’s level and most of all she is sorry for what she did to Oliver. Oliver forgives her and they become friends again, foreshadowing a possible relationship in the future.

At the end of the film, Naomi is walking round the back of the sports centre at school when she sees Aiden making out with the football captain Luke - we find out that Aidan is bisexual. Naomi wastes no time and decides to take a picture, bringing the film to a close as she sends the picture to a bunch of people."


Pheebs OUT!!! ;)

Synopsis

Hhhhheeeeeellllllllooooooooo, Mr Media-Studies Peoples,


"Naomi is the “queen bee”. She gets what she wants, when she wants it, and more importantly ... gets exactly WHO she wants.
After setting her sights on the biggest prize of all, Aiden Young, and having her reputation ruined by Katelyn “the bitch”, Naomi is determined to get revenge. From ant powder to pink hair, Naomi pulls out all the stops!
Will Naomi ever be back on top, or will her vengeful spiral get the better of her, especially when Katelyn’s brother Oliver becomes the centre of her plot."


This is our synopsis for our 'film' called 'The Naked Truth' - Deciding on a title was difficult. We went through a variety of suggestions, from "Love-Switch", "Unforgettable affair" - which we concluded sounded a bit too '50 shades of niceness', and "Let me love you" to "P.O.R.N. (Problems of Rude Nudes)", "Hell hath no fury" and "W.A.B. (What. A. Bitch)" - I was on a bit of a abbreviation craze.


The title is a well-known saying and relates to the plot of the movie as the initial problem in the tale is the honest-to-God-truth coming out and ruining Naomi's life. The word 'naked' is a double entendre which relates to the naked-pictures of Naomi which are brodcast throughout the school as well as the importance of truth and the role it plays in the film.


We initially had some trouble with creating a plot because we had initally thought up as simple boy-meets-girl and falls in love idea however that sounded much too cliché and we thought it didn't scream HIT! It didn't have much of a storyline and didn't attract interest, so we decided to recall some of our favourite chick-flicks and came up with the revenge aspect to John Tucker Must Die (I'd seriously recommend it) and the ant-powder prank was inspired from a story, amateur written, on Wattpad.com called White Liar. These extra add-ons to the plot developed the comedy aspect of our film, something else we'd struggled with as we'd begun to think the original storyline was more romantic-drama than rom-com material. After much deliberation, we improved the story with a revenge theme, romantic interest and comic touches throughout - and although the film isn't original (name me one film that is), that may work to our advantage as we are taking inspiration and ideas from a range of popular films and combining them to make something a little bit different and perhaps better. It fits into the genre of romantic-comedy which will appeal to our target market of teenage females, 12-21 and works as a succinct, interesting plot.


Pheebs, OUT! ;)

Preliminary Task Evaluation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrmahtRXnaQ&safe=active

Hello-AGAIN, Mr/Ms Examiner-Person!

Preliminary Task

The first item on our project checklist was to film and edit our preliminary task. We weren't getting marked for it but it was mandatory and we would loose marks off of our overall project if it wasn't done and completed in time (hence why this is the first blog that I'm writing). 

Filming the actual footage was fairly easy, just a matter of picking locations and following a script already written. Carolina was our chosen 'A' and Sam was our chosen 'B' (I was fairly certain about staying behind the camera for filming this one). We stuck to our editing tip from Sir of waiting 5 seconds before and after we've completed our shot  and it really helped when it came to editing because we had extended time to shorten shots and make changes. Once we'd completed our filming, we took our footage back to the huts and plugged the camera into the computer - Macs, I've come to find, are a NIGHTMARE to use and I'm still trying to adapt (Windows girl at heart <3). 

Editing went well as we had a sheet to guide us and we'd had prior practise when filming our Red-Riding-Hood film sequence. We were succinct and attentive to the changes we wanted to make and when done, presented our work to Mr Roberts. 

Our feedback was fairly positive. Mr Roberts complimented our reverse shots, arguing that they were smooth and looked natural on camera. Naturally we were chuffed, but on referring back to our sheet, we learned we'd neglected to do a over-the-shoulder shot on step 4 so we re-filmed and added it to the footage. 

What we were criticised for was our mistake of crossing the 180' degree line twice during our task. We didn't understand where we'd go wrong and I didn't follow what the 180' line was about but we asked Sir and he explained that you have to film on one side of the line at a time otherwise the characters in different shots look like they are facing in the other direction and it throws the whole shot off. 

We didn't make the improvement on the task purely because we weren't being marked for it and it was evidence we can refer back to later when filming so that we don't make the same mistakes when it counts.






Another thing we realised we need to work on is our use of light because, in retrospect, a lot of our shots were dark and obscure the image - and since we want to mimic the bright and cheery feel of the Legally Blonde opening sequence in our own piece, light is a technique we are going to have to improve on.

In conclusion, I found that we followed the task fairly well and found it really useful because we learnt what aspects of filming and editing we need to improve on e.g. use of light and crossing of 180' degree line, and now that we've been made aware of it, we can focus on making sure we don't make a repeat of it later. We've also refreshed our memories regarding using the software and I now feel more confident about moving onto the next step in our project!

Pheebs OUT! ;)

Preliminary Task Planning

'Sup Readers, 

The planning process to our preliminary task was a bit of a bore if I was honest. We were eager to get out and film our task and doing a storyboard and shot analysis seemed petty in the grand scheme of things. We'd been told that we had to do it outside of lesson which naturally worried me slightly as I'd have to juggle other school work on top of Media Studies work and I'm already snowed under the proverbial avalanche! However, our teachers took pity on us and allowed us to film during lesson-time so it wasn't as much of a problem regarding basic preparation of storyboarding and choosing frames and shots. 

We storyboarded our film fairly simply, with notes on the shots we were going to use and locations of each shot. We kept it detailed but not rambling, simple notes that we could refer to as well as the sheet to make the filming process as swiftly completed as possible. Once we'd finished storyboarding - stick people were our life-savers - Sir gave us the go ahead to get filming.

 

We found that the storyboard was a really effective point of reference that we used throughout filming, particularly when we were either lost or a little confused about the direction in which our task was heading. The picture gave us an image we were aiming for and the notes beneath told us the shot we'd chosen to use and any details regarding angle and location were included.

 


In conclusion, I found the planning process useful once we began filming as having a good reference point throughout speeded up the process and made the shot a lot more accurate and correct. It cut editing time as we made little mistakes and our preliminary task turned out pretty good. The only improvement I'd make was add further detail regarding lighting and 180' degree line - two problem areas which we'd done wrong when Sir later evaluated our task.

Pheebs OUT! ;)

JAWS

Hey, Peeps!

So, its the first week back at school from the Christmas Holidays (How was your Christmas? Hoping it went well) and I'm feeling hyped about our project. Sir (Mr Roberts) wanted to introduce us to some of the most ground-breaking and famous opening sequences of all-time (I presume). I'd only seen JAWS once in my 16 years which I understand to some is a cardinal sin, but I remember the epic opening and was eager to re-watch it. One of our group members, Sam, is terrified of sharks and so wasn't overly pleased about the idea of us viewing it but we made it through with her pride intact (barely).

JAWS was a great film to watch as we got a bunch of ideas for techniques we could use. Despite the fact that the film's genre was horror, it was really beneficial to watch how Spielberg used a range of camera-shots and film-techniques to completely unsettle to audience and create that terrifying mood present throughout the entire film

The first thing we focused on was Spielberg's use of narrative story-telling in the space of just the opening sequence. Spielberg began the sequence (discluding the title sequence underwater) at a beach party, creating an equilirbium from the beginning. As the girl races off towards the water, eager boy following in tow, we start to experience the ending of the equilibrium. The girl then strips and goes out into the water - already building tension as, based on the films title, we know that there is a shark in the water. As the girl is attacked by the shark, we enter into the dilema/disequilibrium. We are returned to the beach and with the sunny weather, we've reached the new equilibrium of the opening sequence. This is a very unique and clever way in which to introduce the audience to the villain of the film and foreshadow future events. I liked the opening sequence as it did a superb job of unsettling me and throwing me completely out of my comfort zone - I could only just imagine the impact it must have had on those seeing it for the first time in the cinema.

The next technique we examined used in the film was the use of contrasting shots of extreme wide shots to extreme close-ups. Spielberg used both ends of the shot-spectrum in order to make the audeince feel un-grounded and compare the two different shots shown - one in close detail and one showing the bigger picture. He used the close-up, particularly on the girl-being-attacked, to involve the audience in the scene and make them feel as though they were in the place of the actress, as well as give a greater sense of detail. He used the wider-shot to showcase the whole scene and show every aspect of the shot. He also used the contrast to create that sense of helplessness in the audeince as the close-up is showing a vicious shark attack and the extreme wide-shot shows a picturesque, peaceful landscape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7acI5z9vyok&noredirect=1 (JAWS opening sequence - showcasing the contrast between extreme close-ups and extreme long shots used by Speilberg)



The final technique we picked up on while was how Spielberg used the entire frame during the shark-attack. By having the frame still or staunch while tracking, the actress being attaacked by the shark was able to move across the entire screen, using up all the space and creating that sense of great size and power the shark has. It also adds to the degree of violence and sense of fear felt throughout the whole film, making 'Jaws' such a legendary villain.




It was a very interesting lesson and I garnered a lot of information from the opening sequence. I think that although I would like to replicate and practise with some of Spielberg's techniques in the future, I'm not sure they are entirely appropriate to the genre and mood I'm trying to convey in our project.

Pheebs OUT! ;)