Production Logo

This is the final solution to our companies logo, after deciding on several variations we settled on this concept as it is the more mature and sophisticated and most similar to many in the film world, as the logo ties in with the name of the up and coming Lighthouse international film festival held in Long Beach California, and is also meant to have a very down to earth feel perhaps reflecting on the style of the movie as its not not made for profit, but for the art of film.
The initial logo design was of a cloud with cartoonised raindrops produced using macro media flash, and the name being rainy days yet after researching the net there was already and existing company with the name. As well this for a film which is based on normal day to day events you would expect everything to be down to earth.
This logo located in the top left was produced on adobe photo shop elements 6 which is a piece of soft ware which allows you to manipulate images and apply effects with ease and creates a fairly professional finish. Baring in mind if this were a project on a large scale budget money would be invested into this area to produce something along the lines of this to the highest standard yet this i feel is a good achievement with the abilities at hand.
The L.C.E is a build up of the names of those involved in the film comprising of Laura, Chris and Ellis, this has no alternate meaning behind it, its purely just an order of initials.
As with the majority of films production logos appear before hand so this image will be incorporated into the film using Imovie. How to place images and titles is explained in the software section of the blog.

.

Target Audience and BBFC

Age Range
The age range for this A level text is based around a youth audience from 15 ranging to 34. This is reflected in the film by the age range of the characters being in the late teen age range. As well as this the narrative of the sequence is about a morning routine where a male character is preparing for a days work, which expands the audience appeal further as more will be able to relate to this issue. Also the relationship between the male ad female characters has the widest appeal as most people are able to relate to some sort of romantic situation.

Another method to link with the target audience is the soundtrack which we opted to add over the movie. The genre of the song is indie which is a current popular genre and describes itself as a new york garage rock, this being a song with an upbeat tempo and an aspirational mood.

The editing is fast paced , to keep an audience enticed and make the scenes appear more exciting. These being factors which will want the audience to continue to watch the clip after the opening two minutes sequence. On top of this the language used in the clip is the dialect suited to portray a more younger audience and the fact that the setting is in a modern day scene adds to the youth appeal.

Taking the BBFC rating into account from consolidating the website this film would fall into the category of a 15 rating due to its frequent use of expletive language, it borders the 12A rating. Yet due to the language issue it would be seen as more reasonable to rte the film higher rather than lower, as those under the age of viewing recommendation would be able to access the media after the DVD release.


Ethnicity
The casting of the movie is built up predominately of Caucasian characters. However the film will still have multi ethnic audience appeal. Yet the media does not specifically narrow towards a Caucasian audience, due to the issues tackled in the film it will still have a vast audience appeal due to its hybrid genre of being both a romantic and a comedy, the romantic side drawing in mostly the female audience and pink pound and the comedy side stereotypically the male appeal. Also if film watchers are interested in the actual narrative of the film they wont find it offensive if there is a lack in ethnic groups, and this is backed up as many main stream productions opt to sideline non-Caucasian actors and this hasn't caused them to commercially suffer.


Gender
The opening sequence in our production tends to go against the stereotype role of having a female as the central protagonist (this is also present in the Rom com Forgetting Sarah Marshall where the same rule is applied.), there is a female included yet the majority of the clip is focused around the male. Which will help draw in appeal of a male audience as well as females as it will provide female gaze.
The female character will not be the stereotypical busty blond, instead we will opt for a brunette which has the reputation in the film world of being more intelligent, as well as being slightly original avoiding the norm of a blond bimbo.


Socio Economic Status
The film has a wide appeal to various groups of socio economic status, the setting which the character is involved in and his dress sense gives off an upper/middle class vibe so the AB and C1 of the socio economic formula. Where as the characters choice of dialect is that more of a lower class situation more C2 DE form of stereotype.The overall situation of being late for work can be related to the whole way across the social scale.
So the film will have a wide spread appeal to various groupings ,on the surface it appears to be aimed towards the upper class however at its roots its very relatable.So unlike companies such as the BBC who have been criticised for aiming more towards the higher scales even though its supposedly appeals to everyone due to its terrestrial nature. Therefore our film fits the type of audience most rom coms do that being the less wealthy however as i have reiterated it will vast appeal.

Nationality
To retain a hegonomic status of the British stereotype the male character Jake is portrayed from being from the South end of England, and if this production were to be released into the box office or into the world wide market it wouldn't have difficulty in attracting a foreign audience as they will be able to pick up on the stereotypical posh southern accent. This i present in such companies such as Working Titles who have produced numerous rom coms using the face of Hugh Grant to Portray the face of stereotypical Britain in such productions as Bridget Jones and Notting Hill, which has led to this small independent company stamping its mark on the global film market.
To tap into the U.K market we can use factors within the film which tend to be mainly relatable to a U.K audience for example the weather outside or the products used with in the scene such as Cheerios a the cereal which is knocked over to spell out the titles.
Seen as the film was on an extremely low budget with it only being a two minute opening for an AS course there are regional factors which could be improved on if funds were provided. For example for could be invested in anchoring stereotypes for example the use of high profile actors/actress's from the region required. Also a setting could actually be made specifically for the scenario, due to the setting at which the filming was undergone didn't directly denote the U.K as the portrayed area.

Fans Of...
The fans which this film would tend to attract would be the fans of the rom com gnere and the two genres which combine to make this hybrid. Also those who have seen the films which this one takes inter textual references may be appealed towards our production, as they will be able to pick up these references for example the forgetting of the notebook links with the film Suburban Girl, The constant use of exploit language refers to a scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral and the use of products to make the titles is present in the TV series named teachers.
To gain more appeal for this film advertising methods such as trailers and posters would be produced. The poster would need to contain the the images of Jake and Claire with pleasant expressions placed perhaps into the setting where the majority of the film would take place ( may be a concept would be to have a skyline as the background to emphasize the city.) or just on a plain white back ground like that in Four Weddings... and Notting Hill. This effect signifies that the film is centered around these characters. Also you would record any awards that the film has received or been nominated for to show its class and mention the actors whether they are discovered talent or large A Lister's.



Sexuality
All of the characters in the opening clip are portrayed as heterosexual, this is denoted by the affection in he character Claire's voice toward Jake , as well as the fact that Jake becomes transfixed on Claire and as a result falls to the ground.
However this film would not be predominately for a heterosexual market to view.The romantic aspects have a some what appeal towards a female audience where as comedy is aimed towards mostly males depending on the type of humour depicted. Therefore a romcom combines the two and widens the appeal. This genre will also have an appeal towards the pink pound market due to the romantic side and couples in general and perhaps the attractiveness of the characters.

Psycho graphic profile

This is reflected more towards a middle class type C1 and 2. The sort of person would have the media habits more toward the tabloid format rather than the broadsheet, they would most probably be a SKY watcher opting toward the soaps and reality drama aspects rather than period dramas and the history channel.

Sound And Music

This is the sound clip which is used in the final piece,
and was taken from the source audio.lgfl.org.uk which is part of the research on royalty and copy wright free music tracks which i located.
'Music in romcoms may often be superficial in its specific connection to the narrative- but a romcom without music is unthinkable. Music is an integral part of Western society's construction of romance.'- quoted by Robyn J Stilwell from the book 'Falling in love again-romantic comedy in contemporary cinema which was purchased from amazon.co.uk.Therefore from this quote we instantly knew that a perfect soundtrack would be necessary, and due to the genre of Indie music is emerging in many of today's productions this seemed a suitable genre. We then searched the site which i have described and located the track which is playable in the video box above. The track name is called Touch me and is composed by Harry Nilsson and is described on the link as New York garage band effect with an uplifting effect. After listening to various tracks of a similar description the group narrowed it down to this one due to its speedy tempo which will link nicely with the pace of the editing and the mood enhancing vibe which it emits.


This was the option we decided with however there was an option available to have a custom made soundtrack to fit with the piece made by a fellow peer who is undertaking the A level music course and is able to program two types of music generating software. Garage band which is an apple application which allows music to be made from scratch and is already implemented on the schools mac system, or Cu Base a more advanced professional system with a higher range of features allowing the ability to create, mix edit and record your own soundtrack. However the soundtrack which we found on the online source proved to fit well enough into the sequence.

Analysis of a genre related film

Genre Research Into Romantic Comedies

To get a feel for the genre, which I am about to delve into, I decided to analyse two films from the specified genre theses being Four Weddings And A Funeral and Love Actually.

I have already analysed the Opening of Dark Blue World, which is a world war two romantic drama that has slight comedic aspects towards the start, which is located under the section analysis of film opening.

Four Weddings And a Funeral
The title sequence in this film are used in the same method as dark blue world using a black screen with white text written up on it, this is a technique which tends to be used for more low budget productions due to its lack in effects. However it also is a method to make things stand out so the text of the titles will be the focal point on screen.
It then progresses into the establishing shot, which may be chosen to be used in our production, which various inter textual references will be taken from. A hand appears into the scene to attempt to turn off an alarm clock, the same shot type is repeated however the person in bed is revealed wakes up and shits of the alarm.
(Already having slight hints of realist comedy.)

Then throughout the remainder of this sequence the characters are getting ready using numerous jump cuts to create a very visual aid to show a time change of the characters gradually changing attire.

The way that the titles link in with the wedding invitation aspect of the film is another method, which may be used, perhaps linking the titles concept we have to reflect on the characters personality.

The final two inter textual references from this film are the over use of swear words during a problem, however in our production we have opted to dub down the cursing to secure a lower BBFC rating. And the name and description of the female character being named Claire and having brown hair as well as the fact that this character causes Jake in our production to become almost transfixed on her are clear links between the original text and the group idea.
Love Actually

Not as many key aspects can be taken from this film in comparison to those, which are aimed to be used from four weddings in out final cut.
However they both tend to portray the stereotypical British male in the same way using Hugh Grant as the actor in both cases, perhaps due to his accent and upper class appearance.
As well as this they choose to use the setting of London as not many foreign countries are likely to be aware of cities outside of London, they have also made sure that in the scene they include famous landmarks such as the London Eye and Heathrow Airport. For our production this may be difficult due to the fact we live far form the London district however other methods such as the weather could be used to portray the UK.
The final point to be taken from Love Actually is the non-diegetic soundtrack that is used through out the film montage. Its designed to have the opposite effect to that of a horror or thriller, using a relaxed tempo to set the mood and calm the heart beat. However in the narrative behind our idea the concept is that he is in a rush so the music will need to have a light sense about it however create an upbeat feel to the sequence.