Paramount Pictures

We have chosen Paramount Pictures for our production company. I have researched what films paramount pictures have done and found two of our inspired films: ‘Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging’ and ‘Alfie’ were produced by this company. Other 'romantic comedy' films by Paramount Pictures include the iconic ‘Breakfast and tiffany’s’,’ failure to launch’ with Sarah Jessica parker, ‘how to lose a guy in 10 days’ and much more.

We have also decided to co produce our film with film four an independent film company. East is East and ‘Slumdog Millionaire ‘was produced by film4 and this film ties in with our Asian twist theme. i looked at films done by paramount pictures and films four, and there arent many but 'lucky break' was one i found that they were both prodced by.

continuity

Whilst editing our two minute opening today I noticed we have a small continuity problem. It is only minor but that can make all the difference. I can now emphasize with big shot film directors who spent a lot of money to set up cameras, pay actors, set up sets etc, to see when they are editing that one part of the film does not match up or is a blip. For example I remember a few months ago I watched a trailer for the film 'The Other Guys' and I saw on there that in a scene there were two men with medals on and in a different shot of the same scene they didn’t have them on, and then the medals appeared again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6WOoUG1eNo

I also did some researched and saw there are quite a few videos, websites and TV shows that show all the continuity in films and television. There is even a TV show on BBC three called 'Great Movie Mistakes' that shows all the blunders and gaffes. It is quite unfair for people to do this. From editing our movie I have realized no one is perfect, that not every movie can be wonderful and they should not be criticized for not trying the best they can.

costumes

This shows the mise-en-scene of the sleepover. Notice how all the characters are wearing pyjamas, tee shirts or vest tops. Also you can see the artificial lighting which indicates the time of the day. Also there are sleeping bags and sweets on the bed and i think we have created the mise-en-scene.

This is Anisha love interest.

This is Anishas chavy sister Amina.

This is our main character Anisha.

This is Anishas little sister Anita.

Anamatics.

This is our Anamatics. It is a drawn out opening of what our film should look like. We researched a few and saw that music producers do these for music videos. I think this really helped us because now we know what to do in each shot; how it will sound etc. we can also see how we have changed this to our final piece.

filming.

I think we represented social groups well in our two minute opening. The social groups we used were chav, girly girl and indie boy. With the chav social group we dressed our actress up in a track suit and her makeup was heavily done with a lot of foundation and eyeliner. We went a bit over the top so you could see in on film. With the girly girl we dressed her up in a denim coloured dress with leggings and her hair in plaits. I think this may have been a bit outdated as when I researched clothes for a 10-12 year old and they wore bright tee-shirts with emblems or 'Hannah Montana' etc. With the indie boy we dressed him in skinny type jeans a checkered shirt with a plain tee shirt underneath and converse trainers. He wore a beanie. This represents our social group as the clothes I have researched about indie boys fit in with what our actor was wearing.

We filmed in the October half term. We started at 10am and finished at 3pm. We filmed locally near a road because we needed a road in our film. Most of our filming was done outside but some was done at a friend’s house. We needed windows at the front of the house to do some of the filming and a lamppost so that was a perfect area to film in. We managed to finish all our filming in one day but once we started editing we realised some part were not right and we have to re-film them.

Some of the difficulties we faced when filming was first of all our main character could not walk into a tree. We overcame this by changing that part for someone knocking her head with a bag. Also for our music because we couldn’t use any copyrighted music we had to make some up or borrow some from an un-copyrighted website. Luckily we have a friend who knows how to play the guitar and she made up background music for us.

we have created the mise-en-scene on one scenes where girls are having a sleepover. We used props such as sleeping bags, pyjamas, slippers, pillows. For the lighting we closed the curtains because it was still light outside and added fairy lights.

Films that have inpired our movie.

Our film is called 'oh my guru'. The plot is about a teenage girl called Anisha who is quite accident prone. She is from an Asian family so that does not help her situation and she is also in love with a white boy. The genre of our film is a rom-com but originally we were going to have a comedy. However it was very hard for us to think of a plot of where the storyline would go. So we added a boy to make into a romantic comedy.
The types of films that have inspired us are:
Bend it like Beckham: this is where we got the inspiration to add an Asian twist to our film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsmbObwStSQ

Angus thongs and perfect snogging: this is where we got our inspiration for anisha's clumsiness. Also in our film we want a narration and angus thongs it a perfect example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvmciQ2GG1g

Bridget Jone's diary: this is also an example of the clumsiness and narration we want to go for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp08csjN_xI

Another program that inspired us is Malcolm in the middle. We wanted to do scenes wheere the main character looks into the camera but the people around them don’t hear. This helps the audience know what is going on in the characters head. A film that is an example of this also is Alfie starring Jude law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku9jE6eNfBM

The drawings of our costumes.

This is a visual representation of what the characters will be wearing in our film ‘Oh My Guru’.

As you can see Anisha the main character is wearing quite ‘normal’ teenage clothes. As you can see she is wearing skinny jeans a top or tee shirt and a coat or jacket. She is keeping up with the latest trends but her costume is quite basic and not fitting into any major groups, for example emo or chav. We added the umbrella as irony as in the film Anisha puts her umbrella down and then gets splashed with water by a car. We didn’t want her costume to be too extreme because we wanted her to fit in the crowd. Hopefully the audience will see that.

This is the costume the girls will be wearing at the sleepover scene. As you can see the pyjamas are your average day to day ones. We needed this so the audience would see that it is a sleepover scene. Obviously for props we will be adding sleeping bags, food to add to the mis-en-scene.

This is the costume for the boy. As you can see he is wearing a hoodie and jeans. He is wearing average clothes the same as Anisha because we didn’t want him to be too out of Anisha’s league. We wanted him to be in the category ‘indie’ as most boys Anisha’s age are quite indie. We may add headphones as a prop.

This is the costume for Anisha’s younger sister Amina. We want her to be a chav so there is a big difference between the two sisters. We wanted to exaggerate the chavyness of Amina. We thought she can be in a tracksuit, have very big hoop earrings and too much make-up on. She may be holding her phone for emphasis. We wanted the chavyness of Amina to be quite humorous and we hope the audience understands this.

This is Anisha’s youngest sister Anita. She will be the youngest so quite naive and innocent. We have dressed her in a pinafore tights and pumps. She won’t be wearing any visible makeup but we may put a bit on so it emphasises her features. Her hair will be in plats or to high bunches. The choice of costume should reflect on Anita’s character and the audience should see that.

costume designs.

Our film is an Asian comedy based in Britain. When we film our movie it will be November/October time so the main character Anisha may be wearing a coat of jacket. The character of Anisha is a typical teenager wearing the current fashion for her age, probably and hoodie and some jeans. She will probably wear pumps or boots. She may be hearing a beanie or hat depending on the weather. Also as part of the story Anisha will be holding an umbrella.

The next character Amina is Anisha's younger and quite different to Anisha. We wanted to add a bit of comedy to the film so we were thinking of making her a 'typical chav', she will most probably be wearing a tracksuit and have her hair gelled back. Also wearing a lot of makeup and big hoop earrings.

Anisha’s younger sister is called Anita. She will be the youngest of them all, so we want her to look quite innocent and naive. She will probably be wearing quite girly clothes, maybe pink and her hair a typical 2 bunches of plaits.

Our last main character is anisha's love interest. We thought he could be in the category 'indie'. He would probably be wearing baggy jeans and a slogan tee-shirt with trainers or converses on his feet. he would probably have the typical hair of indie boys, a 'flicked to the side' sort of look.

 

 

Target audience

The definition of target audience is a primary set of people of which something is aimed at. The target audience is a guide for the writers to write a TV programme or film according to which audience it is suitable for. For example in the media certain programmes are aimed at different age groups, races and gender. However not everyone fits into one target audience.

Take the programme ‘top gear’ as an example. The most obvious target audience that would be boys/ men maybe aged 9 to 40+ with an interest in cars. It would appeal to them because it is a show about cars the presenters are in their early 40’s so it would appeal to the older men. Nevertheless this may seem as stereotyping. I like top gear and I don’t even know a great deal about cars. There are other aspects that appeal to me, such as the humour of the challenges that Richard, James and Jeremy have to do. Also I learn a bit about cars too.

For our 2 minute opening we decided to go in a different direction to the peers in our class. As most of them were doing horror as their genre we were determined to go into the direction of romantic comedy. However we decided to add an Asian twist to it. We thought of ‘bend it like Beckham’ as our inspiration. Bend it like beckham is a British Asian, romantic comedy. The target audience are Asian girls aged 13-17. These people would watch this film as maybe they could emphasise with the characters and also the British Asian comedy genre is very minute so they would like to see if the film is good. However because of some the characters for example jess (Keira Knightly) and Joe (Jonathon Meyers) the target audience can widen to British girls and boys (as there is a football storyline).

We thought our target audience could be Asian girls aged 13-17. However we researched the population of Asians in Great Britain and they are slim. So we need to add a storyline that can appeal to other ethnicities to. As it is a romantic comedy we could have the love interest a British boy and maybe film the contrasts between the two cultures. However as we only have two minutes this is unlikely to be shown, but if we extended the plot we could have this as a storyline.

In conclusion target audience are not always correct for the specific person it is their personal preference what genre of film they enjoy.

What I have learnt so far.

When we were creating this preliminary project I learnt a great deal of new skills and techniques. I got to use high quality video cameras and editing equipment. I had used editing tools before but not as advanced as Pinnacle Studios.
Our planning of the film didn't run as smoothly as we thought. Even before we had started filming there was a problem with our location. Originally we wanted to film it in my house and have a match on action shot with someone going into a loft. Time constraints restricted us from doing it at my house. Our plot was a simple 'girl finds a mysterious box and shows her friend, then they open it together'. The audience on the other hand do not know what is in the box. We wanted to have a cliffhanger for effect. Also  when we opened the box we wanted to have lights coming out of the box so it would give the effect of the light shining on their faces. However we didn't have the right equipment so we left this out.

When we started filming I found it enjoyable and I liked using the video camera. I found that all our filming went according to plan and the movie techniques that we had to include were not hard to implement.

After we finished the filming we had to upload it and edit it in pinnacle studios. This was a new program for me but i soon got the hang of it and was cutting and editing in no time. We edited all the clips together and added transitions where necessary. We also cut the ends of the 180 degrees shot so it would run smoothly.

I thoroughly enjoyed filming this short movie and am looking forward to be doing my two minutes opening film.

Our short film.

Why are storyboards and planning important?

Story boards tell a story of a scene shot by shot, like a comic book. Story boards show what character is in each frame and if there is any dialogue between them also if the camera is close of far away from the scene.

Story boards are important as they show what everyone is doing in each frame. Also you can change your mind about a frame and just do it again without wasting time changing it whilst you are filming. People can also give you feedback about the work before it is filmed. All this helps with the filing and makes it easier to know exactly what you are doing.

Planning is important as it means everything is ready when it comes to filming. Poor planning will mean that it will take longer to shoot a movie and everyone in the movie will not be aware of what they are supposed to do. Planning can mean writing the script and making sure the characters know their lines. Also completing the storyboards and having the right camera for each shot. All these things can determine how well the movie will turn out

why I chose A-level media studies.

I decided to take a level media studies because I have a great interest in the media. I enjoy watching films and television shows, but I also take pleasure in analysing them and working out why a certain type of music is used for a certain actor or scene. Also have an interest in seeing how lighting is used in effective ways. I particulary like seeing how TV and film have changed through history, how the animation has improved how the quality of the film has increased ect. I try to watch the news regularly to find out what is happening all around the world. I have an open mind about media and by studying this subject in more depth I will gain skills in writing, moviemaking and analysing.