Music In Rom Coms- And Our Film

In rom coms the opening song is normally something upbeat and relatable to the story. Im going to look at the music from the films I have analysed already.

 

Can't Buy Me Love- Can't Buy Me Love

The Beatles

 

Juno- All I Want Is You

Barry Louis Polliser

 

Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging- She's So Lovely

Scouting For Girls

 

Made Of Honor- Walkin' On The Sun- Smash Mouth
&
Love Song
Sara Bareilles

 

Maid In Manhattan- Me and Julio Down By The School Yard.

Paul Simon

 

Crazy, Stupid, Love- Save Room

John Lennon

 

Friends With Benefits- Runaway Baby

Bruno Mars

&

L.O.V

Fitz And The Tantrums

 

All of the songs above are very catchy and relevant to the film, when thinking of what songs we can use, I thought of what our film is about- two people who are from different areas, different from eachother- but still fall in love even though they havent met yet- and a fews ongs came to mind..

 

Justin Timberlake- That Girl

Taylor Swift- You Belong With Me

Jason Mraz- I'm Yours

And; Michael Buble- Haven't Met You Yet
 

As a grpup we then narrowed it down to Justin Timberlake and Micheal Buble as their songs are the most catchiest. Then unanomously we decided on Buble because the lyrics fit perfectly with our film and what we're trying to convey. Therefore by listening to the song, the audience will gather what will happen in the duration of the film.

 

 

Our film

After looking at many different romantic comedy openings we came up with our idea. The main inspiration of our idea came from Juno and Maid In Manhattan.

The name of our film is: Not Exactly Romeo And Juliet. We named our film this as we are doing our own version of Romeo And Juleit, but with a twist. Similarities in them is that the two will be from completely different backgrounds just like in Romeo And Juliet. However its not exactly Romeo And Juliet as our film is much more modern, also, in most rom-coms and in Romeo And Juliet, the characters are of the sma skin colour/ethnic group. Our characters we have used are of different races and lastly they dont meet the same way Romeo And Juleit meets, which is another difference.

CHARACTERS:

We thaught about our acters very carefully, they were what we decided to get before deciding what happens in our film, and what it should be called etc.. We decided to choose two drama BTECH students, as we know they are strong actors and we can rely on them to get the acting done to a high stanard as we've seen them act many times.

Our film characters are called Andre and Nina. We have decided to make these two characters completly different from eachother as it creates an enigma for the audience as they will wonder how the two could possibly ever fall in love, and also could show a sene of humor/humiliation for Andre,as he is pushing his boundaries going for a woman like Nina.

Andre is our 'casual Joe' kind of character. He dresses in a plain top acomponied with a pair of jeans and a hoodie. He dosnt have the most recent phone and dosnt really have an eye for the materialistic side of life.

Nina however, she is the complete opposite of Andre. She dresses more sophisticated, holds herself better and has a real eye for everything materialistic. She has an iPhone, likes to drink Starbucks and her local shops consist of Swarovski.

LOCATION:

Our locations also play a big part in showing the difference between our characters. Andres location is in a more urban area which looks a lot more cheap compared to Ninas which is in Oxford Street/Central London- a LOT more sophisticated.

Costumes, Props and Location Scouting

COSTUMES:

For our female character we wanted her to be portrayed as sophisticated, classy and independent. To do so, we used miss-en-scene. We dressed her in a pencil skirt which presents her as a strong woman but not in a sexual way. With the props we have given her, it shows her independence and her matority. the use of a big bag shows in her day to day life she needs a lot of things since she is a busy women who depends on herself.

For our male role we wanted him to look casual and laid back compared to our female role. We want him to have more of a mellow role, rather then stress and chaos that comes across in females. The way he is thrown together shows he don't really care and has no worries of how he presents himself.

Therfore, the use of these two examples are perfect for how we want to present our characters.

PROPS:
By using our props, the main message we want to get across,

is the contrast between the main characters.

ANDRE: For Andre we don't really give him much, he'll have a pair of headphones and a phone, but they won't be very up to date or trendy, a complete opposite of Nina. He'll also go into a shop and buy a yazoo, this shows the audience he ins't very mature for his age. The calmness and serenity he carries is a representation that challenges the stereotype of a man.

NINA: For Nina, to portray her sophistication, maturity, and even the fact she is a busy but organised woman who is very modern, we've decided to give her a iPhone, large bag, and umberella. Also, we see her going into Starbucks and walk with the cup. By using something like the large bag, we are showing the stereotype of women as they carry around a lot of things- or sometimes nothing, but use the bag to be trendy.

LOCATION:

Our location is the final peice that shows the real contrast between the two and we think we have found the perfect areas. We will use a rather suburban area for Andre, and a more busy but modern area for Nina.

Andre: Greenford:

This is a typical kebab shop in London which shows the simple life of our male character. This also is a good point of contrast to what we will be presenting for the life of our female actress Nina because Andre's life is a lot more laid back than Nina's. And dosnt seem to really have a care whereas Nina wants to look after herslef and watch what she eats.

This is also a very good example to which we can express the complete difference in the society in which both characters live. The fact the building is very derelict and possibly abandoned shows how different the areas are.

This is almost a humours approach to convey the contrasting lives as this is a shop that is not well known and is very cheap looking. This is another contrasting point as the local shops in his life are not going to be as 'fancy' as the shops available in the area that Nina lives in.

Nina: Central London- Oxford Street:

Oxford Street is famous place in London, its known for its modern society and fast pace working. Exactly what Nina is. Showing the tube station shows rush and chaos in the area she lives in.

The contrast to the life of Andre the location we used was SWAROVSKI in comparison to SHU-TIME this is such a huge difference of brands and high street to lower end shops and products.

Our Characters

OUR CHARACTERS:

In our film opening, we show our two main characters. One is female, and the other is male. For our male role, the character has a very casual and relaxed personality. We decided to represent his personality through what he wears as the mise-en-scene of him being in a hoodie, jeans and with headphones round his neck represents his gender. However, since its a rom-com, sterotypically the male role is normally smart and sophisticated therefore he challenges the stereotype of males in this film genre. We expect him to be in a suit or dressed a lot more smarter and in a more appealing enviroment. However our female character Nina is potrayed as safisticed, seeing her for the first time will be in Central London, in Oxford Street. We see her dressed very smart and she looks very snobby. She also walks into Starbucks and past many 'posh' shops. The costume for Nina is a blazer, smart shirt, trousers and heels. To show the audience a clear contrast in our two main characters. Having Nina dress like this challenges her character in the film genre, but not her gender stereotype as a woman would wear heels and dress a lot nicer compared to a man.

I feel as if the characters do challenge stereotypes. In a sense of who they are since normally it would be the female that is the casual one and the man would be the "business" man and the sophisticated one in Central London. But this was challenged since we used the female role as the sophisticated one instead of the male. So in this sense the gender's were challenged. Some examples that was used to challenge the gender stereotypes would be things like location, clothing etc. For example, when you think of Central London you would think of business men in their suits going into their offices, whereas we used the Central London location for our female actress and that is where she would be introduced.

Levi-Strauss's theory is what we have used to show the gender representation. But instead of a hero vs villain, supernatural vs human, we chose to do it more subtly like the upper class v working class. Personally, I believe that this creates tension between two characters but they would be so different and it would be interesting to see two complete different people together. It is also cliche which most people (even if they don't admit it) love to see.

Ideas For Our Film

When it came to planing our Rom-Com, we came up with many ideas, sort listed it to 3 and then finally homed in onto our final one.

Our final three ideas are very common in the Rom-Com genre. We felt the idea we had was the one we could work with the most.

 

We then started thinking deeper into our idea and how we could create meaning, and portray what we want through our 2 minutes. We thought that the costumes, props and location where the most important thing to show the comparison between our characters.

When we got our basic idea of what we want to do, we started to think of a way we can film it, as you can see, we tried to fit in props and location as much as possible, however, this is not our final idea.

Rom-Com Movie Industry Research

Above is the list of the 12 higest grossing rom com films.

 

The trailer for the film is often the first way to promote the film to its target audience, unless it was a book or maybe even a TV show first, like 'Sex In The City.' The film trailer is usually shown up to about 6 months before the film is actually released, the trailers are precisly edited and audience tested. By doing this, the film makers have given the moviegoers a taste of what the film is about, and will leave them wanting more.

 

Around about the time of release of the trailer, a film website will be created, as well as social network pages. This will give the audience a chance to see more trailers, behind the scene interviews/ mini-documentaries, desktop wallpapers, chat forums and you mayeven be able to pre-order tickets. The website is therefore the start of a much larger internet campaign.

 

As the release date of the film comes closer, the film marketers try to get press coverage in newspapers, magazines and on TV shows- like maybe 'Alan Carr- Chatty Man' or 'The Jonothan Ross Show' in the UK, or something like 'The Ellen Show' or 'Kelly and Michael' in the US to cover a wider audience. The biggest movie publicity tatic is something called a press junket. This is where journalists, entertainment reporters and movie critics are flown out to a special location for maybe a day or a weekend of interviews with the cast and creators of the film. They will all be in seperate rooms and the reporters will come and ask them questions. The movie is therefore promoted and its not really wasting money as it is something of media demand.

Low Budget British Films.

Since we are British students who have no budget, I decided to look at films made by British film makers who have a small budget.

I looked at 3 films that where not in the Romantic Comedy genre, these are:

• Green Street
• Kidulthood
• And Fish Tank

The opening of Green Street Hooligans;

0:00-0:16- Odd Lot Entertainment

0:20-0:23-An Odd Lot Entertainment production

0:23-0:26- Produced with The Take partnerships

0:27-0:29- A Lexi Alexander film

0:29-5:48- Film plays

5:48-5:50- Elijah Wood

5:53-5:55- Charlie Hunnam

5:58-6:00- Claire Forlani

6:01- 6:04- Main Title- Green Street Hooligans

6:19-6:22- Marc Warren

6:23-6:26- Leo Gregory

6:40-6:43- Geoff Bell and Kieran Bew

6:43-6:46- Henry Goodman and Christopher Hehir

6:46-6:49- Terence Jay and Ross McCall

6:49-6:52- Francis Pope and Rafe Spall

6:53-6:57- Casting Directors

6:57-7:00- Stunt Co-ordinator

7:00-7:03- Line Producer

7:06-7:09- Executive Producers

7:09-7:12- Co-Producer

7:31-7:33- Music Supervisor

7:33-7:36- Music by

7:39-7:42- Costume designer

7:42-7:45- Production designer

7:45-7:48- Edited by

7:50-7:53- Director of photography

7:59-8:02- Story by

8:10-8:13- Produced by

8:14-8:17- Screenplay by

8:32-8:35- Directed by

The opening of Kidulthood:

0:00-0:08- Hanway film
0:09-0:14- Stealth films
0:15-0:20- Cipher films
0:220:25- A Stealth film/ Cipher film production
0:26-0:29 In association with TMC films
0:29-0:31- Main title Kidulthood

The opening of Fish Tank:

0:00-0:12- Production logo
0:13-0:20- IFC films
0:21-0:32- BBC films
0:35-0:40- The bational lottery and UK film council
0:45-0:47- Main title Fish Tank

Since these films were not in the rom-com genre, I looked at two films that were, Once (2005) and one that I already looked at, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.

 

The opening of Once:

 

0:00-0:14- ICON

0:15-0:25- Summit Enertainment

0:26-0:34- Board Scannan na hEireann: The Irish film board

0:35-0:40- Summint Entertainment and Samson films presents in association with Bord Scannan Na hEireann/ The Irish film board and RTE.

(0:37 music starts)

0:42-3:36- Film plays

3:37 and 3:42- x2 actors

3:55- Main title

 

The opening of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging:

 

 

0:00-0:19- Paramount A VIACOM COMPANY

0:20-0:34- Nickelodeon movies

0:52-0:55- Paramount pictures international and Nickelodeon movies present

0:56-1:00- A Gurinder Chada film

1:01-2:20- Film plays

2:21-2:24- Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

2:28-3:01- Cast x6 (listed in 3's) x2

3:01-3:03- Casting by

3:05-3:07- Music by

3:10-3:12- Music supervisors

3:13-3:15- Co-producer

3:16-3:18- Costume designer

3:21-3:23- Edited by

3:26-3:29- Production designer

3:32-3:35- Director of photography

3:36-3:38-Executive producer

3:38-3:40- Produced by

3:41-3:56- Based upon boos x2

4:00-4:03- Screenplay by

4:12-4:16- Directed by

 

 

Can't Buy Me Love

Can't Buy Me Love

1. Productions and company logos are shown.

2. The main title shows and music starts to play.

3. All the cast names are listed.

4. Crew is shown.

5. Comic scenes play. This also shows the difference in the two main characters and leaves the audience wondering how anything can happen between them.

6. The final crew is listed.

Through the film thats played we see that Ronnie Miller is a good kid who works really hard, and is not very good  whereas Cindy just gets everything from he mum.

TIMELINE OF THE FILM OPENING:

0:00-0:07- Touchstone Pictures

0:15-0:19- In association with Silver Screen Partners III

0:25-0:28- Apollo Pictures, INC.

0:28-0:30- A Mount Company Production

0:32-0:37- Main Title (music starts)

0:39-1:08- Cast x7

1:14-1:29- Co-Starring (in groups of 3) x8

1:35-1:38- Casting by

1:42-1:44- Choreographer

1:50-1:53- Music composed & Conducted by

1:59-2:02- Film editor

2:15-2:18- Production designer

2:19-2:22- Director of photography

2:24-2:27- Co-produced by

2:57-3:00- Executive producers

3:05-3:09- Written by

3:12-3:14- Produced by

3:17-3:20- Directed by

MUSIC:

Can't Buy Me Love

The Beatles