Planning: Music

For the background music to our opening sequence we have found a song called 'been around' by an unsigned artist, 'enormous' which would fit our story well. We have emailed them to ask permission to use their music in our film and are hoping to get a reply back soon.

To stay organised we have created a calender on google to schedule our shooting

Organising: Props

We will need:                                       Who's in charge of getting these items:
Hair dryer                                           Chrissy
Straighteners                                     Chrissy
Lip stick                                               Amy
boys hair gel or wax                           Chrissy
Razor                                                   Laura
Deodorant                                           Laura
Clothes (male&female)                     Chrissy/Amy
2 Mobile phones                                Laura/Amy

Organising: Location

For our locations we are going to use Chrissys house as we only need two bedrooms in the film. We thought we could use this location as it is easiest to get to and is appropriate for what we need.

This is a picture of our location.

Organising: Casting

For our two main characters we have casted one of our friends, Beth and we are still looking for a male character however we are confident we can find one by Friday 17th December
For the 2nd girl at the end we have decided to use one of us as it is only a small 5 second role.

This is a photo of our main girl character, Beth.

This is a photo of our boy main character, Steven

Planning: Shot Lists

1. Medium close up of girl drying her hair
2. Close up of boy shaving
3. Close up girl straightening her hair
4. Medium close up of boy getting the deodorant
5. Match on action medium long shot of boy picking up deodorant
6. Match on action close up of boy spraying deodorant
7. Extreme close up of girl putting on lipstick
8. Close up of boy doing his hair
9. Long shot of girl choosing her outfit
10. Medium close up of boy doing up his shirt
11. Close up of girl grabbing the door handle
12. Match on action long shot of girl opening the door
13.Medium long shot of girl walking outside
14.Long shot of girl walking outside
15. Long shot of girl walking to meet the boy
16. Close up him texting
17. Long shot boy and other girl together
18. Close up of girl receiving text
19. Medium long shot of girls reaction to the text

Organising: Music

Yesterday (13th December) we e-mailed the artist Enormous to see if we could use his song in our opening sequence. we are still waiting on a reply but we are hoping to know by Wednesday 15th December, if not we are going to try and find another piece of music and gain permission by the 20th December.

Planning: Animatic

Audience Research: Updates

We have added a brief summary of your opening to our focus group on facebook, here we hope to gain feedback and ideas from our target audience

Here is a brief summary to our opening sequence. Please could you comment saying:

• What you like about it?
• Is this what you would expect from a Chick flick genre? If no what you you expect to happen? 
• What do you think could be added to make it more interesting or relevant to the Genre? 
• What would you expect to happen in the rest of the film? 
• If you saw this opening would you want to watch the rest of the film? If no what could be added to make you want to watch it?

Synopsis

Our opening sequence is about a girlfriend and boyfriend getting ready to meet each other, the girl is all excited and making sure everything is perfect but the boy is just sat playing on his Xbox.

It starts by you seeing the girl and boy in their bedrooms, on a split screen. The girl is brushing, drying and straightening her hair and the boy is turning on his Xbox, the girl shortly moves onto doing her makeup and you see her organising various outfits to see which looks best. The boy throws on some clothes, not bothering if their clean and sits down as he starts to play on his Xbox. Once the girl is dressed and ready to meet him you see her walking out of her front door and to the end of her drive, during this you see a different girl enter the boys room they kiss and you then she the boy texting his girlfriend saying ‘I can’t meet you babe, sorry’. The Screen fills with the girl as she receives the text message and that’s where it ends. 

Genre Research Summary

1) What do the titles tend to look like?

A majority of titles in the chick flick genre look feminine and glamorous to connote the theme. For example, the titles for 'Devil Wears Prada' are gold and red, and the font is of a handwritten style, connoting the feminine cast and the genre of the movie. However with transitions of the titles, they tend to fade out and are replaced by another set of titles shortly after, this technique appears in 'Love Actually' and in 'Devil Wears Prada'. This connotes that this technique is stereotypical to the genre, and to meet the interests of the target audience that watch these films, we would like to adapt this technique and use a similar idea. The title sequences for both movies move quite slowly, so it gives the audience more time to concentrate on the imagery, as well as the titles. The title sequence normally contains the title of the movie, the production company, and the names of the main actors in the films, this connotes ideas that they will be the main character in the film.


2) What kind of music/or other non-diegetic sounds are used?


Stereotypically, chick flick movies normally have a light hearted, energetic song at the beginning, sung by a famous musician. For example, 'Devil Wears Prada' had a famous song by KT Tunstall, where the lyrics revealed insights into the plot of the film, and the light hearted music helped to set an atmosphere.



3) What types of character do we see in the opening sequences?


In the opening sequences relating to the genre, the main character is normally a female. However the way they are portrayed varies very much. Like in the 'Devil Wears Prada' we see the portagonist to be scruffy, late, unorganised and by the looks of it, unpopular. Whilst we see the other characters in the opening to be glamorous, neat, pretty and successful. We see these girls in close ups apply ing their make up, making them look glamorous and popular, and with fasionable costumes.


4) What Kinds of mise en scene dominate?


In the genre, many of the movies are set in a house or public areas. For example, 'Devil Wears Prada' was set in new york, and in different houses and flats, whilst the opening scene for 'Love Actually' was set in an airport. Films relating to the genre normally contain lighting which connotes to the happy, energetic atmosphere of the film, connoting the theme. However, props within the scene are stereotypical towards genres. Women are seen with make up, hand bags and shopping bags, while men are seen with their cars, beer, football and gadgets, using Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposites to make the openings interesting.


5) What narrative codes are employed and how?


The opening sequences of many chick flicks are normally based around Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposites, where the conflict interests us between two opposite forces. For example, a man and a woman, and adult and a child. Also, a key convension of a chick flick is close up shots of the main characters. This would give the actor more screen time, so the audience would recognise them as the protagonist.


6) Is there a particular form of cinematography or editing that is specific to the genre?


In chick flicks, there is a type of editing that is popular amongst opening scenes. Parallel editing is used to give the viewer a sence of what is happening in different locations at the same time. This is used to make it more interesting, and to set up enigmas as you can see all, and the characters cant. For our clip we have decided to use parallel editing to create this mood and atmosphere, we also think it will be a good way to introduce characters and a storyline.

Audience Research Focus Group

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=lf#!/home.php?sk=group_173302532698180&ap=1

We based our Focus Group on Facebook, this allowed us to get varied feedback quicky, and it was very easy to set up and to monitor. We chose 15 different students and asked them a series of questions:

• What genre of films do you enjoy? eg. Chick Flick, Horror, Romance 
• What is your favourite song/artist at the moment?
• What is your favourite film at the moment? 
• What is your favourite colour? 
• What is your favourite drink? 
• What do you do in your spare time? eg. see friends, shopping,sports 

These questions were chosen to help us gain an understanding of the interests and differences in our target audience. These were the replies we recieved:

Connie Hopper:
1) Action & Comedy
2) Pink
3) Love actually
4) Lime Green
5) Coke6) See friends/boyfriend, shopping, work

Lottie Fereday
1) Horror, Comedy and Chick Flick.
2) Frankie Vali and the Four Seasons.
3) Bucket List
4) Green
5) Rum6) Seeing friends/boyfriend, Guiding, Driving and cinema with sister

Lucy Bligh
 1) Comedy, Chick Flick
2) Song - Everything by Michael Buble, Artist - Lissie
3) The Twilight Saga - Eclipse
4) Pink
5) Coke
6) Work, See friends, Shopping, Clubbing

Matt Ramage
1) Comedy
2) Wa do dem by eek a mouse
3) Die Hard 4.0
4) Blue
5) Diet Coke
6) Football

These responces helped us gain an interesting idea from our target audience, we learned that the genre comedy is very popular and widely liked, so this means we would have to make our movie more comical to gain their interest. We also learned that what they do in their free time and what they like to drink were very similar, however their music tastes were varied.

After asking these questions, we then asked our target audience what they thought of our genre moodboard. This is what we recieved:

•  I like the alcohol and the handbag and shoes. Some aspects interest me as a film, (not the cheating man part). I expect the alcohol is a participant in the boy's affair or with the car and that will be girls shopping and people playing xbox and football

• i like the make up bit, and the cheating guy part is intriguing , the car xbox football etc doesnt interest me purely because i'm too girly. However as a film i would watch it. And id expect the film to be mainly about the guy cheating on a girly girl with someone more his type e.g into cars and all that xx

• I like the football and the xbox :) and the car. its would be a good kinda action film with all the technology going on and then have some kinda hot girl half naked in there for no apparent reason, :) but i dont like the whole kinda mushy girl and boy hugging with the girl next to them, seems kinda pointless and stupidd (: xx

From this feedback we learned that the females in our focus group liked and agreed with the parts of the moodboard aimed towards their gender, stereotyping their interests, whilst the males in our focus group liked the part of the moodboard aimed towards males. However the image of the cheating man in the middle confused our audience and we recieved varied opinions, some liked it, and others thought it was pointless. On the other hand, our audience had guessed that our movie would be a chock flick with the help of your stereotypical imagery. I think that if we meet their interests and views, they would be satisfied with our movie.
 

Target Audience

We have decided to aim our film at women, more specifically in their teenage years and young adults. Our target socio-economic class  is B's C1's and C2's, so the middle class population. Our Psychographic target audience are Maintreamers (those who don't like to be different) Traditionalists (poeple who dont like change, and are very set in their ways) and Hedonists (people who generally like to have a good time). We are aiming this film at people who are interested in a chick flick genre.