Deciding Our Cast

For our film opening we wanted to cast a character that we could use to signify a character that is an outsider, for this we chose lauren as we wanted someone with ginger hair, who enjoyed acting and someone that was willing to dress and perform in a way we wanted. 

The chat to show our decision into choosing lauren 

Film Poster 

character style we took inspiration from 

We also wanted someone who was similar to the character in Pretty In Pink (Deutch, 1989)  this is the style that we tried to take by this we mean the difference in clothes compared to the time and things that don't particularly look great together. Meaning we took more inspiration from this rather than copy it. 

Who Would Watch A Rom Com?

Conventionally we are targeting a teen audience as this is where most Rom-Coms are aimed at, however we also noticed from further research that they are also targeted at people who are in a long term relationship or marriage which reduces the chances of it being a teen audience therefore it is good to target a secondary audience that being 24-35.


However we think it is wiser to stick to a target audience we can relate to and know what they like than be adventurous and not produce a film that is as good.


For this we think our idea we need to aim at a teenage market at someone who may enjoy things like Wild Child, however we also think it is important to remember our indie background so it is important not to over aspire therefore we looked Submarine to take ideas from that and look at a film that was digitally produced. 

Target Audience Research

The Guardian 

This article shows that although rom coms often get thrashed by the critics the audience still enjoyed them, we felt this was important.

It's also the latest in a long line of contemporary romantic comedies – proving that no matter how progressive we imagine we have become, our dating aspirations remain rooted in centuries-old tradition.

The Guardian

This shows that Rom-Coms are popular with couples especially around valentines day. But now this is changing.

Reviews were scathing, but ensemble romcom Valentine's Day has finally ended. 

Telegraph


Although critics complain sometimes there is nothing better than watching a rom-com. Although the formula is the same and can become repetitive and this is what the critics don't like, however for some people its the best thing - this is the audience we want to target.

I think it is this sense of how comforting movies can be that critics sometimes miss. 

Watching About Time is like being given a big hug, and it is a very nice sensation. 

Marley + Me ( a romantic comedy where everyone is in love with the dog) can reduce me to a helpless happy blubber, and every time Notting Hill is on television (which is surprisingly often) I find myself compelled to watch it, and even mire compelled to sob at the "I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her" line. I know its corny, but it doesn't matter. It works its magic every time.

Romcoms tend to defy such rigorous critique.

Richard Curtis is the Mrs Miniver of our times, though rather wittier. His films fulfil the same function of making Britain seem a good place, full of nice people.  

The Guardian

Romantic comedies seem to take over where the fairytales of childhood left off, feeding our dreams of a soulmate;

Now, hot on the heels of It's Complicated, Crazy, Stupid, Love offers further proof that the romcom, rather than desert we middle-lifers, has decided to mature with us. In the US, 64% of the opening weekend audience was female and 71% were over 25. Not that our aspirations have changed much, judging by this script. We still want our hero and heroine to convince us that a stroll into the sunset and beyond is the most likely outcome of initial adversity.

And it is still heroes and heroines we're talking about; despite homosexuality long ago entering the cultural mainstream, a single-sex relationship has yet to be the full focus of a mainstream romance, unless you count Brokeback Mountain where, I believe, the comedy was unintentional; or Mel Gibson and Danny DeVito. "When Harry Met Henry" and "When Sally Met Sarah" are long overdue, and this only confirms how conventional the rules of engagement are when it comes to the romantic comedy genre. Today's cinema audience may be more cynical (and sexually active) than that of our parents but they still demand that verbal foreplay lead to physical consummation, and misunderstandings to love with a capital L. In the world of the romantic comedy, life hasn't changed much since the 1950s.

Ironically for a movie category not renowned for its originality or inventiveness, it's the one arena where women have been allowed to be feisty way before feminism made it de rigueur.

Since so many romantic comedies vary little in their storyline, the success or failure of such movies depends largely on whether we believe in the relationship of the protagonists.

Jezebel.com

Back in the good old days, all a Hollywood studio had to do to make tens of millions of dollars was release a film about a plucky, satisfyingly flawed female protagonist who finds quirky but ultimately bland love with a chesty yet tender-hearted man. Meet-cute, But I Can't Stand Him montage, scene where Everything Changes, infatuation montage, misunderstanding that threatens to derail the whole thing, dramatic gesture to correct misunderstanding, satisfying resolution. Boom. A Rom Com. But over the last few years, box office receipts have been disappointing. Hollywood execs say that audiences are sick of romantic comedy tropes, that the formula is tired. But women aren't tired of the romantic comedy formula at all; what we're tired of is films made by people who don't understand what female viewers want. And we've finally got other options.

The problem isn't that audiences are bored or that technology ruined everything; the problem is that there aren't enough people in Hollywood who understand why women watch romantic comedies making movies — there aren't enough women. Last year, only 18% of directors, writers, executive producers, producers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 grossing box office films were women, a 1% increase since 1998. That's fucking embarrassing. And women want to watch movies; the god-awful Twilight franchise has grossed over a billion dollars, a mostly-female audience is nerding the fuck out on The Hunger Games. Brave, Les Miserables, and Silver Linings Playbook kicked ass in the 2012 box office. There's a gigantic opportunity to snag more female viewers by simply releasing a halfway decent romcom that doesn't depict women as psychopathic brides.

The romantic comedy is very much alive. It just needs to be made by people who understand why the romantic comedy audience watches. Romantic comedies need to be made by ... women. And with an ever-growing class of talented and funny female comedy writers currently working in TV, maybe the next architect of the romantic comedy of Hollywood's dreams has been right in front of it this whole time. If they'd only notice.

Millions of girls turn 13 ever year. Even if people discarded film genres once they caught onto their tropes, studio execs could figure that they've got at least 3 solid years of earnest romcom viewing from most young women before they catch on to the fact that every film is the same.

Additional Rom-Com Research

Search

This is what we typed in to google to get our research it brought up 2,670,000 items.




Sky Movies

We looked at the top box office films that had made a good profit.

BoxOfficeMojo

we looked at recent box office hits and the earliest one with the highest box office hit was Silver Linings Playbook (2012)  which was rated number 12 

Submarine


we thought it was appropriate to research products that were like ours and look at submarine (ayoade, 2010) we thought this was interesting film to research as it showed us a digitally produced film that was produced on a small scale budget.


About Time


We thought it was also a good idea to compare it to efforts from working title another 'british' film company however this one had a larger budget therefore better quality etc. And therefore something we could aspire to.

Initial Idea of Target Audience

We thought about our target audience but came to the conclusion we wanted something that we would enjoy going to see. Therefore we needed to be the target audience the same age as ourselves. 



Which would mean a target audience of 15-24 which we thought would be appropriate as we also know this is the age group that visits the cinema the most, and this would also be the age that our characters would be in our film as we would find it harder getting younger or older actors as we are a micro budget production company and would have to pay for older and potentially younger actors which is something we don't want to be doing the the expense isn't necessary. 


Our genre choice also is popular amongst teenagers so we feel this helps anchor our choice too. We have also chosen to set our film in a school so therefore trying to attract an audience that is not at school is silly therefore the 15-24 will incorporate students at school, sixth form, college or university which keeps many 'doors' open. At the end of the day everyone has been to school so will be able to relate to our film in some way. However we took ideas and inspiration from films we had looked at in detail. 

We thought it would be easier to base our target audience on films we had already seen as if we are taking inspiration from them we feel it must be important to carry on the same target audience as it must be the same or close to theirs. Therefore it was important to look at the films we had looked at in detail therefore we chose ones that we liked and enjoyed and all roughly targeted the same age range for audience. 

Genre Research: Trick Or Treat, 1986

Film Poster

Trick Or Treat 

Charles Martin Smith,1986

Production:De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG)

Budget: $N/A; UK box office:£N/A

RottenTomatoes.com N/A; IMDB 5.6

Ideas That We Might Use:

Some of the scene ideas, and shot angles. 

We hope to use this kind of scene, with the protagonist waving but it being for someone behind them instead as we feel this looks and works really well, and also adds for a small amount of humiliation which in our rom com is something that is needed. We liked also the fact that it as set in a school and shows him at a locker getting books out with the busy corridor we thought it looked interesting and kept with the verisimilitude. we liked the approaching shot as it was a point of view shot which we thought worked really well. As we thought it the varied angles really worked well. 

We also hope to take inspiration from when she walks past as the camera tracks with a point of view shot. We thought it looked really good and adds to a shot variety so the audience doesn't become bored. 

Also for our other ideas we liked the humiliation in the canteen with the milk carton and milk being spilt out of the carton due to a hole in it. And with the shot after of students in the school the 'jocks' laughing at him 

We also liked this shot as it is a low angle showing his vulnerability against some of the 'cheerleader' types. with them looking down on him showing that they have more power and authority over him. this is added to the fact they are girls and he's a boy therefore also showing a binary opposition.

Genre Research: Submarine,2010

Submarine 

Richard Ayoade, 2010

Production: 

• Warp Films, Weinstein Company, The, Film4, UK Film Council, Wales Creative IP Fund, Film Agency for Wales, Optimum Releasing, Protagonist Pictures, Red Hour Films, Warp (Submarine)

Budget: N/A; UK box office:£ 41m

RottenTomatoes.com81%; IMDB7.3

Things We Hope To Use:

Some of the interesting shots and some of the scene ideas.

For one of the shots of our Geek character we hope to use the front of school for some of the scenes of him coming into school.we will use this location for its effect with the iron gates as we think this could create some nice and interesting shots to keep the audience interested. We thought this maybe a good way to do this. 

We also want to have a dramatic effect of shame or embarrassment for this we are thinking something like this but maybe not as extreme as for the many takes and time that it would take that we don't have but we hope to re create something like this. 

We also want to create school scenes of some sort with him in the classroom however we also think it might be a nice idea to show the girl being bullied and having problems at school and therefore it would be nice to try copy and re create some of these scenes and maybe add our own twist on them.

When researching this film and watching it we liked the use of this angle to represent her power over him and to make him look smaller, less dominant and innocent whilst making her look powerful and authoritarian. We thought we might try use a high angle in our film. 

We thought that these school scenes although they were not really what we wanted it gave us inspiration to do something along the same lines however we are not sure what. We might use it to do school scenarios but we dont want him sitting in a classroom as we want it to be snappy as we don't have a lot of time to do something like that. 

Genre Research: Napoleon Dynamite, 2004

Film Poster

Napoleon Dynamite 

Jared Hess , 2004

Production: Fox Searchlight Pictures, Paramount Pictures,MTV Films, Access Films, Napolean Pictures

Budget: $400k; UK box office: £200k

RottenTomatoes.com 71%; IMDB 6.7

Ideas That We Might Use:

The use of diegetic titles, when we watched this we liked the creative touch and liked the way they were incorporated into the film we hope to try and re create some of these using our own creative flare. 

We liked the use of the of the food for our titles. 

We liked the library card idea and the picture idea but we thought as we are doing this on a low budget these would be hard to re create and not look as good. 

We liked the packaging idea and we thought this would work with our film opening. 

We liked some of the others like the ones below as we thought these were different and creative and not like the others that we had seen in the rest of the opening. However we think these maybe difficult to recreate.