At the start of our project we all brainstormed our ideas and decided that we wanted to make a short film that would be easy to do and would only rely on the members of our group. We wanted to make a film that could be seen by a wider audience and therefore we focused our plot and themes around this point. We decided to look at the romantic comedy genre which is very popular since it is a hybrid of two well loved genres of film; this would help us achieve our target of a wider audience. We each looked at a related genre for our research and presented our findings on the blog. I looked at the romance genre to see how romantic leads should behave in a film such as ours (shown below) and to take inspiration from films that may be similar to ours. Others looked at comedy, drama and even romantic comedies themselves to see what the common features of these films are and how we could use them in our film; this way the audience would know what to expect and would be happy that the film is how they imagined. Romantic comedies have become so popular in recent years that the genre itself has become a cliche, relying on several plot points to bulk out the story and make the type of film apparent. However we wanted to subvert the rom-com stereotype a little by using only a couple of these elements in our film so that there are enough features of a rom-com for the audience to identify with the film and understand what it is and what we intend it to be, but also that it stands out as being different and not just like any other film of the same genre. To do this we only used certain pivotal points, such as boy meets girl, a date situation, conflict between the two and 'the look', which help ground the film and take it in the direction that we intended it to go in. However, the characters do not get their usual 'happy ending' as they do not really get on and in the end this is too much of an obstacle to overcome; this would not happen in a typical rom-com as they rely on happy endings and obstacles being overcome. Also we tied in the genre of science fiction to again make our film a little bit different, you don't usually see these two genres together and we thought that it would be interesting and would help spice up an otherwise quite mundane plot. We subverted the power between men and women in our film as usually the man seems to have the upper hand and be the strong one that has it together, but in our film it is the woman that takes on this role as the male character relies on the remote to help him and is constantly trying to please and live up to the woman's expectations. She is in control and the date could go however she wanted it to if he did not have the remote, it is suggesting that without it he probably wouldn't stand a chance and this makes him vulnerable, yet with the remote he feels invincible which is shown towards the end of the film as he starts to adopt a cockier attitude. However at the end of the film the male power stereotype is introduced as it is revealed that she had a remote all along as well which shows that she is just as vulnerable as he is; this still does not agree with the stereotype as they are now seemingly being represented as equals rather than either of them holding the power. This shows our views on the male and female power struggle that is constantly ongoing in modern day society and acts as an inoculation effect, injecting our ideas into the public's minds and possibly making them question and think about it. This is known as hypodermic theory and is used by many media manufacturers to pass on ideas and beliefs.
For our research we looked at clips from different romantic comedies to get an idea of the basic feel of the films, the setting, character style, costumes and so on. By doing this we got a better idea of how to plan our film and what elements to include. I looked at a clip from the rom-com "500 days of summer" and took inspiration from how the characters act around each other. We made the characters in our film similar to these by making them awkward around each other and as if they are never really completely comfortable in each others company. This and other borrowed points from our film, such as a rewinding remote similar to that in the film "Click," help to give our film intertextuality and hidden depth. Of course our film constantly takes inspiration from others, for example the idea of going on a date and everything going wrong, this is a common rom-com feature and has been used in many films, for example "Along Came Polly". Therefore we are taking the genre's history and twisting it so that it will be desirable to a modern day audience. We wanted to use some cliches in our film that would make it intentionally cheesy so that it would provoke more laughs from our audience, this was our intentional direction as we wanted to kind of poke fun at the romantic comedy genre rather than completely agree with it.
To get a better idea of how to make an entire film in the space of only five minutes we looked at different short films. Mine was taken from the website "Shortsbay," which was effective in helping me find a film that lasted around the same amount of time as ours as it had the option for me to search for five minute films. I chose to look at the short film, "Maybe One Day," as it focused on a male lead like our film and rather than being a romantic comedy it seemed to be a journey of discovery about oneself and a search for happiness. This is similar to our film as both of the characters are clearly constantly searching for happiness and need help to get it. In our film they find out a lot about themselves as they are forced to deal with their own failures and personalities; first choosing to fight against them but ultimately having to accept them. "Maybe One Day" uses a voice over constantly so that we get a more in depth picture of the man as we can hear his innermost thoughts, things he wouldn't say out loud, this links with our film as at the start Jack is only heard through a voice over which allows us to get to know him without actually seeing what he is like. Both the male lead in this film and our film are trying to make a change in their lives and seeking out new opportunities, but at the end of each film it becomes apparent that the next day they will probably just end up going back to their normal lives. There is a lot of sarcastic comedy used in this film which we tried to incorporate into ours as well as the use of physical comedy. Both rely quite heavily on jump cuts to progress the story without letting it become repetitive and boring which shows that we have taken inspiration in our editing techniques. Although "Maybe One Day" and our film are very different to each other I think it is apparent that we have taken inspiration from certain areas of the film to build up a believable idea of what our main character is like.
We wanted to give the audience a sense of pleasure whilst watching our film, as it is a romantic comedy we wanted to provide a release for them, where they can escape for five minutes, forget about their worries and just laugh at our film. We included several points to achieve this, such as:
- Comedic situations/cliches
- likable characters that the audience can relate to
- Situations that the audience can identify with
- Honesty in our characters, showing the audience the real them so that they don't feel cheated
- Hope, shown through the use of the remote as a safety net to let the audience know that even if things go wrong they can be fixed
However we did not want the audience to agree with the use of the remote as it symbolises the constant struggle for acceptance and approval and the desire to obtain these by any means necessary. It acts as a way for our characters to not be themselves but to hide behind a mask and a fake personality. In a way they are lying to themselves and becoming something they are not just to make a good impression on someone they are not even compatible with. The remote in a way shows our modern need for new technology and how ridiculous this is becoming as we rely more and more on gadgets that we do not really need; it promotes materialism and we do not want our audience to agree with this so we are showing that the remote does not actually help anyone, it just makes matters worse in the outcome and prolongs an uncomfortable experience.
We edited and created our film using Final Cut Express; cutting our initial clips down and swapping them around to make an effective film that has a plot which makes sense. We used a non-linear narrative to make our film more interesting and make it seem as if we were giving the audience an insight into the origins of the story before continuing with it. We used several jump cuts to make long periods of time pass quicker so that the film would not contain any boring parts that lasted too long and would focus on the actual action of the film. We used fades to create the illusion that a passage of time had passed so that we could focus on our main character's mistakes. Voice overs are used to create the illusion that we are hearing the characters thoughts and freeze frames help the audience to focus on certain frames and audio. We featured a montage at the start of our film to condense the beginning of the characters relationship down and to keep the audiences attention, we put music over the montage and included speech so that the scenes could be explained. This music was taken from royalty free CD's and we took our sound effects from royalty free websites such as Sounjay. We kept our continuity smooth and seamless by sticking to simple filming rules such as the 180 degree rule and using effective techniques such as pans. We had to edit the lighting using Final Cut Express since the brightness was different on several scenes, we managed to do this effectively by adding filters to alter the colour and brightness. We changed the speed of the scene where the glass is dropped to make it look more dramatic and draw focus to what was happening. Lastly, to create our rewinding effect we chose the motion tab, selected speed and chose the speed at which we wanted the footage to rewind; this created an interesting effect that looks professional and works effectively with our film.
This shows that we have used and followed the 180 degree line rule.
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